Hasta La Creative!

You’ll recall that Translation won the Bud Light account from mcgarrybowen in late 2012 — but it didn’t hold on to the business for long.

Throughout 2013 and 2014, BBDO’s Chicago office swiped that client piece by piece: first Bud Light left, then BBDO took Bud Light Platinum and, finally, Bud Light Lime one year ago. After the account changed hands, Translation shuttered its Chicago office.

Of course, Energy BBDO’s Pac Man Super Bowl ad for Bud Light earned quite a bit of attention in February. Mashable even mentioned CCO Mark Taylor by name.

While the business still resides with the BBDO organization, we recently learned that the account would be moving from Chicago to the agency’s main office in New York. This change follows AB InBev’s decision, announced last December, to relocate its sales and marketing teams from St. Louis to Manhattan.

The transition has, so far, not been entirely smooth for BBDO.

The agency refrained from comment on related staffing changes, but sources tell us that certain individuals in its creative department hired specifically to work on Bud Light in Chicago in late 2013 and 2014 have been asked move to New York. Others will transfer to different accounts handled by Energy BBDO.

Some departures also occurred as a result of these changes, though we don’t have specific numbers and a source claims that the overall effect on BBDO’s employee account was a wash.

The bottom line: BBDO will continue to produce work for the client, though its Chicago staff is now slightly smaller and its New York staff slightly larger.

Updates if we get them.

It would appear that someone who either works within the Saatchi & Saatchi New York office or has a very deep knowledge of the organization is not happy with recent decisions made by agency management.

Today, the shop apparently let creative technologist Steve Nowicki go after almost four years — and someone who uses the pen name “Vox Saatchi” and writes in the royal “we” expressed his or her displeasure in a rant that went out to everyone in the office under the subject line “Sinking Ship.”

It’s more than a bit brutal in addressing CEO-since-2013 Brent Smart:

Dear Brent and the Rest of the Peanut Gallery Senior Management,

Today you fired one of the best employees at Saatchi, Steve Nowicki. Steve was energetic, intelligent, kind and incredibly helpful. He was one of the best parts of Saatchi New York. He worked tirelessly to help each and every account. He would lend a hand whenever you needed him. He was, quite simply, the best.

It makes sense that you let him go, however, because you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re leading the agency into the ground. We hope someone, anyone at the agency can forward this to Kevin Roberts and Robert Senior.

Several weeks ago you told us that the new normal is being overworked and that there is no help on the way. That you are tired of hearing people complain. You said if we don’t like how things are at Saatchi, we should leave. That this is “the new normal”. You point fingers and place blame on everyone while not taking any responsibility for losing (lots of) business and losing (fantastic) employees. A great CEO would inspire us to greatness, yet the opposite is happening.

People are leaving on a daily basis because you’re causing this ship to sink. And instead of turning things around, you let go one of the best employees we’ve had in years.

Saatchi has a great name. And at one point it created great work. But not under this leadership. And it’s clear now that we’re definitely heading in the wrong direction. And you’re right, no help is on the way. Not with you in charge.

We hope things change soon! We really do. This place could be fantastic. We need someone to turn it around, and fast. We’re hopeful. We work hard everyday. We need someone who works hard for us.

Sincerely,

Vox Saatchi

It’s not clear whether “Vox” is addressing the creative shakeup that hit the agency last Summer and preceded the hire of Droga5’s Paul Bichler and CP+B veterans Chris Moreira and Mark Schöller as ECDs. But the anonymous writer claims to speak for the employees and is definitely not the same person who runs the internal “day-to-day life” Hudson/Houston account.

In short, someone is pissed.

U.K. indie agency Karmarama, which works with the likes of BBC and Honda, made several new creative hires to help emphasize its integrated offering.

Among those joining the agency’s roster are Creative Director Jo Jenkins, who spent the last six-and-a-half years as creative partner at Proximity BBDO, where she ran creative on P&G and Volkswagen among other accounts. In her new role at Karmarama, Jenkins will creative direct the agency’s CRM output.

Along with Jenkins, Karmarama welcomes two creative duos: Pete Ioulianou and Ollie Agius, who most recently led work on Adidas while at iris, and Vicki Murfitt and Paul Crump, two Engine alums who include projects for BMW and Rolls-Royce in their portfolios.

Regarding the creative moves, Karmarama group executive creative director Caitlin Ryan says:

“We are one of the few genuinely media-neutral, integrated ad agencies – for that to work, you need best-in-class, highly talented creatives across the disciplines who are brilliant at collaborating. Easy to say – harder to do. Which is why Karmarama is attracting such top level talent from many different places.”

The agency’s recent work includes campaigns for Cobra beer, Air New Zealand, and the BBC, in addition to a literally topless campaign for CoppaFeel that won a fair amount of attention..

For a “Flashback Friday,” do you remember this 2008 ad starring David Hasselhoff?

