Keith Blanchard has joined marketing agency Story Worldwide as North American executive creative director. In this position, he will oversee the development of all brand storytelling initiatives. He will report directly to Story Worldwide’s COO Simon Kelly and indirectly to Story’s Global Creative Officer Lars Hemming Jorgensen.

Blanchard comes to Story with a strong background in new media. Starting in 2006, Blanchard served as online editorial director for Wenner Media, managing all online content for Us Weekly, Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal. Most recently, he worked as the vice president and director of programming at Kuma Reality Games, an online episodic videogame company, and as the founder of online start-up Expanding Media, LLC along with its Web site The Daily Lowdown.

In 1996, he launched the Web site for Cosmopolitan magazine under the direction of Bonnie Fuller. Since then he served first as the deputy editor, then editor in chief, of Maxim magazine. Along the way, he led the launch and editing of Stuff magazine in 1998, and oversaw the creation of numerous media extensions of the Maxim print enterprise.

“Our editorial DNA sets us apart from the advertising crowd and Keith is of the same mold,” said Simon Kelly, Story Worldwide’s COO, in a statement. “Keith is super smart, fascinated by the way that the advertising industry is beginning to look a lot like publishing, is extremely personable and has clearly demonstrated the depth of his creative talents.”

Blanchard writes for The Daily Lowdown and has a regular column for The Huffington Post.

“[Story Worldwide] is smart to hire Keith, because the future of advertising is leveraging the ability provided by the online world to engage in a deep and ongoing relationship with target markets,” Blanchard’s former colleague Bonnie Fuller said in a statement.