DraftFCB is doubling down on its new Los Angeles office, naming longtime Yum Brands account lead Rahul Roy as managing director of the agency.
Mr. Roy, who has significant ties to key creative clients KFC and Taco Bell, is tasked with revamping DraftFCB's Southern California operations with Eric Springer -- who is an alum of Deutsch Los Angeles and indie agency Pitch. Mr. Springer was named chief creative officer at DraftFCB Orange County in December. Mr. Roy and Mr. Springer will report to Michael Fassnacht, president of the agency's Chicago office.
The moves signal a move on behalf of the agency to better service its key Taco Bell client, as well as grow its client roster on the west coast. DraftFCB in recent months started moving the majority of its Orange County operations to Los Angeles, where the agency's Taco Bell account is managed. The agency's Orange County office will now effectively operate as a service office due to its proximity to Taco Bell's headquarters, and not one that seeks its own clients.
]]>Jimmy Smith -- the head of Amusement Park Entertainment and former TBWA creative -- has spent a considerable amount of time behind the camera on branded content projects like Gatorade's "Replay" and Nike's "Battlegrounds." He recently traded places, making his TV debut as a reality-show judge. Every Wednesday night, Mr. Smith appears on VH1's new series "Model Employee," in which women fashion models vie to become spokesmodel for Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Here, he shares some reality-TV secrets, and what it's like to be caught -- temporarily -- in the Hollywood glare.
1. In the ad world, concept is king. In the TV world, Nielsen is king.
If you're a dope ad creative, you believe the recipe for a smash hit is a big idea that's executed to perfection. If it's been done before, you kill it. But if you're a reality TV show creative, there's a powerful force pushing you towards what's tried and true. It's called Nielsen. Whatever brotha Nielsen says is gospel. So if it worked once, you'd better do it again and again until the wheels fall off. Often, I sympathized with Madwood Media's Michael Flutie, EVP/creator of "Model Employee." He had a vision for his show (which I can't elaborate on because it'll reveal what's going to happen in the show) but sometimes it seemed like his vision was falling prey to brotha Nielsen.
]]>Credit reporting company Equifax has named Dentsu's 360i its lead agency as it reevaluates its approach to data and analytics.
The shift comes after Equifax selected Publicis Groupe's Digitas as its lead agency in August 2011. 360i will focus on direct-to-consumer integrated marketing efforts for the brand's credit and identity protection services.
Said Digitas in a statement: "We have mutually agreed to part ways after two years of partnership. We have high hopes that success will continue to follow both companies and we wish each other the very best."
]]>We can change the world. It sounds crazy, but it's true. In fact, if our ultimate goal is to create breakthrough brands, we have no choice but to make lives better.
At this point, I think we can all agree that advertising is going through a revolution. Search, social, mobile and ad avoidance technologies have disrupted this industry. The notion of building a brand through interruptive messaging is antiquated. Consumers have too much information at their fingertips. Traditional tools for influence no longer work as well as they once did.
This industry is filled with some of the smartest and most creative people in the world. The brands that are producing incredible results are simply taking that expertise and pointing it inward at their own behavior rather than outward at messaging. Great brands are created by starting with a platform that improves people's lives.
]]>22-year NBC veteran Marianne Gambelli has joined independent media shop Horizon Media as exec VP-chief investment officer.
Most recently, she was president of NBC broadcast sales and responsible for the company's network prime-time, news and sports advertising.
"I've worked with Horizon Media for many years, and have been consistently impressed with their creative mindset and personal approach to driving business value," Ms. Gambelli said in a statement.
]]>Various claims filed in April 2012 as part of a race discrimination lawsuit against Interpublic Group of Cos. have been tossed out by a New York district judge. However, one claim made by Trinidadian employee Joy C. Noel -- that Interpublic failed to promote due to her skin color -- has been permitted to proceed to trial.
The trial begins on June 3, according to court documents.
