Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific appoints Glenn Bartlett as creative director

Award-winning creative Glenn Bartlett, most recently with I&S BBDO/Proximity, has been appointed to lead on- and off-air creative direction for Turner Broadcasting System Asia-Pacific.

Based in Hong Kong and reporting to Lucien Harrington, vice-president of branding and communications, Bartlett will be responsible for creative strategy across Turner’s entertainment portfolio, which includes Cartoon Network, Pogo, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies, as well as brands such as Ben 10.

Bartlett told Campaign that he made the jump because Turner understands the importance of treating all its properties, both networks and individual programs, as brands that the consumer has an ongoing relationship with. Turner brought him aboard because his broad experience equips him to deliver creative promotions and get people to interact with those brands, he said.

“It’s going to be about what we do with these great brands across all media,” Bartlett said. “Not just on air—but anywhere.”

On his appointment, Harrington said, “Glenn is a creative leader in its broadest sense who will inspire those he works with and take the creative execution associated with our brands to the next level." He added, “Brands no longer live on a single platform and Glenn’s agency and digital experience will ensure that we continue to over deliver on consumers’ high expectations of how they can engage with our brands.”

Barlett spent the last six years as senior creative director with I&S BBDO/Proximity, first in Shanghai, where he built a creative team, and then in Tokyo for the last four years. He has won a shelf’s worth of industry awards over his 19-year career, including three AMEs (Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards) and an Effie.

In his agency career, Bartlett served a wide range of household names including Starbucks, Mars, Pepsi, Visa, FedEx, Mandarin Oriental, and Cathay Pacific.

As for why he chose to make the jump from the agency side, Bartlett focused on Turner’s millions of hours of content as “the biggest sandbox in the world” for a creative person.

“It’s a dream come true,” he said. “It’s a rich creative environment here. The walls are covered with the brands, and you live and breathe and smell them from the moment you walk in.”

With inputs from Matthew Miller's article published on Campaign Asia-Pacific.