Hasta La Creative!

We’ve received word that Joe Garcia, who’s been with Commonwealth for three years and has previously worked out of McCann Midwest, is no longer with the agency. Garcia served as president of Commonwealth, the IPG-owned, Chevy-focused, Detroit-based branch. Prior to his time at Commonwealth, Garcia spent over seven years at BBDO Detroit, where he last served as president. We’ll keep you posted if and when we hear more.

Update: And so the story goes, McCann has appointed Team Detroit alum Sharon Wacker as managing director, North America while promoting Kate MacNevin to executive director of global operations for Commonwealth. Bill Kolb, CEO of Commonwealth/McCann, says in a statement, Bill Kolb, chairman/CEO of Commonwealth//McCann, said, “We are excited to welcome Sharon. Her deep understanding of the North American auto marketplace makes her ideally suited to the task of building on our success with Chevrolet in North America Kate has an exceptionally effective record of helping to build and expand Chevy’s businesses and is a great judge of not only what builds a strong brand, but also what drives traffic into dealerships. In her expanded new global role she will be key to helping further develop the Chevrolet brand across the globe.”

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We’ll try to take a quick breather from the Super Bowl madness and provide this op-ed from Natalie Marsan, media director/community management at MRY. As you can gather, community management is the topic at hand and we will let our newest scribe drop some science.

Community Management is no longer a job title. It is a discipline. In fact, it is a new discipline born out of disruption. So, four years into Community Management Appreciation Day, where does this discipline fit in the industry? What does the career ladder look like? Why should you care?

As Community Management evolves, so must the roles within the discipline. If you can say ‘yes’ to any of the following statements, the likelihood that one community manager (CM) will be able to do the job is erroneous. An entire Community Management department might be in your business’s future.

?        Your brand has a large customer base and communities spread over multiple owned channels.

?        You service multiple markets, potentially in different regions of the world.

?        You are seeking new forms and innovative solutions for capturing customer insights, and you think social media is a likely place for gathering those insights.

?        You have diverse customer segmentations.

?        Your brand has a broad share of voice in your industry.

?        You think the future of customer service is more sophisticated than just solving issues as they emerge.

A Community Management department will include not only CM’s and a Director of Community, but most likely a senior CM and potentially a supervisor, as well. While the CM’s themselves have the unique position of being on the frontlines with customers, they also need to remain at ground level. More senior roles within the discipline will have the sensibility of a CM, but also the hindsight of what works and what doesn’t – as well as the luxury of the bigger picture perspective. The most senior team member will need to maintain a bird’s eye view of the health of a community, as well as where the brand stands in broader conversations online.

Ultimately, the most senior role ensures, or more accurately obsesses, that the community is driving value to the brand and that the brand is driving value to the community members. These CM leaders also:

?        Bring a strategic focus to the community management discipline; ensuring insights from the community are driving strategic decisions over time.

?        Set new standards and further enhance best practices uniquely tailored to their (or their client’s) business.

?        Draw out key insights from the highest-yielding content and trends in community voices and sentiment. Conceptualize and optimize content accordingly.

?        Ensure that relevant team members are getting the information they need, deciding on roles and responsibilities, and overseeing day-to-day operations. They keep a close watch on the frontline to make sure the entire team is adhering to strategy.

continued…

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We’ve reached out to the Motorola camp on multiple tries and haven’t succeeded but sources tell that Brian Wallace, who joined the Google-owned company barely a year ago, is no longer there. Here is one of several comments we’ve received: “Razorfish took on Motorola when Brian Wallace went there, while still working on Samsung. They did the Motorola work under the name Digitas (and still are).  Media planning/buying is being done by the real Digitas (NYC office) but the rest is Razorfish Chicago and Austin. Some key individuals were working on both at the same time [names redacted]. Samsung was not happy about this. Legal got involved. Went on for a while; Razorfish knew that Samsung would wind down the biz and move on, and it was so.”

Oy, if you recall, Wallace’s relationship with Razorfish dates back a few years, during the time he worked at RIM and served as VP/global digital marketing and media for the latter brand. Prior to his most recent gig, Wallace served in a similar VP/strategic marketing role at Samsung.

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More from W+K, as W+K New York have unveiled their latest “This is Sportscenter” offering.

The 30 second spot, “Long Week,” celebrates Super Bowl XLVIII with a fun look at the rivalry between Denver Broncos’ mascot Miles and Seattle Seahawks’ mascot Blitz. Set in an elevator on ESPN’s Bristol, Connecticut campus, the spot stars SportsCenter hosts Jay Crawford and Steve Levy, who witness a tense, awkward exchange between the rival mascots. Credit has to go to director Jim Jenkins and the guys playing the mascots for perfect comedic timing. At the end of the spot, Everett and Levy reveal that the two mascots have been engaging in such behavior all week. Hopefully Miles and Blitz don’t kill each other before the big game.

