Ogilvy Advertising is delighted to announce the appointment of Hugh Baillie and Rachel Hatton respectively as its new Chief Executive and Planning Director. Hatton will also lead the planning discipline across the Ogilvy Group in the UK.
Baillie (BBH’s group business director) and Hatton (formerly head of planning, most recently head of strategic planning for the Audi and Britvic accounts) will both be joining Ogilvy in the New Year. The award-winning pair, who have worked closely together with spectacular results, will both report to Ogilvy Group UK Chairman Paul O’Donnell.
Hugh Baillie joined Grey London back in 1993, working on accounts such as Mars Confectionery and SmithKline Beecham. Following a stint at Saatchi & Saatchi – where he worked on Gillette and Toyota – Hugh joined BBH in 1998. His first success was heading the team which won the Bank of Scotland account and subsequently led the successful global pitch for Johnnie Walker. He was appointed to the agency Board in 1999 and in 2003 Hugh became the group’s global new business director. After that he led global and local teams working on some of the agency’s most prestigious brands – Axe/Lynx, Surf, Britvic (Robinsons, Tango and J20) and Perfetti Van Melle. He was also head of client marketing and client relationships and a director of Leap Music, the first music publishing and consultancy service to be housed within a UK agency.
Rachel Hatton started her career at BMP in 1990 and later worked on the Labour Party’s election campaign in 1997. In 2000 she joined BBH, becoming head of planning four years later. During her time at the agency she worked on many award-winning campaigns for some of that agency’s great brands, including Lynx/Axe and Britvic. Under her tenure BBH achieved its best-ever performance in the IPA Effectiveness Awards, scooping both the Grand Prix and Agency of the Year title in 2008.
Hugh says: “The earliest book on advertising I read was David Ogilvy’s, which made a huge impression on me; and I have always been an admirer of the Ogilvy brand. The opportunity to work with many talented old friends and help make this great global agency a UK leader again was too tempting to turn down.”
Rachel adds: “I see huge potential for Ogilvy to be a thought-leader in the UK once again. I am very excited to be joining a Group that has such a diversity of great creative and strategic talent. I’m looking forward to brining this talent together so that we can produce outstanding and innovative work that really works.”
Paul O’Donnell, chairman of Ogilvy Group UK commented: “We are absolutely delighted to have Hugh and Rachel join our team. Any agency in town would move mountains to have people associated with great work for Robinsons, Audi, Johnnie Walker and Lynx on their staff. Better still, Hugh and Rachel work together brilliantly as a team. And most importantly of all, they have proven track record of improving an agency’s creative product and getting the work out into the marketplace. – we wanted creatively-focused leaders to head up our agency and this is what we have now got.”
“It goes without saying that I’m thrilled that Rachel’s joining Ogilvy,” concludes Ogilvy’s Joint Global Planning Director John Shaw. “She’s a huge talent and will have a big impact as part of the UK team, as well as representing our desire to attract the very best planning talent to Ogilvy all around the world.”
