Hasta La Creative!

“Dear Digitas, this will be my farewell, even though I’m gone, I’ll always hope that you fare well” is the poetic hook in this hip-hop farewell from an as-yet-unknown staffer who’s obviously moving on–but not without waxing nostalgic about account management, making sandwiches in the break room and other hardcore shit. Our lyrical genius even has a sidekick who sings the hook, just for added dramatic flair we imagine. Should Digitas–sorry, DigitasLBi–be flattered or embarrassed by this sentimental shout-out? We’re not sure, but somehow, we made it to the very end, though not without a little chuckle here and there. See if you can do the same while we just sit here crossing our fingers that this heralds an agency rapper renaissance.

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We’ve received confirmation that Catherine Heath, who’s spent the last year in her native Australia serving as executive strategy director at M&C Saatchi Sydney (where she started her career over a decade ago on the planning side), is heading back to the States to head up strategy at Huge LA. It’s familiar turf for Heath, who spent over two years as a worldwide group planning director at TBWA\Chiat\Day LA. During her career, the planning vet also had a brief stint as chief strategy officer at now-defunct Boston operation Modernista! and served as VP/planning director at McCann and what was T.A.G. (now twofifteenmccann) for over two years.

While it’s been confirmed that Heath is joining Huge LA, no timetable has been set for her exact start date. We’ll keep you posted. As for the LA office itself, FYI, staff count is approximately 80 and clients include Vans, FX, National Geographic, and Tempur-Pedic.

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It’s been some time since we’ve covered staffing news at JWT New York, but the agency has now sent word out that it’s welcomed some senior staffers, both in creative and account management. On the creative front, toplining the new hire list is Robert Frost (he must have fun with that), a 13-year ad vet who’s made the rounds in senior creative roles at the likes of Y&R and TBWA Chiat\Day but spent the majority of his career at McCann.

During his last stint at said agency, which lasted six years, Frost served as SVP/GCD on MasterCard among other accounts. Now at JWT, he will served as executive creative director on the Vonage account, which the agency won at the beginning of the year. Along with Frost, JWT NY has also brought on RAPP alum Bryan Gaffin to serve as GCD on its healthcare accounts including Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as Kimberly Samskin-Barger, former creative lead on AmEx OPEN at Digitas, as a CD.

On the account side, meanwhile, Sherri Chambers, who most recently served as group brand director on Carl’s Jr. and Hardees at 72andSunny, joins JWT NY as global business director a yet-to-be-named “new account.” Hmm.

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It’s been a few months since we’ve heard from good ol’ Brian Thompson, aka @BrandWriter. Well, now that he’s done giving presentation tips while showing off his incomparable fashion sense, the T3 ACD/copywriter has returned with a Kickstarter effort to fund a new effort he’s dubbed “Passive Aggressive Notepads.” Yes, Thompson is reverting back to paper form to let people express their rage constructively via various messages printed on pads. His goal? To “solve life’s most annoying problems,” whether it be in the office or at home or when you’re going shopping. So far, three different notepads have been produced, and while we’re skeptical of the effectiveness of this project as a whole, Thompson is already a third of the way to his goal on Kickstarter, with 23 days to go. At the very least, we’re glad he’s once again sporting his presentation shirt, which he says he’s wearing “out of spite.” Whatever does the trick, sir.

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After spending nearly two years as an executive creative director at Havas-owned, Boulder-based, crowdsourcing agency Victors & Spoils, Chad Walker has split for Music City and taken residence as chief creative officer at Nashville-based Buntin Group. Buntin, if you needed to know, has worked with clients ranging from Bass Pro Shops to Burger King. On the V&S end, we’re awaiting comment on the matter and if there are plans to replace, but prior to joining said agency, Walker, a self-proclaimed bike geek, reader and Kentucky farm boy, served as a creative director at Arnold as well as a copywriter at both Ogilvy and kbs+.

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We’ll keep this short for now as details are forthcoming, but sources familiar with the matter confirm that DDB California president Mike Harris has recruited a new head of strategy in Justin Cox. The new hire arrives from Pereira & O’Dell, where he spent approximately three years and last served as strategy director on accounts including Intel (“The Beauty Inside,” for example), Skype and Corona. During his career, Cox, who remains in the Bay Area, has also worked on the planning side at the likes of Razorfish on Levi’s, Sony and Microsoft and Publicis & Hal Riney on accounts ranging from Walmart to Beam. We’ll fill in the blanks including start date, etc. once we hear more.

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Remote Control Tourist, the new interactive digital/video Tourism Victoria project from Clemenger BBDO , Exit Films, and Tool director Jason Zada, is kind of like The Sims without the gibberish language. You can control people from your computer, suggest they eat a certain food, walk a certain direction, enter a certain door. If you don’t want to suggest activities via social media, you can just watch the live streams. Voyeurism at its finest, or at least, voyeurism at its least creepiest.

The project is meant to promote Australian tourism by showing off the sights and sounds of Melbourne, and the live stream, which runs October 9-13 for about eight hours per day, adds a compelling dimension to tourism advertising. One man and one woman will travel around the city with head-mounted cameras, tailoring their movements to the social media suggestions. Hear’s to hoping people use the opportunity to be classy and find out more about a beautiful city, and not, you know, be dumb and inappropriate on the Internet, like most of the time. The broadcast officially kicked off, well, about now.

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After spending over six years at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, where he last served as group strategy director, Michael Davidson is heading over to fellow San Francisco agency, Venables Bell & Partners, to assume the title of head of strategy. Davidson (the staring far off into the distance look never fails), who actually had two stints at Goodby, first serving as planning director at the agency in the early aughts, will now head up said department at VB&P, which of course counts notable clients including Intel, Audi and Google. This marks for a reunion of sorts for Davidson and current VB+P managing director, Paul Birks-Hay, as the pair worked together at AMV BBDO earlier in their careers. In addition to AMV, Davidson spent two years in the U.K. at TBWA London, working on Labour Party’s General Election Campaign and reporting directly to Tony Blair.

Along with new head of strategy, Venables Bell & Partners has added more to the department in group strategy director Leander Chapman, aka “Chappy” (we can dig it), who most recently ran his own consultancy and has previously served strategy director for Translation among other agency gigs.

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And now, some quick people news to break things up a bit. It looks like Goodby alums Hunter Hindman and Rick Condos have been ramping up the creative department at their fellow San Francisco-based operation, Argonaut, as of late. Just weeks after welcoming former Deutsch LA EVP/group digital CD David Kim aboard, Argonaut has brought on CP+B alum Chean Wei Law as their newest creative director. Wei Law, aka undoboy, spent the last three-plus years at CP+B, serving as interactive design director and working on notable projects including the nifty outdoor Jell-O Mood Meter while also helping lead design departments for other agency clients including Domino’s, Coke Zero and Old Navy.  Prior to CP+B, Wei Law spent a few years as an art director at both W+K Portland and JWT New York.

Now at Argonaut, the CD will  work directly with head of creative technology and production Robbie Whiting while reporting to Hindman and Condos.

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So, here’s what we got on this one. We’ve received confirmation from sources familiar with the matter that Ricardo Diaz, who spent over six years at the agency serving as director/creative technology, working with clients such as Nissan, Infiniti, Gatorade, Visa and Pepsi, and nine-year TBWA bet Chincha Evans, are no longer with the agency. As for Evens, she held the post as director of digital operations most recently at TBWA\Digital Arts Network but also served on the digital production side at the likes of \Tequila within the agency network. No word if there are plans to replace, but from what tipsters tell us, the pair parted ways with the agency yesterday.

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