Hasta La Creative!

Well, we’ve received a few tips about this over the last two days and a call to the agency came back with a reply that he wasn’t listed in the director. So, we can only draw our own conclusions for the time being on the status of Kevin Brown. Oh yeah, if you didn’t know, Brown has worked for 14 years at WPP-owned Mindshare/Team Detroit and most recently served as managing director for its media buying efforts, which called for him to oversee media efforts for clients including of course its most notable one, Ford.

We’ve yet to hear back from Team Detroit on Brown (surprise), but seemingly upset tipsters are telling us that he was “responsible for buying billion plus in media” (apparently about $1.5 billion annually) and that the exec was not the only one cut by the agency on the Ford media end. As we always say and try to do, we’ll let you know if and when we hear more on the matter.

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Well, a phone call confirms at the very least that Ian Chee, who’s spent the last three years give or take as director, co-head of strategy/planning at AKQA New York, is no longer with the agency. From what we’ve been told on the Spy line, Chee’s moved over to fellow NYC operation MRY (formerly Mr. Youth), which of course merged with LBi a few months ago, to serve as its head of planning. We’ve been told that Chee assumed his post at MRY this week, but as far as his old position at AKQA goes, no word yet if there are any immediate plans to replace him.

Prior to AKQA, Chee held senior strategic planning positions in both the Asia-Pacific region and New York at the likes of Leo Burnett, McCann (global lead on Intel and Pfizer) and Digitas (on Delta among other clients).

Update: MRY has confirmed that Chee has indeed joined the agency as chief strategy officer and will oversee all planning and strategic output across its U.S. offices (counting NYC, Atlanta, San Francisco and soon, L.A.). With Chee’s arrival, MRY has in turn promoted Matt Rednor, who’s been with the agency since 2010, from chief strategy/innovation officer to simply chief innovation officer.

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A week after Netflix finally released season four of Arrested Development for the country to binge-watch, most Americans feel they’ve done their civic duty by finishing all 15 episodes and sharing their opinions via whatever social media platform they prefer. In other words, the mere mention of anything Arrested Development-related will most likely cause you to double over in fits of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea, but don’t blame copywriter Justin Racz for that. Instead, blame society like you always do.

Looking for work and in need of something to stand out to creative recruiters, Racz created (at least three) LinkedIn profiles for Arrested Development characters including George Bluth Sr., GOB Bluth, and America’s favorite Analrapist, Tobias Funke. After receiving a connect invitation and a message soliciting work in each characters’ voice, recruiters were then led to LinkedIn profiles that featured Racz’s portfolio. As luck would have it, recruiters and agency heads are the only people in Netflix territory that aren’t experiencing Arrested Development overload, ending in Racz receiving a few freelance offers. He boasts that he spoke to over 50 agency heads in one day at the total campaign cost of $0.

If you’re looking for Racz, odds are he took that gig with MRY, or else he wouldn’t have shown the offer and recruiter’s email address via this little case study. But, hey, he flexed his ability at using current, newsworthy events to his own personal benefit. And, really, more ad campaigns could stand to do just that a little more often.

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Well, calls to the agency have confirmed tips we’ve received over the last 24 hours that Maria Lopez-Knowles, who’s been with GlobalHue since 2010 and was promoted to president of the multicultural agency’s Latino division and New York hub last year, is leaving for a new gig in the West Coast.

All we know thus far from those in the Spy line is that it’s apparently a CMO job at a media company and her departure “shocked” some at the agency. Anyhow, from what we’re hearing, as of now, there are no immediate plans to replace Lopez-Knowles, who joined GlobalHue three years ago after spending six as an SVP at MRM with a focus on the Hispanic market.

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We’ve received confirmation from the BBDO camp that Cabot Norton, who’s spent the last three years at said agency’s Atlanta office and most recently served as its SVP/executive creative director, is leaving as of tomorrow. No other word on what’s next for Norton or BBDO ATL, but sources are telling us that the creative exec wants to return to New York.  After all, Norton spent well over a decade at BBDO’s Big Apple hub, working his way up from copywriter to creative director on accounts ranging from FedEx to AT&T.

If you recall, Norton was part of a trio of creative leaders at BBDO Atlanta–the other two being Heather Gorman and Jeff Spillane– who succeeded outgoing CCO Bobby Pearce a year ago. BBDO and Spillane/Gorman parted ways late last year and the pair is now based in NYC.  We’ll fill in the blanks when we hear more.

