Wes Hogg, the former executive creative director at Code Computerlove, has been appointed to lead the creative team at The Distillery, a new offering from Code's Manchester rivals Reading Room.

Last month, The Drum revealed digital agency Reading Room's plans to open a new operation in Manchester, which was then to be known as Reading Room Digital Marketing.

The new division has since shed what its managing director, Paul O'Donoghue, calls its “working title” and he has spent the time since that first announcement building his team.

O'Donoghue said The Distillery will complement Reading Room's existing digital communications business and act as a “performance solutions division”.

Based at Reading Room's office in Manchester, It will have a strong focus on analysing data for clients and will look to push traffic towards their websites and online portals.

“That could be through advertising, social media, email, a microsite – any number of disciplines that we can put together,” O'Donoghue said.

In the role of executive creative director, it will be Hogg's job to create these solutions, and he told The Drum he is in the process of putting together his own creative team.

Hogg left Code in July, seven months after joining from McCann Erickson Manchester, where he was digital creative director.

He will be joined in The Distillery by Matt Butterworth, who will take up the role of planning and strategy director. He is currently managing director of Folk in London.

Emma Pilling from Guardian Media Group's planning team takes up the role of head of data planning. “The cornerstone of all our solutions is data, and understanding data,” O'Donoghue said.

And completing the “core team” is Berian Reed, head of search. He relocates from the capital where he was part of Reading Room's London business. Prior to that he was a strategist at Deloitte.