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Verizon Apple Marketing

Apple global creative director Andrew McKechnie jumps ship to Verizon, forms in-house agency

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By John Glenday, Reporter

February 21, 2017 | 2 min read

US telecom giant Verizon is to take its creative work in-house after hiring Apple’s former global group creative director, Andrew McKechnie, to serve as its first chief creative officer.

McKechnie has been parachuted in to help give Verizon an edge in the competitive telecoms sector by repositioning the brand as a leading tech company, overseeing its new persona from a plush office in New York.

From there he will lead a team of 60 tasked with marketing the brand, overhauling its website, remodeling its retail stores and devising a new suite of ads, ditching the ‘most reliable network’ branding upon which it has relied thus far.

This will free Verizon to push sexier services such as internet of things, apps and video platforms

Diego Scotti, Verizon's chief marketing officer, explained: “We want to create a really strong creative arm internally that can help connect the dots better for how the brand narrative and brand experience gets executed across touchpoints.

“We want to create a consistency of voice, look and emotional experience. For a brand at this scale, you got to really build the capability and bring in a lot of talented and creative people that can help build that."

Verizon will not be cutting the cord completely with independent agency and media partners such as McCann, R/GA and Zenith, with Scotti conceding that the company cannot go it alone.

Verizon is in the closing stages of acquiring Yahoo after negotiating a $350m discount in the wake of a hacking scandal.

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