McCann New York has promoted Sean Bryan and Thomas Murphy to executive creative directors, the first time the agency has named a creative team as ECDs. Bryan and Murphy joined McCann in 2005 as group creative directors and have led creative development on Holiday Inn and McCann Worldgroup's Sony Ericsson account. Their work has included Holiday Inn's Stay You campaign and Sony Ericsson's launch for Xperia Play, and they have spearheded creative on Verizon Wireless initiatives including the Dead Zones campaign and launches such as the LG Chocolate and the Blackberry Storm. As part of their new responsibilities, they will take the lead on Verizon. They will report to McCann NY and London chairman and chief creative officer Linus Karlsson and ECD and vice chairman Andreas Dahlqvist. Prior to McCann, Bryan and Murphy were creative directors at DDB Chicago, where they helped launch McDonald's I'm Loving It campaign. They have also written and illustrated several children's books, including A Boy and His Bunny, which was honored with a BCCB Blue Ribbon Picture Book Award.

Gravity has named Emmy Award winner J. John Corbett as its new VFX supervisor/design director. Corbett will be based at the creative content, visual effects, and brand communications company's New York office. He won a 2011 Creative Arts Emmy Award in the category of 'Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series' for his work as lead compositor on the pilot episode of HBO's Boardwalk Empire. He joins Gravity from Brainstorm Digital's New York studio, where his work included serving as the animation and design supervisor for The Adjustment Bureau. His work in the advertising industry includes visual contributions to the Canon Digital Rebel's Impossible campaign (visual effects) and to Kmart's television campaign graphics (2004).

audioEngine has added mixer and sound designer Brian Beatrice to its mixing team. His portfolio includes short-form work for Nickelodeon, Food Network, USA Network, Syfy Channel and truTV as well as commercials for the Kaplan Thaler Group, Publicis, Inkwell and CDA. He has also worked on WNET/PBS's Nature, Secrets of The Dead, Wide Angle, documentaries for National Geographic Channel, PBS, VH1, Lifetime, and The History Channel, and numerous independent films. Prior to joining audioEngine, he spent time at Bionic and Tonic in New York.