Top Creative Mangan Leaves BBDO SF

An agency rep confirmed today that Craig Mangan, the GS&P veteran who led the BBDO San Francisco creative department for the past three years, has left the agency.

Not only is he gone–he’s already been replaced by two more recent Bay Area transplants: ECDs Matt Miller and Steve Rutter.

Prior to joining BBDO in the summer of 2012, Mangan spent a whopping 17 years with the Goodby organization, rising from account manager to copywriter and ACD. When BBDO hired him almost exactly three years ago, then Chairman/current President and CEO Jim Lesser wrote:

“He’s worked on a huge range of accounts from fast food to telecom to the NBA and won every award there is to win.”

Mangan replaced Mike McKay, who is currently CCO/partner at San Francisco’s Eleven, Inc. At the time, he recorded a GS&P”exit interview” clip in which he impersonated Jeff Goodby, but it has unfortunately been removed from YouTube due to that old reliable, “multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement.”

Rutter has spent even more time with BBDO than Mangan spent with Goodby; just over a year ago, a source confirmed that he would move to the San Francisco office from New York in order to co-lead creative on the still-new Wells Fargo account. Miller joined around the same time to do the same job after spending several years at Leo Burnett Chicago, where he worked on the “Mayhem” campaign for Allstate. Kevin Thomson, previously with The Martin Agency, also joined BBDO SF last July as part of what one contact described as a “resurgence” driven largely by the Wells Fargo win.

We can’t say where Mangan is going, exactly, though a tipster tells us that his next venture is “a personal startup” of some kind.

Kevin Thomson Joins BBDO San Francisco as Creative Director

Today we learned that veteran creative Kevin Thomson has left his position at The Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia for a job as Creative Director at BBDO San Francisco.

BBDO’s newest CD has more than a decade of industry work under his belt: he joined Martin in 2011 to write copy for clients like Discover, Exxon, Walmart and GEICO (2013 “Portraits Gallery” spot here). Prior to the Martin gig, he spent just over a year with JWT and more than seven years with Seattle-based WPP shop Cole & Weber.

Thomson officially begins at BBDO SF on July 21st, reporting directly to EVP/ECD Craig Mangan; he will work on various brands including Gallo Wines and Sutter Health.

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BBDO ECD Moves from New York to San Francisco

Quick BBDO update: our source confirms that Steve Rutter, a longtime presence in the agency’s Manhattan offices, has moved to the West Coast.

The reason for the move concerns the Wells Fargo account. Rutter will oversee creative on Wells while fellow ECD Craig Manganwho left GS&P in 2012 to take the executive position–maintains creative oversight on all the office’s other accounts.

A tiny bit of backstory: the ink has just dried on the Wells Fargo deal, signed in March. Rutter officially joined the SF team in April and, prior to this move, he spent a majority of his career (a whopping 24 years) at BBDO New York, most recently holding the EVP/ECD titles. During that time, he managed the E*TRADE, Bank of America and AIG accounts (among many, many others).

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BBDO Bumps Up Burns to MD in SF

Marc BurnssmallAfter spending the last five years in management roles in various BBDO offices, most recently serving as SVP/group account director on AT&T Wireless at the agency, Marc Burns will now fill the vacant position of managing director at BBDO San Francisco, where’s he’s been working out of for the last year. During his time on the AT&T biz, Burns helped lead teams behind efforts including the youth-focused “You’ve got a Case” starring Will Arnett and the V-Day-themed “Shout Your Love from the Mountaintop.”

Burns’s history with BBDO, though, actually dates back to 1996, when we started out in the mailroom at the agency’s Australian operations before spent the next few years as a senior account manager at Clemenger BBDO. In between his two stints within the BBDO network, Burns held account roles at Leo Burnett and worked on client side for a couple of years at Mitsubishi. Now at BBDO SF, the new MD fills out a leadership team that includes president/CEO Jim Lesser, ECD (and Goodby alum) Craig Mangan and director of strategic planning, Matt Herrmann.

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