Hasta La Creative!

Joe Sayaman and Peter Cortez have spent the last year churning out clever tech projects. In September, they gave the world the Citypricks biking PSA. Last spring, there was Citydoping NYC, and unofficial travel guide for tourists who don’t want to seem too touristy. And, of course, after Sayaman left SS+K in 2011, he produced a mobile game called Pee & Poo Save the World. Seriously. So, their latest venture, a venting website called Workwankers, seems pretty benign.

Workwankers, also developed by Sam Mylarczyk, is Tumblrish in that it’s really just a dozen or so creative slides that use illustrations and text to call out archetype ad wankers who happen to embody annoying stereotypes. Shoulderbeast is the person who hovers. Idea Killer is the office Bitter Bob. Pervoceros is the guy who mistakes creepy behavior for flirting with women. Etc. People are encouraged to call out wankers and email their suggestions to Sayaman and Cortez. It’s a simple concept, and the illustrations are great, but the site may be too generic to really make an impact. Every office has these unaware employees. Plus, after you look at the site for a minute, there’s no incentive to come back. I’d rather see the slides turned into a calendar available for purchase. That way, ad folk can post the calendar by their desks and laugh a little after an oblivious Shoulderbeast hovers. A few screen grabs after the jump.

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We received a couple of interesting tidbits on the Spy line over the weekend regarding Publicis Healthcare Communications Group, specifically its Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness and Saatchi Health Communications units, which serve as consumer and professional agency, respectively. What we can confirm for now is that Ned Russell, who’s spent the last four-and-a-half years as group managing director of Saatchi Wellness and helped manage Saatchi Health along the way, has moved up to the role of EVP, global development & Publicis Sanofi Lab.

In his new role, Russell will work out of the Publicis Healthcare New York office and serve as the chief liaison and mediator between Publicis Groupe agencies and French pharma giant Sanofi, which we’ve been told is one of the former’s largest clients. Russell, who will begin with a focus in the U.S for the drug maker, will report to Laurence Meyer, the global head of Sanofi at Publicis Groupe in Paris. Prior to Saatchi Wellness, the newly minted EVP spent a few years in a similar role at Arnold and held a worldwide account director position at DDB early on.

As for the Saatchi Health and Wellness divisions, we’ve been hearing a few murmurs but have been told that there will be an “interesting announcement next week” regarding these agencies. Well, guess we’ll have to stay tuned.

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“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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