Hasta La Creative!

After spending the last four years as group director/integrated content marketing at Coca-Cola, Kevin Keith has headed back to the agency side, joining up with JWT’s Atlanta office as director of planning. Keith has taken over for Michael Deszo as of this week and will report to the agency office’s president/CCO, Perry Fair. During his time on the client side, Keith led brand strategy and integrated marketing communications on both Coke and Sprite. Regarding his meeting with Fair and the JWT Atlanta crew, which works on clients including the U.S. Marine Corps, Shell, Transamerica and Quaker State, Keith says in a statement, ““I was introduced to Perry when he joined JWT Atlanta and have followed his accomplishments and work over the past two years. The extensive technology capabilities at JWT and the supporting infrastructure to propel creative ideas into business solutions for clients made the agency very attractive for me, and I’m excited to see what we can invent together.”

During his previous stints in ad land, Keith worked on the account side at the likes of Draftfcb, Lowe and Hal Riney & Partners.

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We’ve received confirmation from those in the know that Chris Adams has parted ways with Saatchi & Saatchi LA, where he served as executive creative director for nearly three years. We’ve been told that Adams’s last day at the agency is this Friday. Meanwhile, we’ve been told that his creative partner-in-crime at the agency, ECD Margaret Keene, is remaining on board at the agency. The pair joined Saatchi LA from TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, where they each spent well over 15 years. During his time at the agency, Adams was involved in the Apple launch of iTunes, iPod, the Power Mac G5 and The Beatles’ debut on iTunes as well as campaigns for Nissan and Pedigree. No word on his next destination.

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We’ve received word from Denver-based agency Factory Design Labs that Andrew Price has taken over as global chief creative officer. Price sends this note: “The CCO position was previously held by Blake Ebel. August 2010 – April 2012.  Blake was co-CCO at Euro RSCG Chicago, he left to begin a start-up agency here in Denver.  The position sat empty for a few months, then I took it over. When I was ECD, it was a sole position created uniquely for me at the time.I can add that Blake’s agency is called ‘Fear Not.” Price has been with FDL since 2000, moving up the ranks from ACD to his most recent post.

He adds, ““I lead by letting my teams take risks.  That’s what encourages alternative thinking, and that’s the kind of thing I’ve always thrived on.  Factory’s approach would seem out of place on Madison Avenue.  We dive into the brands we represent and we always speak authentically.  Everything we do is about resonating with the most critical consumer: our clients’ core audience.  As a result, people want to work with us and for us because you can be yourself.  And with other senior leadership changes and our on-going expansion plans, we are poised to continue making a series impact globally in 2014 and beyond.”

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After spending the last 10 months on the account for a “certain electronics company that’s taking over the world” at Rosetta’s L.A. office, which just so happened to welcome Lars Bastholm to the fold, the creative team of Jose Eslinger and Carissa Zaino Levine, art director and copywriter, respectively, have moved over to Innocean to work on, you guessed it, Hyundai. The pair, who officially joined Innocean this week, have been partnered up for nearly three years, initially joining forces at fellow L.A. shop Ignited, where they worked on Activision (like this Deadpool campaign), the NFL and Konami. Prior to Ignited, Eslinger (whose handiwork can also be seen here) served as an AD/designer at the likes of TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, its \Tequila unit and Dailey while Levine spent a half-dozen years at Arnold’s Boston hub.

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Sources familiar with the matter confirm that Chris Reed, who’s spent the last eight years at Energy BBDO, has moved over t0 DigitasLBi’s Chicago office, where he now serves as EVP/account management. Reed now heads up the account team on DigitasLBi’s Whirlpool account as well as Maytag and Kitchen Aid. From what we’ve been told, Reed assumed his new post as of last week. Along with his lengthy stint at Energy BBDO, the account exec also spent a couple of years at Y&R during his career.

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I don’t think Edwin Starr had QR Codes in mind when he sang “War,” but a few young ad folk (Yousuke Ozawa, Alok Mahadevia, Jeff Oropeza) have used the anti-war theme song to declare war on the maligned pixelated mobile-scanning boxes in a one-minute video titled “Death to QR Codes.”

