Fiddes ditches Epsilon for top role at Havas Middle East

Epsilon European creative director Mark Fiddes has quit the data-driven marketing giant after just over a year to return to agency-land – and his old agency Havas – as executive creative director for the French group’s Middle Eastern division, based in Dubai.
His departure comes just weeks after Epsilon’s international managing director Dave Allen – Fiddes’ boss – also left the business; he had only been in his role for eight months.
Both appointments were part of US giant’s international expansion drive. It has offered a full-service capability in the US for a number of years, and was rated the number one agency across all disciplines in the States by Ad Age in 2015.
In the UK, the company is best known for its database marketing offering through Epsilon Abacus, although it is also a leading email marketing vendor and loyalty programme provider.
As well as offices in Soho and Teddington, the company operates out of Dublin, Paris, Madrid and Dusseldorf for clients including Google, Jaguar Land Rover, Dell, Procter & Gamble, Marks & Spencer, Barclays and Hilton Worldwide.
In his new role, Fiddes will be in charge of the entire creative output for the Middle East region and oversee work on brands including Peugeot, Danone, Ooredoo, Burger King and Président cheese. He will also be reunited with Reckitt Benckiser brands; he worked on the likes of Cillit Bang when he first worked at Havas (then Euro RSCG) 14 years ago.
Having started his career in publishing in the US in 1982, as editor of campaigning political magazine Dollars & Sense, Fiddes returned to the UK in 1988 to join IMP – then run by the team led by John Farrell – where he rose to executive creative director. Spells at HHCL & Partners, Davies Little Cowley Fiddes, Euros and DraftFCB followed; he then set up IdeaMotel in 2013 with ex-JWT creative director Charity Charity, before joining Epsilon in January last year.
On LinkedIn Fiddes wrote: “It’s great to back with old friends at Havas”.