When Ms. Noel filed suit in Manhattan federal court last spring, she sought a whopping $50 million in damages. She claimed that in her many years working for the company, Interpublic fostered an environment where discrimination based on race and color is condoned. She alleged that she was passed over for promotions because Caucasian and light-skinned Hispanics are treated more favorably than African-Americans or other dark-skinned employees. Ms. Noel has been at Interpublic since 1993 and is still an employee there.
]]>Brooklyn-based Huge just got a bit smaller.
A group of senior executives from the Interpublic Group of Cos.' digital shop are decamping to start a new shop. Dubbed Work & Company, the agency is launching with: Huge's Founding Partner and Chief Strategy Officer Gene Liebel; Creative Director Joe Stewart, Partner and Head of Product Design Felipe Memoria and VP-Product Design Marcelo Eduardo. Mohan Ramaswamy, a former product strategy lead at Huge and most recently, an engagement manager at McKinsey, is also joining the new shop.
Mr. Liebel has given notice but remains in his role at Huge for the time being.
]]>After a six-month agency review, Porsche has opted to keep its creative account parked at Cramer-Krasselt, the incumbent on the business since 2007.
The search was launched nearly six months ago, and was narrowed down to five agencies. They were: independents Droga5 and Olson, MDC Partners' CP&B; Cheil-owned McKinney; and the incumbent.
For the Chicago-based indie shop Cramer-Krasselt it means hanging onto a marquee account at a time when it's been relatively quiet on the new business front. The agency a year ago picked up the Panera account and is lead agency agency for Corona Extra and Heinz.
]]>Coca-Cola's long experimented with its vending machines, trying to make them more technologically advanced than the average soda-spitter-outer.
In the past, they've been known to give you a beverage only if you give them a hug, or if you dance or sing in front of them. Now, the beverage giant is attempting a much loftier goal: world peace.
Along with agency Leo Burnett, Coke created "Small World Machines", two vending machines, one placed in India, and the other in Pakistan, that turned into communication portals. The idea was to let citizens of both countries -- long embroiled in a bitter political and religious battle -- see and interact with each other, even complete shared tasks. Once those tasks were accomplished, the machines dispensed a Coke.
]]>Amazon has selected Interpublic Group of Cos' Initiative following a fast-paced global media agency review that began earlier this year.
WPP's Mindshare handles the e-tail giant's offline media work and sibling agency MEC supports digital media. Digital media was not part of the review, according to people familiar with the matter.
Consulting firm Accenture managed the review process.
]]>Poptent, a company that collects and crowdsources video and creative content for brands, has named Nick Pahade its CEO.
The move comes as the company wants to strike more content deals with brands and the shops that work for them.
"I want to get the company to the next level," said Mr. Pahade, who most recently served as North American CEO of Interpublic Group of Cos.' media agency, Initiative. "There's an opportunity to work with marketers and a variety of different agencies, and potentially with publishers and actionable [video] producers. There are a lot of legs to this business."
]]>Procter & Gamble Co. is the U.S.'s largest ad spender—and now it's embarking on a major review of how it measures the impact of that $5 billion-plus annual outlay.
The move comes only two years after adopting a new system for measuring return on marketing investment and amid investor pressure for the world's biggest advertiser to get more bang for its marketing bucks.
Two years ago, P&G consolidated marketing-mix-modeling efforts with Nielsen and brought on DemandTec, an IBM company that worked with Nielsen to deliver monthly ROI reports supplementing the annual or quarterly analyses the company used in the past. P&G scrapped DemandTec after getting readings that varied widely month to month and sometimes didn't gibe with analyses by Nielsen and others, according to people familiar with the matter. (P&G and Nielsen declined to comment.)
]]>A week after the biggest advertiser in the world -- Procter & Gamble -- announced it would stretch the time it takes to pay agencies to 75 days, packaged-goods giant Mondelez has gone a step further, instituting 120-day payment terms.
Execs across adland are decrying the practice, saying it verges on unethical. But they also say they feel helpless going up against such big players who wield massive ad budgets and work with dozens of agencies.
Shops may want to begin holding frank discussions with clients, however, given more and more marketers are reexamining the length of time they have to pay vendors. From advertisers' perspective, it's all about maintaining a competitive advantage or not allowing a competitor to gain one.
