J.B. Smoove is Caesar and an agency celebrates its 20th anniversary in Minecraft: Agency Brief

Emperor Caesars Entertainment has unveiled Caesars Sportsbook, a new app that integrates mobile sports betting into the Caesars Rewards loyalty program, with a new multimillion-dollar marketing campaign. The campaign features a 30-second spot in which actor-comedian J.B. Smoove embodies Caesar as he proclaims the arrival of the sportsbook app from his balcony. “We are all Caesars,” Smoove shouts, then speaks into a crowd of microphones at a Roman-style press conference: “Oh yeah! An app.” Actor-comedian Patton Oswalt is also featured in ads as "Carl, one of Caesars’ biggest fans, who’s already playing on Caesars Sportsbook and earning Caesars Rewards.” The Caesars Sportsbook mobile app is live in eight states—Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. It will soon be live, pending regulatory review and approval, in Arizona, Maryland and Louisiana, according to Caesars Entertainment. Caesars Entertainment and William Hill, which Caesars acquired earlier this year, collaborated with Dentsu’s 360i on part of the campaign that ran on local and national TV during the Olympic games. The campaign will also run on local radio, iHeart Radio sponsorships and podcast integrations, Spotify and Audacy streaming audio extensions, Hulu streaming video integrations, YouTube Select premium sports inventory and OOH inventory including digital dynamic integration of live odds, countdowns and live scores. The campaign also includes aerial banners flown over “key shore hot spots this summer” in New Jersey, Virginia and Michigan. “The rebranded and upgraded offerings for our Caesars Sportsbook will provide customized offers, flexible limits, a wide range of betting lines, and an intuitive user experience,” Tom Reeg, CEO of Caesars Entertainment said in a statement. “Caesars Sportsbook also brings players into an empire of play where, win or lose, every wager gives them more through our award-winning Caesars Rewards.” Look familiar? You might experience moments of déjà vu watching the short film “The Pitch.” Director Eno Freedman Brodmann satirizes the process of pitching commercial treatments with a pitch that goes off the rails—then ultimately nowhere. “Watching a six-second YouTube pre-roll of a Doritos ad might not shed light on the creative armies it took to make it—and the other companies who tried so hard to make the ad and meet the client’s budget but walked away giving ideas and losing the job,” he says. Read more about the project here. New faces at Walton Isaacson Walton Isaacson is bringing on a number of new hires. Ricardo Trejo joins as executive creative director, leading creative teams across all clients, including Lexus, McDonald's and JPMorgan Chase, as well as new business and pro-bono initiatives. Trejo was previously group creative director for Red Fuse Communications, where he was commerce creative lead on Colgate-Palmolive for North America, and VP creative director at Geometry. Trejo succeeds Milton Lebron, who relocated to Florida for personal reasons, according to the agency. Also joining Walton Isaacson is Jamila Price in the newly created role of digital media director. Price joins from Publicis Groupe, where she was director of digital investment. Tim Wright takes on the newly created role of senior head of human resources, joining from GP Generate, where he was HR director. Freelance art director Alex Haglund has joined the Los Angeles office from New York as associate art director, also a new position. The agency also announced promotions to leadership and other positions: Juan Bonilla, formerly senior VP-head of new business development and multicultural and diversity lead, has been promoted to executive VP, account services. Amanda Lewensky, previously account director, was promoted to senior account director. Carin Lang, previously VP of client finance, was promoted to senior VP, client finance. Kevin Slimcox was promoted to creative director from associate creative director. Erika Saca was promoted to creative director from associate creative director. Mandana Wright, previously a copywriter, was promoted to associate creative director and copywriter. Eli Nieves, also previously a copywriter, was promoted to senior copywriter. Camila Witt was promoted to art director from her previous role as junior art director. Margaret Sansom was promoted to client finance director from her previous role as finance manager. Senior account executive Brielle Defilippis was promoted to account supervisor, account executive Quin Stephen was promoted to media finance supervisor and assistant account executive Roberta Hays was promoted to account executive. FCB Chicago hires new