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We guess you can just call 180LA even steven. A minute after  losing creative directors Grant Holland and Gavin Milner to 72andSunny, the 180 camp has brought on longtime creative duo Anja Duering and Carl Corbitt in the same roles. The latter pair joins 180LA from fellow SoCal operation Goodness Mfg, where they spent the last two years as CDs. Duering and Corbitt’s history dates back to mid-aughts when they served as VP/ACDs at CP+B, helping manage creative teams on accounts including Best Buy (Geek Squad, specifically) and VW. The duo’s professional travels have also taken them to W+K Amsterdam, where they served as creative directors on the global Nokia account.

Now at 180LA, Duering and Corbitt, whose specialties lie in art directing and copywriting, respectively, will work on accounts including Boost Mobile and Mitsubishi.

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We’re hearing it’s all good, complete with XO’s, and considering his background, we can understand why he’s leaving. But yes, sources familiar with the matter have confirmed that Larry Fish, who’s spent the last two years serving as chief financial officer at McCann Erickson NY, will soon be parting ways with the agency to serve as president of Brooklyn-based chain, Financier Patisserie. We’ve been told by those in the know that this is Fish’s “dream job” and considering that he’s also served as adjunct professor at the French Culinary Institute for several years (and while holding down his day job as McCann NY in the last two), consider us less than shocked.

Sources say that Fish will stick around at McCann until mid-June to ensure a “smooth transition.” Prior to his most recent CFO gig, the exec held similar positions at the likes of Naked Communications.

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It’s been a couple of months since we’ve heard from Floyd Hayes, the “ideas man” himself who most recently concocted the “world’s fastest agency.” Just before that concept came to light, though, Hayes leveraged his years of experience in guerilla marketing, specifically as a creative director at U.K./NY shop Cunning, to launch a $49 course called “Free Thinking for Sale” (see clip below for reference).

Well, after a few months of trial and error, Hayes has checked in to tell us that he’s retooled the “Free Thinking” concept, shaved the price and has launched an online, interactive workshop called, yes, the Guerilla Marketing School. According to Hayes,  GMS is aimed at anyone interested in marketing, advertising, PR stunts, getting attention for their cause or just developing their creative thinking skills. This time around, Hayes’ workshop will cost you a cool $20 and his GMS course can be taken “anywhere at anytime, in one go or in snack-sized bites.” Well, why steal any more of the man’s thunder, go here if interested in learning more.

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So, we’ll let the conversation roll in a regular series we dub, “Is it Racist,” which is essentially the brainchild of Gitamba Saila-Ngita, a multidisciplinary designer and innovation strategist, living, working, and playing between CT / NYC / SF. He is the founder and chief innovation strategist of DEFT COLLECTIVE, a creative innovation agency based in Hartford, Connecticut.

My name is Gitamba Saila-Ngita and I once helped an agency sell sugar water to children. I’ve also helped them sell new technologies, ideas, and other people’s culture. But what I’ve always found funniest is when I’ve been hired to make things more, “urban” and by “urban” they meant “black”. Race is a topic that in the United States at times feels like we’re trying to seriously look at it with a fine lens and other times completely turning a blind eye to avoid it because it might make for a lack of a better word a few folks, butt hurt.

Recently in the last few months I’ve found that for advertising folks and almost always on this blog we’re hashing over if something is, “racist or not”. Mainly under the pretense that a group of people were offended by the subject matter in the ad and have used the internet to voice their opinion. I reached out to Kiran because I wanted to hopefully start a casual dialogue about the matter from the perspective of ad folks who clearly make these communications for their respective clients.

First let’s define some things so we can look at this objectively.

Racism is defined by most dictionaries as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities     and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular  race” and a racist as “a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is     superior to any or all others. For fun, let’s throw in offensive as “causing resentful displeasure; highly irritating, angering, or annoying”

With those thoughts in mind, I wanted  to find an ad each time I or anyone else writes for this series and put it through those quantifying factors with understanding that the third one is purely subjective to an individual or group.

continued…

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Well, we tried to put two and two together when we reported last week about DJ Pierce resigning from his position as executive creative director on the BMW account at KBS+. But alas, we unfortunately failed to mention what the status was with his partner-in-crime and fellow ECD on BMW, Michael Craven, who joined up with Pierce 15 months ago to work on the account. We’ve now received confirmation that Pierce and Craven actually resigned together, though no word yet on what either person’s next move is yet (we’re checking). Prior to KBS+, Craven served as a VP/creative director at CP+B and has also published a couple of novels along the way.

As has been reported, the pair was essentially replaced at KBS+ by Paul Renner, who has taken over as ECD on said automaker’s account.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.