Genero is excited to announce the appointment of its first US-based employee, Andy McKeon, who joins as Global Chief Creative Officer, based in San Francisco.
McKeon joins the company after 6 years at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters, working with many of
the world’s biggest brands and their agencies.
McKeon’s career is highly credentialed, having worked under Steve Jobs as a Creative Director at Apple, and at many illustrious advertising agencies around the world including Wieden + Kennedy and Goodby Silverstein
& Partners.
Genero is the solution of choice for marketers looking for a new model to support their video content production needs.
“Brands need so much content these days, but the current production model isn’t built to provide it at scale or speed,” says Genero Co-Founder Mick Entwisle.
“We were marketers who saw this growing gap, and that’s why we launched Genero ten years ago.
“We’ve patiently built our solution to make sure it’s the best in the world, and are seeing so much demand from brands who want a faster and smarter way to produce high-quality video content.
“We’re so excited to have someone of Andy’s calibre and background joining our business to raise awareness and to help our community deliver the best quality creative work for our clients”.
Genero works with mega-marketers like Unilever, Diageo, HP Citibank, Facebook and Google, as well as small businesses and global music artists.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with every global network and a bunch of the best agencies over my career, and everyone is trying to work out a new, more effective model.
“This is the first solution I’ve seen that feels really creatively exciting, efficient and viable in the long-term,” said McKeon.
The model works by providing brands with direct access to a global community of creators for creative ideas and production resources, and a proprietary software platform to manage the end-to-end production process. Support throughout the process is provided by Genero’s team.
“It’s similar to the traditional model, the key difference being that a much larger and more diverse group of creators can access the brief and respond,” explains McKeon.
“For example, Silicon Valley startup Instacart commissioned an ad from an award-winning animation house
which had worked on the blockbuster film Iron Man, on the other side of the Pacific.
“Duran Duran found a teen in rural Australia to make an official music video.
“These are creative connections that would not have traditionally been possible and there are already thousands of those stories.”
Over the past decade, Genero has been growing its community, building its software platform and opening offices in London, Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne.
“The platform and community are extremely flexible,” says Entwisle.
“One of the most exciting recent projects is for Asian streaming platform HOOQ .
“They’ve launched an annual brief to find and commission original TV pilots through Genero. Last year’s brief resulted in the production of six truly creative pilots, and one of those is now being turned into a full TV
series .
“That’s the sort of creativity and quality available to brands.”
Marketers use the platform to produce a wide variety of content, including culturally sensitive localisations,
simple animations, social content and TV commercials.
Genero is continuing to hire additional US-based team members across San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, with further announcements planned shortly.