ECDs FCB Chicago has tapped Andrew Lincoln and Andrea Siqueira for senior VP-executive creative director positions. Siqueira is taking over for Lisa Bright—now chief creative officer for Ogilvy San Francisco—and will oversee creative work for Kimberly-Clark’s Family Care portfolio, including the Cottonelle and Kleenex brands. Lincoln, whose role was created after FCB won global creative duties for Groupon, will oversee creative work for Groupon and Cox Communications. Siqueira joined FCB after three years at BETC HAVAS São Paulo. Lincoln has worked for a number of agencies in the past, including Crispin Porter Bogusky, TBWA Chiat Day and FCB Chicago. He most recently served as director of integrated marketing for CBD company Charlotte’s Web. A 20th anniversary celebration—on Minecraft This summer, Canadian agency John St. celebrated its 20-year anniversary, but because of COVID restrictions, it couldn’t bring the team together for the sort of bash you’d expect for such a milestone. So the agency moved the party to Minecraft. John St. tapped a gamer known for his elaborate Minecraft recreations of real-life Canadian landmarks to construct the agency’s headquarters in the game. John St. leaders then unveiled the digital version to the team on anniversary day and invited staffers to celebrate together with quests and even fireworks. VaynerX’s first DE&I officer VaynerX—which includes subsidiaries VaynerMedia, VaynerProductions, The Sasha Group, Gallery Media Group, VaynerSpeakers, VaynerCommerce, VaynerTalent and VaynerNFT—has brought on Vanessa Vining as its first-ever chief diversity officer. Vining was most recently senior director, cross-cultural strategy and head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Omnicom’s Hearts & Sciences. She will focus on “developing a global diversity, equity and inclusion framework, employee recruitment and retention, training and education, and supplier diversity,” according to a statement by VaynerX. Creating luck on the 13th A day like Friday the 13th can seem a bit redundant given the effects of the pandemic over the past couple of years. However, instead of focusing on the bad luck associated with the day, Andy Nairn, founder of Lucky Generals, is giving tips on how brands can create their own luck in his book,“Go Luck Yourself,” which launches in the U.S today. Top tips include: "The first step toward improving your fortunes is appreciating what you already have. Organizations often overlook amazing assets like their name, provenance, people, data or packaging—because they're over-familiar with them. So it's always good to look at them with fresh eyes." "Make sure your working life is full of diverse stimuli. People often stumble on great ideas while thinking about other stuff like music, art, sport, science or nature–but you can also deliberately increase your chances of having a happy accident by viewing your challenge through these lenses." "Go looking for bad luck. Sometimes a problem—like a crisis, taboo, flaw or constraint—can actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise." "Create space in your processes for unexpected things to happen. The record producer Quincy Jones has a great expression for this: he says 'Let the Lord walk through the room.' I reckon we could all learn from that." "Apply this thinking to every aspect of your organization. You can plan for luck by designing your building, recruitment, working practices and culture in ways that encourage serendipity. Too often we talk about 'not leaving anything to chance' whereas we should be actively encouraging luck to happen." Just briefly Media by Mother, the media agency launched by Mother in January, has hired Julie Lee as chief operations officer. Previously, Lee spent 10 years with GroupM, most recently as a managing director for Wavemaker, where she led the Chicago and Costa Rica offices and held responsibilities for teams in New York. She replaces Will Heins, who was a founding partner and COO at the agency before leaving to join You & Mr Jones media. Havas has appointed Ol Janus to the newly created role of global head of data for its dedicated customer experience network, Havas CX. Janus, previously group head of data for the network’s lead UK agency, Havas CX Helia, will report to Havas Creative Global Chief Strategy Officer Mark Sinnock. David Miami has promoted Brenda Fell to head of production where she will oversee all production work for global clients such as Burger King and Budweiser. Previously, she had served as executive producer for David Miami for a year. Contributing: Ann-Christine Diaz

J.B. Smoove is Caesar and an agency celebrates its 20th anniversary in Minecraft: Agency Brief

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