Hasta La Creative!

Well, so much for the We Hear item we were plotting for today. We’ve been tracking this story since Monday afternoon as we received a half-dozen tips about it over a 24-hour period (for example, “Moxie’s dream team getting snapped up by Enguage” and “Publicis is buying Engauge and consuming Moxie.  announcement this week”).  Now, the announcement has been made. Publicis Groupe has acquired six-year-old, Columbus, OH-based agency Engauge and has in turned aligned it with Atlanta-based Moxie Interactive, which we’re sure you’re familiar with if you’ve checked out the site over the past couple of years. As a result of the acquisition, Engauge joins Moxie within PG’s ZenithOptimedia Group umbrella.

The “dream team” that the one tipster is referring to is the leadership group formed by Moxie earlier this year. This includes SVP/new business Jane Matthews, CTO Matthew Fleischman and EVP, creative Anthony Reeves, who joined last fall, Sharon Boddie, SVP of strategy and media and John Rich, VP of digital strategy. As for Engauge, the agency works with clients including AMC Theaters, Chick-fil-A, Nationwide, Coca-Cola and UPS. The new, combined Moxie/Engauge entity will house over 600 employees.

Here are some quotes from the higher-ups at both agencies. First, Suzy Deering, Moxie CEO, who says, “By fusing Engauge’s expertise in social marketing together with Moxie’s capabilities and resources, we will be able to provide our clients with a stronger, multichannel, geographically-diverse company that is able to offer the best services and solutions all under one roof.”

And now, Engauge CEO Nick Bandy‘s explanation for joining the Publicis Groupe fold. “Over the past year, the leadership team of Engauge has explored ways to meet the challenges of the evolving and increasingly complex marketing landscape to ultimately help with our clients’ continued success,” he says. “Through this discovery work we entered discussions with multiple companies across the advertising business. Where we found most accord and alignment with our mutual goals was with Publicis Groupe. We believe this change in ownership will enable us to meet our goals, provide long-term stability to our company, give access to world-class marketing resources, products, tools and apps, research, data and insight capability and, of course, access to a substantial talent pool across the world which for our people presents greatly enhanced career opportunities.”

Update: Moxie has updated its site to address the change via a manifesto of sorts.

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A changing of the guards–well, at least positions–has taken place at Minneapolis-based digital agency space150 as CEO/chief creative officer Billy Jurewicz has now shifted into a founder/CEO role in order to, among other things, focus on the expansion of the agency’s offices in New York and Los Angeles. Jurewicz’s move is just one of a handful of title changes at space150 as 10-year vet Marc Jensen is moving from president/CTO to managing partner/CTO at the agency.

In addition, David Denham, who’s been with the agency since January and serves as chief strategy officer, will now president to his title. Finally, group creative director Brian Ritchie, who joined space150 18 months from fellow Twin Cities shop Colle+McVoy, will now step up to ECD. Regarding his own move, Jurewicz says in a statement, “As we look ahead ? at the marketplace we serve, the future needs of our clients’ business, and the talent we have under roof ? now was the right time to shift our leadership structure to ready us for future growth.”

The 100-strong space150 currently counts clients including AmEx, Target, American Eagle Outfitters and Buffalo Wild Wings.

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We checked with Kevin Drew Davis himself last week on what his next gig would be after leaving DigitasLBi earlier this month, but didn’t get the full story. Well, now we know as it’s hit the newswires and trades up north that KDD has assumed the newly created position of chief creative officer at DDB Canada. So why the move, Kevin? “DDB Canada has been on my radar for some time,” he says in a statement, adding, “From the senior executive team to its creative leaders, everyone I’ve met has demonstrated an unwavering passion for their work. DDB’s culture is balanced with a tremendous amount of humility and integrity, which is a rare combination. For me, it’s all about the people that surround you.”

As noted, this is the first time a chief creative officer has been appointed to lead all of DDB Canada’s integrated creative departments, which span Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver. Davis will be based in the agency’s Toronto office. In case you forgot, Davis spent two years as ECD for both Digitas San Francisco and Chicago prior to joining DDB Canada and spent several years as global interactive CD at W+K among other notable stints.

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Well, as you may have heard, Darren Moran has officially joined Havas Worldwide’s New York office as its new chief creative officer. Once again, we’ve obtained a memo (confirmed legit), this time sent from Havas global president Andrew Benett (who also doubles as NY CEO) to staff just a couple of hours ago regarding Moran’s arrival. The newly minted CCO most recently spent his second tour of duty at BBDO New York, which he rejoined just last fall as executive creative director. During his career, the creative exec also served as EVP/chief creative officer at Draftfcb NY.