People have been declaring QR codes dead for quite some time now, and I’m not sure what makes this clip stand out in any way from other eulogies, other than the unintentionally ironic misuse of an anti-Vietnam song. That’s not to say the people behind the project are wrong. For whatever it is worth, a fair amount of data, like this Marketing Charts post, suggest QR code scans are leveling off as mobile advertising spending greatly increases, which is a more apt mathematical eulogy than this video. It’s a video showing people putting cutouts with little graphics of karate kicks and soldiers holding guns next to QR codes. But it’s a Friday afternoon, so if you have a free minute, watch. Or, don’t watch.

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Every now and then, we like to sprinkle a little life after advertising item into the mix, and so with that, our latest person of interest is one Brandon Knowlden, who left his senior art director gig at Cramer-Krasselt Chicago eight weeks ago to, as he says, “pursue working with my hands and creating custom furniture.” The end result is a new, fellow Windy City operation (though Knowlden also works out of his dad’s shop in north Detroit) called Well Made, which produces sustainable, handmade home furnishings like the brick coffee table above and the bench below (cat not included, we believe).

Before we go full Better Homes & Gardens on you, we should mention that, yes, there is also a Kickstarter effort at play here that involves Stiicks, a product that Knowlden dubs “the simplest, most well-crafted frame ever.” A bold statement perhaps, but looks like quite a few folks are buying it as Knowlden is already three-quarters of the way to his $8,000 goal with 24 days left to go. You can peep his Stiicks presentation after the jump. As for whether he’d ever return to full-time ad life, Knowlden, who worked on Porsche, Panera Bread, Heinz and Corona while at C-K and is still freelancing, says “potentially.” For now, though, the creative adds that he’s “more interested in making things that last a little longer than 30 seconds.”

continued…

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As sources hinted yesterday, we were on to something when we started hearing that longtime creative partners Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal were leaving Wieden + Kennedy New York, which the agency eventually confirmed. Our guess was that the duo, which has been working together for nearly 15 years, was joining Gerry Graf‘s NYC-based Barton F. Graf 9000, a notion that was only heightened when we got this tip around the same time: “Eric Kallman was let go today from BFG9000. It was totally unexpected.” There’s no confirmation on the nature of his departure but yes, that Eric Kallman, the award-winning copywriter behind “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” for Old Spice who left W+K in early 2011 to rejoin old TBWA colleague Graf, but who’s now been left as a mere footnote in the BFG 9000 news about Vitrone/Reichenthal. When we called BFG 9000 yesterday, we were told simply that Kallman was “not available.” Ah well, why steal the thunder, read on here.

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Sources familiar with the matter confirm that Tribal New York (which dropped the “DDB” part earlier this year) has parted ways with Seth Friedman, whose official title has been managing director partner, though his focus was strictly on leading new business efforts. From what sources say, Tribal NY doesn’t have a plan to replace Friedman, whose new biz responsibilities will now be handled by the agency’s executive team. No word yet on reasons for his departure, but Friedman had been with Tribal NY for three years, initially joining the office as head of planning before moving up to his MD/head of new biz position.

Prior to joining Tribal, Friedman spent three years as planning director at sibling DDB New York, leading strategic efforts for clients like H&R Block, Merck and P&G. During his career, the now-ex Tribal NY MD also worked on the account side at the likes of Mad Dogs & Englishmen and Deutsch.

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There will be a major changing of the guards–well, eventually–at JWT’s top ranks as Gustavo Martinez has been tapped to succeed Bob Jeffrey as the agency’s global CEO in 2015. Jeffrey, who’s served as JWT’s top exec for 15 years, will continue in his role as chairman/worldwide CEO through 2014. In a statement regarding his eventual replacement, Jeffrey says, “Over the past few years, Gustavo and I have cultivated a relationship of mutual admiration and respect. He is passionate about the business, devoted to clients and understands that the key asset of the business is the caring, nurturing and understanding of its people. Gustavo Martinez is the future of JWT.” Couldn’t have ended it with a better exclamation point, we say.

While he awaits his move to top of the heap at JWT, Martinez (pictured) will assume the the role of global president of the WPP-owned agency network effective Feb. 2014. The exec currently serves as president for Europe and Asia at McCann Worldgroup, where’s he spent nearly the last three years. Martinez initially joined the Worldgroup from Ogilvy back in early 2011, replacing Brett Gosper as president of the European region. He subsequently moved up the charts at McCann, taking on more responsibility as co-leader of the agency’s Global Brand Community a year later. According to Campaign Asia-Pacific, McCann hasn’t made any announcement yet as to who Martinez’s potential replacement will be.

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