Socially-led creative agency We Are Social has hired multi-award-winning creative director Phil Shearer as its new executive creative director.

Shearer was one of Australia’s first-ever Cannes Grand Prix winners – for a campaign for Jim Beam -and has created highly acclaimed work for Audi, Drambuie, Unicef and Christchurch Tourism.

Phil joins from BD Network, having previously worked as a creative director at R/GA Sydney and Iris. Phil started his career at Y&R and in his 17-year career has amassed a wealth of experience across traditional advertising, digital, social and branding.

He will be working with We Are Social’s Managing Director Suzie Shaw and the 35-strong Australian team.

“I’m excited. A lot of marketing objectives seem to forget relevance to people’s lives, but social ideas have to be inherently useful,” Shearer said.

“The opportunity to originate bigger ideas for clients in the social space is huge. It’s a great time to be joining Suzie and the team and here’s hoping we can do some genius work.”

Shaw said of Shearer’s appointment: “The scope of social is growing daily. It’s no longer a niche that gets bolted on at the end of the process. There’s a huge opportunity for brands to put social thinking at the heart of their marketing and this is what we do. We’ve brought Phil in to help us deliver really big social ideas. I love a lot of the work he’s done in the past, but know the best is yet to come.”