Hasta La Creative!

Rokkan launched an unusual effort for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) with a video purporting to introduce “Same Day Pups: Puppy Drone Delivery.”

The video shows two children begging their parents for a puppy, who then order one through a mobile app promising same day delivery via drone. A puppy is then lifted via drone and flown to the family, who tracks the order on the mobile app. The hoax video is designed to deliver the message that “A Puppy Is Not A Product,” part of a national campaign to raise awareness of the horrors of puppy mills. Rokkan and HSUS released the video anonymously last week, along with an unbranded landing page. Some people understood  the message right away, others were frightened. Yesterday, HSUS revealed itself as the organization behind the video and unveiled its A Puppy Is Not A Product page, where visitors can learn more about the initiative. We assume no puppies were harmed during the making of the video.

Digitally-focused Publicis Groupe agency Rokkan welcomes Billy Veasey and Bill Carlson as creative director of art and creative director of copy, respectively, to its roster. Veasey joins Rokkan from Amazon, where he spent the past several months serving as a creative lead, and Carlson counts an ACD/senior copywriter stint at Grey Group on his resume.

Regarding the hiring of the New York-based duo — whose collective client work runs the gamut from Gillette to Lenovo to Miller Lite — Rokkan CEO John Noe writes:

“With Veasey and Carlson joining the Rokkan family, our creative opportunities are only going to grow. I’m looking forward to working with them both as Rokkan continues to evolve its take on truly ‘digital-first’ integrated advertising.”

Veasey and Carlson both spent time at Saatchi & Saatchi and Grey.

The pair’s hiring caps a series of staffing moves made at Rokkan as of late including several promotions and hires in its senior-level department. Four-year Rokkan vet Zach Newcomb was promoted to SVP/chief growth officer, Brian Carley now serves as SVP/chief creative officer while Bryan Le has assumed the role of VP of creative for products and platforms.

On the hiring side, Rokkan also brought on former SapientNitro account director Anthea Tang as VP of client partnership – digital business, Code + Theory alum Kaitlyn Brenner as VP of client partnership – integrated, and Vincent Au, who has rejoined the agency after a few years in the VP of user experience position.

In the past, the Big Apple-based Rokkan has worked with the likes of JetBlue, Hyatt, TAG Heuer and Stolichnaya Vodka.

Publicis Groupe’s ROKKAN has officially launched its new media planning/buying offering, and its staff already includes three industry vets:

• Sean Miller, who is SVP of strategy, most recently worked in the strategy/planning department at R/GA New York
• Lindsay Williams, VP of media and analytics, joins the agency from Estee Lauder, where she was global brand director; prior to that role she worked with several clients at Razorfish
• Joe Meanor will serve as VP of client partnership. He joins ROKKAN from MRY, where he worked as group director

CEO/managing partner John Noe explains the offering’s purpose:

“Media is actually something we’ve been doing for several of our clients over the last couple of years, albeit in a bit of an ad-hoc fashion.”

As client requests for paid services increased, Noe and team decided to launch the new offering, which is less an independent unit than a “natural progression” of the agency’s existing services.

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