“Everybody will start to cheer when you put on your sailing shoes.” -Robert Palmer Sperry Topsider is the favorite summertime footwear of WASPy sailors from Nantucket to Coronado. It’s great to have a built-in audience—and with 80 years in business, Sperry has one—but how does the boat shoe expand its footprint beyond the boarding school […]

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You’ve almost certainly seen the Microsoft ad starring Robert Downey, Jr. today. We covered it a couple of hours ago, and this afternoon we spoke to some of the principal parties behind the campaign from Seattle-based agency POSSIBLE.

Chief Creative Officer of the Americas Danielle Trivisonno Hawley and Seattle SVP Josh Schmiesing gave us the inside story on the work.

How did this particular project come to be?

Josh: We’re retained on the Microsoft Office business. They wanted a campaign tailored to students and put out a brief on how we could do that for the One Note product specifically.

We had an insight on how the younger generation is all about collaboration, so the idea was about involvement: how do you get other people involved in your projects…and how can Microsoft help take these ideas to the next level?

We quite literally scoured the internet for stories, looked at hundreds, and landed on three involving students…doing selfless things.

Danielle: specifically these were people who could benefit from using One Note.

What’s the story behind the project?

Josh: Albert Manero, a Fulbright scholar, was driving and listening to the radio when he heard about E-nable, a company which was starting to create artificial hands for children without them. He was so moved he knew he had to get involved, so he went into school and talked to a group of people (which is where his org Limbitless Solutions was born). They used 3D printing to create the materials for the arms and engineer them with electronics.

Danielle: Each arm cost about $350; they do things like start a jar of “coffee money” to help provide the arms to families who need them.

When did Robert Downey, Jr. Get Involved?

Danielle: When we met Albert, the energy was contagious. The creative team dug deep and asked, how do we make these kids famous?

Josh: Microsoft was able to get a meeting with Robert, and from there we pitched the idea. He asked a lot of questions about Albert and, like Danielle said, it was clear that this was a big deal. It was a quick turnaround on the “yes.”

What was the creative direction’s behind the campaign?

Danielle: Senior CD Aaron Howe and ACD Leif Allen, who were the creative masterminds behind this project, knew that the power of the campaign was not about being a polished ad: it was the authenticity of the interaction between parties.

Downey was on board: we wanted to make it as low-budget as it could possible to focus on the spirit of the interaction between RDJ and Albert — not about throwing money behind it.

How did the shoot proceed?

Danielle: it was very high-energy: we were in awe of Robert and he was in awe of Albert.

It was one take, and the whole thing was absolutely as organic as it looks.

Josh: Robert was both in-character and out of character. Clearly he’s playing Tony Stark at some points.

Marvel was also great. We had to get permission to use the arm, and you see Stark Industries on the cases.

The night before the shoot, the Marvel prop guy dropped off the props. He also dropped off a case made especially for Alex’s arm. So Robert asked Marvel to make that special case for him. The propmaster then spent an hour talking with Albert about engineering, 3D printing, etc., and the two will end up working together.

Marvel was very supportive; it wasn’t hard to get them on board.

How has the response been?

Josh: On Facebook alone, it’s received close to 25 million views on Robert’s page. It’s been on every morning news show as well.

Danielle: If you look at all the comments, this piece has been truly uplifting. Usually you get a lot of trollers, but there have been maybe five trollish comments in over 25 million views, which speaks to the energy of the project.

What about the next chapter of the project?

Josh: The next student is Neha Gupta.

Short version: at 9 years old, she took a trip to India with her parents, because the tradition in her family was to give to others on your birthday rather than getting gifts yourself. They went to an orphanage, and she was so inspired that she went home sold most of her belongings to raise money for orphans in India. She’s already received the Children’s Peace Prize and been honored at related events.

We’ll be on campus next week at Penn State to get more students involved. Hopefully we can get another sponsor like Robert Downey, Jr. to help as well.

If the names Andrew Berg and Nicolas Will don’t ring a bell, maybe now they will as the duo, who have resumes with aforementioned AKQA and Olson along with the likes of Ogilvy on their resumes, have launched a new Minneapolis/San Francisco-based shop dubbed Humbdinger & Sons. According to the parties involved, Berg and Will have only now opened the curtain to reveal an operation focused on innovation, video and design that’s been in “stealth mode” for months.

You can check out an example of some of their work for SmartMarker brand Equil above, but their client base has already extended to the likes of Mark Cuban-backed LED SmartBulb brand Ilumi and Adidas wearable tech line, Northern Grade. You can maybe sense a theme here. Describing starting up a new shop, Will, creative director (Berg’s specialty, meanwhile, is on the account side), says “We’ve worked in both agencies and startups, and have seen a huge disconnect. The business models of each are oil and water — big agencies demand big budgets. They’re slow, layered with fat, and don’t have their pulse on emerging technology. But, startups have the most upside. He adds, “These clients are new brands, new ideas, in a new world. They’re not unwanted stepchildren— they’re juggernauts in the growth stage, and they’re the future. We get it. And them.”

