Hasta La Creative!

Independent Kansas City-based agency Barkley named Susan Neuman as its first head of production, while also elevating her to senior vice president status.

“The creation of the role comes after a year of  supernova growth in our production department—not only in size, but the array of things we’re producing and kinds of companies we’re working with,” Barkley executive creative director Jason Elm said in a statement. “Susan has already been instrumental in that growth, and she’s the right person to lead it going forward.”

Neuman joined Barkley as vice president, executive producer at the start of 2014, focusing on the agency’s Dairy Queen account. While with Barkley she has worked on national broadcast and digital campaigns for brands including Wal-Mart, Time Warner Cable, Hostess, Petsmart, McDonald’s and Ruby Tuesday. Prior to joining the agency she spent a year as senior manager, broadcast production for Applebee’s. Prior to that she spent around nine years at Bernstein-Rein, rising from senior producer to vice president, director integrated marketing before departing for Applebee’s in June of 2012. 

“I hate to see an amazing idea get killed because it’s not clear how to make it happen,” said Neuman. “In this new role, I’m even better positioned to push forward solutions.”

Kansas City agency Barkley, which definitely did not commission an impressive “Creation of Adam” mural in its office last summer, hired longtime Deutsch veteran Jason Elm as its newest ECD.

He will join former CP+B ACD Berk Wasserman, who came to Barkley last July as VP/creative director, as well as VP/group account leader and fellow Deutsch alum Valencia Gayles. (Both moved to the Midwest in a mini-hiring spree during the Summer of 2014.)

Elm, who spent the last year and half as a freelancer in the San Francisco area with clients ranging from Google to Walmart, will officially become ECD on April 13th. In the new role, he will “enable and inspire all creative output for one of the nation’s largest independently-owned creative agencies,” which includes Target, Cargill, Spirit Airlines, Dairy Queen, and others on its client roster.

He will also work closely with Tim Galles, the former ECD/CSO who Barkley recently named its first “chief idea officer.”

Elm wrote copy for a couple of California agencies before joining Deutsch LA in 1998. He worked on Expedia and TGIFriday’s before helping the agency win the Sony PlayStation and Diamond Foods accounts and ascending to the EVP role.

Back in 2012, Business Insider mastered the grammatically awkward headline while naming Elm as one of its 37 creatives “most lusted after by rival agencies.” This diagnosis proved accurate: less than a year later, he left Deutsch for DDB California and wrote a guest post for us on “unplugging” at Cannes. The DDB gig ended up lasting less than three months, however, and led our readers to speculate on what caused the relationship to dissolve.

In 2014, Barkley CEO Jeff King told Kansas City Business Journal that he hires executives by positioning KC “as an advertising destination and an advertising market,” adding, “the city sells itself.”

FCB San Francisco gets a bit suggestive in their latest spot for online residential real estate site Trulia.

The 30-second spot, “Shower” shows a couple deciding whether or not they want to make an offer on a house. Said couple is in the bathroom admiring the tub when the woman makes a push for them to submit an offer. The guy isn’t so sure, but she reminds him that he was crazy about the garage, and also that the mortgage is the same as their rent. She adds that it’s in a great school district, which is important because they’re going to “start making babies,” and then adds “Let’s do it.” The guy, understandably mistakes her meaning and points out that the owner is right in the other room. It all feels a little forced, as if FCB wanted to break out of the usual real estate advertising rut but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. The claustrophobic spot (feeling like you’re in a bathroom with two other people doesn’t exactly make for a pleasant viewing experience) also doesn’t do much to differentiate Trulia from the competition. “Shower” ends with the “That’s your moment of Trulia” tagline and an announcement of a $50,000 giveaway. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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It’s been a few days since Cannes closed the books on its 2013 clusterfuck, but what the hell. Fresh off of taking the creative helm at DDB California, Deutsch L.A. alum Jason Elm gives us his observations from the event, in which he discusses going 24 hours without iPhone on purpose. Take it away, sir.

Every year, my iPhone becomes an increasingly critical part of my Cannes experience. A few years ago, I’d use it to reach people and take photos, but now it’s almost never in my pocket: I’m using it to Google things I find interesting, taking notes or voice memos, tweeting, using the Cannes app to capture the work and schedule my day, reviewing office emails, texting my friends over here and using six different social media apps to keep tabs on people nine time zones away in California.

It’s now a persistent input/output extension of my brain while I take in the festival and its surroundings. But, is it enhancing my experience or getting in the way of it?

This year, I found out by negotiating the hustle and bustle of the Festival without my iPhone for an entire day: from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed, I wouldn’t so much as touch the phone. When I told people I’d be doing this, most of them looked at me like I was insane. But, it was actually a big eye-opener to just how constantly I use my phone (sorry, “connected mobile device.” But, I’ll simply call it a phone because, well, that’s what we say. )

continued…

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