Edelman Vancouver has hired its first creative director, bringing in Ryan Semeniuk to lead its creative offering as the PR agency looks to advance its national mission of becoming a more creative communications marketing company.
Semeniuk has been an art director at Taxi’s Vancouver office for nearly six years. He joined the agency after a short stint as ACD at youth-focused agency Fuel Industries, where he went after a six-year run as an art director at Tribal Worldwide’s Vancouver office.
While Semeniuk is the first to hold a CD position in Edelman’s Vancouver office, there has been a team of creatives in that location since before it was acquired by Edelman in 2007, when it was still known as Karyo. Today, that team is made up of roughly 10 staff members, with Semeniuk now at its helm.
“We’ve been doing great creative work in the past, but in a quieter way,” says Kim Peacock, general manager at Edelman Vancouver. “This could be a way to signal that we are truly committed to this notion of being a communications marketing company and really stepping up the level of creative we’re doing.”
Edelman is also developing a bit of a habit of hiring its creative directors from Taxi. Just over a year ago, Jordan Doucette joined the agency as ECD in Toronto from the creative shop, one of the first major moves by Edelman to be an integrated, creative communications marketing company grounded in PR. Even though she has since returned to her old agency, Peacock says Doucette not only made switching to a PR agency a viable career move for creative directors, but proved how effective they can be in that role.
“We learned from her that the market was hungry for that kind of approach that marries grounded, fantastic creative in the PR discipline,” Peacock says. “We’d had this vision to up our creative game and brought Jordan in, but we thought it would take a little longer to see the results than it ultimately did. She proved that with a commitment to it, you can have tremendous results. And like Jordan, Ryan has done traditional advertising, digital work, experiential and ambient stunts, so he really brings that full roster together.”
Peacock says that while she does see an opportunity to continue to grow Edelman Vancouver’s creative team and offering, there are currently no specific plans to do so, at least for the time being. She adds that the Vancouver market is one that is ideal for an integrated communications offering led by a PR agency.
“We brought [Ryan] on because we believe there’s some really interesting opportunities, work and clients here,” she says. “The clients in B.C. tend to be more open to working with one agency that can integrate all parts of the work together, and I think a PR company is primed to be successful at that because we already own the protection and evolution of brands. We have the opportunity to really up the promotion and integrate what we’re doing in more of a creative way.”
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