Award-winning advertising agency, S3 Advertising, which was recently bought out by its senior managers, has kicked-off its brand-new era with a whole host of new appointments; welcoming four new faces to ‘The Lion’s Den’ in recent weeks, including to its leadership team.
With over 15 years’ experience in marketing and advertising, S3’s new Creative Planning Director, Sarah Mason, has been brought into the agency to lead creative strategy and campaign planning – pulling Team S3’s skillsets together to build efficient integrated campaigns.
Bringing a wealth of experience, Sarah says,
“After earning my stripes from the best at some of London's top marketing and advertising agencies, including Wunderman, Publicis, The & Partnership and VCCP, I was drawn to S3’s buzz, ambition, great people and passionate can-do culture.”
Sarah has worked on national and global brands, including Vodafone, Renault, TalkTalk and Asda, developing multi-million-pound marketing plans, re-positioning brands in fast changing categories, re-launching hero product lines and analysing effectiveness at every touchpoint.
At VCCP, Sarah was the Planning Director behind some huge adverts for Compare The Market and 2019 alone saw her introduce the nation to ‘AutoSergei’, whilst she also helped reunite the entire meerkatfamily, including one of the most-loved characters, Oleg, for the first time in years.
Now part of the team helping shaping S3’s future, Sarah adds,
“I couldn’t turn down the chance to join at such a pivotal time and I am relishing the opportunity to help build the agency as it embarks on a brand-new chapter of leadership and growth.”
Also joining S3’s newly formed leadership team, which is in place to oversee specific departments across the agency, is Ceri Forsdick, who has been welcomed as Client Account Director. Swansea born and bred; Ceri returns to the green green grass of Wales following an impressive career in the advertising and media industry, formed over the last 12 years in London.
With a varied career background that includes Brand Director at Cosmopolitan, Ceri has experience spanning branding, content partnerships, events, strategy, digital, creative technology and video. Most recently, Ceri was Senior Creative Strategy Manager at RYOT Studio, the full service, award-winning content studio at digital and technology juggernaut, Verizon Media where she devised and ran successful content campaigns during her tenure. This included Jaguar LandRover’s launch of the Range Rover Evoque and the ‘Live for the City’ creative – and for Mattel’s Barbie supporting the ‘Dream Gap’ Project, working with talent such as Olympian Nicola Adams, to create inspirational video and digital content intended to empower young women to believe in themselves.
Now responsible for client strategy, relationships and management across many of S3’s largest accounts, Ceri says,
“I am so excited to join a multi award-winning agency, and to contribute to the incredible work coming out of it.
“The fast-paced, disruptive nature, coupled with the incredible and interesting work for clients such as University of South Wales, The London Mint Office, Public Health Wales and Development Bank of Wales, made choosing the move back to Wales a no-brainer.”
Joining Ceri’s team of driven and passionate account managers is Tom Selway who brings his broad experience across all areas of advertising and marketing to the pride, thanks to his years working in the film and television industry.
Tom says.
“S3 has been on my radar for a very long time and the fact that the calibre of content being delivered was coming from my home city of Cardiff makes me incredibly proud.”
As Senior Account Executive, Tom will oversee all stages of integrated campaigns, helping to ensure every department has all the information and support they need to create exceptional work, helped by his background with several independent television companies producing content for broadcasters such as Made Television, CBS and the BBC.
Finally, proving true talent doesn’t go unnoticed within The Lion’s Den, Lauren Dutson has been welcomed back as PR & Content Assistant after her time in the S3 Academy, which provides interns with valuable, professional experience within the agency.
Currently working part-time as she completes the third year of her degree in Advertising Design at the University of South Wales, Lauren works closely with teams throughout the agency as she uses her love of social media to turn ideas into reality across several accounts.
Managing Director, Mike Webb, concludes,
“We knew we had to launch this brand-new chapter with a bang, and I believe welcoming in these exciting new team members will do just that.
“With varied backgrounds – inside the industry and out – they each possess a huge amount of knowledge and experience that will help ensure we continue proving forward-thinking businesses can enjoy exciting campaigns that disrupt audiences – without having to go to London to indulge in them.
“This is just the start and 2020 will see even more opportunities to join us on our new journey and we’ll be advertising further vacancies within the coming weeks.”
