BBDO New York announced that Vishal (Vish) Dheiman has joined the agency in a new role as head of tactical innovation. Dheiman will report to Dave Rolfe, director of integrated production, and help lead the agency further within the tech and innovation space. He was most recently an executive producer for interactive production and innovation at 72andSunny, NYC.
“For us, it’s about embracing pressure rather than having it stifle us,” said Rolfe. “We’re squarely seeking to tie closer and closer to consumers, and experience and tech is key to how we think and create for our clients. New platforms for consumer-centric brand experiences abound. In Vish, we have tapped one of the industry’s most youthful, talented and collaborative producers to help continue the charge into our brave new world.”
For the past three years, Dheiman was the digital lead at 72andSunny, NYC, delivering smart and innovative interactive solutions for clients such as Smirnoff, Facebook, General Mills and Samsung. Prior to that, he was an interactive and, later, senior creative producer at JWT (both London and New York), working with clients like Google, HSBC, Shell, Energizer and Bloomberg. He began his career at Crayon London and Karmarama.
Dheiman joined BBDO New York earlier this year. In addition to cultivating the best in tech and media partnerships, he will help identify the best working models for the agency’s forays into innovation work, both small and scaled. Tactical innovation is just the latest capability to be offered by BBDO New York under the production leadership of Rolfe, who joined BBDO in 2012. During this time, BBDO New York has transformed itself into a voracious content provider–producing upwards of thousands of pieces of content each year via a range of “Infinite Production” sourcing approaches, from craft to curation to commissioning, collaboration, creation and more (the “5C’s”). The “5C’s” represent one of the factors behind BBDO NY being named SHOOT’s Agency of the Year in 2018.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More