Anyhow, feel free to check out Benett’s memo, which also mentions a few other key leadership notes, in full after the jump.

continued…

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It’s gonna be a day. After the usual “competitive pitch process,” wine staple Kendall-Jackson has awarded agency of record duties to Heat, the San Francisco-based shop perhaps best known for their various EA Sports efforts (or, yeah, this). Regarding the appointment of Heat, Caroline Shaw, chief communications & marketing officer for K-J, offers the textbook explanation, saying, “We’re so pleased to engage Heat for Kendall-Jackson. Their strong mix of strategy, creative thinking and clever writing demonstrated they would bring big ideas and solid execution to our business.” Heat will handle all new ad initiatives for the including digital, experiential installations. print and POP for the wine brand, which the parties involved say is trying to reach a younger audience.

Kendall-Jackson’s previous AOR was GlobalWorks Group, which handled the account for approximately a year.

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And thus, the Matt Anthony era at Y&R begins. In what we’ve been told is his first major announcement since taking over for Carter Murray at said agency as North American president/CEO earlier this year, Anthony has announced that Y&R’s Austin-based SicolaMartin will now be known as Y&R Austin. As a result, Y&R’s North American network now spans five markets, which also includes likes of Y&R Midwest, West  sorry, California and New York.

In a statement, Anthony, who joined Y&R after spending nearly two decades at WPP sibling VML, which he was a founding partner of, says, “We are excited to make this formal integration of the Austin agency to our North America network. The truth is we have worked alongside SicolaMartin as partners within Y&R for many years.  While the transition will be seamless and easy, its impact will be powerful.  Y&R Austin has a great offering, fully integrated capabilities, and a strong culture. Their clients will benefit from access to our talent and resources.  But it is also clear that Y&R clients in other markets will benefit from their expertise and experience.”

We’ve been told that the 28-year-old shop formerly known as SicolaMartin, which has shared clients with its parent including Dell and SanDisk since joining as a subsidiary in 2001, will house a staff of approximately 50. Cherie Cox, who has been with SicolaMartin for 20 years and most currently serves as its CEO, will keep the same title at Y&R Austin.

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After spending barely a year at Ogilvy Chicago, Laura Keeler is shifting gears and moving on to assume the SVP of creative post at Digitas’ Windy City office, where she will lead creative teams on the agency’s Whirlpool and Kao accounts. During her brief stint at O&M, Keeler worked as a creative partner for clients including UPS and SC Johnson corporate. Her new boss, Kevin Drew Davis, who took on the ECD post for Digitas LBi Chicago and San Francisco in fall 2011, says in a statement,  ”Laura is an impressive creative leader with an eye for big ideas. Her strong creative skill set and innovative storytelling makes her a great fit with our people—we’re thrilled to have her onboard to drive our client work to an even higher level.”

During her 20-year ad career, the Chicago native spent well over a decade at JWT, last serving as a senior partner/CD/writer for clients including Illinois Bureau of Tourism, Kimberly-Clark and Macy’s before splitting in 2007 for a gig at Draftfcb. She spent five years in all at the latter agency, leading creative on accounts ranging from Dow and SC Johnson to Nestle and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

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We knew something was in the air when just the words “Matt Ian” popped up in our tips box on Saturday of all days. Well, as we alluded to in our earlier TBWA\Chiat\Day NY-related post this morning, the “big announce” is that, yes, Matt Ian, is taking over for Mark Figliulo as creative head of said agency’s New York office. As tipsters mentioned, the CCO title does not apply as of now; Ian, now in his second stint at TBWA, instead joins as executive creative director. Figliulo, who spent the last five-plus years as CCO/chairman of Chiat NY, is moving on to start his own shop.

Ian, meanwhile, joins from Deutsch L.A., where he served as EVP/group creative director on VW (recent examples include the baseball and Rubik’s Cube/racing spots). Prior to joining Deutsch, Ian worked as a senior creative at the likes of CP+B (on Microsoft Windows) and BBH New York, the latter of which he spent nine years at working on, of course, Axe as well as Johnnie Walker and Levi’s. In a statement regarding his move back to NYC, Ian says, “I wasn’t actively looking to leave Deutsch, LA or Volkswagen. But when I met Robert and talked with him about his plans for the NY office, jumping at the chance to write the next chapter of the TBWA\Chiat\Day NY story was a no-brainer.” Ian will officially join TBWA\Chiat\Day NY in August.

