Hasta La Creative!

Partner and executive creative director Scott Vitrone will leave Barton F. Graf to pursue other endeavors.

His creative partner Ian Reichenthal (the Daryl Hall to his John Oates or vice versa) will remain with the agency. This move ends a longtime creative partnership that began at W+K back in 1999, where the pair worked together on Nike. Barton F. Graf declined to comment, but sources close to the matter confirmed Vitrone’s pending departure from the agency.

Vitrone joined Barton F. Graf, along with Reichenthal, in November of 2013, arriving from W+K New York, where the pair served as co-executive creative directors. The appointment saw them reunite with Gerry Graf, who they worked under while at TBWAChiatDay New York. At that shop, the duo focused primarily on the Mars account, including the Cannes Lion-winning “Sheep Boys” campaign for Skittles and “Man Mom” for Combos. At W+K New York, they launched the “Whatever’s Comfortable” brand repositioning campaign for Southern Comfort.

At Barton F. Graf, Vitrone worked across all accounts, including Little Caesar’s, Unilever, Kayak, Dish Network and Finlandia. Vitrone and Reichenthal also spent nearly three years at Y&R New York and, in addition to the aforementioned brands, have worked with Heineken, ESPN, Xerox and LG, among others.

The reasons for the split are not clear at this time, and Vitrone has not announced any post-Barton plans.

Barton F. Graf 9000 delivers one of the stranger campaigns you’re likely to see this week, with “Dead Mouse Theatre” for Tomcat mousetraps.

In the campaign, Barton F. Graf 9000 dreams up a solution for all the dead mice left in the wake of Tomcat, repurposing the corpses as puppets for theatrical purposes. It’s a pretty dark premise, but it’s certainly attention-grabbing. In the best of the 30-second spots (or my favorite, at least), a washed-up old-timey baseball player named Fitzy Gibbons revisits the scene of his downfall when questioned by a young fan. Other spots feature a leprechaun confronting a gangster who stole his gold and a lifelong friendship destroyed by a Viking raid. Strange stuff, indeed. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Students at the VCU Brandcenter are back, launching a campaign promoting the AICP Show and AICP Next Awards for the 9th straight year.

The campaign takes a humorous route to displaying the lasting quality of an AICP award, showing top creatives like Gerry Graf, Co: collective partner/chief content officer Tiffany Rolfe and Droga5′s Ted Royer waxing on the perceived perks of yesteryear. While these perks may have vanished, their AICP awarded work is in the permanent exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

“Every generation hears about the halcyon days when perks were free-flowing – perhaps they were, or perhaps it’s all wishful thinking. But through it all, the one constant is that no one can ever take away your AICP honor and recognition,” explained Matt Miller, President and CEO of AICP.

“Ty Montague of Co:Collective, Susan Credle of Leo Burnett, and Diane Jackson of DDB Chicago (all VCU BrandCenter Board members and either current or past AICP Show Curators)” collaborated with Miller, AICP Director of Events Ileana Montalvo and AICP Chief of Staff Kristin Wilcha in selecting the campaign from among those presented by second year student teams at VCU Brandcenter. The results are pretty funny, with Graf commenting on vanishing drum kits, Rolfe wondering where the prostitutes went, and Royer lamenting the ever-shrinking office. The entry deadline for the awards is March 7. Both the AICP Show and the AICP Next Awards will take place June 10-12, during AICP week. You can check out Graf’s video above, and stick around for Royer and Rolfe’s two cents, along with credits, after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gerry Graf’s Barton F. Graf 9000 NY has worked with production company Psyop, fresh off their game-developing debut with the Susan Sarandon-narrated Nightmare: Malaria, to develop this charming spot for the Supercell-developed strategy game Clash of Clans.

The one-minute anthem ad places the viewer in the middle of the action, on the same level as the melee taking place. To bring the game to life in the spot, Psyop “embraced the bright, stylized and saturated look of the game,” explained Psyop Director Fletcher Moules. “We wanted to fully conceptualize what the world would look like if we were running alongside the horde of barbarians, what would it feel like to be covered in their saliva.”

The impressively animated ad really does a good job transporting the viewer into the world of Clash of the Clans, thankfully without any saliva. One noteworthy moment occurs when two giants chuckle as they are hit with cannonballs. It was one of Psyop’s favorite segments to animate, as well. “It added the heart and the warmth that was only achieved when we removed ourselves a little from the ruckus to enjoy it from their perspective,” said Moules.

It would appear that Supercell’s audience is enthusiastic about Clash of Clans as well. The video was released on December 23rd, and garnered 14 million views in its first week. Credits after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As sources hinted yesterday, we were on to something when we started hearing that longtime creative partners Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal were leaving Wieden + Kennedy New York, which the agency eventually confirmed. Our guess was that the duo, which has been working together for nearly 15 years, was joining Gerry Graf‘s NYC-based Barton F. Graf 9000, a notion that was only heightened when we got this tip around the same time: “Eric Kallman was let go today from BFG9000. It was totally unexpected.” There’s no confirmation on the nature of his departure but yes, that Eric Kallman, the award-winning copywriter behind “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” for Old Spice who left W+K in early 2011 to rejoin old TBWA colleague Graf, but who’s now been left as a mere footnote in the BFG 9000 news about Vitrone/Reichenthal. When we called BFG 9000 yesterday, we were told simply that Kallman was “not available.” Ah well, why steal the thunder, read on here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.