Hasta La Creative!

After spending the last four-and-a-half years at R/GA’s New York hub, where he served as senior strategist, working with clients ranging from Nike to Unilever to Samsung in the process, Jon Jones has left the agency for the digital age to assume the chief digital officer position at The Incite Agency. In case you don’t know what Incite is, it’s the communcations firm co-founded by Robert Gibbs, President Obama‘s former press secretary. Jones has some history with Obama as he served as his first digital strategist for his 2008 presidential campaign. During his career, Jones has also worked for trades like The New Republic.

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You probably saw the trailer for U2′s new music video, directed by Mark Romanek, for their latest release “Invisible” during the big game last night, but here it is in case you fell asleep during one of the most boring Super Bowl games in recent memory.

“Invisible,” which was produced by Danger Mouse and mixed by Tom Elmhirst, is available for free on iTunes today until 11:59 PM (the track first became available for download last night following the Super Bowl). While normally that would still be too much to pay for a new U2 song, for every download Bank of America will be making a one dollar donation to the Global Fund via RED, Bono‘s organization set up to channel funds to the Global Fund to Fight Aids. This new partnership “sees Bank of America committing $10m to (RED), and has resulted in a $10 million match from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as $1 million each from both SAP and South Africa’s Motsepe Family – bringing the total commitment to $22 million.” So the latest development in the “Well his music really sucks, but at least he does all those nice things for AIDS relief in Africa,” sees Bono attempting to guilt you into downloading U2′s latest snoozefest so that you can make a contribution to RED free of charge. Or you could just go ahead and make a donation, essentially paying a fee to avoid having anything to do with U2′s music. Credits after the jump. continued…

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Fresh off of nabbing general market ad duties from Mother NY for Burger King earlier this month, Culver City, CA-based agency Pitch has made some moves within its creative department. Most notably, the agency has promoted Xanthe Wells, most recently executive creative director, to the role of chief creative officer. Wells (pictured above) joined Pitch as ECD in early 2013 after spending over seven years at TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A., where she worked with clients ranging from Kraft to Pepsi. The new CCO replaces Eric Springer, who left Pitch for the top creative gig at Draftfcb last year.

Along with the Wells promotion, Pitch has also welcomed aboard fellow Chiat LA alum Gage Clegg, who, along with his significant other, Becca Morton, parted ways with the latter agency last spring (but subsequently stayed on as GCD). Clegg joins up with Pitch as group creative director.

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We’ve received confirmation that David Bryant, who joined Organic 15 months ago as chief creative officer Conor Brady, who left at the time for Huge, is no longer with the agency. Word is that Chris Kelly, ECD of Organic NY and Duane  Raupp, Detroit ECD, will take the lead on creative duties across network at the Omnicom-owned agency. Prior to Organic, Bryant served as ECD/digital at the likes of StrawberryFrog and Publicis. As for the new incoming creative leadership, Kelly spent the last 15 months as creative director at Wunderman prior to joining Organic as GCD while Raupp has had a few stints at the agency, last serving as VP/ECD out of its Detroit office.

Here’s a quick statement from Organic CEO, David Shulman: “Kelly and Raupp are exceptional digital creative leaders who both complement and collaborate naturally in their leadership of our clients and staff.  They drive spectacular work and impressive innovation, and both are recognized as outstanding mentors in developing talent. Together they are a powerful team to lead Organic creative.”

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Neil Lopez (a copywriting student at Miami Ad School NY), Steve Torres (an art direction student at MAS NY), and Tim Noble (a copywriter in the industry) created “Side Projects Get You Jobs,” a side project offering up free side project ideas for others looking to expand their portfolio with side projects.

The creative trio points out the importance of side projects to help creatives stand out, while acknowledging that “coming up with the perfect idea can be tough.” So they offer up some of their own side project ideas for free (and because it makes an impressive side project). Visitors to the site are immediately met with an idea, such as “Make a Rocky style video of yourself training for the creative week ping-pong tournament.” They can then click on the “More” button for more ideas from Lopez, Torres, and Noble. Some highlights include: “Draw Middle Earth style maps of your booty calls,” “Stage a Tamagotchi Vs. Giga Pet death match,” “Start a Jesse and the Rippers cover band,” and “Write Mad Men spec pitches.” So if you’re looking for a side project to build up your portfolio but seem all out of ideas, head on over to Side Projects Get You Jobs and take one of theirs.

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Juan Leguizamon and Dave Gordon, two creatives at Saatchi & Saatchi New York, put together a project called Shoot First, driven by the philosophy that “the best way to do something is to stop talking about it and do it” and “speed is everything when you want to do something [that’s] never been done before.” Together, the duo has worked with brands such as Intel, Best Buy, Mattel, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Air New Zealand, Procter & Gamble and General Mills.

