BBH North America CEO Pat Lafferty, New York CCO Ari Weiss Are Leaving the Agency

According to an internal memo sent to staff by creative chairman John Patroulis and obtained by Ad Age, BBH North America CEO Pat Lafferty and BBH New York CCO Ari Weiss are both leaving the agency.

According to the memo, Lafferty and Weiss are leaving the agency to pursue unspecified, but separate, opportunities. It also states that the agency plans to “immediately start the search for the next CEO,” although the scope of the new appointment will be New York, rather than North America, according to AdAge’s sources. BBH global chief growth officer Mike Densmore will also fill the role of interim CEO during this search. 

Lafferty joined BBH in the North American CEO role in May of 2013, following nearly three years at McCann Worldgroup. With McCann he served as managing director, global brand community and then COO, North America. Prior to joining that shop, he spent three and a half years serving as CMO for Travel Channel, following two years as senior vice president, marketing for Discovery Communications.

Weiss was promoted to the chief creative officer role in January, when Patroulis ascended to his current creative chairman role; he originally joined BBH New York in March of 2011 as executive creative director after serving stints in CD roles at BBDO, GS&P and 180LA and writing copy for Cliff Freeman & Partners and W+K.

Patroulis will move back into his former CCO role in addition to his creative chairman duties. “This has the benefit of creating a simpler leadership structure – creative/strategist/account – which has worked out pretty well for BBH throughout its nearly 35-year history,” he wrote in the note to staff.

BBH NY Shows Gamers How to Do a Proper Victory Dance for PS4

BBH New York enlisted dancers from the New York City Ballet for a series of ads depicting victory celebrations for PS4, an extension of the “Greatness Awaits” campaign.

Each of the six spots begins with a group of dancers performing classic ballet moves in scenery/dress meant to evoke certain styles of games (sports, space, war, etc.) before a musical change signifies a shift in style and they perform a more modern victory dance. At the end of each 30-second spot, viewers are invited to contribute to the linked social initiative, calling on gamers to submit their own victory dance on Instagram for a chance at winning a PS4. At this point, any gaming advertising that tries something different is a welcome departure, and the social initiative has the potential to lead to some fun engagement with fans. We do wish, however, that they had managed a take of “Dunk” (stick around for it after the jump) where she actually makes the shot. (more…)

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BBH NY Launches Campaign for PS4?s ‘Infamous: Second Son’

BBH New York continues its PS4 onslaught with a live-action spot at the center of their new campaign for Infamous: Second Son, the third game in the best-selling Infamous series and Sony PS4 exclusive (you might consider it Sony’s answer to TitanFall, which we reported on yesterday).

The entirely live-action (although there is some silent gameplay footage on the end screen before the Playstation logo), :75 spot “depicts a locked-down city of Seattle where the superhuman protagonist, Delsin Rowe, fights back against the oppressive Department of Unified Protection (DUP).” Rowe is depicted in the ad by a somewhat passable lookalike in his trademark red cap, trailed by the DUP. The new ad teases the kind of action players can expect from the game, while avoiding revealing anything about the story. It should draw interest from both fans of the series and newcomers.

BBH New York’s campaign rolls out with “TV advertising based on the short film,” as well as additional “complementary online advertising.” Gameplay developer Sucker Punch, meanwhile, has released a trailer showcasing gameplay features players can expect in the new game. Infamous: Second Son will be released on globally on March 21st. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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BBH NY ECD Ari Weiss Takes Us Behind the Cube for PS4?s ‘Perfect Day’

I don’t own a PS4, but I catch myself periodically humming the cover of Lou Reed‘s “Perfect Day” in BBH NY’s video game spot with the same title. For a brief refresher: the 60-second spot shows two gamers as iterations of the characters they’re competing with, such as medieval gladiators and race car drivers. If you watch enough TV, you’re bound to watch it. And it sticks with you, mainly because of the song, but compared to typical ad humor and action, this spot just marches to the beat of a different drummer.

One of those drummers – Ari Weiss, executive creative director of BBH NY – recently sat down with ADC for their Behind the Cube series to talk about the creative decisions that helped shape “Perfect Day.” Weiss talks about how the song actually guided the visuals, how the gamers were established as characters, and how editing set the spot’s unique pacing.

