Hasta La Creative!

To update our recent post on MRY‘s status in the wake of this month’s Publicis shakeup, we can confirm that founder/CEO Matt Britton will now oversee the operations of both his own agency and fellow New York shop Big Fuel. The agency founded by Avi Savar announced in 2011 that it would sell to Publicis, where it initially served as a “social media center” for Razorfish, Digitas, Zenith and Starcom).

This week Laura Desmond, CEO of the Starcom Mediavest group that now includes both MRY and Big Fuel, announced that their leaders would report to Britton, who will subsequently report to her.

The move has not been announced outside the newly expanded Starcom because it will not reportedly affect any of the services that either agency provides to clients.

While the leaders of both shops will report to Britton moving forward, they will remain operationally independent from one another. (As a reminder, one of Big Fuel’s most recent major staffing moves was the hire of former Dachis Group ECD Jon Resnik as EVP/ECD.)

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Today we confirmed several tips regarding Chief Creative Officer Darren Moran, who is no longer with Havas Worldwide in New York.

While we don’t have any information regarding the nature of his departure or his future plans, we can say that the move was recent: the tips first popped up this morning.

For context, Moran arrived at Havas’ New York office last August after a one-year stint in the ECD role at BBDO New York and two years spent as CCO at what was then DraftFCB in Manhattan. (We last heard from him when he commented on the hiring of Creative Director Kate McCagg, formerly of Razorfish, back in April.)

We don’t have a list of recent work led by Moran, but based on the internal memo that greeted his arrival last year we can say that he directed creative for all Havas New York clients. He has also earned mentions from nearly every major awards show during his 24-plus years in the industry.

Moran’s “co-CCO” Jason Peterson remains the agency’s chief creative officer.

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This morning brings both official and unofficial news from Detroit-based Lowe Campbell Ewald.

From the press release, Managing Director Kevin Wertz is now the agency’s president. Wertz joined LCE in 2007 and moved to Texas in 2009 to open its San Antonio office; in the new role he will split his time between Texas and Michigan, reporting directly to CEO Jim Palmer.

This announcement comes two weeks after LCE officially won the Cadillac account from Hill Holliday, but Wertz will not manage that client; his new responsibilities include leading all of the agency’s non-automotive accounts in both offices as well as handling “media, strategic planning, analytics, digital strategy and social media capabilities.” Prior to joining Lowe, he served as VP/account director at Doner.

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David Leonard, national president and chief operating officer of DDB Canada announced today that the agency has appointed 17-year DDB veteran Cosmo Campbell as its new chief creative officer. Campbell replaces Kevin Drew Davis, who is transferring to DDB Chicago to serve as senior vice president, executive creative director on the McDonald’s US business.

Campbell previously served as executive creative director of DDB Canada Vancouver, where his work has been recognized with numerous national and international awards. Dean Lee, who has served as executive creative director alongside Campbell at DDB Canada Vancouver, will now take over on a solo basis. In his new role as DDB Canada’s chief creative officer, Campbell will be responsible for overseeing the agency’s creative production and “serve as a key architect on new business strategy.” (more…)

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Here’s a quick round-up of some recent VP-level changes at DigitasLBi Chicago:

• VP and Group Director of Creative Strategy Shelley Rees joined the agency after a stint at JWT.
• SVP of Media Aaron Hoiles left Digitas; we have no word on his destination.
• VP/Group Director of Project Management Charles Chung joined Digitas after serving as senior manager/program director at SapientNitro. He previously held senior project manager positions at Razorfish and Wunderman.

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This afternoon we learned that VP/ECD Jason Gaboriau is no longer with Crispin’s Los Angeles office.

He joined CP+B in 2011 when the agency hired him, along with co-ECD and in-house vet Tiffany Rolfe, to re-establish its L.A. location.

Gaboriau, who helped found New York’s Amalgamated, made the move to L.A. after former DDB CCO Eric Silver took majority ownership of the previous agency in late 2010. Rolfe later left CP+B to join CO: Collective, where she still serves as partner and chief content officer. Several months afterward, CP+B lured Sue Anderson away from TBWAChiatDay, where she had served as GCD on the Absolut account; she currently holds the ECD title at CP+B L.A.

