Beacon/Leo Burnett names digital and media head

According to a statement from the agency, Stampfel will lead the agency’s digital and media strategy functions, including data, as well as offline media strategy. He will work alongside Dentsu, which supports Beacon/Leo Burnett in terms of media buying.

Stampfel’s hire follows two senior strategy departures last year. The agency’s former digital business and strategy director, Ryuji Mitsuishi Banderas, left to join Google in August. Executive business and strategy director Antony Cundy left in July to lead Wunderman Tokyo. However, a spokesperson for Beacon/Leo Burnett noted that Stampfel's role was newly created to combine both digital and media functions.

Beacon/Leo Burnett has a digital and media team of 25, including strategists, planners and data experts and offers creative, planning and buying capabilities, the latter through its affiliation with Dentsu. 

Stampfel has worked in Japan for 12 years, having started his career in New York at news monitoring service VMS and website development company Igicom. In Tokyo, he worked at Intensiv Media, One to One Marketing, Proximity Japan/I&S BBDO and MediaCom before joining Gilt last year to oversee customer acquisition activities. While at Proximity, Stampfel is credited with launching Coach’s Japanese ecommerce site.

Stampfel commented via email that "clients have one budget to grow business so it makes no sense to consider digital separate from media".

"What they seek, and what we must provide, is the best strategy to grow business, regardless of platform," he said.

With regard to his relatively short stint at Gilt, Stampfel said: "I enjoyed my sojourn client-side, but this is an exciting opportunity with Beacon and I share the Beacon vision for the future of media. As for my experience in a fast-paced business like Gilt, I take from it the dilligent focus on ROI, the importance of continual test-and-learn, and the flexibility to act fast and change fast."

Nicolas Menat, Beacon/Leo Burnett’s president and representative director, said in a statement that Stampfel’s varied experience across creative and media agencies and brands would “enable him to bring a perspective and unique leadership to the structure that we need to take the agency forward”.

Menat said that Stampfel’s experience both the US and Japan would also be “a very strong asset for helping us to deliver on our commitment to bring the best of the East and the West to our clients in Japan”.