Dan Berzen Boomerangs Back to Mosaic, Bringing Fusion of Creativity and Technology
Top brand activation agency announces Berzen as creative director, leading tech-focused innovation for creative work across North America.
TORONTO, June 28, 2023 /CNW/ -- Mosaic, an outcomes-obsessed integrated marketing agency, is welcoming back Dan Berzen as Creative Director. Berzen is focused on bringing digital-first thinking and employing the latest technology for client work – including support for Google, Amazon, Samsung as well as bringing new and fresh thinking to Mosaic's lifestyle, beverage and CPG clients.
Berzen previously worked on Mosaic's Strategy & Ideation team from 2015-2019 before moving to creative leadership roles at other agencies and most recently founding and leading a creative studio. He spent the last few years specializing in emerging technology, creating an AI audio/visual radio station that's always streaming and never repeating chill beats at DreamMachine.ai and is responsible for the sold-out Digital Collectable collection Drop Pets for North American digital rewards app Drop. Berzen rejoined Mosaic this spring – with the drive to integrate his technology expertise into creative campaigns.
"What differentiates Mosaic and why I came back to the agency is that we can make anything happen – you can dream something up and feel confident that this team can make it pay off," said Berzen. "It's one thing to be able to build experiences, but it's another to be able to build them in any channel and have them integrated, of top-quality, and most importantly, measured."
In his role, Berzen will lead creative teams across North America in the creation of cutting-edge, tech-driven ideas for our clients. He will also join agency leadership in continuing to develop thought leadership about how to use new and immersive technologies to drive innovation in the work, and within the agency.
"Dan brings a unique lens on creativity that is very forward thinking – his ability to fuse that with the latest technology and new ways of actualizing ideas inspires and levels up our work," notes Alayna Miller, VP, Executive Creative Director for Mosaic North America. "Bringing Dan back to Mosaic in a new capacity is an incredible opportunity to push boundaries."
Immediately upon his return to Mosaic, Berzen led the agency through an AI hands-on training to apply the new technology to creative work - a process to understand and inspire exploration within each business unit of the company. Through the training, Mosaic learned and is advising on the following:
- AI is powerful and it's only going to get better. Mosaic experimented with the full-stack of today's latest AI technology in process, like using ChatGPT to write a brief and ideate using proprietary strategic process, Midjourney, Synethesia and dozens of others to create assets, visuals, copy, and spec work. The latest AI presentation tools were tested to see if they could take the projects over the line. While there's room for improvement throughout, and the work was inspired by our past portfolio, the whole company was blown away by the results when used the right ways.
- AI probably won't replace you. But someone who knows how to use it just might. The real power of AI lies in allowing us to create better faster, which inevitably leads to even better, dare we say best? The real promise isn't what's going to change right now individually, but what changes experientially from a collective perspective. Creating new human experiences like DreamMachine.ai, which simply couldn't exist without these new tools.
- Proceed with caution but lead the way. Mosaic has always embraced the unknown - we've built new brands, innovative products and even built a whole town. While we acknowledge this tech is the future like the internet itself 30 years ago, AI is nascent enough that the rules of engagement still need to be written.
"AI is an unknown and uncomfortable for a lot of the creative industry but when embraced properly it will shape the future of how we work and the types of things we work on," commented Berzen. "The best part for clients is all this innovation is tied to data so you can optimize faster than ever before and prove when it works – and that's our goal with AI – to make sure we're learning as we go."
Berzen studied Marketing Management and Philosophy at the University of Guelph. He will be working with Group Creative Director, Jef Moore on Toronto based projects and reporting into Alayna Miller VP Executive Creative Director on US projects.
About Mosaic
Mosaic North America is an integrated marketing agency that builds brands in dimension. Depending on clients' needs and based on data-led insights, Mosaic pulls in the right capability experts at the right time to create connected brand experiences across the right touchpoints. By being able to quickly tap into different in-house specialists across omnichannel commerce, experiential marketing, content development, brand design, performance media and measurement & analytics, Mosaic is distinctly able to create ideas that make an in impact in culture and drive results at the same time. With a 30-year history, Mosaic North America has hubs in Chicago, Montreal, Toronto and Dallas, augmented with a satellite office in NYC, and beyond; all connected to our parent company Acosta Group and offering full reach across the nation.
SOURCE Mosaic
Bailey Doyle, [email protected]
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