Hasta La Creative!

Havas Worldwide, Helsinki crafted an emotional alcohol awareness PSA for Finnish charity Fragile Childhood, in collaboration with production companies Sauna International and Studio Arkadena, entitled “Orphanage.”

The beautifully-shot spot imagines a kind of reverse orphanage, where children choose their parents. Two children look through glass displays at different parents who present typical moments in their lives, such as at the dinner table or in the back yard. “Orphanage” does a great job of drawing in the viewer and fleshing out its strange little world, as the children visit differnt pairs of parents. As the boy takes a fancy to a certain father, a woman takes him by the hand and leads the children to a drunken, quarreling couple — their parents. As they leave with the couple, the message “Children can’t choose their parents. What if they could?” appears, followed by an invitation for viewers to share their thoughts on alcohol abuse. It’s a sad ending, and while it’s not initially apparent what issue the ad is addressing, that should make the ending all the more of a shock to any parents struggling with alcoholism.

“It is still not widely understood how much harm drinking problems at home cause to children,” Fragile Childhood told Adweek. “For example, previous research has shown that every fourth Finnish child has suffered some harm because of parent’s alcohol usage. Research carried out among Finnish teenagers aged 12-18 years shows that children think their parents ought not to drink at home and that they are much nicer when sober.”

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Today we confirmed several tips regarding Chief Creative Officer Darren Moran, who is no longer with Havas Worldwide in New York.

While we don’t have any information regarding the nature of his departure or his future plans, we can say that the move was recent: the tips first popped up this morning.

For context, Moran arrived at Havas’ New York office last August after a one-year stint in the ECD role at BBDO New York and two years spent as CCO at what was then DraftFCB in Manhattan. (We last heard from him when he commented on the hiring of Creative Director Kate McCagg, formerly of Razorfish, back in April.)

We don’t have a list of recent work led by Moran, but based on the internal memo that greeted his arrival last year we can say that he directed creative for all Havas New York clients. He has also earned mentions from nearly every major awards show during his 24-plus years in the industry.

Moran’s “co-CCO” Jason Peterson remains the agency’s chief creative officer.

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This morning AdAge ran a story confirming the eminent departure of Joy Schwartz, who most recently held the position of president of performance marketing, Havas Worldwide Chicago.

According to our tipsters, this came as news to those who work(ed) for her.

Schwartz, who spent more than twelve years with Havas, will run the just-announced Chicago office of BDD or Barrie D’Rozario DiLorenzo (formerly Barrie D’Rozario Murphy), starting next week. As the piece notes, the Minneapolis-based agency has expanded its executive team in recent months, hiring president and partner Kevin DiLorenzo from OLSON and opening a San Francisco office while preparing to set up shop in New York as well.

Our tips specifically claim that staffers received no announcement regarding Schartz’s departure — and that they learned of the news first thing this morning via the AdAge piece itself.

Contacts did not respond to AdAge or this blog, but other sources (who apparently know more than those who contacted us) told the magazine that the agency has begun searching for Schwartz’s replacement. She assumed the role of president in May after serving as co-president since 2009.

Updates as we receive them.

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Havas Worldwide has a new spot for Cracker Barrel, promoting the chain’s limited-time Campfire Meals.

The 15-second ad, entitled “Match,” features a campfire set handcrafted from paper, wood and canvas. A toy owl perches on a stump, followed by a human hand lighting a match and lights a campfire illuminating a screen displaying Cracker Barrel’s Campfire Meals. Aside from the digitally inserted footage and CG embers on the fire, everything was “manually-operated, custom-built or hand-crafted” and shot in a single take. While it can come across as a bit hokey (which actually kind of makes sense for the brand), and the voiceover copy leaves a lot to be desired, the diorama set has a certain charm to it. It may have even been more effective with diorama stand-ins for Cracker Barrel’s Campfire Meals instead of the digital footage used. (more…)

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Infiniti Motor Co. will meet (or has already met) with seven agencies before selecting finalists to pitch for its global creative account, Adweek reports.

