Yorkshire founded brand engagement agency, XSEM, has appointed Nick Burrows as head of experiential to enhance its service offering. This comes off the back of a raft of recent client successes.

Although based in Yorkshire for 20 years, Nick spent over a decade at London based TRO as client service and marketing board director, where he led on strategy, project management and client relations for experiential clients.

Nick joins the award-winning business to lead in developing its experiential offering, advising current XSEM brands including Molson Coors Beverage Company and Suntory (Lucozade, Ribena), on their experiential strategy.

Having worked previously with the likes of Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Google and Nike, Nick is passionate about bringing brands to life by offering strategic direction and consultation. He said: “I'm more obsessed with why brands are trying to create experiences first, rather than the how and what. That comes more naturally when you understand the why.”

Speaking about his senior role at XSEM, Nick commented: “I'm captivated with the culture at XSEM and have been enormously impressed with their work so far. They have such a solid foundation for us to be able to do some brilliant and meaningful work for our current client base and future partners. It’s clearly an inspiring, creative and commercially driven agency.

“Fifteen years ago, brand experiences were exclusive to those in attendance. Now, if we deliver the right creative hook and enhance events through tech and social, there's no reason why audiences of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, can’t be immersing themselves in that experience.”

One of XSEM’s largest brand partnerships to date features beer brand Pravha, where the team developed the ‘Unexpect the Expected’ concept. It was crucial that the activation resonated with Pravha’s audience, influenced their buying behaviours and created a lasting memory. A tiered approach featured full brand activations at large regional venues across the UK.

Managing director and co-founder at XSEM, Dan Bardgett, said: “Nick joins us at a crucial time in the business having recently enhanced our client portfolio. We’re delighted to have him on board and look forward to seeing where his creative brain can take our experiential offering to the next level. Nick’s positive outlook on creativity, integrity and service excellence are perfectly aligned with our own values here at XSEM.”

XSEM celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year and is forecasting further business growth having recently moved to larger premises in central Leeds to accommodate its expanding team and support the development of a multitude of services, including experiential. Its plans for 2024 continues to have a greater focus on employee growth and wellbeing, having recently achieved ‘Marketing Agency of the Year’ at the 2023 Conference News Awards and ‘Best Place to Work’ at the 2023 C&IT Awards last month.