After a source tipped us off this morning, adidas confirmed that it has chosen 72andSunny as creative AOR for its Sport division. There was no review, and 72’s offices in Los Angeles and Amsterdam will both work on the account.

This could bad news for 180LA, which has been adidas’ AOR for several years and produced the brand’s most recent “Sport15? campaign: the release notes that Johannes Leonardo will continue to serve as AOR for Adidas Originals but does not mention the former. Still, a spokesperson tells us that 180 “will continue to be on our roster of agencies.”

Future work from 72andSunny will include “a strategic focus on soccer, running, basketball and women’s.”

Here’s your boilerplate statement from Jocelyn Robiot, the client’s SVP of brand management:

“Our communication strategy moving forward will be relentless and aggressive storytelling, so that we can take our expression of sport to the next level. To achieve these ambitions, we set out to work with the best. With their history of innovation and creating cutting-edge campaigns, 72andSunny is the perfect partner to help us demonstrate that adidas is the best sports brand in the world.”

In case you missed it (you didn’t), MRY made headlines in certain tech media circles this week for a stunt video in which it claimed to have begun hiring drones as employees…and someone was a little perturbed that we didn’t post on it.

Here is CMO David Berkowitz’s guest story on The Verge and here’s the video itself:

The agency also lost its CCO Cedric Devitt to Big Spaceship this week; the latter agency, which seems to be on something of a minor hiring spree, pried VP of tech Vinny DiBartolo away from R/GA as well.

But, as Berkowitz tells us:

“Unfortunately for the drones, their interviews with the creative team didn’t go over that well, but they do hold more promise for delivering coffee. Fortunately, we had some great leadership already in place, and our veteran David Weinstock is now our sole Chief Creative Officer.”

You may remember that, almost exactly one year ago, Devitt released an internal memo to clarify Weinstock’s promotion to the co-CCO position after three years as ECD; since last March, he has overseen creative for all of MRY’s clients “west of the Mississippi.”

While it’s true that most agencies employ “zero drones,” Deutsch LA proved over the holidays that MRY is hardly alone in jumping on this trend…and that drones have questionable taste in whiskey.

Alex Bogusky decided to go with The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today blog to clear up all the smoke and mystery regarding his newest cause-driven project (which is not directly related to his other soon-to-launch cause-driven project).

As reported earlier, the new hot thing is a collaboration with media company Fusion, and it will focus on the sort of cause-based marketing that’s all the rage among the young folks.

The Boulder-based venture will be known as Fearless (homepage here), and its own tagline heralds “The birth of a new agency platform.”

What does that mean? Here’s the intro film:

Bogusky says that the “social impact” promotional model is “broken” on the client side despite agencies’ best efforts. As you can see from the clip above, the key element in this newly-developed equation is Fusion, which will use the power of digital distribution to ensure that millions of young people who watch its channel and follow its various accounts will actually see the work created by Fearless.

Fusion’s branded content division, however, will remain a completely separate entity.

Bogusky will serve as a creative advisor, though his official title remains unclear; joining him as co-founders are former CP+B VP/Director of Cultural and Business Insights Dagny Scott and Leslie Freeman, veteran of both CP+B and Media Arts Lab (the two worked together at government-focused PR firm Glover Park Group before leaving to help launch Fearless).

The only clients mentioned in the WSJ report are concert series Live Earth and privately-funded healthcare advocacy group The California Endowment.

Fusion’s own press release goes further (note that it omits any mention of CP+B’s best-known clients):

“The agency will develop multi-platform content spanning video, art, text, comedy, documentaries, television, events, and sharable content, all with an eye toward raising awareness and moving millennials to action on key issues and ideas that encourage positive change in the world.”

Here’s the key selling point:

“…the added value of a built-in millennial audience through Fusion’s television, social and digital platforms.”

Bogusky elaborates on his thesis, which will sound familiar to anyone in PR, advertising, or marketing: young people want to feel like the companies whose products they buy are performing some sort of social good.

“Mashing up agency and media solves a huge problem for socially-minded clients who have incredibly compelling messages but no way to find their audience…Although millennials are more interested in doing good, they aren’t motivated by the same old dry boring, righteous approach. They have the attitude that changing the world can and needs to be fun. And I happen to agree with that.”

What will the agency’s work look like? Will it partner with brands like Burger King, Kraft, or Frito-Lay if they happen to be working on environmental advocacy/corporate social responsibility projects? This remains to be seen.

In other news, advertising by any other name is still advertising.

I took a speed reading class once when I was in college. It seemed the smart thing to do, given the intense workload. But I couldn’t train my eye to skim. Then one day the teacher asks, “by chance are you a writer?” Writers can’t speed read, she told me. They care too much about […]

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