Hasta La Creative!

Brooklyn-based Big Spaceship promoted former managing director Rob Thorsen to the role of president, the first to hold the title in the agency’s sixteen-year history. In the new role, Thorsen will continue managing the day-to-day operations of the agency while also focusing on growth. 

Big Spaceship CEO CEO Michael Lebowitz told Adweek that he hadn’t intended on creating the president role, but that Thorsen was already fulfilling all duties of a president anyway. “Rob was really performing at a level of service to the company and had ingrained himself even more deeply than I could have asked for in the high-level functioning of the company,” he said.

Thorsen has served as managing director for Big Spaceship since July of 2013, leading the integration of the agency’s data and analytics practice while serving in the role. Prior to joining the agency he served as executive client partner with MRY for a year and a half. That followed over four and a half years as executive vice president, senior director with BBDO New York and two and half as senior strategist, global business director for Mother New York and London. He also spent time five years as an account director with BBH New York and a year as an account executive with kbs+. Over the course of his career, he has worked with clients including A-B InBev, Axe, Best Buy, Strabucks and Hyatt.

“The output of the agency is always going to continue to evolve and the nature of the challenges that we are trying to resolve will evolve, but ultimately it’s still the same job. It’s about finding and bringing together the right people, to find the right solutions, to get to the right outcomes,” added Thorsen.

Big Spaceship, Samsung’s global social agency of record, launched a new spot promoting the Samsung Galaxy S6 entitled “That New Phone Feeling.”

The ad celebrates the feeling of discovery when you take a new phone out of the box and discover all of its features. Described as a “GIF-powered music video,” the spot was created using a series of GIFs and set to the song “When I Rule the World” by LIZ, which will be released by Columbia Records in the coming weeks. The 30 GIFS which make up the video  will be released as stand-alone content across Samsung’s social channels. The fragmented, repetitive nature of the “GIF-powered” video was described as “hypnotic” in a release but we feel that “disorienting” is probably more apt. While the intention was likely to unite the video with the GIFs featured on the social channels, a more traditional video might have served the brand better.

Nearly a month to the day that we reported that Joshua Hirsch was leaving Big Spaceship after 11 years of service to possibly assume a senior-level technology post at Publicis Kaplan Thaler in mid-August, the latter agency has finally made it official. Like clockwork. Unfortunately, Hirsch won’t be bringing his catchy “Minister of Technology” title he held at BS with him to PKT, but instead joins the latter agency in the more traditional role of EVP/chief technology officer. As you’d expect, he’ll be leading Publicis Kaplan Thaler’s technology and innovation practice out of the agency’s New York HQ.

Hirsch’s new boss, PKT CEO Robin Koval, says in a statement, “Today, technology informs the creative process as never before, and Joshua will help provide our clients with an unprecedented level of innovation. Joshua is a proven leader with a significant track record of developing impressive front-edge solutions, and we couldn’t be more pleased to have him join us. We expect to do truly innovative and industry-leading work together – work that continues to lead the change for our clients.”

As previously mentioned, Hirsch spent well over a decade at DUMBO-based Big Spaceship, beginning as the digital shop’s sole coder before eventually moving up to partner and dubbing himself, yes, “Minister of Technology.” Frankly, we miss the hair.

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The website for GoGo squeeZ’s new campaign is all you need to see. Click on Jerry O’Connell’s spot, and your heart will sink as you notice the video runs for nearly five minutes. No one has five minutes to watch Jerry and his “Jerry Doubles,” run around being cute. Even kids would rather watch a sarcastic Disney show, I’m sure.

Big Spaceship’s “Wherever You Go, Go Playfully” campaign has good intentions: for every share of their multimedia content, GoGo squeeZ will give $1 to the Life is good Playmakers, a nonprofit that provides training and support to childcare professionals. And since apparently 74 percent of parents struggle to keep playfulness in their lives, maybe Jerry’s advice will encourage more moms and dads to spring for some GoGo squeeZes, or invent an imaginary game.

I’m in full support of this campaign’s mission, but using a washed-up star (Piranha 3D, anyone?) and contrived antics seem the opposite of an exuberant ideal. Skip the majority of this campaign’s content, and play away.

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