Brand design agency Coley Porter Bell has strengthened its planning department with the appointment of John Clark as planning director.

His brief is to help the agency as it increasingly works across the brand’s world—from packaging through corporate identity to brand space and on-line.

Photo: John Clark, new planning director of Coley Porter Bell

Clark joins from M&C Saatchi where he has been a strategy director since 2006. There he worked on Ladrokes, developed global strategies for Jameson and set up a cross-disciplinary planning hub for the agency’s biggest client NatWest/RBS.

Before that he was a planning director at Publicis working on Allied Domecq. He started his advertising career as a trainee account man at Ogilvy.

Clark said, “This is a really exciting move for me. I now have a whole new set of creative tools at my disposal. Though the process and end result may differ, planning in brand design is still, at its heart, about providing insight into the consumer, market and brand. And given our increasingly visual world, as well as CPB’s visual output, our Visual Planning process is an innovative and valuable take on more traditional planning approaches.”

Vicky Bullen, Coley Porter Bell chief executive, said, «I have no doubt that John will bring invaluable insight across all the work we do whether for companies, products or services.”