FCB New York Hires Leelee Groome as EVP, Director of Integrated Production

FCB New York hired Leelee Groome as executive vice president, director of integrated production. She began the position last week.

Groome has an extensive history Before joining FCB New York, Groome spent nearly a year and a half as a freelance producer, working with agencies including Grey and BBDO, where she handled related duties on AT&T work.

Prior to that she spent four years as an executive producer at mcgarrybowen, working on the agency’s Verizon’s account before that client parted ways with the agency in 2015 and serving as part of the team that won a Cannes Lion for its campaign starring Edward Norton.

Groome has also been deputy head of production at Publicis, where her duties included mentoring younger content producers, delivering edited content to clients within a certain budget and time-frame and recommending creative teams to both clients and the agency itself. Over the course of her career, Groome has worked with clients including Procter & Gamble, BMW, Maytag, Citibank, Reebok and the aforementioned Verizon.

FCB’s New York office has made several key hires this summer, most recently adding several new creative directors to its team and promoting Michelle Tang to the role of chief marketing officer.

Ed Norton Sings Karaoke, Almost Dies Several Times in New Droid Spot

This one’s been making the rounds for awhile now, but we thought we’d give some love anyway. McgarryBowen New York’s new spot for Verizion, “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” features the talents of Ed Norton. It originally aired on December 5th, although it was posted to YouTube about a week before that.

In the spot, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Norton is thrown into a variety of dicey situations, with his Droid helping him get through most of them relatively unscathed. “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” opens with Norton waking up to find himself in a strange room, with his Droid still at 3% power. “It’s been an interesting 48 hours,” Norton says, followed by a flashback. We then follow Norton through his series of misadventures, which begins with him finding a lost wallet and using Droid to find the location. This leads Norton to a karaoke bar, where he ogles a taken woman while singing “If I Could Turn Back Time” (the funniest part of the spot).

From here, Norton’s misadventures include attempting to land a plane, being held captive, having a key found in his stomach, playing a high-stakes game of Connect Four, and being held captive once again. Its everything-goes-wrong brand of humor borrows a little bit from The Hangover series, and although the spot seems to employ the kind of random connections Grey NY used in their 2012 DirectTV campaign, the superior execution helps keep it from feeling too easy or derivative. The spot uses a clever setup to promote the Droid’s impressive battery life, and then finds ways to showcase the phone’s other features in the process. This is certainly a far cry better than McgarryBowen Chicago’s disastrous “Denskies” campaign for Sears. Bonus points for the excellent use of a Lykke Li song. Credits after the jump. continued…

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