Dan Chichester's first agency job was at Ogilvy, and now he has returned. He is Ogilvy Health’s first chief experience officer, a newly created position that looks to double down on creating seamless digital experiences for the agency’s pharma and healthcare clients.
Chichester will report to Ogilvy Health CEO Andrew Schirmer and will criss-cross Ogilvy units and specialties to work on creating synergies between digital and clients’ brand needs, as well as growing the digital team and offerings. He will also work closely with Samantha Dolan, Ogilvy Health’s chief creative officer named last July.
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“Since I’ve gotten involved with digital, I would always use the word experience and sometimes that might seem overblown. How can a banner be an experience? How can an email be an experience? But I think when you put yourself into the very mindful thinking of how you approach an interaction, experience is what you’re trying to create,” Chichester said.
Chichester is a former comic book writer and editor who first joined Ogilvy in 1999 working on the IBM account. He served as a creative director in the interactive group for nine years, and later as chief digital officer from 2009 to 2014.
Chichester said he told some of the people who are now working for him, “'If I’m the chief experience officer, that makes us all agents of experience.’ So the questions we need to ask every day are things like, 'how is this creating an experience? Is this the best experience it can possibly be? Will this experience matter?' And while I’m overusing the word, I’ve quickly settled on the idea that it cannot get old, it can only open doors to making more things better because you’re now focusing on that as a standard.”
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And that's key, especially now that "digital is no longer a separate offering, channel, or tool," Schirmer added in a statement.
"Today, everything in the marketing, communications, and transformation business operates through a digitally enabled ecosystem. What we are building for our clients are brand experiences that reach healthcare providers, payers, caregivers, and patients through a myriad of channels, touchpoints and platforms," he said.