Hasta La Creative!

Ad man Floyd Hayes, formerly creative director at Cunning, has launched the World’s Fastest Agency. Hayes has a long history of interesting stunts including most recently sending a 3D replica of his head to prospective employers.

This week, Hayes has launched a new agency that promises to be really fast in three easy steps. Here’s how it works. First, send $999 to Hayes via PayPal. Second, DM Hayes your 140 character brief to @FastestAgency. And three, receive a 140 character response from Hayes.

As proof of concept, Hayes points to similar work he did while at Cunning where a brief, “Gain media and buzz for our park-anywhere small car,” resulted in the concept, “Attach replica cars to landmark city buildings.”

Would you send Hayes $999?

So you want to win a Lion at Cannes this year? Good luck with that. And to what end anyway? So you can put it on a shelf, let it collect dust and hope it leads to new business? How about a more proven method?

How about a method that can increase your revenue 3,597 percent? Oh, you think this is yet another cheesy white paper offer? Well it is a whitepaper offer but it’s not cheesy in the least.

Smart agency owners know that survival requires an imminent shift toward digital marketing services like blogging, content creation, search engine optimization and social media. But that transition is easier said than done.

That’s why HubSpot (yes, I’ve consumed the Kool-Aid and yes, I write for their blog and no, I’m not actually making any money on this offer) interviewed the leaders of six agencies, all with a variety of backgrounds, all who came to the same realization that change was imperative. They acquired digital talent, changed their services and pricing models, and began selling integrated inbound marketing services to grow their businesses.

In this report, you’ll hear stories and advice from:

Greg Linnemanstons, President of Weidert Group
Aaron Aders, Co-Founder and Marketing Research Director of Digital Relevance (formerly Slingshot SEO)
Paul Roetzer, Founder and CEO of PR 20/20
Bob Ruffalo, Founder and CEO of Impact Branding
Tiffany Sauder, President of Element Three
John McTigue, Executive Vice President and Co-Owner of Kuno Creative

Let that Lion collect dust. Download this whitepaper now and start doing something that will actually make you some coin.

Well, this is one of the more interesting items to start of the work week. Over the weekend, we received a letter that Huge analytics director Yosaif Cohain sent to his colleagues at the agency in which he announced his resignation. Why, well, read on verbatim and we’ll continue after.

“Friends –

Because of moral objections that I have with Huge working with Al Jazeera, I have resigned from my position at Huge, effective immediately. I simply cannot work for a company that works with them. Today is my last day.

I know some might think my decision is rash or extreme. You should know that I have thought about this at length for the past two weeks and am very confident in my decision. I won’t attempt to convince anyone about my opinions or beliefs – I will just hope that even if you disagree with them, you can respect my decision and my need to stay true to who I am and what I believe in. I’m leaving with a lot of sadness and disappointment in Huge, but also with my head held high.

I’m not sure what my next steps will be – I’m going to take a step back to evaluate a few things and will be updating my resume. If you have leads for me, I’d appreciate them.

Thank you all for your ongoing friendship and support – I will miss you guys. To those of you that have offered words of support and encouragement about my decision, I thank you in particular – this has not been easy for me.

All my best –

Yosaif”

Yes, Cohain has indeed resigned, but interestingly enough, sources tell us that at the time he quit, Huge was not actually working with the aforementioned broadcaster. We’re hearing that the agency’s D.C. office specifically was just one of  several digital shops that Al Jazeera has recently been talking to as it transitions following its acquisition of Al Gore‘s Current TV, which perhaps was divisive enough to begin with. So, maybe there were other reasons at play for Cohain’s departure from Huge NY, who knows, but we’re staying neutral on his decision.

When pressed, Huge had “no comment” on the matter.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last week, a bevy of banana-filled images had us wondering whether this was an odd preview of the new agency formed by Tom O’Keefe and Nick Paul, who previously served as North American CD and chief global growth officer, respectively, at Draftfcb.

Well, thankfully their new, Chicago-based shop is not called “Whiskey Bananas,” but in fact the more pro-sounding O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul (though the imagery of both spirit and fruit adorns the walls as you can see here). The Reinhard in the mix is Amazon alum Matt Reinhard, who takes on the role of founder/CCO at the new shop while O’Keefe serves as founder/CEO and Paul, founder/president. Today marks day one at OKRP, which you can find out more about here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Though he’s listed as VP, director of technology at Brooklyn-based, IPG-owned Huge, we have received word that Chris Magdelinskas was just one a of a few heads of technology at the agency, which we’ve learned has let him go. According to those in the know, Huge did make the decision to let the exec go as part of of a reorganization of the technology discipline at Huge into engineering and technology strategy teams.

