Creative Operations London 2019

Rob Doubal is Co-President and CCO of McCann London. His career spans positions at John Doe Amsterdam, Mother London, where he teamed up with partner Laurence (Lolly)Thomson, and W+K as Creative Director alongside Lolly. The pair then moved to McCann London as ECDs, before being promoted to their current roles heading up the agency. Since then, Rob has regularly featured amongst the industry’s top creatives and the duo continue to inspire award-winning and iconic work for a wide range of portfolio brands including Xbox, Wimbledon, Microsoft, Premier Foods, Kayak, Chivas, Sony, Coca-Cola and Mastercard. Rob believes that in today’s age of fast-moving-news and people’s overwhelming urge to engage, whilst content is king, context is ‘King Kong’. He inspires his creative team to think beyond the brief and explore ways in which their work will not only boast great content – but will be contextual. His belief has given rise to a new way of working within the agency – where ideas often come first – and clients/partners come later. This method has resulted in some of the agency’s best work this year – not to mention some rich case studies. Rob’s core value that work must be engaging with its audiences, bold and even rebellious means our creative teams enjoy the freedom to play with ideas and we ’re seeing an unparalleled energy within the agency. The silent type himself, and often the last to give his opinion, when Rob has something to say, people sit up and listen. It’s well worth the wait. Rob is a keen and articulate writer, speaker, panellist and juror, notably for Dubai Lynx, Cannes Lions and D&AD. His dry sense of humour and quick wit keeps his creative team on their toes and is reflected in the quality of the agency’s category disrupting work.