Russell Schaller has been hired by Cheil London to serve as creative director, film. He joins the agency from Havas Worldwide London where he was creative director.
He will work across all accounts and leads the film specialism at Cheil London, working closely with Georgia Barretta, creative director, design, and Nick Craske, creative director, UX, to ensure collaboration and integration across all disciplines. Schaller reports to executive creative director Caitlin Ryan.
Schaller has worked at Havas Worldwide London for the past four years. During his time there he created award-winning work for Chivas Regal, including the short films Here’s to Big Bear and Here’s to Twinkle, the award-winning “The Joke Appeal” campaign for children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent and, most recently, he brought Captain Birdseye back to British screens with the “Boy with a Tail” campaign.
Schaller’s short film One of The Gang for CLIC Sargent’s “The Joke Appeal” campaign won several international awards, including Gold in Film Craft at the Kinsale Shark Awards and First Prize at the New York Festival of International Advertising.
Prior to Havas, Schaller was creative partner at Drugstore for two-and-a-half years and, prior to that, he was creative partner at Tom Dick & Harry. Earlier in his career he worked at 4Creative and Mother.
ECD Ryan said, “This is the final hire in our search to find the best-in-breed specialists to collaboratively lead our creative department. Russell completes our trio of design, UX and brand story specialists.”
Schaller said, “Caitlin has assembled a perfectly balanced team of specialists – a wonderful combination of technology, storytelling and design. I’m enormously proud to be added to the lineup. Right now, we have an opportunity to engage audiences with our craft in more places, more deeply and more innovatively than ever before.”