And on a somewhat-related note: ADC just announced they are launching an iPad app to show off their annual work developed in conjunction with Brazilian shop the goodfellas, ADC member/Google Creative Lab motion designer Monica Eunji Kim and U.K.-based creative director, Pete Rossi. It is the first time in the company’s 92-year history that the annual book will not be in print. ADC is also giving away free limited-edition iPad cases to the first 500 people who download the app.

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BBH ECD Ari Weiss Talks UNICEF’s ‘Good Shirts’ in Latest ‘Behind the Cube’ Clip

ADC Behind The Cube: BBH’s Ari Weiss discusses “Good Shirts” from ADC Global Network on Vimeo.

Last week, we brought you news of ADC’s “Behind the Cube” video for Student Thesis Gold Cube winner Dani Wolf. This week, ADC has a new “Behind the Cube” installment, featuring BBH New York executive creative director Ari Weiss.

Weiss discusses UNICEF’s “Good Shirts” campaign — which sold t-shirts depicting an item of aid, priced at the amount it cost UNICEF to donate that item — and its unexpected success. As a driving force behind the campaign, Weiss believed “Good Shirts” would be the “conversation piece” of the campaign, building buzz and getting more people to donate. Instead, the idea really took off, and the t-shirts raised around half a million dollars — including the sale of a $300,000 shirt to an anonymous San Francisco buyer. It’s an interesting look at the process behind one of the more buzzworthy Gold Cube campaigns from last year, including a look at some of the excellent t-shirt designs, and an excellent reminder that sometimes even the creatives behind a campaign can be surprised by its results.

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What Do Lou Reed and PS4 Have in Common? BBH NY Has the Answer

Sometimes, choosing the perfect song to set the mood can elevate a spot from good to great. That’s the case with BBH NY’s choice of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” in the latest ad that’s part of the ongoing “Greatness Awaits’ campaign for Playstation 4 (Sony also launched a new site to accompany the campaign here).

The song works as the perfect backdrop to the spot, conveying the feeling of a perfect day battling friends in a variety of games. Lou Reed’s classic song’s somber undertones fit perfectly with the onscreen mayhem, while the lyrics suggest that a day of slaughtering each other onscreen can in fact be a perfect day. I would have appreciated hearing the original version of the song, rather than having the actors in the spot sing it, but I guess BBH NY has decided it better underscores the theme of the effort to have the actors speaking the words directly. At any rate, the song choice is admirable and really makes the spot, which also does a pretty good job conveying the possibilities of the system without including any actual gameplay footage. It feels like a big step up from the earlier PS4 work, a more fully-realized conceptualization of the idea behind the campaign. Hopefully, the next time we see an ad for the system though, it will include some gameplay.

If you didn’t already really want a PS4 (you did) you do now. Or at least when it  hits shelves Nov. 15. Credits after the jump.

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Here’s a PlayStation Ad for Winning Stuff Seen in a Different PlayStation Ad

During the NBA Finals last month, PlayStation debuted a new mini-film from BBH NY titled “Greatness Awaits” which featured a wide array of game characters and a whimsical narrator talking sternly to the camera (much like in this 2009 spot BBH NY did for Johnnie Walker). With over 5 million YouTube plays, the big budget ad was hailed as a mild success, falling somewhere between “Hedgehog Reacts to Fart” and “One Direction Crash Barbie’s Party! 1D Dolls Party All Night! OMG !.::Original Video::.

To the untrained eye, it would appear that the spot’s success was owed to its subtle nods to some of PlayStation’s biggest titles paired with the sort of over-the-top visual effects that gamers subsist upon. However, any true gamer knows that the ad’s success is owed predominantly to the elaborate costuming employed, causing PlayStation to make a second ad in order to offer the costumes as prizes of some sort. Yes, it’s an ad for an ad, or “Adception” if you will.

Anyway, gamers can bid of the costumes from the spot using trophy points or something that they earn by being good at video games. Then everyone will play dress-up and have a great time. Learn more at bidforgreatness.com and view credits after the jump.

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