The meetings took place this week, and leave Infiniti “on track to complete its search by August,” according to Adweek. Infiniti’s initial request for proposal reported that the brand spends approximately $450 million annually. Among the agencies in the running are Publicis, FCB, Havas Worldwide (pitching with sister shop Arnold), Bartle Bogle Hegarty, M&C Saatchi and Crispin Porter + Bogusky, according to Adweek‘s sources. Interestingly, also pitching is Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, partnering with incumbent Omnicom agency TBWA. After the initial meetings, Infiniti will narrow the field to three or four agencies, a cut that “could come as soon as next week.” Infiniti’s RFP noted that “alternative approaches are paramount as Infiniti cannot outspend its competitors in broadcast,” and identified the U.S., China and Hong Kong as priority markets.

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Yesterday marked something of a minor cultural milestone: the  first-ever Spanish language YouTube masthead in the U.S. went live and ran all day on Times Square’s NASDAQ tower screen. Havas Chicago handled creative for the campaign, which adopted World Cup themes to promote the DishLATINO brand to the general market with a little help from that classic duo, T and A.

There’s a multi-faceted promo page, but here’s the English-language version of the spot:

DISH reportedly worked with Havas on the creative and partnered with Google on YouTube promo strategies, reporting “above-average click through and video completion rates.”

Spanish version and credits after the jump.

(more…)

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In news that will surely warm the cold, jaded heart of any copywriter, designer or other creative struggling to stand out at an independent agency, Havas Worldwide paid now-former CEO David Jones $13.5 million bucks last year.

In fact, he made 7 of those millions simply for stepping down to fulfill his “burning desire to be an entrepreneur“–or, as we call it in the blog world, “the possibility of making even more money.”

This morning our future colleages at AdWeek combed through the company’s annual report to reveal those important stats. This fact stood out to us:
“Jones received another $1.2 million compensation for a non-compete clause and his role as an advisor to the younger Bolloré”
So he received a significant sum for advising the man who replaced him. Jones was unavailable for comment, presumably because he was too busy laughing about the fate of the Publicis-Omnicom merger.

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After receiving related tips for at least a week, we can confirm that Alex Bombeck is now the former Chief Digital Officer at Havas Worldwide.

A spokesperson told us that he would be moving with his family to Atlanta to “take on new responsibilities”, and a fresh-off-the-virtual-press release tells us that those responsibilities include leading Sparks Grove, or “the marketing strategy and creative division of global consultancy North Highland.”

Bombeck earned the CDO title less than a year ago; previous roles included President of Havas Digital North America.

The hire comes amid something of a growth spurt for Sparks, which recently added “5,000 square feet of additional space in its Atlanta office” and promoted Bombeck’s predecessor Maria Bothwell to managing director and president of new ventures at North Highland.

Bombeck will report to North Highland CEO Dan Reardon.

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This morning we confirmed that Kate McCagg, most recently creative director at Razorfish, has left Portland for New York and a CD spot on the Havas Worldwide roster.

An agency spokesperson confirmed that McCagg started at Havas last week and that she is “partnering with Monica Escobar to lead Ritz (Mondelez) and working across other accounts as well.”

The official statement from Havas CCO Darren Moran:

“Kate is a thoroughly modern creative director. She’s a thinker and a maker. A writer and a lover of design. A humanist and a tech geek. Half of her career has been spent at ‘traditional’ shops, half at a digital agency. So she can do a lot and do it well, which makes Havas the perfect place for Kate. We’re thrilled she’s joined us.”

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A group of Russian Havas Digital creatives have created an intriguing new digital campaign for Russian bookstore, Respublica.

The self-branded “humble project” is a site called “URLiterature,” which promotes reading with a URL lengthener. Yes, you read that correctly, a URL lengthener. Created to promote reading and combat the assault on language resulting from acronyms and social media-promoting short messages, URLiterature uses a URL lengthener to add text from a selected book to the link you want to send. Simply paste “your boring URL,” choose your book and share, pleasing literature professors everywhere. Check out the video above for a better look at the project, and head on over to the site to give it a try for yourself. Credits after the jump. continued…

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