Vice fortifies branded content offerings with addition of Donna Lamar and David Lennon
Vice has announced the addition of production and branded content vets Donna Lamar and David Lennon to its staff as group creative directors.
Donna Lamar and David Lennon join Vice to help strengthen branded content opportunities / Vice Media
Together, Lamar and Lennon have been asked to lead and develop creative work for the youth media company’s in-house offering, specializing in developing and executing content, experiences and thought leadership programs for Vice’s channels in partnership with brands, agencies and like minded publishers.
Lamar was most recently the creative director and helped to establish of Twitter’s in-house production offering Twitter #Studio, where she worked to establish the social platform’s global tone of voice. She has held creative positions at Amusement Park Entertainment, TBWA\Chiat\Day and was Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam’s head of production.
Lennon has already been with the media outlet, initially joining in October 2017 to focus on Vice News and Vice Money. Prior to Vice, Lennon was global creative director at The Wall Street Journal's Custom Studios, working on campaigns for Netflix, Morgan Stanley, MetLife Foundation, Delta Air Lines and others. He’s also held creative positions at Bloomberg’s Content Studio and McCann-Erickson Manchester.
Both Lamar and Lennon will report to Tom Punch, Vice’s global chief creative and commercial officer. Punch said of what he calls his “power duo”: “David’s impressive track record of creatively commercializing various prestigious news and information propositions makes him a perfect fit to drive forward the commercial vision for our news and information based channels.
"Donna’s curatorial, directorial and executional expertise across a range of cultural initiatives and companies will set her up well to create programs that drive both culture and companies forward.
"Their knowledge of the media landscape combined with their creative expertise will make them a power duo to be reckoned with."
This has been a year of sharp activity for the media company, especially in the past month, where founder Shane Smith stepped aside for A+E Networks chief Nancy Dubuc to run the youth media group (Viceland is an A+E Networks/Vice joint network). The company also looked to fortify itself internationally, building a leadership team as and brand partnership arms in India.