First, a personal note: I’m very excited to be attending my first Small Agency Conference this year! As a judge for the Small Agency Awards I saw some incredible work and resilient stories. The virtual event, which takes place from August 2-4, is going to be packed with hands-on workshops, panels, keynotes, peer-to-peer sharing and case studies around topics that are crucial for small shops. 

This year will be unique as small agencies have adjusted, powered through, and thrived during a global pandemic.

This year’s program will touch upon a wide range of subjects, including How to deal with burnout after a year of working 24/7; how small shops are diversifying their talent base and becoming more inclusive; how to land a large client(and how that might affect your business); how to grow your capabilities without selling out; what trends from the pandemic will live on and how they will change the way shops do business; and how to build a culture within your agency, and why that could help you win new accounts.

Some of this year’s speakers include Roger Camp, partner and chief creative officer of Camp+King, Keith Cartwright, founder, president, and chief creative officer of Cartwright, Paulo Carvajal, chief strategy officer of Noble People, Courtney Cotrupe, CEO of Partners+Napier, and so many more (some are pictured above).

I’m looking forward to networking with old and new faces and even moderating a panel as I continue to explore small agency trends. Hope to "see" you there! Tickets are available at adage.com/saca2021.

Let’s talk about the P-word

Chattanooga, Tennessee-based agency Humanaut launched a multimedia campaign for supplement brand Garden of Life that tackles the taboo around women speaking about number 2. Ironically the agency was forced to make a censored and uncensored version of the ads for Dr. Formulated Women’s Probiotics because some stations still have an issue with the topic being on air.

“We made an ad talking about how in the year 2021, women and commercials should be okay talking about poop,” David Littlejohn, Humanaut’s chief creative director said in a statement. “And then to our surprise, we had our ad rejected by several networks, telling us it’s still not okay for women to use a four-letter p word ending in oop.” 

The “Poopowerment” campaign, which will run on cable (Discovery, Hulu), OTT (Amazon Prime), social, digital display, and online radio beginning this month through the end of the year, is the first work in a series of ads Humanaut will do for Garden of Life as it expands beyond organic, natural food stores like Whole Foods and into mainstream ones like Target and Walmart.

Key executive hires

Ogilvy Health has appointed Kim Johnson as its new global CEO, replacing Kate Cronin, who departed last week to become the chief brand officer at Moderna. Most recently Johnson served as executive VP of global clients at WPP. Earlier this year, she was a key in launching the WPP Health Community, a collection of health leaders across WPP designed to use creativity and technology to accelerate growth and innovation in the sector. Prior to WPP, Johnson was the president of GSW.

VaynerMedia has named Eric Jacobs as the agency’s first chief innovation officer. Jacobs was most recently senior VP of business development at payment platforms company Adyen. He will report to CEO Gary Vaynerchuk and will assume his role immediately.

“While searching for our first chief innovation officer, it was important to bring in someone who can apply the very latest thinking in the innovation landscape to our clients,” Vaynerchuk said in a statement. “As someone who thinks outside the box and is truly passionate about building brands in culture, Eric has an enormous amount of knowledge in this space while also capturing the qualities of being an impeccable leader."

Dentsu International has appointed Doug Ray to the newly created role of global chief product officer, media. Ray, who has been with Dentsu for 17 years, will also continue his role as global chief product officer. In his new position, Ray will be responsible for the “innovative vision and delivery of the media product roadmap for the Dentsu scaled service offering” and its media agencies: Carat, iProspect and dentsu X, according to a statement by Dentsu.

Lucia Grillo was named DDB North America’s chief integration officer. This is a newly created role and rounds out DDB’s North America leadership team. Grillo has extensive experience building and developing operational processes across a variety of agencies including Dentsu, Droga5, and 360i. 

The agency has gone through a few executive moves recently. This week it was reported DDB North America’s chief creative officer Britt Nolan is moving on from the agency to rejoin Leo Burnett and Diane Jackson, who has been with DDB Chicago for 14 years, most recently as chief production officer, is also moving on to join Facebook’s global business marketing team.  

