Hasta La Creative!

Confirming an earlier tip, this morning San Francisco’s Heat announced the hiring of Justin Cox as director of strategy.

Cox most recently filled the same role at DDB California, which hired him away from Pereira O’Dell; he spent less than one year in the position.

The release notes that Cox will lead Heat’s strategy team with the ultimate goal of helping clients like EA, Kendall-Jackson, Bank of the West, Levi Strauss & Co. and Teva to “determine the role of their brand in the lives and culture of their target audience.”

Cox served as senior brand strategist at Pereria before moving to the strategic director role, where he handled accounts like Skype, Intel, Amazon and Guitar Center while also working on new business. His early career included planning roles at Publicis & Hal Riney and Razorfish, where he worked on the Microsoft and Sony accounts (among others).

Heat President John Elder writes that Cox will be “a welcome addition to Heat’s deep strategic bench, even if he’s a Dodgers fan.”

The release tells us that Cox’s other roles include SXSW speaker, WSJ.com contributor and account planning instructor at Academy of Art University and Miami Ad School.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The onion alert is in full effect. Skype has been promoting their global capabilities with a “Stay Together” campaign produced by Pereira & O’Dell, and the fourth video in the series, “The Born Friends Family Portrait,” is a smart showcase of the program’s utility. Two girls, Sarah from Indiana and Paige from Auckland, were both born without fully developed left arms and formed a long distance friendship over the years. Sarah and Paige are now teenagers, and as you can see in the accompanying clip, finally met in-person. It’s touching and respectfully filmed.

The three prior videos cover similar stories – a father talking to his family still in Africa, a zookeeper in America keeping tabs on an animal family in Australia, and a two young cousins (common theme) closing the gap between Brazil and America. We should probably expect more tearjerkers from Skype, because these are the kind of tales that sell themselves. No misdirection or exploitation, just a documentary setup that has the right kind of appeal. Credits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.