Y&R London Launches Branded Content Division

Jon Sharpe, CEO of Y&R London, has appointed Richard Johnstone as Managing Partner – Content to lead the division. Johnstone has led some of the world’s most iconic media brands as Publishing Director of Wallpaper, Marie Claire and Ministry of Sound. Most recently, Johnstone was Editorial Director at Omnicom’s Drum and has developed highly effective content strategies for a number of brands including John Lewis, Rimmel Coty and notonthehighstreet.com.

Y&R London also confirmed today that Jill Wanless, Deputy Editor of Hello! Fashion joins as contributing Editorial Director, John Scott former Senior Strategist at Drum, joins as Strategy Director, Gracie Page Start-up Entrepreneur and former Drum Digital Producer joins as Creative Technologist and Sarah George former Marketing and Partnerships Manager at Harper Collins, joins as Business and Partnership Manager. Each brings specialist experience and expertise into creating and implementing powerful branded content across social channels and media partnerships.

The team’s appointment underscores the growing emphasis on Y&R London’s dedication to developing fast, topical, branded content that promotes creative fluidity, responsiveness and audience engagement.

Clients at launch include Premier League, Oxfam, Lombard Odier and JD Williams who have appointed the division to create targeted branded content and forge partnerships that engage audiences to spend more time with the brand with partners including Vice, The Financial Times, Facebook, Google, Channel 4 and Hearst Publishing.

"Too often branded content is at best an afterthought or worst a guessing game. Y&R London is proud to have such a stellar line up of talent that will bring credibility, expertise and insight into exploding the impact and relevance of our clients and campaigns to their target markets.” Jon Sharpe, CEO 

Richard Johnstone says: “In a world of fake news, where mobile is the primary screen and consumers are bombarded with countless messages, we need to take a different, more agile approach. I am excited to be creating team at Y&R that will do just that. We think like an editor, vlogger or broadcaster. We value collaboration over ownership and will champion entrepreneurialism and innovation. And most importantly, we keep the audience and their needs at the centre of our universe.”

Jack Lundie, Director of Communications at Oxfam: “The Branded Content Division at Y&R London conceived, created and initiated a collaboration between Oxfam and Vice. The campaign they created was turned around extremely quickly allowed us to tell our rich stories to an audience we previously had little chance of accessing.”