Earlier this month DDB North America appointed a new growth team to oversee new business across the region. Elaine Purcell joins the North America leadership team as chief growth officer and Adrienne Marcino joins as business development and growth director.

In May, it was reported that Andrea Diquez, a 25-year veteran of Saatchi & Saatchi, is taking the post of CEO at DDB’s Chicago office. She succeeds Paul Gunning, who retired late last year after serving as president and chief operating officer of DDB U.S. as well as head of the Chicago office. Also in May, DDB New York brought on Darla Price as its president and Auro Trini Castelli as the office’s chief strategy officer. 

Deutsch LA has brought on Jason Lonsdale, formerly the head of brand strategy and planning in the U.S. at Ogilvy, as its new chief strategy officer. The agency also added Emily Hodkins as executive VP, head of corporate communications, and Linda Kim, senior VP, head of digital production. Most Recently Hodkins served as VP of marketing and communications at Elephant. Kim most recently served as VP, director of digital production at RPA.

All about that chicken

In honor of National Fried Chicken day, Portland-based agency, Via, teamed up with Perdue for work that celebrates chicken in a unique way. Perdue worked with Veronica Bellino, a percussionist and lead drummer in the band Life of Agony to develop a self-composed and a self-produced song using only the sounds of fried chicken ( such as sizzling in oil, cracking eggs, shaking breadcrumbs etc.) and they are inviting people to showcase their own talent with a “Sounds of Fried Chicken” soundboard where they can create their own unique jam ( only with sounds from frying chicken) and share it with their friends and family on their own social media platforms. 

A bespoke landing page has been developed which includes the creator videos, a link to the soundboard, and fried chicken recipes with tips and tricks on how to fry chicken. Recipes feature regional takes on fried chicken and showcase a heat map of the most popular dishes around the country. 

Pereira O’Dell has launched a new campaign this week on behalf of Stella Artois. The beer brand is teaming up with the James Beard Foundation for an auction that will allow one foodie to get the chance to own renowned Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s recipe for his famous Fried Yardbird, in the form of an NFT.  The “Chef’s Special NFT Collection” comes on the heels of “Racing in The Life Artois” a digital horse racing NFT done in collaboration with Zed Run. Stella is the first brand in the Anheuser-Busch portfolio to enter the growing NFT space. The auction is now live and will be open for bidding until July 16.

Olympians and milk

What goes on behind the milk fridge at your local grocery store is no longer a mystery. The Milk Processor Education Program, also known as MilkPEP, has teamed with Gale, which was recently selected as its marketing lead for its latest addition to its “You’re Gonna Need Milk For That” campaign that debuted in May. 

In the filmed stunt titled “The Fridge,” local shoppers are caught on camera as they reach into a dairy cooler to grab a carton of milk at their local grocery store, only to find a spacious high-tech gym directly behind the cooler. To help out with the shock-cam ad, the spot features 2021 Olympian Ariel Torres and three-time Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong.

Just briefly

Havas Media Group has launched a new program called BIPOC Media Connections, designed to help advertisers direct more revenue toward Black-and-Hispanic owned radio stations across the U.S.. This rollout comes on the heels of Havas Media Group’s  Social Equity Marketplace launch last summer, composed of BIPOC- and LGTBQ+-owned media businesses with the goal of allowing clients to positively invest funds in underrepresented businesses.

Empower has named Emily Locker its senior VP of Chicago, replacing Hilary Burns, who departed last year after helping open the office in 2019. Locker has spent a decade at the agency, serving in three of the agency’s locations and working with clients like Ashley HomeStore. The agency is also bringing on Spark Foundry-alum Greg Clausen as a senior VP, working with Empower clients like Wendy’s, Tempur-Sealy and Bush Beans.

R/GA has named Daniel Barak as VP, global exec creative director. Prior to taking on this newly created role, he was working as a freelancer for the agency and was a key part in Verizon’s “Fortnite Stadium” campaign that recreated this year’s Super Bowl stadium in the popular video game.

Horizon Media has named Phil Mitchell as the agency’s newest executive VP and managing partner. Mitchell, who joined the agency in 2012, previously served as senior VP. before taking on this newly created role.