Timothy David - Writer / Director
Timothy David is a writer, director, editor and creative entrepreneur, currently based in Australia.
His debut feature film, Kangaroo Island, won Best Australian Director at the London Director Awards and Best Debut Feature at the Montreal Independent Film Festival. Made independently and without studio backing, the film played in Australian cinemas for more than 100 days before launching on Netflix Australia in January 2026, where it debuted at #2, behind the same-day premiere of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s The Rip, and remained among the platform’s top films for several weeks.
Kangaroo Island has been hailed by audiences and critics as one of the best Australian films in years. At the Chicago International Film Festival Summer Screening, the film received an audience score above 9/10, and it earned four nominations from the Film Critics Circle of Australia, including Best Film. David Williamson, writer of Gallipoli, described it as one of the best films from Australia — or from any country — in years.
Before moving into feature filmmaking, Tim built an award-winning international career in advertising and branded entertainment. His work for Unilever was recognised by Adweek as the #1 Campaign of the 21st Century, and has been awarded at Cannes Lions, including two Grand Prix, D&AD, the Clios, including a Grand Clio, and numerous other major industry awards.
Tim was named one of the World’s Top 50 Creative Thinkers by Creativity Magazine and was included in Time Magazine’s Top 200 Most Influential People in the World after writing, directing and editing two groundbreaking branded short films.
He is the co-founder of Piro Inc., New York, with producer Daniel M. Rosenberg, and now leads Piro Australia Pty Ltd.
For project inquiries: tim@wearepiro.com
Feature: Kangaroo Island
Chipotle TV series
Piro’s “Farmed and Dangerous” is a four-part scripted comedy series that premiered on Hulu for Chipotle (it cost a fraction of a Super Bowl spend and lasted months/years. Results: 17% national same store sales increase (industry declined 2%) and a conservatively estimated 800% RIO. The 120 minutes of entertainment (which was Hulu’s most successful premiere at the time) contained over fifty key messages that Chipotle wanted to convey and gave birth to endless content pieces released throughout the year on social, not to mention events, PR, print, POS and more. The campaign and its many components saw hundreds of millions of twitter mentions.
As documented in the New York Times, third party research (The Participant Index) showed “Farmed and Dangerous” was more influential in changing behavior than 98% of cause-related movies and TV shows of past years (a list that included Oscar nominated film and documentaries including Food Inc. An Inconvenient Truth and more). It was directed, co-written, co-edited and Executive Produced by Tim Piper.
Awards included multiple Cannes Lions and effectiveness awards.
The Dove Films
Three Dove films written and directed by Tim Piper (co-directing Evolution with Yael Staav) while at Ogilvy Toronto went viral and revolutionized how brands looked at content. It was a matter of aligning current cultural trends with a brand’s point of view. Creating compelling stories from those two elements (cultural habits and brand POV) is how successful marketing is born.
Awards: 2 x Cannes Grand Prix’s, D%AD Pencils, One Show Pencils and more.
Estée Lauder
Conceived by Piro’s Daniel M Rosenberg and directed by Tim Piper these are two of many short films made for Estée Lauder over the years. While the beauty industry continues to show supermodels posing in cliché advertising, Piro combined product, talent, music and story to help their lipstick brands go from #5 to #2 in China.
Post Shredded Wheat
Written and directed by Tim Piper (while at Ogilvy New York) this TVC and viral web series campaign reversed the brand’s double-digit decline and is a classic example of every brand having a great story to tell, even if they don’t believe they do. The inspiration behind their story came from the cereal box: One ingredient - Wheat. How simple can you get? In a world of artificial colors, flavors and endless chemical ingredients what was perceived by the brand to be a weakness, was actually their strength. When the TVC hit the airwaves every YouTube webisode went viral, as did the character’s social media profile.
Awards included a Cannes Lion and Best in Show trophy for the International Food and Beverage Awards.
Chipotle Halloween
Piro’s short Halloween film for Chipotle was directed by Tim Piper and co-written with Daniel Rosenberg and Piromaniacs (see Piro’s website for information on Piromaniacs: Where some of Hollywood’s top TV and film writers work with Piro on brand stories).
Baby Einstein
This surprisingly emotional Piro NY production for Baby Einstein was produced in Adelaide, South Australia, taking advantage of currency rates and world class production facilities in Tim’s hometown.
Fererro Roche
Piro’s Fererro Roche commercial, co-directed with Piro’s Steve Callen, was one of the company’s most successful in history.
FINANCE: MORGAN STANLEY / E*TRADE
Written and directed by Tim Piper, Piro turned corporate How-To videos into more relatable, influencer style videos that outperformed the television advertising content in converting prospects online.
Some random oldies…