Darren is an experienced, green card holding, internationally awarded South African creative, based in New York City since 2016. Previously he held leadership positions at agencies in South Africa, Europe and Australia. His first post in the US was as a Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day NY. He was promoted to Group CD after winning the Nissan North America account back for TBWA a year after it left Chiat LA. Post Chiat, he’s served as an independent CD and creative for TBWA\G1 in Paris, Mother NY, SoloUnion, FCB Chicago, 360i NY, Grey NY and Fred & Farid NY. From July to December 2019, he stepped in as a temporary ECD looking after Jaguar, Land Rover and Tata Global Beverages at Spark44 NY. In May 2020, he launched RUNT with his long time friend and copywriter Rob Rutherford. Their first official client was Biden For President, followed by many others. After four and a half years of growth, awards and disruptive campaigns the RUNT experiment came to a close. Now Darren finds himself ready for his next adventure in the world of creativity.
Lastly, if you need an incredibly strategic and creative writer I will happily put you in touch with the highly regarded Rob Rutherford.
Some highlights from his US independent stint to date:
2023 RUNT aided their client ‘Our Next Energy’ in developing communications FOR products aimed at bringing electricity to Sub-Saharan Africa.
2022 RUNT assisted their client Our Next Energy in launching the $1.6 Billion ‘One Circle factory’ in Michigan.
2021 RUNT created the award winning commercial ‘Take Control’ for their client 'Therabody.
2020 Invited to join the writer’s room on the Biden For President campaign, making the Vice President RUNT’s first official client. We’ve contributed policy and voter issue scripts, conceptual positive and hard negative scripts, as well as activation concepts.
2020 ECDing a pitch for Uber global social media AOR with VMLY&R Kansas City, overseeing VMLY&R teams in Sao Paulo and Paris.
2020 Winning the Lidl Food Market account for VMLY&R Kansas City with a new brand campaign (sold in and under development).
2020 Writing the campaign that brought PetSafe on for Chemistry in Atlanta. The campaign is for the ScoopFree, a self-cleaning cat litter tray. More fun than it sounds. Currently in production.
2020 Creating the ‘Science Will Win’ platform at Grey NY that won the Pfizer global pitch at the start of the pandemic. The platform is forming the basis of a repositioning of the entire company, from over-the-counter retailer to cure-seeker.
2019 Announcing Land Rover USA’s sponsorship of US Ski & Snowboard with the integrated ‘Play Harder This Winter’ campaign for Spark44, featuring superstar alpine skier and Adidas athlete Mikaela Shiffrin.
2019 Repositioning DAZN’s combat sport streaming service at 360i with the ‘Blowing Up The Fight Game’ campaign. It launched with a spot directed by Tom Kuntz, starring Tracy Morgan.
2018 Working on Mother’s winning pitch for Wrangler and the Stella Artois Big Lebowski Super Bowl brief.
Some highlights from his time at TBWA\Chiat\Day NY:
Working directly for Chris Garbutt, TBWA Global CCO.
Winning the Nissan North America business back for TBWA\Chiat\Day as creative leads.
Producing a Nissan x Star Wars commercial with Lucasfilm.
Collaborating with Noam Murro and The Mill on an animation special.
Doing some Nissan weirdvertising with Traktor.
Writing the most awarded radio campaign at the 2017 London International Awards for Nissan.
Coming up with the Hilton Hotels pitch-winning platform.
Being promoted from CD to GCD in a year.
Winning a couple of Bronze Clios for our last Nissan TV commercial.