At Amalgamated, Gaboriau worked on creative for Coca-Cola, Svedka and Ben & Jerry’s, among other clients. Recent CP+B credits include A1 and an extended 2012 campaign for Old Navy that played heavily on 90?s nostalgia.

We have no information on the details of Gaboriau’s departure, though a tipster tells us that he was involved in recent pitches to win business from Turbo Tax, the L.A. Clippers (which went with RPA after a very quick review) and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

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Last month we learned, via MediaPost, that Los Angeles indie agency Kastner & Partners (best known as Red Bull’s longtime AOR) had appointed a new CCO.

The agency recently made it official with a release announcing the hire of Jamie Reilly to run the shop’s creative department. The most interesting part of the story, though, is Reilly’s history: after beginning his agency career as an art director at Deutsch LA and freelancing for Saatchi & Saatchi and other shops, Reilly spent almost nine years at TBWAMAL, the West Coast Apple-only agency that has, at times, seemed nearly as secretive as the client itself.

He then joined 72andSunny as a creative director in January 2013 before leaving at the beginning of this month to join Kastner.

We wondered what sort of trade-off could lead an experienced creative to leave a big name for a smaller, less-established shop.

Today Reilly gave us his take on the transition.

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Sid Lee has announced the promotions of Tom Koukodimos and Jeffrey DaSilva to the positions of executive creative directors, jointly taking creative leadership of the agency’s Toronto office. Koukodimos and DaSilva have served as creative directors at Sid Lee since arriving in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Executive Creative Director Dave Roberts is leaving Sid Lee Toronto after four years, in order to return to Sid Lee Montreal for a new global assignment.

Tom and Jeffrey were behind such recent work as the “We the North” campaign for the Toronto Raptors and “It’s a Bloody Big Deal” for Toronto FC. In their new positions, the pair will oversee creative leadership on all Toronto accounts, including Coca Cola Canada, Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, Post Media, Google Canada, Marks, Sport Chek, PC Financial and TJX Canada.

Prior to joining Sid Lee, Tom was a creative director at Cossette, working on McDonald’s. Jeffrey worked on Google at Mullen in Boston before returning to Canada to join Sid Lee in 2013. (more…)

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Confirming an earlier tip, this morning San Francisco’s Heat announced the hiring of Justin Cox as director of strategy.

Cox most recently filled the same role at DDB California, which hired him away from Pereira O’Dell; he spent less than one year in the position.

The release notes that Cox will lead Heat’s strategy team with the ultimate goal of helping clients like EA, Kendall-Jackson, Bank of the West, Levi Strauss & Co. and Teva to “determine the role of their brand in the lives and culture of their target audience.”

Cox served as senior brand strategist at Pereria before moving to the strategic director role, where he handled accounts like Skype, Intel, Amazon and Guitar Center while also working on new business. His early career included planning roles at Publicis & Hal Riney and Razorfish, where he worked on the Microsoft and Sony accounts (among others).

Heat President John Elder writes that Cox will be “a welcome addition to Heat’s deep strategic bench, even if he’s a Dodgers fan.”

The release tells us that Cox’s other roles include SXSW speaker, WSJ.com contributor and account planning instructor at Academy of Art University and Miami Ad School.

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Today we can confirm that Eric Springer is no longer serving as chief creative officer at FCB/West.

Springer, who like former Deutsch colleague David Povill gained attention thanks to his work on the VW Super Bowl spot from 2011, left that agency’s LA office to serve as CCO at Culver City shop Pitch back in January 2012. After spending approximately one year there, he was hired by FBC/West (then DraftFCB West) to fill the EVP/CCO role.

During the one year and nine months he spent at FCB, Springer produced work for clients like Taco Bell, Levi’s and Nabi, maker of child-friendly tablets.

We have no word on the reasons for his departure or his future plans; we only know that, in the words of an agency spokesperson, “a search for his successor is underway.”

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