Working in partnership with Dave Kissel, DDB McDonald’s global business lead, as well as local agency teams, Messianu will oversee the creative output of the McDonald’s brand across 46 markets, where the DDB network is responsible for the account.
As DDB McDonald’s global chief creative officer, Messianu will lead global creative initiatives that generate maximum impact. Responsibilities will include establishing and upholding the expectations of the network’s high creative standard and nurturing and exciting people across the network to bring forward ideas that build the brand and business.
Adweek reports that Messianu is DDB’s first global chief creative for the brand, which the agency has counted as a client for some 70 years. Messianu has worked on McDonald’s for nearly half of that through other agencies, even helping to introduce McDonald’s to Mexico in the 1980s.
For the last 27 years, he’s worked with the brand as the founder and CEO of Alma, a Miami-based multicultural agency. In his new role, he’ll split his time 50-50 between Alma, of which DDB became an investor in 2001, and overseeing DDB’s creative for McDonald’s in 46 markets. The agency elevated the creative to this role without client input, Kissel told Adweek, because the agency trusted the strength of the relationship and knew the appointment would leave McDonald’s “ecstatic.”
Born to Romanian parents and raised in Mexico City, Messianu has worked in both the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets.
Forbes.com reports that this move is transformational, recognising the importance of creative directors who understand insight beyond general market consumers, and it breaks through stereotypical cultural and tribal silos.
In today’s economy, marketers who aren’t incorporating multicultural understanding into their work, are hurting growth and relevancy, not to mention, their own pockets. To put it bluntly, if you aren’t prioritizing multicultural audiences, you will not succeed.
