McCann NY has added Lynn Teo to serve as chief experience officer, a new role at the ad shop. Her experience on the agency side over the years includes being head of user experience at AKQA and earlier as a key staffer at SapientNitro.
Teo will build and lead McCann NY’s first experience design department, which will focus primarily on shaping products, services, systems, and communications that create positive, rewarding, and integrated customer experiences. She will oversee McCann’s client portfolio to ensure that an understanding of human needs and interactions sits at the core of all brand innovations. Her thought leadership and expertise in multi-platform interactive design will complement McCann’s integrated marketing communications and generate new perspectives in how brands engage with consumers.
Teo will be responsible for developing and communicating McCann’s point of view on the current and future state of experience design. She will report to Hank Summy, president of McCann Erickson North America.
“Lynn will work across a wide array of disciplines and teams, providing hands-on digital insights and managing change across the highest levels of the organization,” said Summy. “The consumer’s journey has become increasingly complex and multi-faceted. Lynn will ensure that each of our brands is meeting their customers’ expectations and needs, and delivering integrated value-add at all touch points.”
Teo has 15 years of product design and interactive agency experience, including multiple years leading cross-disciplinary global teams. In the past year, Teo advised startup companies in New York City on product development and digital marketing strategies. She was also an external graduate thesis advisor for an MFA design program in Detroit. Most recently, she became a founding member of the first US-incorporated chapter of the Service Design Network (SDN), based in NYC. Service design is a rapidly growing sister discipline of experience design that represents the next frontier of brand innovation.
Previously, Teo served as creative director and head of user experience at AKQA, New York. She held dual roles at SapientNitro, directing teams in New York and London. Earlier in her career, she held user experience design posts on the client side and the consulting side, including five years as senior usability specialist and user interface designer at Bell Communications Research.
Teo said her McCann team “will be tapped into the consumers’ motivations, context, influences, and emotions at all points of their brand interactions. Their insights will drive experience design on all platforms–in-store, retail, B2B, web, smartphone, tablet, touch, and voice- or motion-activated experiences. Human empathy, innovation, design, and a desire to bring lasting positive impact to consumers’ lives are the foundation of my passion for experience design. McCann is pushing on every front to redefine modern marketing.”
DGA Feature Nominees: Audiard, Baker, Berger, Corbet and Mangold
The field of feature nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards spanning two categories is set. Nominated for the DGA honor for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for 2024 are: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez, Sean Baker for Anora, Edward Berger for Conclave, Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, and James Mangold for A Complete Unknown.
The DGA also revealed the nominees for the Michael Apted Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film. The first-time narrative feature directors are: Payal Kapadia for All We Imagine as Light, Megan Park for My Old Ass, RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys, Halfdan Ullman Tondel for Armand, and Sean Wang for Diddy.
“2024 has been a truly extraordinary year for storytelling--and today’s nominees have created audacious and unique films that expand the possibilities of cinematic excellence,” said DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter. “I am thrilled to congratulate all our nominated directors for their brilliant work, which is visionary, inspirational and speaks to the depth of the human experience. To be chosen by one’s peers is the true marker of outstanding directorial achievement and what makes these nominations so very special.”
The winners will be announced at the 77th Annual DGA Awards on Saturday, February 8.
Here’s a fuller rundown of the nominees in both DGA Award categories:
THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for 2024 (in alphabetical order):
JACQUES AUDIARD
Emilia Pérez
(Netflix)
SEAN... Read More