Mihai Botarel - Co-Founder & Creative Director, RXM Creative
Mihai Botarel is the co-founder of RXM Creative, an award-winning agency specializing in integrated marketing campaigns with a focus on culture hacks. RXM is based in New York and its clients include Ray-Ban, Tabasco, Christian Louboutin, and Under Armour.
Some of Mihai’s most celebrated campaigns have ranged from the Instagram Menu, which transformed a behavioural food trend into a social media phenomenon, to The Social Ego, a toy that inflates when its owner garners social media likes and followers, to Clickbait for Good, which turns clickbait headlines into a platform for charitable initiatives. His latest project, Not Another Second, is an integrated campaign supporting LGBT+ seniors that was already featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian or NBC News.
Over the course of his 15-year career as a creative director and copywriter, Mihai has received seven Cannes Lion awards, in addition to honors from ADC Europe, IAA, Golden Drum, Eurobest, and NY Festivals, among others.
Prior to founding RXM, Mihai served as associate creative director at Dentsu’s 360i, where he developed campaigns for Toyota, Canon, and Coca Cola; and worked at Tribal, where he was on the global Reebok account. Before moving to New York, he worked at DDB Dusseldorf, where he was responsible for the campaign that launched the fashion brand Diesel in Germany, and won a Gold Lion in print and a Bronze Lion in out-of-home for Volkswagen.
Previously, he was a copywriter at Leo Burnett Bucharest, where he was honored with several international awards, including a Cannes Lion and the IAA Excellence Award for Creativity. He began his career at Ogilvy & Mather Bucharest.
As a writer on advertising, technology and society, Mihai has contributed to The Drum, TechCrunch, and Mediapost. He has lectured at Columbia University, taught at Miami Ad School, and spoke at the Unfinished Festival, Digital Dumbo, and the Transform Conference North America. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Adweek, Advertising Age, Mashable, Business Insider, and Fast Company.
Mihai holds a degree in advertising and communication from the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania. He lives in New York.