Aug
30
Aug
30
Nando's: White Meat, Dark Meat
Posted in: Uncategorized
Aug
30
SapientRazorfish Global Chief Creative Officer Daniel Bonner Leaving to Pursue ‘New Opportunities’
Posted in: UncategorizedToday Daniel Bonner, global chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe’s SapientNitro, announced that he will be leaving that agency after six years for undisclosed “new opportunities.”
The CCO made the announcement via a LinkedIn post that primarily recapped his six years with the agency. It reads as follows:
After 6 years since my arrival at Razorfish, today I announce that I’m moving on to the next chapter, new opportunities, pastures new.
When I joined the agency in 2011, the challenge was to elevate the role of creativity in the business, set new standards, win business and build the creative and innovative reputation globally. And through all the changes we faced, I believe that together with a whole bunch of talented folks WE achieved all those things. We won 100’s of millions of dollars in business, we won awards and lots of them – at one point 300% more than the agency had ever won before – analysts began to believe we were the market leader and some institutions believed we were the best in the world at what we did and kindly announced us ‘Agency of the Year’ to prove it.
I want to thank all of those that made a difference over the last 6 years—you all know exactly who you are—and remember that creativity is without doubt the most sustainable competitive advantage any business could wish for—use it wisely friends.
As you can see, the post does not clarify Bonner’s exact reasons for leaving or specify whether the “next chapter” concerns a specific job.
The departing leader has a long history in the London agency world, spending nearly 15 years with AKQA before joining what was then simply called Razorfish in late 2011. Only a few months later, CEO Bob Lord announced to staff that the search for a global CCO had ended with the internal promotion.
Bonner survived the merger of Sapient.Nitro and Razorfish and all the associated leadership changes while travelling all around the world and getting little or no sleep (according to this 2015 Campaign “day in the life” feature).
A SapientRazorfish spokesperson has not yet to responded to a request for additional comment on the news today.
Aug
30
The Variable Promotes David Mullen to President, Partner
Posted in: Uncategorized
More than a year after the sentencing of Bill Grizack, his former employer The Variable appears to have moved on.
This week the agency named a new partner with the promotion of David Mullen to president. Keith Vest, who formerly served as president and is also an agency partner, will now move into the chairman role.
“We started pursuing David five years ago because we heard amazing things about him from anyone who had ever encountered him, and the crazy thing is that he still exceeded our high expectations from his first day with us,” Vest said in a statement. “We began planning the roadmap for this transition two years ago because we knew The Variable needed David at the helm to continue driving our growth trajectory and achieve the very best potential for our agency and for our clients.”
“While we’ve accomplished great growth and developed award-winning work over the past few years, I’m even more excited about chasing our vision for the next few years,” Mullen added. “We’ve assembled a ridiculously talented team, changed our agency model, evolved how we partner with clients, and developed the infrastructure to create and co-create new products, services, and companies. Even greater things are ahead and I’m humbled to help lead the agency there.”
Mullen joined The Variable as director of account management at the beginning of 2013, working with clients including Procter & Gamble, Johnsonville Sausages, Lowes Foods, Char Broil, Duke Health and Merck. In August of 2016 he was also named executive vice president. Before joining The Variable he spent nearly seven years with MullenLowe (no relation) as vice president, account director, leading the BASF U.S. Crop Protection portfolio and also working with clients including Sealy and EMBARQ.
Meanwhile, The Variable’s chief creative officer and fellow partner Joe Parrish has improved his own SEO by actively writing op-eds on #agencylife for The Drum.
Aug
30
Huge Atlanta Promotes Carrie Philpott to Managing Director
Posted in: Uncategorized
Huge Atlanta promoted Carrie Philpott from group vice president, client services to managing director.
In the role, Philpott will be tasked with leading the office’s growth and direction while continuing to work on strategy for clients including Lowe’s UPS and AMC Theatres.
“Carrie’s success leading client services for our Atlanta office and her proven track record of delivering end-to-end results for our clients made Carrie the clear choice for the role of Managing Director,” Huge international president Michael Koziol, who also oversees the Atlanta office, said in a statement. “I see her as a key member of our global operating team and know she brings so much potential to this new role.”
“The passion for design-driven digital experiences and digital transformation is infectious, and being a part of the agency’s growth has been a career highlight,” Philpott added. “The culture and talent in our office is unmatched in the Atlanta market and I’m confident in great opportunities for growth ahead.”
Philpott joined Huge in October of 2015, following nearly two years as senior vice president, managing director for DigitasLBi’s Atlanta office. She originally joined DigitasLBi back in 2000 and served as vice president, group director and senior vice president, group account director before being named managing director. While with DigitasLBi, she led the agency’s multinational Delta Air Lines team and digital strategy for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Aug
30
Longtime Commenter Bill Crandall Takes Flack for LinkedIn Post Comparing Hurricanes Harvey and Sandy
Posted in: UncategorizedSo, you know Bill Crandall, right? Hell, we all know Bill.
He’s not just the CMO and founding partner of Stedman Crandall Business Development, he’s also a regular in the comment threads on a whole bunch of sites including this one and AdAge and some others we can’t think of at the moment. And he really never gave a shit whether the comments were anonymous, because he always used his real name and picture.
Those are some balls. As his Twitter bio puts it, he is “a man among girls.”
