Hot stuff

Fitzco today debuts national campaigns for McCormick and Co.’s French’s Mustard and Cholula hot sauce just in time for summer grilling season. The Atlanta-based agency won Cholula after a competitive review last year in which it also successfully defended the French’s account, which it has held since 2018.

The French’s spot focuses on the brand’s new Creamy Mustard Spreads product, which it calls "the first full-scale yellow mustard product innovation from McCormick in over 100 years." 

The 15-second spot, which will run on social and video, has a “Flavor On!” tagline and shows just how versatile mustard really is. Throughout the video, the classic condiment is seen being put on a Cuban or roast beef sandwich, hotdog and burgers at a restaurant.

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The Cholula campaign, titled “Mother of Sauce,” emphasizes the brand's Mexican heritage and feminine character La Chila, the character seen on the front of every bottle.

The 30-second video in the campaign, which was shot in Mexico City, begins with a woman cooking in her kitchen with a female voiceover saying, “You can never ask a mother to pick a favorite.” It then shows a series of scenes, including a restaurant kitchen and a group of young adults eating tacos outdoors topping their food with a few drops of Cholula hot sauce. The voiceover ends the video with, “Welcome to la familia, where we make your thing, the best thing.”

The spot was shot by Alina Montero, who was born in Mexico City, and will run on social media, video and Spotify.

Big Spaceship lifts off with new president

Independent full-service agency Big Spaceship has named Laura Breines, Lindsay Molsen and Stacey Zimmerman to its top executive team, which is now 60% women.

Breines has been with the agency for seven years and was named president, making her the first woman to hold the title in the agency’s 22-year history. Molsen takes the role of managing director, focusing on operations and delivery; she will be responsible for finance, operations, diversity equality and inclusion strategy and the future of distributed work for the agency. Zimmerman is now managing director focused on new business growth and leads the agency’s West Coast expansion operations.

The hires follow a string of new business wins for the agency for brands such as Starbucks and JP Morgan Chase. Big Spaceship was also named creative agency of record for PepsiCo’s Evolve and female healthcare company Tia.

TikTok U

TikTok has launched Creative Agency Partnership University exclusively for creative agencies. The virtual educational program is meant to help agency and freelance creatives with the tools and best practices on the app. 

CAP University is completely free and offers five different courses. TikTok 101 breaks down statistics and data about the app. TikTok: From Briefing to Pitching explains what ideas work best for the platform. Concepting & Creating TikTok will take trends, patterns and learnings and explain how they are created. Trends and Music Licensing dissects trends on the app. Collaborating with Creators is another course that will be offered. 

The courses will be held online. After completing each lesson, those enrolled can sign up for live office hours to chat with the TikTok CAP team. Shops can sign up online on the TikTok CAP University website.

Read more: What TikTok's Giphy library means for brands

VMLY&R Health hires first CEO

VMLY&R Health has named Claire Gillis to the newly created role of CEO. Gillis will also be a part of the VMLY&R global leadership team. 

Gillis’ new role reaches across all health operations in the global VMLY&R network, supporting the growth and development of VMLY&R Health in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The agency has also created four new positions to bolster the global health leadership team. 

Those roles include Jason Gloye, co-lead North America and chief client officer, who will be responsible for growing and maintaining client relationships; Christianna Gorin, co-lead North America and chief experience officer, who will expand the application for CX for health; Walt Geer, chief experience design officer, who will work on both creative and strategy teams; and Olivia Collins, managing director of global growth, who will focus on business development. 

Also, the agency has named Fábia Juliasz as regional chief data and knowledge officer for Latin America and CEO of Marketdata. Marketdata Founder Rubens Stephan is retiring from the position after leading the company for more than 20 years. In her new role, Juliasz will expand Marketdata’s technology and data capabilities to clients in the Latin America region and VMLY&R’s global network.

Lenovo picks Assembly for media AOR

Stagwell’s media agency Assembly has won global media agency of record duties for technology company Lenovo. The agency will manage media for Lenovo’s consumers, commercial and small and medium sized business segments on a global scale, including North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. 

Lenovo brought the agency on to strengthen its audience-centric and insight-led media approach. It also wants to focus on data convergence, performance measurement and technology to enhance marketing effectiveness, the agency said.  

