Mercedes-Benz Poaches a Top Agency Creative to Build Ads In-House
Updated: 1 day ago
Mercedes-Benz hired ex-agency ECD Gun Aydemir into a newly created in-house Executive Creative Director role on 20 October 2026 as it reviews its Team X setup.
A hire that points one direction
Mercedes-Benz has made a hire that says more than its title suggests. On 20 October 2026 the carmaker confirmed that Gun Aydemir, formerly executive creative director at its agency Antoni and before that at Jung von Matt/Neckar and Pulse, had joined in a newly created in-house Executive Creative Director role leading campaigns and content.
The word that matters is newly created. Mercedes-Benz did not fill a vacancy; it built a senior creative seat that did not previously exist inside the company, and it filled that seat by poaching talent from the agency side of the fence.
The timing sharpens the signal. The move comes as Mercedes-Benz reviews its Team X setup, the bespoke agency model assembled to serve the brand. A new internal creative chief arriving mid-review is not a coincidence; it is a statement of where capability is being pulled.
Aydemir's pedigree is part of the message. This is not a junior appointment or a cost-saving substitution; it is a senior figure from the very agency ecosystem that has served the brand, including Antoni, which exists in large part to work on Mercedes. Hiring the person who helped lead your agency's work onto your own payroll is about as direct a statement of intent as a brand can make.
The talent drain is structural now
Read alongside Klarna taking its flagship campaign fully in-house, this is not an isolated personnel story. It is the same current running through the industry: the people, not just the budgets, are moving from agencies to brands.
That matters because talent is the agency model's core asset. Clients historically paid for access to senior creative minds they could not or would not employ directly. When a brand hires that mind onto its own payroll, the economic logic of the retainer weakens with it.
Mercedes-Benz hiring an agency ECD into a brand-new role is a vote of confidence in the idea that strategic creative leadership belongs inside the organisation, close to the product and the data, rather than at arm's length.
The automotive context amplifies the trend. Car brands produce an enormous and constant volume of content, across launches, model variants, markets and an ever-expanding set of digital channels. That always-on demand is precisely the kind of work that is expensive to route through an agency every time and cheaper to own, which is why carmakers have been among the most aggressive in-housers of the past few years.
What brand and agency leaders should take from it
For brand-side leaders, the transferable question is about where creative control should sit. Bringing a senior ECD in-house buys speed, continuity and institutional memory, the campaign brain stops walking out of the building each evening. The trade-off is the loss of an agency's outside perspective and the breadth of accounts that keep agency creatives sharp.
The smart structure for many brands will be hybrid: own the senior creative direction and the always-on content engine, and reach outside for the specialist spike, the big idea, or the capability you cannot justify employing full-time.
For agencies, the defensive lesson is blunt. If your value proposition is housing the talent a client wants, you are vulnerable to exactly this move. The durable proposition is the work that a single in-house team, however good, cannot replicate: range, cultural distance and the discipline of pitching against rivals.
There is a talent-flow consequence worth naming. As more brands create genuinely senior, well-resourced creative roles, the career calculus for agency creatives changes. The brand side used to be seen as a quieter, less creative destination; a prominent Executive Creative Director post at a marque like Mercedes-Benz reframes it as a credible top-of-career move. That shift in perception may matter more to agencies over time than any single account, because it changes where the best people want to end up.
Quick FAQ
Who is Gun Aydemir?
A senior creative who was executive creative director at Mercedes-Benz agency Antoni, and previously at Jung von Matt/Neckar and Pulse. On 20 October 2026 he joined Mercedes-Benz in a newly created in-house Executive Creative Director role.
Why does this hire matter?
It is another example of senior creative talent moving from agencies to brands, and it comes as Mercedes-Benz reviews its Team X agency setup, signalling a shift of creative control in-house.
Should every brand hire creative in-house?
Not necessarily. Many brands will run a hybrid model, owning senior direction and always-on content while reaching outside for specialist spikes, big ideas and outside perspective.
A brand creating a senior creative seat that never existed, and filling it with an agency's own ECD, shows where the gravity is. Talent is the agency's core asset, and when it moves onto the client's payroll, the retainer logic moves with it. Agencies now have to sell what one in-house team cannot be. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
When brands start employing the senior creative minds they used to rent, the agency's core asset is walking out of the door.
Where should your senior creative direction live, inside the brand, at an agency, or split between them?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: Horizont, W&V, Meedia
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