Prior to joining Huge, where he spent a year, the New York-based Magdelinskas worked with the likes of CBS and UGO. We’re hearing that ex-Hugers have started a Facebook page, but feel free to leave a link.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Being a cold-blooded American (by acquisition, not by birth), I choose to deny the existence of ketchup brands outside of Heinz and Hunt’s. So when I hear that an international brand exists by the name of “Felix,” ostensibly named after the animated cat with a magic bag of tricks (or so I like to think), I pretend it only exists in the minds of silly foreigners who dream that they can compete with U.S. dominance over sweetened tomato flavorings.

For a moment, I will play along and buy into the fact that Felix is celebrating its 50th anniversary. To celebrate, Helsinki-based agency Hasan & Partners have (allegedly) commissioned pop artist Nathan Wyburn to create portraits of ketchup consumers using Felix in place of paint. As you can see in the above clip, Wyburn deftly exhibits his ability for turning a young woman’s photo into an accurate ketchup-y facsimile. (Minus the nose. Don’t know what happened to Wyburn there, but I guess once it got a little smudged, there was no turning back.)

For one week starting today, fans are asked to submit their photo on Felix Finland’s Facebook page with the opportunity for Wyburn to give them the ketchup treatment. Facebook fans can also watch Wyburn create do his thing in real time, praying that he doesn’t do to their nose what he did to the girl’s in the video.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Looking for a new job but getting frustrated? Are you trying to figure out who you need to talk to? What does a company really mean when they say they “work hard and play hard?”

In this episode of “Score That Job,” career expert, author and mediabistro editor Vicki Salemi sat down with Lori Rubinson of Lippe Taylor, a New York agency with clients like IKEA and Elizabeth Arden that focuses on women through public relations, advertising and social marketing.

>You may remember Lippe Taylor from an episode of “Cubes”: Cubes: Office Tour of PR Agency Lippe Taylor

Find out why they’re looking for someone who is creative, not “boring” nice and how you can “Score That Job.”

You can view our other MediabistroTV productions on our YouTube Channel.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We’ve received confirmation that Richard Black, who’s spent the last six-and-a-half years at the IPG-owned Momentum as an SVP and director of client services, has been bumped up to general manager of the agency’s New York office. From what we’ve been told, Black (pictured) replaces Laura Loughlin, who has transitioned to a similar role at Momentum Entertainment Group, which was launched back in June 2011. During his career, Black has worked on the account side at the likes of TracyLocke and Saatchi & Saatchi prior to joining Momentum, while Loughlin has spent well over a dozen years at the last agency.

In addition to the Black/Loughlin move, Momentum has promoted Tom Boccuzzi, who has spent the last five-plus years at said agency and has worked at the likes of Y&R and G2 in the past, has been promoted to the role of SVP, operations director NY working on the American Express business.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

More dispatches from the ether as we wind down our quick trip to Austin. After spending just 10 months in L.A. at 72andSunny, where he served as ACD/copywriter on efforts for Samsung including last year’s LeBron James–heads-to-get-his-ring spot and the “Unicorn Apocalypse” saga, Patrick Maravilla has headed up north to join up with San Francisco-based Evolution Bureau as creative director. Regarding the new hire, EVB ECD Steve Babcock, who himself has recently joined the shop from CP+B, says, “Patrick is one of those naturally talented guys. From stand-up comedy to screenplays to solving brands’ complex marketing problems, his skill set across all mediums, combined with his big heart and personality, make us extremely fortunate to have him.”

Maravilla is no stranger to to CP+B either as he spent four years at the agency serving as an ACD, working with clients including Coke Zero and Burger King. During his career, the self-proclaimed “stand-up comedy instructor” has held a similar position at AKQA SF, where he helped lead creative on Xbox and “Your Interview with the President” YouTube effort.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Advertising Agency: Rasas UAE Executive Creative Director: Rani El Khatib Creative Director: S.M. Ziyad Art Directors: S.M. Ziyad, Jade David Copywriters: Kitch Velasco, Abdulrahman Khalil Account Director: Shereen Fotouh Typographer: Shajeel Rehman Account manager: Karim Ghoneim Via [AdBlogArabia]