The Crystal Creative Taps Doug Darnell to Bolster Brand-Direct Ambitions
The Crystal Creative has welcomed Doug Darnell as brand manager and music supervisor, marking a move that reflects the agency’s ambitions to deepen its brand-direct capabilities across trailers, advertising and gaming.
Based in the Pacific Northwest, The Crystal Creative has built a reputation for custom music and sound design for leading entertainment studios and global brands including Electronic Arts, A24, Disney+ and Netflix alongside music supervision support through a wide network of label and publishing partners. With a focus on ethical and transparent relationships with talent, the Clio Award-winning company has increasingly been asked to steer strategy as well as execution – making Doug’s arrival well-timed.
Doug joins from peermusic, where he was senior director of advertising markets at the world’s largest independent publisher. His career spans a wide range of music-for-media roles: clearing rights and sound for campaigns and trailers for A24, the Hollywood Bowl and major consumer brands, as well as co-founding Robot Repair Music + Sound, which specialised in original music, sound design and licensing across advertising, gaming and theatrical marketing.
At The Crystal Creative, Doug will oversee clearance, licensing and supervision for the agency’s client base – an area that has become increasingly complex as brands stretch IP across multiple platforms, territories and formats.
“I’ve known and worked with Tommy and the Crystal Creative teams for years,” says Doug. “Their talent is unmatched and I’m excited to be a part of such a creative, forward-thinking group.”
Tommy Phelan, speaking on behalf of the agency, highlights Doug’s mix of taste and technical fluency. “Doug’s commitment to curating tasteful and fresh music made him a perfect fit for TCC, our culture, and the expectations our clients have of us. His experience with clearance & licensing on the brand level is something we admire and need as we branch out into more brand-direct work. We’re very grateful to have Doug as a part of the TCC fam!”
With the demands of brand storytelling becoming increasingly audiovisual, the company is positioning music as a strategic component of how campaigns connect with audiences. Doug’s background suggests he will play a role not just in securing rights, but in influencing how sound supports narrative and distribution at scale.
Doug joins as The Crystal Creative continues to expand its footprint in brand-direct work, alongside ongoing work in trailers and gaming – a move that requires supervision expertise tightly linked to rights ownership, workflow efficiency and creative opportunity.