The timely “Long Week” is designed to promote ESPN’s weeklong coverage of Super Bowl XLVIII, which began yesterday with ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike kicking off 115 hours of TV and radio programming from New York City. ESPN’s programming originates from their Herald Square and Times Square Studios all week, up until Superbowl Sunday. Keep an eye out for “Long Week” during that coverage. Credits after the jump. continued…

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After spending just 18 months as chief marketing officer, North America for McCann, Alex Lubar is quickly moving up the ranks as he’s now assumed the newly created position of global CMO at the Worldgroup. Prior to joining McCann, Lubar spent well over three years at Grey, last serving as SVP/new business. Says McCann CEO/chairman Harris Diamond in a statement, “What makes Alex so effective in business development, in addition to tenacity, is that he relishes the complexity of brand challenges in today’s complex business environment and he knows how to harness resources to create innovative multiplatform solutions.”

Along with Lubar’s promotion, McCann has also brought on fellow Grey alum Chioma Aduba as new business group director in its New York office.

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Let’s start the party by addressing Tribal Worldwide’s New York office and its relationship with eyecare brand Alcon, which a few tipsters have brought up. Here’s what we hear: sources familiar with the matter tell us that the agency-client relationship varies from year-to-year. Tribal has been working with Alcon for the past five and it looks like the partnership will continue in 2014 “and beyond”–though in what terms, we’re not sure. Tribal deferred all official comment to Alcon, which we’re checking with.

Switching Tribal topics, said agency’s NY office has also bumped up Josh McGuire and Hunter Simms to creative directors. During his career, which has basically consisted of time at Tribal NY, McGuire (pictured) moved up the ranks from art director to senior AD to his most recent post. As for Simms, the new DDB NY CD previously served as senior writer at JWT Dubai for clients including Kleenex, Band-Aid, Wendy’s, Audi, Nokia and more.

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DDB Chicago has appointed a new chief creative officer in John Maxham, who rejoins the agency after spending the last four years as executive creative director/partner at Seattle-based Cole & Weber United. Maxham, who originally served as SVP/GCD on all things AT&T at DDB Chi for two years, will now oversee the creative product and 100 staffers, working with clients including McDonald’s, State Farm, Mars Inc., Capital One and Safeway in the process. Maxham’s arrival will fill a six-month void left when Ewan Paterson and DDB Chicago parted ways.

His new boss, DDB Chicago CEO Paul Gunning, says in a statement, “I looked very hard to find a partner that would share in my passion for DDB and the iconic American brands we work on. I wanted a true leader with a diverse creative skill set who could not only work across media channels, but also flex from B2C to B2B. This was not an easy task but John is uniquely qualified.”

During his ad career, Maxham (who *shameless plug* talked to us about Super Bowl a couple of years ago) served as a creative director at Team One and an ACD at Lowe.

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As with all tips, we check, and a phone call to “the agency for the digital age” seems to say as much as Dawn Winchester is apparently no longer in R/GA’s directory. Winchester has been with R/GA since 1999, moving up the ladder from director of client services to EVP/client services to her most recent position as EVP/global chief marketing services officer, working out of the agency’s NYC hub. Prior to her lengthy stay at R/GA, Winchester spent two years as VP/management supervisor at Ammirati Puris Lantis Digital and before that, founded the interactive offshoot of New York agency, BK&S.

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It didn’t take too long for Huge to find a successor for chief marketing officer Chris Hayes, who left the agency in December and subsequently joined Critical Mass (along with fellow ex-Huge cohort/CCO, Conor Brady) earlier this month. Taking over as Huge CMO is Jessica Pezzullo, who arrives from SelectResources International, where she’s spent the last eight years and most recently served as senior partner. From what we’ve been told, Pezzullo will handle CMO responsibilities out of Huge’s Los Angeles office. During her career, the exec has also served as senior partner/group account director at the likes of Digitas and Ogilvy.

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JWT New York has added another executive creative director to its flagship office following the hiring of Andy Carrigan and Jon Zast in December. Frederic Bonn, ECD at Razorfish NY, has joined in the same role at JWT NY and will oversee digital creative across the office, which has won new biz from Puma and Google as of late. Bonn spent well over four years in all at Razorfish, working on efforts for Mercedes-Benz, Uniqlo  and Citibank among other accounts. During his career, served as a creative director of the London and New York offices of what Euro RSCG 4D as well as Ogilvy Interactive, Paris.

His new boss, JWT North America CCO Jeff Benjamin says in a statement, ““Here we are in 2014 and it seems almost backwards to be hiring an ECD for digital. The reality is that digital simply moves too fast to expect everyone to have the expertise brands demand. It is hard to imagine, but the next 10 years will dwarf the innovation we’ve seen from the last. In this evolving world of real-time marketing, platforms, newsrooms, apps, social, invention and whatever happened today — you need digital leaders who can help brands and agencies stay ahead of the pace and places digital is pushing. Frederic brings a selfless talent and wisdom that is too rare in this industry, but necessary to succeed,”

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