Agency Spy

Since you all love your creative announcements (and critiques abound) — we have another one for you.

Jose Cabaco, a creative director at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., has been hired by Euro RSCG Worldwide here as its first chief creative officer for North American operations.

More details from Adweek:

“Jose is that rare creative talent who combines excellence in both strategy and creative, in both creative concept and execution, in both inspiring and authoring, and in driving both creative vision and creative operations,” said Esther Lee, CEO, North America and president of global brands, in a statement.

At Wieden, Cabaco, 43, oversaw creative strategy for Nike Europe, Nike Latin America and Electronic Arts. Cabaco, who also worked at Wieden in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, spent much of his career in Portugal.

Born in Maputo, Mozambique, Cabaco studied industrial design at the Institute of Art & Design in Lisbon and went on to work at agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Cineponto/Leo Burnett Lisbon, Vitruvio Leo Burnett Madrid, Young & Rubicam, Nova Publicidade and EPG/TBWA in Lisbon. He co-founded his own agency in Lisbon in 2001 called Home, which later merged with Grey Advertising.

Prior to advertising, Cabaco worked as a car, furniture and ceramics designer. He also co-founded Bike magazine and was a creative partner at Sneakers Delight stores in Portugal.”

Working at Nike pays off again for those fleeing the rain of Portland — videogame experience too at EA (the hottest industry at the moment) can’t hurt either.

I’m sure you’ll have input to add…

Havas’ Euro RSCG in Chicago has named John Minnec executive director, a new post in which he will guide business development, interactive and general advertising efforts — basically a jack of all trades post in this new “integrated” world.

He reports to Ron Bess, agency president, and takes over for Zain Raj, who last week was promoted to CEO of Euro RSCG Discovery — their CRM/Customer Insight specialized agency.

Prior to joining Euro RSCG, Minnec most recently served as president of Interpublic Group’s DraftFCB London (which — like most Draft places — crashed & burned spectacularly losing clients left & right) which claims accounts from Nokia (which is actually a “Rivet” client when they still had (and lost) Motorola) and Computer Associates.

More from Adweak:

“John is an international leader in the truest sense. His extensive expertise spanning the entire marketing and advertising spectrum will no doubt prove invaluable for Euro RSCG Chicago and our clients,” said Bess, in a statement. “John’s combined knowledge of agency leadership, account management and business development make him a perfect fit for this new position.”

Key clients at Euro RSCG in Chicago include Assurant Health, Barilla, Effen Vodka, Circuit City, Citigroup, Culligan and Sprint.”

He has also held posts at Draft in Chicago, Ogilvy & Mather, Grey and Leo Burnett.

A quality recycling program continues on in the ad world…

Well coming off the promotions in the US — seems the Euro kids are getting bumped up across the pond as well.

A slew of promotions in a restructure across the European landscape — all based on the impending retirement of Pierre Lecosse who has served as chairman and chief executive of Euro RSCG Europe since 1997.

“Responsibility for all European operations at the Havas agency network will now be divided between four Euro RSCG directors; Gilles Bérouard, CEO of Euro RSCG Northern and Eastern Europe, Andreas Geyr, CEO of the Euro RSCG Germany group, Juan Rocamora, CEO of Euro RSCG Southern Europe and Christian de la Villehuchet, CEO of Euro RSCG Benelux.

All will add co-managing director of Europe to their titles and responsibilities while Lecosse will spend his last six months at the group focusing on acquisitions in the Asia-Pacific region.

The new line-up is said to reflect the Havas’ belief that teams make better leaders than the lone individual.

David Jones, global CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide, added: “We are the largest agency network in Europe, but we still believe that we can continue to outgrow the market.

“Juan, Gilles, Andreas and Christian will focus on driving that growth, accelerating the roll-out of our digitally integrated model and continuing to attract some of the world’s best creative talent.

The new team has been charged with driving revenue growth, further improving creative product and accelerating the groups leading position in digital.”

Now the last bit of that statement I am truly loving — “accelerating the groups leading position in digital” – hmmm… Euro RSCG is not leading anything in regard to digital in Europe — R/GA, AKQA. Poke, Profero, Iris — sure…. Euro…not so much. Delusions abound…

For some reason, I have the theme from “The Jeffersons” running through my head this afternoon on this one (could be the cold meds) but there have been a series of promotions at Euro RSCG (we are all about domestic & international news today)

From Adweak:

“Havas’ Euro RSCG, on a roll in recent years, today appointed Ron Berger and Ron Bess executive chairman and COO for the network’s North American operations, respectively.

They join Esther Lee, N.A. CEO and president of global brands, as the organization’s leadership team.

Berger had been CEO of Euro RSCG’s offices in New York and San Francisco. