Icaro Doria started at Omnicom's DDB New York as chief creative officer this week. The new gig marks his return to the U.S. after leaving in 2010 for the irresistible opportunity to open Wieden & Kennedy Sao Paulo, where he was founder and executive creative director. Starting from nothing, Mr. Doria quickly built up a 130-person shop that last year was World Cup central, turning out global work for Coca-Cola and Nike during the World Cup tournament hosted by Brazil.
Before W&K, Mr. Doria was group creative director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, following creative roles at Y&R and Saatchi & Saatchi in New York.
We caught up with the Sao Paulo native for a few fun facts about him for this week's edition of Six Things.
1. His name, Icaro, is the Brazilian version of Icarus -- the Greek mythological figure. Yes, that's the character who met his fate by flying too close to the sun with wings made of wax. For this reason, Icaro usually loads up on Dramamine whenever he's on a plane.
2. Mr. Doria can go back and forth between Brazilian and Portuguese accents and vocabulary. Brazilian Portuguese is his native tongue, but he picked up and perfected the Portuguese spoken in Portugal during four years he spent living in Lisbon. (It's sort of like the difference beween American and British English). The benefit? He can order dessert like a local whenever he's there.
3. He's kind of lived a "That '70s Show" storyline. At age 16, Icaro moved to Harvey, North Dakota as a foreign exchange student. He went by the name Fes and recalls signing up for the wrestling team with a touch of humiliation. His time there was full of first-time experience -- seeing snow and having peanut butter being the most memorable.
4. While living in Brazil, the thing Mr. Doria missed most about the U.S. was … peanut butter. Not the gourmet sea salt kind, the Skippy kind. And Barbara's Peanut Butter Puffins cereal. In fact, he brought so much of it back with him when he moved from San Francisco to Sao Paulo that he was detained and interrogated by Brazilian airport customs officers. Then he had to explain his nutty passion.
5. As far back as he can remember, he always wanted to be a gangster. In a Martin Scorsese film -- "Goodfellas," to be specific. "I would be a good Johnny Two Times," explained Mr. Doria, "Well because I tend to repeat myself myself."
6. Mr. Doria's a fan of Comic-Con International in San Diego. While he's there, he seeks out special-edition graphic novels and original Star Wars figures, then he attends panels on related topics. A natural follow up question here is 'Does he dress up for the annual convention?' That, he refuses to say.