This is the latest win for Assembly this year, which snagged media AOR assignments for Atlantic Broadband (the eighth-largest U.S. cable and internet provider) and ConEdison, both alongside Stagwell siblings.

Enter the 2022 Small Agency Awards at AdAge.com/SAA2022

Republica Havas hires new chief creative officer

Republica Havas has brought on Tony Waissmann as its chief creative officer. The role was previously held by co-founder Luis Casamayor, who has been named creative chairman. 

Waissmann will be moving to Miami from Buenos Aires to lead the agency’s creative organization. In Latin America he was chief creative officer at HOY by Havas, a creative agency in LatAm with offices in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. Prior to working with Havas, he was the director for Underground, a school for creatives founded in 2001 with offices in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru and Mexico.

This is the latest new hire for Republica Havas, which brought on Catarina Gonçalves as chief strategy officer in February. She will oversee the agency’s strategy, research, data and analytics, and content and social media practices.

Just briefly 

David&Goliath won agency of record for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, an international, nonprofit conservation organization. The alliance operates the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The agency’s first work for the brand will center around the San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s 50th anniversary and is currently slated to release in May. 

Dagger named Christofer Peterson as its first-ever chief people officer. Prior to her new role, she was senior VP of people and culture at the agency. Peterson joined Dagger in 2020 after working at Hearts & Science.  

Retail store PacSun has tapped Tinuiti as its media agency of record. The independent performance marketing firm will be taking a "funnel-media" approach to further enhance the brand's presence, the agency said. Tinuti will oversee analytics, creative strategy, display, paid search, paid social and shoppable media. 

The Advertising Hall of Fame  is taking place on April 26 at Cipriani Wall Street, during which the American Advertising Federation will induct eight people into the Advertising Hall of Fame. The honorees are Annie Leibovitz, photographer; Nina DiSesa, former chairman and chief creative officer, McCann; Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman; Judy McGrath, former chairman and CEO, MTV Networks; Wenda Harris Millard, vice chairman, MediaLink; J. Melvin Muse, founder and chairman emeritus, Muse Communications; Andrew Robertson, president and CEO, BBDO Worldwide; and Michael Roth, retired chairman and CEO, The Interpublic Group. 

Decoded Advertising, part of Media.Monks and S4Capital, has been named media agency of record for Estée Lauder North America. The multi-million dollar assignment followed a review believed to be led by Medialink. The agency will cover all media planning and buying responsibility for the brand in the U.S. The previous agency was not disclosed.

Advertising Week has named Ruth Mortimer to global president. Mortimer was most recently managing director of global education and development for the group. She will oversee the company's leadership and education programs, while also working on marketing and branded and digital content. The move comes on the heels of Advertising Week Europe returning in person for the first time since 2019.

The Basement has appointed nine new team members. Kyle Wolf joins as the associate director of public relations; Molly Alderson as senior account executive; Grant Gramman as account manager on the client services desk; Katie Utken and Ana Cornett as account executives; Grace Rinehart, as manager of client services operations; Nick Merlina as campaign manager on the media team; Erica Magee as campaign coordinator; and Mariah Bainter as account coordinator. 

Dallas-based agency TRG, previously known as The Richards Group, has been named advertising and communications agency for E.W. Scripps Co., a national TV broadcaster. The agency will be responsible for creative strategy, brand planning, digital strategy and media. The first campaign is expected to launch in May. 

Mojo Supermarket has hired Ryan McDaid and Nika Rastakhiz as newly created co-heads of strategy. McDaid was previously group strategy director at the agency. Rastakhiz joins from Anomaly, where helped to build and lead the strategy department at the Los Angeles office. 

PMG has doubled its headcount to over 500 employees globally and is expanding its office hubs to allow for in-person and hybrid work. In New York, the agency opened a new 16,000 square foot office on Fifth Ave. In Texas, it expanded its physical presence in three different cities. In Dallas, PMG recently signed a lease on an almost 50,000 square foot building equipped with overnight executive suites. PMG also opened up a new office in its Austin location and is currently expanding its Fort Worth office to two stories, giving it an extra 11,000 square feet.