But his real favorite platform is LinkedIn, and yesterday he got some pushback from his connections for a post that compared Hurricane Harvey—which is still ravaging Texas and Louisiana—to the 2012 weather incident known as “Super Storm Sandy.”
Here’s a screenshot of the since-deleted post.
Soooooo, you can maybe see why people got a little pissed about this one.
First, it’s just not accurate to say that New York, Connecticut and New Jersey were all under water. Lots of areas did indeed get thoroughly screwed, including certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan and Staten Island for the NYC folks. Thousands of people were left without power, many homes were damaged, and public transportation didn’t fully recover for weeks.
It was bad, but it was nowhere close to what’s been happening in Texas over the past few days. Oh, and that is an image from the movie The Day After Tomorrow. There was no damage done to Jake Gyllenhall or the Statue of Liberty in 2012.
But the comments were all pretty negative, with people calling Bill insensitive and such. So he deleted the post and followed it up today with an explanation of sorts. Not an apology.
Now, this is really a different argument. Ted Cruz did indeed claim that the Sandy relief bill was loaded with “pork,” and even Chris Christie now strongly argues that he was wrong because Cruz is an asshole among assholes who does everything in the interest of shamelessly promoting himself and gets away with it because it’s not possible to primary him from the right in Texas.
And yes, anyone like John Cornyn who votes against bills to help other states recover from big storms and then begs for federal assistance when it happens at home is a typical piece of shit politician. This is not a strictly partisan thing, as Long Island Republican Rep Peter King proved by calling Cruz out. The only people defending Ted in that case were his former comms dude and fellow residents of “Kekistan.”
But again, this isn’t really the argument Bill was making in the first post, which was why people got all pissy about it. So far the only engagement on his follow-up comes from some guy who retweets Donald Trump Jr.
We haven’t reached out to Bill directly because we feel like he summed up his thoughts pretty clearly in the post today.
Aug
30
Organic Doritos Give Frito-Lay a Pathway Into Whole Foods
Posted in: Uncategorized
Amazon.com Inc.’s acquisition of Whole Foods is coming at just the right time for Frito-Lay, the snack giant known for Doritos, Ruffles and Funyuns.
The division of PepsiCo Inc. now has versions of 11 core chip brands without artificial ingredientsincluding Lay’s, Tostitos and Cheetosand it’s aiming to break out of the traditional snack aisle and get into organic grocery stores. The lineup, marketed under the name “Simply,” meets all the criteria needed to be sold in Whole Foods, according to PepsiCo executive Jonathan McIntyre.
It’s all part of a push to build a more healthful reputation for Frito-Lay brands, a significant undertaking at a company famous for bright-orange cheese powder. Natural products are the biggest source of growth for the industry right now, said McIntyre, who oversees research and development for PepsiCo’s snacks. And Frito-Lay sees an opportunity to reach new customersand charge higher pricesby targeting organic-food shoppers.
Aug
30
Watch the Newest Ads on TV From Mercedes-Benz, American Express, Toyota and More
Posted in: Uncategorized
Every weekday, we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new TV commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention and conversion analytics from 10 million smart TVs. The ads here ran on national TV for the first time yesterday.
A few highlights: Jon Hamm narrates an ad that celebrates the 2018 Mercedes-Benz S-Class, ending with an emphatic “The bestor nothing.” Toyota shows off the 2018 Camry in a spot featuring a guy who loves driving it so much that he chooses pick-up instead of delivery when ordering a pizza. And both Kohl’s and Macy’s hype their big Labor Day weekend sales.
Aug
30
USAA Names New Marketing Chief as CMO Retires
Posted in: Uncategorized
Insurance and financial company USAA, which serves American military members, veterans and their families, has named Wes Laird to chief marketing officer, succeeding Roger Adams, who is preparing to retire at the end of the year.
Adams, who took on the CMO role in 2010, will hand over day-to-day responsibilities to Laird on Sept. 1, but will remain in an advisory role through Dec. 31.
Laird, a seven-year USAA veteran, will report to Michael Merwarth, exec VP-enterprise strategy and marketing.
Aug
30
PayPal Credit Card to Target Brick-and-Mortar Shopping
Posted in: Uncategorized
PayPal Holdings Inc., is turning to its old nemesis, plastic, to help it expand beyond the digital realm.
The online payments venture is introducing a credit card that offers customers 2 percent cash back on purchasesone of the industry’s highest rebate rateswith no annual fee. The rewards will appear in users’ online wallets and can be spent immediately on additional PayPal purchases or transferred to a bank.
The move is part of Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman’s effort to transform PayPal from a payments button on websites into a versatile financial tool for everyday use, even in brick-and-mortar stores. He’s forged 24 deals over the past 18 months with technology and financial companies including Apple Inc., Visa Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., looking to make PayPal ubiquitous in the lives of its 210 million customers. The company already tested the card with some of them.
Aug
30
Just How Herbal Are Those Essences?
Posted in: Uncategorized
Procter & Gamble Co. is making a bet that Febreze will still smell as sweet when customers know it contains tetrahydrolinalool.
The world’s largest consumer-products company will begin listing the ingredients in fragrances from items like Febreze and Herbal Essences, opening up a new front in the push to make labels more transparent.
P&G had been hearing for years that customers wanted more disclosure, spokesman Scott Heid said. Fragrance “was something they wanted to learn more about,” said Heid, who holds a doctorate in toxicology.
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