DDB Chicago Names David Banta SVP/GCD

A Hill Holliday veteran has joined the DDB Chicago team as SVP and group creative director.

David Banta will lead the creative team behind the Capital One account, whose most recent work focused on the client’s Apple Pay integration in an ad titled “Worn Jeans.”

Banta has worked in the industry for more than two decades. He most recently filled the same position at Hill Holliday’s Boston office, where he worked on Liberty Mutual, Merrell, Capella University, and Cadillac. After spending seven years with that agency, he went freelance around the same time that the Cadillac account changed hands and Hill Holliday went through a subsequent round of layoffs.

Prior to joining the Hill Holliday team, Banta spent two years as an ACD at CP+B and two years as a creative director at Doner in addition to stints with Mintz & Hoke, Foote, Cone & Belding, and others.

The agency’s newest director — whose work has been recognized by The One Show, The CLIOs, etc. — will report to Chicago CCO John Maxham. In the release, Maxham calls him “exactly the kind of gutsy creative” needed to channel Capital One’s “challenger brand” spirit.

This move marks only the latest addition at DDB, which named W+K Sao Paulo’s Icaro Doria as chief creative in its New York office last week.

Hill Holliday Could Put Your Tweet in a Dunkin’ Donuts Spot

Fans who tweet or post to Facebook about Dunkin’ Donuts may find themselves starring in Boston-based, IPG-owned Hill Holliday’s new campaign.

Winners selected from the best posts made using the #mydunkin hashtag will, in fact, already be appearing in a seven-spot web/TV campaign from Hill Holliday, cut by Whitehouse Post editor Adam Robinson and director Tyler Manson.

“Meg’s #mydunkin Iced Coffee” spot is a good example of the campaign. It follows a college student through a trek across campus, iced coffee in tow. She takes the iced coffee to her a capella practice as a voiceover reads her actual tweet: “Every a capella rehearsal needs a dd iced coffee to get me through.” It would take a lot more than an iced coffee to get me through an a capella rehearsal (think some kind of Hunter S. Thompson -inspired drug cocktail and you’ve got the idea), but to each his own.

People like being engaged in social media campaigns, and they love seeing themselves (or their tweets) on TV or the web even more. So, combining the two should work well for HH and Dunkin’ Donuts. There are more stories to tell and there’s one after the jump as well as credits.

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