Agency news you need to know this week

Jason Sperling makes a major song Innocean USA’s chief creative officer Jason Sperling attracted “major” attention this week with a quirky music video made in response to an Ad Age headline. Sperling made the song, “I Want to Be Major,” in response to an Ad Age headline from August that in part read, “How major shops are using artificial intelligence.” In the music video shared on LinkedIn, Sperling poses the question of what it takes to be a “major” ad agency. “I just couldn’t let it go. There’s something the world really needs to know. I want to be major. I want to be known as a player by the whole ad industry. A formidable global network with brilliant strategy,” sings Sperling, who joined the agency in February. The music video, which looks and sounds like it’s straight out of the 1980s, includes appearances from other Innocean employees and marketing executives from the agency’s clients. Sperling told Ad Age that he wrote the song over the course of a few evenings, hummed it into his phone and shared it with a friend at music house Shindig Music. “They liked it, and they actually brought on someone who had composed for Air Supply in the 1980s,” Sperling said. Innocean USA’s in-house content creation team shot the video over two days. The video was cut and edited by post-production company Union Editorial. Production and design studio Laundry also helped with graphics. The entire process took about two weeks, Sperling said. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “Anyone who knows me knows I'm not afraid to embarrass myself or put myself out there. Welp, for better or for worse, I decided to respond to a recent Ad Age article in the only way I saw fit—write a song, and then create an extremely low-budget music video for it,” Sperling wrote in his LinkedIn post, which had nearly 450 reactions and over 100 comments as of writing. Dentsu makes two executive changes Dentsu made a couple of executive moves yesterday. Giulo Malegori was appointed as group chief operating officer of Dentsu Group, according to a press release. He will oversee Dentsu’s community of regional CEOs and global clients, as well as business operations and IT. It’s unclear whether Malegori will retain his most recent role as EMEA CEO of Dentsu. The holding company also added Jean Lin as group president-global practices, Dentsu Group, a newly created role. Lin most recently served as a chief culture officer at Dentsu Group. It’s unclear whether she will retain her previous title. Spark offers $100,000 in pro bono work to environmental nonprofits Collaborative creative agency Spark will offer one environmental nonprofit its services for free, at a $100,000 value, as part of its Stoked 2023 program. Applications are now open for the initiative, which was started in 2017 to help nonprofits better communicate their missions. “With the current state of our environment, especially our oceans, it’s crucial now more than ever that environmental NPOs get the support and spotlight they need,” said Michael Peters, Spark’s founder and CEO, in a statement. “We’re lucky to have the skills and resources we do, so it’s a no-brainer for us to step up and be a good industry partner and resource for others.” Applications are open until Nov. 5. AI marketing blog How brands are using ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and other tools Read more here The&Partnership names first US CEO The&Partnership promoted Sam Lewis to the CEO, U.S. As part of the new role, Lewis will work with media agency mSix&Partners, which is owned by The&Partnership and GroupM, to establish technology- and media-focused teams and determine how The&Partnership uses AI tools. Lewis, who joined the agency in 2013, was most recently managing director of EMEA and worked within WPP’s Open X, the bespoke unit created for The Coca-Cola Company’s portfolio of brands. In EMEA, he led the accounts for Toyota, Mars and Aon. Lewis is taking on part of the responsibilities left by Andrew Bailey, who was North America CEO until April, when he left to co-found generative AI company ZeroToOne.AI. Prior to joining The&Partnership, Lewis was a senior account director at what was then known as McCann Erikson, where he oversaw clients including MasterCard, Nestlé, L’Oréal, and General Mills. Pret A Manger reduces video ad carbon emissions with new partnership Digital marketing agency Croud partnered with carbon intelligence platform Cedara and adaptive streaming technology platform SeenThis to help reduce Pret a Manger’s video ad delivery carbon emissions, according to a press release. The partnership comes as Cedara launches its Reduction marketplace tool, which aims to help companies reduce their corporate and supply chain emissions. SeenThis’s technology reduces data transfer for video creative using programmatic delivery compared to using conventional technology on similar quality creative. Using the SeenThis data integration in Cedara’s platform, Pret was able to measure a campaign’s overall carbon footprint and estimate the impact of changing to the SeenThis streaming technology during the planning stage. The result was Pret avoiding 2,343 GB of wasted data, or 48% compared to conventional technology. Cedara’s platform showed that this would equate to a 121 kg CO2e overall reduction or 16% in carbon emissions. That is equivalent to the carbon emissions of burning 52.6 liters of gasoline. Georgia Aquarium picks Doe-Anderson as agency of record Georgia Aquarium selected Doe-Anderson as its agency of record, according to the shop, following a review involving six agencies. Doe-Anderson will handle strategy, creative and national media planning and buying responsibilities for the aquarium. The independent agency is tasked with creating a new brand strategy and subsequent creative campaign for the largest aquarium in the country, as well as helping with aquatic conservation and preservation initiatives. The first work from the new partnership is slated to launch in the spring of 2024. Atlanta-based agency ASO Advertising previously held the account. Just briefly Havas Media Network North America appointed Molly Hop as executive VP, of its full-service e-commerce offering, Market. Hop will be tasked with leading the practice and will report to Mike Bregman, Havas Media Network North America’s chief activation officer. It was not clear who Hop was replacing. Footwear brand Steve Madden appointed January Digital as its digital agency of record. The decision was made after a review and is an expansion of Steve Madden’s relationship with the company. Steve Madden first began working with January Digital’s consulting arm called January Consulting in October 2022. Independent agency Hanson Dodge appointed Jeremy Whitt as its executive media director, a newly created role. He joins from another Milwaukee-based agency, BVK, where he worked for the past eight years. Memac Ogilvy promoted Ghassan Maraqa to MENA CEO and named Jon Marchant MENA group president. Maraqa, who has been at the helm of Memac Ogilvy as regional CFO and COO, takes over for David Fox. Big Communications named Shannon Harris its first female executive creative director. Harris joined Big in 2010 as art director and replaces Aaron Gresham, who left the agency over the summer.

Agency news you need to know this week

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