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Taylor Katai has been named senior director of creative strategy and Daphne Brunelle brand strategist at Los Angeles-based creative marketing agency Compadre, run by Co-Presidents Chuck Carey and Robert Blatchford.
“Taylor’s expertise in brand communications and experience in developing non-traditional creative activations bolsters our burgeoning strategy department and provides new approaches to the complexities of brand campaigns today,” said Blatchford in a statement. “Daphne is our secret weapon when it comes to brand audit strategy and understanding behavior and context to help brands stand out. Both add a deeper layer to what we can offer our clients while bringing their unique experience to our leadership teams and we’re happy to have them on our team.”
Katai comes to Compadre from experiential marketing agency Giant Spoon where she was director of strategy, spearheading the development and execution of 360 global creative campaigns for clients such as Amazon Prime, Paramount Pictures and STX Entertainment, among others. Prior to Giant Spoon, Katai led brand campaigns at Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment and NBCUniversal.
“I’m excited to bring the versatility of my work to Compadre and its clients, from communications and campaign strategy, to creative concepting and production, all while helping reach our larger business goals as an agency,” said Katai in a statement. “Compadre is dedicated to pushing beyond what’s already been done. They’re experts at what they do and are always strategically and creatively pushing past what’s simply comfortable, and I look forward to working with Compadre and opening up a new world of opportunity.”
Before joining Compadre officially, Brunelle freelanced for the agency, as well as for the NFL, SAQ, Coca-Cola, Smartwater and other agencies. Prior to that, she worked at RAPP as a senior brand experience strategy.
Before that, she worked at Omnicom and Sid Lee as a digital strategist and on the client side at subscription food delivery service HelloFresh, where she spearheaded acquisition strategies that led to a 50 percent customer increase in the Canadian market in just three months. She also served a stint at Vice Canada, where she led large-scale creative partnerships with Google, CIBC Bank, Toyota, Sephora and others.
“Compadre’s work is led by well-thought-out, design-forward ideas,” Brunelle said, also in a statement. “We put so much care into creative output, which makes my role as a strategist all the more fun. I’ve always been interested in doing empathy-led thinking, rooted in very culturally relevant moments and Compadre is really tapped into this. My international experience and being multilingual enable me to be very flexible and three-dimensional in my approach to strategy and communications. I look forward to being a part of Compadre’s growth to level up our strategic thinking.”