Shoot First shares the duo’s reel, biographical info and work philosophy, in which they stress that Shoot First is not about creating without thinking but the drive to follw your “instincts and to never fear failure.” The creative duo also share their contact info for those interested in asking questions later.

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Yes, to quell the Spy line, we can confirm that Evan Zeller, who has spent the last two years on the freelance circuit, working with Microsoft for Razorfish among other duties, has landed a full-time gig as director of strategy at Possible Worldwide, which he’s actually been working with for the past several months. In his new official role, Zeller’s working with Mitsubishi and new business efforts for Possible, the global network that was launched by WPP three years ago. Prior to his freelance gig, Zeller worked on the strategy side with the likes of Goodness Mfg., Modernista! and Night Agency.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

About two weeks ago, we shared the teaser trailer for Jaguar’s Super Bowl ad, which features Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong, and Tom Hiddleston (although only Kingsley was featured in the trailer). Today, Jaguar and their in-house agency, Spark44, have debuted the full 60 second spot, “Rendezvous.”

“Have you ever noticed how in Hollywood movies, all the villains are played by Brits?” Kingsley asks at the opening of “Rendezvous,” featuring the three star British actors as vaguely defined villains who all drive Jaguars. Filmed in London by Oscar-winning British director, Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), in collaboration with Smuggler, Spark44 and Jaguar clearly threw a lot into “Rendezvous” to make the spot cinematic, also employing Alexandre Desplat, who worked with Hooper on The King’s Speech, to compose the ad’s original soundtrack, which was recorded by The London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road studios. “‘Rendezvous’ was filmed with the realization that many of today’s television viewers have access to beautifully sharp picture screens and multi-channel surround sound not unlike the best movie theaters,” explained Brand Vice President of Jaguar North America, Jeff Curry.

“Rendezvous” marks Jaguar’s debut Super Bowl advertisement, and also launches their straightforwardly-titled “British Villains” campaign, which promotes the new Jaguar F-TYPE Coupe (available spring, 2014) and will run through July. The spot features the campaign’s #GoodToBeBad hashtag (a line also spoken by Kingley during the ad, which honestly sounds a little forced), but that’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Jaguar’s online and social engagement. They’ve launched a campaign landing page, that “hosts information about the F-TYPE Coupe, the commercial and some unique video content including teasers starring each of the three actors.” Jaguar is also hosting an event with Deadspin as part of their partnership with the latter’s parent, Gawker, as well as two co-sponsored events with Sports Illustrated, including during the magazine’s Super Saturday event the night before Super Bowl Sunday.

What’s more, Jaguar “aims to be the most real-time engaged advertiser during the Super Bowl through a unique physical space called ‘The Loop,’  developed by Mindshare, where multiple screens will monitor real-time consumer data and translate it into actionable insights, and ultimately, rapid marketing decisions…” Jaguar claims “The Loop” is “the first real-time marketing tool to impact paid media – whereby media dollars can be quickly shifted and redeployed to leverage opportunities uncovered by the data.” It will be interesting to see how Jaguar’s first Super Bowl advertisement, and their “The Loop” strategy plays out this Sunday. Stick around for behind the scenes footage of “Rendezvous” after the jump. continued…

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With the big game less than a week away, the folks at El Segundo, CA-based David&Goliath have released a teaser for their Kia K900 Super Bowl spot.

The “Official K900 Game Day 2014 Teaser” sees Laurence Fishburne reprising his role as Morpheus from The Matrix trilogy. Morpheus returns to the Construct, where he fiddles with a classic Radiola TV set in an attempt to kick back with some chips and watch the big game. The trailer doesn’t really let us know what to expect on Sunday, other than Fishburne as Morpheus sometime in the third quarter, as it’s designed to keep us guessing. The spot won’t be the first featuring Fishburne promoting the K900, as he narrated December’s “Preconceived Notions” ad, which may offer more clues to the Super Bowl spot than the teaser itself. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Just want to find out, man, as we’ve been hearing from the Spy line that you may have parted ways with Mullen, the agency you joined and took on the post of chief digital officer like a year ago. We’re just Curious George-ing because a couple of calls to the agency left us nowhere, and we’re just trying to find if it’s true and all.

Shit, while we keep shoegazing, let us reminisce on a career where you spent five years at Evolution Burea–oh shit–sorry, EVB to us and last served as partner/ECD (who can forget “Mob the Rainbow” for Skittles?). Oh yeah, almost forgot that you spent nearly seven years as GCD/AD at Goodby after toiling as an art director at the likes of BSSP and DDB Dallas. Anyways, bro, just reaching out, give me a holler when you can, you know, and–oh shit, my laces are untied (*cue Slowdive*).

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.