Agency Brief: Twins, Trains and Digital Transformation

It's Friday once again, and what an interesting week it has been, with Apple's new animated emojis, WPP Chief Martin Sorrell joining Twitter and National Cream-Filled Donut Day on Thursday. (Today happens to be National Linguine Day, National Felt Hat Day and National Hug Your Boss Day, among others, in case you're interested in pseudo holidays.) Take me out to the ballgame Minneapolis-based creative shop Carmichael Lynch has been named AOR for Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins after a competitive review. The shop will work across brand strategy, creative, and media planning and buying for the Twins, including TV, radio, experiential, website, digital design and collateral design. The Twins previously had worked with Periscope for more than a decade. The relationship ended earlier this year. Carmichael Lynch's work for the baseball team launches at the start of the 2018 season. 'Bye to status quo travel woes FCB New York helps Amtrak highlight its travel benefits with a campaign dubbed "Break the Travel Quo." The initiative showcases the common frustrations associated with car and air travel, while underscoring Amtrak perks like free Wi-Fi on most trains, ample legroom, and it being pet-friendly. The integrated campaign, expected to be a longstanding brand platform for Amtrak, includes digital, radio and outdoor advertising. Future-proofing fashion Firstborn and Isobar have been hired by fashion brand Lafayette 148 New York to lead digital and e-commerce transformation for the business. Previously, Lafayette handled digital in-house and with help from a variety of agencies. Through the partnership, Firstborn and Isobar will work with the luxury brand on original content, in-store and concierge service integration, and a new e-commerce user-experience platform. New work is expected to come out in spring 2018. Our neighbors to the North FCB Canada is on a hiring spree after seeing organic client growth and recently winning BMW and Fountain Tire. The shop, which was the most awarded Canadian agency at the 2017 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, has brought on Michael Morelli and Marty Hoefkes in Toronto as group creative directors. The duo has worked together for nearly a decade at Leo Burnett Toronto. Additionally, FCB Canada tapped Elma Karabegovic as senior art director and feature filmmaker Scott Drucker as director of photography. All of the new hires report to Nancy Crimi-Lamanna and Jeff Hilts, co-chief creative officers of FCB Toronto. Customers come first Omnicom's DAS Group of Companies has expanded its customer relationship management and digital offerings with the appointment of Luke Taylor as CEO of the Omnicom Precision Marketing Group. Taylor, previously CEO of DigitasLBi's global marketing and tech agency International N.V., reports to DAS Group CEO and Chairman Dale Adams. The shops under Taylor's umbrella include Javelin, Organic, Proximity, RAPP and Targetbase. Creative talent roundup Omnicom's Rapp has hired Moacyr Netto as chief creative officer of the New York office. Netto will report to New York President Justin Thomas-Copeland and become part of the agency's leadership team. Most recently, Netto was creative vp of W3haus, an independent digital agency in Brazil, where he led the shop to win four Cannes Lions in 2016. In other creative talent news, R2C Group promoted Steve Diamond from executive creative director to chief creative officer. Diamond, who has been with the agency since 2014, will now handle creative work for all three R2C offices in the U.S. Tweet of the week Just setting up my twittr with @Jack #ADealsADeal pic.twitter.com/lr2oDShNFw Number of the week 84 – the percent of Americans who say a CEO's behavior is linked to the expectations of the company he or she leads, according to FleishmanHillard's annual Authenticity Gap study. This year's research, which includes insights from nearly 300 companies across more than 25 industries and was conducted with about 5,500 consumers in five countries, also showed that 78 percent of people globally believe a CEO's integrity should be in line with the company he or she leads.

Agency Brief: Twins, Trains and Digital Transformation

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