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As you may have just heard, OgilvyOne has emerged victorious in the review for Weight Watchers’ digital account. We’ve obtained the full memo from OgilvyOne managing director Dimitri Maex to staff regarding the news. As you’ll see below, said agency beat out the likes of Havas Digital, incumbent Razorfish and 360i for Weight Watcher digital AOR duties, which span everything from digital media buying/planning to social media to analytics. McCann, meanwhile, serves as lead creative agency for Weight Watchers. Anyhow, read on:

I’m incredibly excited to announce our newest addition to the client list. Weight Watchers, the market leader in weight loss, announced today that OgilvyOne has been appointed as the digital agency of record.

This news follows an extensive competitive search in which OgilvyOne won against some of the best digital agencies out there, beating the likes of R/GA, 360i, Havas Digital and incumbent Razorfish.

We’d like to share a few words from our new clients on why they chose OgilvyOne: “The scope of our engagement is broad, and includes digital media planning and buying, social media, advanced analytics, and search engine marketing,” said Sarah Kleinhandler, Director of Digital Strategy and Marketing, Weight Watchers. “Digital is a core channel for us to connect with and engage consumers, and we believe that OgilvyOne will be an important strategic partner in evolving how we fully leverage this critical marketing pillar.”

“Weight Watchers is a social business at its core, and there is a huge opportunity to continue to evolve and unlock the power of social for our brand,” said Lee Hurley, Vice President of Advertising and Social Media, Weight Watchers. “We selected OgilvyOne because of their strategic firepower, innovative creative ideas, digital media acumen, and incredibly passionate team.”

I could not be more proud of the Weight Watchers pitch team who made this happen. The ideas and the depth of our digital capabilities across OgilvyOne and Neo blew the clients away. And it was the energy and spirit of the team and the chemistry with the clients that made the real difference. The only way to win a pitch like this is to go all out and that’s exactly what we did. Our unbelievable new business team under Daniel Korn’s leadership was the real driving force. Thanks to Abigail Lacey, Juan Luna, Charlotte Spatcher, and Keith Smolar we shot our credentials video on a treadmill, we did a company-wide hackathon and we pledged to lose more than 50 pounds as a team during the pitch process.

With every pitch there are so many people to thank and this one was no different. I can’t possibly list everyone who contributed to this win in this email. But I do want to call out the core team who rehearsed relentlessly until the early hours before every pitch presentation: our creative leaders Jim Thompson, Edu De la Herran, Alfonso Marian and Jan Leth, the incredible Gemma Craven and Caroline Chianese who were the backbone of this pitch which focused heavily on social and digital media, our planning team with Jonathan Rigby and Alvaro Cabrera and our gentle but firm pitch general Billy Aymami.  The team would also like to thank all 115 hackathon participants and especially the winners: Brett Pollack, Chris Heydt, Madeline Malachowski, and Samantha Levine. And finally we want to thank the many people who came up to us throughout this process to express their concerns about our health.  What can we say? Weight Watchers works!  But you can stop worrying now — the pitch is over so we will all stop losing weight.

This latest win comes on the heels of a year of great momentum for New York and for OgilvyOne New York, with our most recent wins of the iShares Relationship Marketing business and the Brown Shoe Customer Engagement AOR assignment. Let’s not take our foot off the gas and let’s keep our momentum going throughout the second half of this year!

 

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Suffice it to say that it’s been a busy day on the account front. We first started hearing about this last Friday and though the Wieden + Kennedy camp confirmed that its Portland HQ was still in the pitch for tax preparation/filing service TurboTax, the agency referred any other inquiries to the brand’s parent company, Intuit. Well, we didn’t hear back from the latter but it’s now hit the wire that W+K has indeed been named AOR for TurboTax following a three-month review. Beginning August 1, W+K will take over on creative and media planning duties for TT, which were previously handled by L.A.-based agency, Dailey. According to earlier reports, W+K beat out the likes of CP+B, goodness Mfg. and Campbell Ewald for the TurboTax business.

In a statement, TurboTax VP of marketing Greg Johnson says, “From our first meeting, the chemistry between our two teams was clear. The Wieden+Kennedy team understands that TurboTax is central to the financial lives of millions of Americans. They share our belief that TurboTax exists to empower people to do their taxes and get their biggest refund. With their long history of developing great work that transforms brands, we are thrilled about the prospects for this partnership.”

Now, one can only wonder if W+K continues with the tax prep ad war between TurboTax and H&R Block in their upcoming efforts.

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