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Two prominent agencies that are part of Omnicom Group -- BBDO and Goodby Silverstein & Partners -- were forced to make sizable staff cuts Thursday due to client losses.
BBDO's cuts were linked to the agency's recent loss of one of its biggest U.S. accounts, Procter & Gamble's Gillette just weeks ago. After a seven-month review, the business was awarded to WPP's Grey, a major blow give BBDO's relationship with the brand spanned nearly 80 years.
]]>In April 1998, Andy Grove, then president and CEO of Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, introduced the idea of the strategic inflection point. He described this, in "Only the Paranoid Survive," as "a time in the life of the business when its fundamentals are about to change. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient."
This is the point at which many agencies now find themselves -- though often they seem to be in denial. They moan and groan about the cost of participating in RFP-based new-business pitches, but aren't positioning themselves to adapt to clients' changing expectations, so they can compete for the new business.
]]>A 24-year-old Ogilvy PR employee in Beijing has died after suffering a heart attack while at his desk. Ogilvy China confirmed the young man, Gabriel Li, passed away suddenly, but local media reports that followed -- saying his death was caused by overwork -- have not been substantiated.
According to a Beijing Times newspaper's account, Mr. Li let out a yell and collapsed while working in the office Monday evening. He was taken to a hospital, where he died.
Mr. Li was a junior staffer at the WPP-owned agency, part of a team that serviced a technology client.
]]>Ted Royer was recently appointed chief creative officer at Droga5 New York. Since the agency's founding in 2006, he's helped to lead much of its best known work, from celebrated efforts like Tap and Decoded, to more recent campaigns for clients like Coke Zero, New Museum and Prudential.
But it seems that the more colorful moments of his life happen outside the job. We chatted with him as part of Creativity's continuing series of "Things You Didn't Know" about the ad industry's creative leaders. When it comes to unearthing some unusual traits, this one does not disappoint.
1. He got into advertising because of the TV show "Bewitched." Darrin came home with an assignment to write an ad for Napoleon Soap. Of course the real Napoleon showed up and things got crazy. But Ted thought, Wait, that's a job? Just writing ads?
]]>Agency holding companies established trading desks to leverage their collective size and buying power.
But that hasn't stopped some small agencies from launching their own digital trading operations. Case in point: Interpublic's Campbell-Mithun has decided to build its own trading desk rather than buy separately through IPG Mediabrands' Cadreon.
The objective? To streamline the planning and buying process and allow deeper integration of data from Campbell-Mithun's retail and CPG clients, which is becoming more important in the digital ad buying process than data purchased from third parties.
]]>BBH has appointed Patrick Lafferty to the role of North American CEO, filling a role atop the agency that's been vacant since last September.
The Publicis Groupe-owned agency in fall saw its previous chief, Greg Andersen, depart amid a sizable round of staff cuts.
Mr. Lafferty who most recently was chief operating officer of McCann North America, focused on rebuilding the flagship New York office. The Cornell graduate's background is varied. He joined Leo Burnett in 1995 as an account supervisor, working his way up before moving to the client-side to Discovery Communications. There he was in charge of marketing for the Travel Channel, Military Channel, Science Channel and Discovery Education. He also spent seven years in the United States Army as a Platoon Leader and Company Commander, serving tours in Iraq, Panama and Haiti.
]]>Dentsu Inc. has unveiled a plan to significantly boost business from markets outside of Japan, part of a new five-year strategy that comes on the heels of its recently completed acquisition of UK-based Aegis Group.
The company also announced on Tuesday earnings for the financial year ended March 31. Revenue rose 3.9% in yen while net income was up 22 .9%. Converted to U.S. dollars, revenue for the year slipped slightly -- less than 1% -- to $4.2 billion. Net income in dollars rose 17.3% to $439.7 million.
The Tokyo-based company said it was helped domestically by the positive effects of Japan's gradual recovery from the March 2011 massive earthquake and tsunami, along with government eco-car subsidies. The rapid weakening of the yen was also cause for optimism.
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