Hasta La Creative!

Brazil is coming to Manhattan this week with a concept space showcasing the country’s lively culture of creativity and innovation. Starting Wednesday, the 10,000-foot former Tommy Hilfiger store in SoHo will be filled with 40 Brazilian brands and services offering a pop-up festival from food to fashion called BeBrasil.

The Brazilian Trade and Promotion Agency, APEX, was inspired by a partnership last year with Macy’s to do a country tribute to Brazil at the department store. APEX worked with Profero, and later signed a deal with the digital agency to develop a strategy to promote Brazil in the U.S., leading to this week’s BeBrasil.

“We wanted to inspire New York and Americans to see Brazil in a more creative, sustainable way,” said Mauricio Borges, president of APEX. “The main goal is to improve our relationship.”

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Global adspend increased by 2.8 per cent year on year in the first half of 2013. However, the majority of European markets, including the UK, declined, according to figures from Nielsen.

Publicis Groupe and Omnicom are both feeling good about their prospects for a merger of the two ad behemoths to be approved by regulators across global markets. And now, the companies are trying to get their ducks in a row to plan just how the two companies will come together.

Maurice Levy, Publicis Groupe’s chairman-CEO — while addressing analysts and press about the company’s third quarter earnings on Wednesday — said that an integration committee will be set up shortly, and co-chaired by Mr. Levy and Omnicom Group’s CEO John Wren.

This task force will be made up of equal numbers of executives from both Omnicom and Publicis. Their job will be to look at all areas of integration and to co-ordinate specific teams to plan ahead and to deal with any issues that arise. The names of the people on the core team — giving a clue as to who will lead the merged group — will be announced at a management meeting of senior execs being held this week at The Four Seasons hotel in Miami. The meeting “Is all about trying to know and understand each other cultures, processes, and assets and starting to build the process for integration,” Mr. Levy said.

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It’s been some time since we’ve covered staffing news at JWT New York, but the agency has now sent word out that it’s welcomed some senior staffers, both in creative and account management. On the creative front, toplining the new hire list is Robert Frost (he must have fun with that), a 13-year ad vet who’s made the rounds in senior creative roles at the likes of Y&R and TBWA Chiat\Day but spent the majority of his career at McCann.

During his last stint at said agency, which lasted six years, Frost served as SVP/GCD on MasterCard among other accounts. Now at JWT, he will served as executive creative director on the Vonage account, which the agency won at the beginning of the year. Along with Frost, JWT NY has also brought on RAPP alum Bryan Gaffin to serve as GCD on its healthcare accounts including Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as Kimberly Samskin-Barger, former creative lead on AmEx OPEN at Digitas, as a CD.

On the account side, meanwhile, Sherri Chambers, who most recently served as group brand director on Carl’s Jr. and Hardees at 72andSunny, joins JWT NY as global business director a yet-to-be-named “new account.” Hmm.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Back in 2011, john st. unveiled this spot for Corby Distilleries Limited, part of their “Wiserhood” campaign promoting Wiser’s Whisky brand, in which a dickish guy makes a big deal over holding his girlfriend’s purse for a minute. He drops the bag on the ground, potentially damaging the contents within, and uses a plastic bag to pick it up, which he then turns inside out — as if the purse was, in fact, a steaming dog turd. Now john st. has resurrected the somewhat sexist “Wiserhood” campaign with a new spot featuring another boyfriend of the year.

In “Swan Song,” a couple are at the movies when the guy sees a display ad for a new action movie called “Swan Song” that contains the tagline “Death is back for an encore.” When his significant other returns (presumably from the bathroom or something) she asks if he’s picked a movie for them. They look at the movie titles currently showing and the woman says “Hmm…’Swan Song,’ sounds romantic.” The guy enthusiastically agrees, in all likelihood knowing fully well that his significant other is going to utterly hate the movie for the next couple of hours. What a dick.

Here’s my problem with this spot, putting the sexism aside for a moment: Who goes to the movies these days without knowing what they’re going to see? Going to the movies is freaking expensive. Too expensive to go into all willy-nilly “I’ll see whatever” and just walk into a terrible movie. Plus, people tend to know what’s playing from advertising and the Internet. If they don’t know what’s playing, they look it up and pick something out before going to the theater. It’s not 1994. While I understand that this is a short ad, and isn’t all that considered with verisimilitude, this still bothered me. It makes the spot seem like it’s from a different time, which I would guess is not what they were going for. Credits after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Saatchi & Saatchi London has bolstered its creative department with the appointment of Allan Stevenson, a former art director from the Chicago agency The Escape Pod.

Well, it looks like folks on the Spy line were on to something with this one as a little digging shows that Tina Braun and Danielle Penn are both no longer with MRM New York. We hear it was the agency that parted ways last week with Braun and Penn, who served as VP/account director and senior integrated project manager, respectively. No word yet on Braun’s next endeavor, but she spent over a decade at McCann Erickson and MRM, moving up the charts from account exec to her most current role, working with brands including USPS and Nestle. Penn, who worked at McGarryBowen as senior digital project manager prior to MRM, has already moved on to the client side, taking on a similar project management role at Prudential. No word yet from MRM on if there are plans to replace, but folks on the Spy line are telling us there may be “more cuts to come.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Omnicom, the owner of the BBDO and OMD networks, has reported pre-tax profits of $336.6 million (£210.7 million) in the three months to the end of September, down three per cent year on year, despite the UK reporting 7.5 per cent organic revenue growth.

Passionné par la photographie depuis son premier voyage à Petra avec l’appareil argentique de son père, Alexis Pazoumian s’est récemment intéressé aux Sâdhus, hommes vivant en Inde qui ont reconcé à la vie en société pour se consacrer à la spiritualité. Des clichés d’une grande beauté à découvrir dans l’article.