Hasta La Creative!

Jaime Robinson is the newest addition to the creative team at Wieden+Kennedy New York.

Today, the world’s biggest independent agency announced that Robinson will join its Manhattan office in March as executive creative director; this move marks the most significant change in W+K NY’s creative department since April, 2014, when David Kolbusz left BBH London to become an ECD at Wieden.

Beginning next month, Robinson and Kolbusz will serve as co-ECDs, with both creative leaders reporting to Managing Director Neal Arthur.

“Native Jersey girl” Robinson spent three and a half years at Pereira & O’Dell in San Francisco before accepting the Wieden appointment. While there, she held the VP/ECD position and worked on such headlining campaigns as Intel/Toshiba’s “The Beauty Inside” as well as work for LEGO, Scrabble, Skype, and Airbnb; she also helped lead new business initatives.

Prior to joining Pereira in 2012, Robinson spent two years as an ACD at EVB and nearly three years writing copy for TBWA/Chiat/Day San Francisco. She began her career as a copywriter at the New York office of Mad Dogs & Englishmen (which is now closed).

On the hire, Partner/Global ECD Colleen DeCourcy writes,

“We wanted to find someone…who was amazing with people and eternally curious about new, different ways to solve client problems. Jaime is that person.”

Given W+K’s recent big-name wins (Verizon, KFC, and Weight Watchers among them), we expect more hiring announcements to follow.

Pereira & O’Dell will formally announce Robinson’s replacement tomorrow; top candidates include San Francisco creative directors Jonathan Woytek, Rafael Rizuto and Eduardo Marques.

San Francisco-based Pereira & O’Dell were recently invited onto ABC’s Nightline for a segment exploring the recent “hunkvertising” trend, and even created a “hunkvertisement” for the show.

The five-minute segment, entitled “The Art of the ‘Hunkvertisement’” features executive creative director Jaime Robinson and Renuzit director Chris Applebaum explaining the phenomenon to Nightline reporter Nick Watt. After exploring the ins and outs of “hunkvertising” the pair, along with the rest of their team, coach Watt on how Nightline can appeal to more women, and even film a 30 second “hunkvertisement” for the program produced in-house by P&O’D.

It’s kind of fun to watch Watt struggle with the concept of mixing male sexual objectification and humor in ads targeting women, which he at one point labels “bizarre” and then attempt to star (rather uncomfortably) in his own advertisement. Nightline approaches all kinds of reactions to the supposed trend, including the idea that these kinds of ads empower women, that it’s sexist to assume women need a hot guy to sell them kitchen and household items, and the crazies at One Million Moms doing what they do best (being crazy). The segment runs through a number of prototypical “hunkvertisements” in their examination of the phenomenon, notably Renuzit’s “Scent Gents,” which we’ve included after the jump. continued…

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San Francisco-based shop Pereira & O’Dell switch gears from their tearjerking “Stay Together” campaign with their latest spot for Skype, “Rerouted: A Skype Travel Challenge.”

For the spot, Pereira & O’Dell chose a travel blogger, Mike Cory, who they gave the impression was recruited for a travel blog. Instead, on November 12th, they dropped him off at Instanbul without a clue as to where his next destination will be. To get home, he will be given a series of clues that he must piece together along with a Skype audience. His goal is to be home for Thanksgiving in an attempt to fulfill a lame “Turkey to Turkey Day” pun. Mike is powered only by Surface Pro 2, Windows 8.1, Skype, and the help of his audience. Without an engaged audience Mike could, presumably (but come on, not really), end up lost somewhere. It’s an interesting approach that should appeal to geography buffs the world over. Think of it like a real-life “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego,” but without all the stolen cultural artifacts and punily-named villains.

If you’d like to become part of the “Rerouted” experience, you follow Mikes progress at @SkypeMoments or Skype him directly at mike.corey8. Check out the official rules at skypererouted.com and help Mike crack the clues via Skype, Facebook, or Twitter with the hashtag  #reroutedclue. Credits after the jump.

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The press release for the new 60-second recycling spot from Keep America Beautiful, the Ad Council, and Periera & O’Dell states that the average American generates 4.4 pounds of trash per day, but only recycles 35% of that output. It’s unclear whether that means 35% of all recyclable trash is properly recycled rather than 35% of all trash, but the creators of the campaign don’t seem too concerned with stats. After all, people probably won’t respond to numbers.

Periera & O’Dell have decided to redirect the campaign with an emotional tilt, turning an empty plastic bottle into a protagonist that thinks and talks – through voice-over, thankfully. The result is a corny, yet necessary plea to viewers who should be recycling more. Credits after the jump.

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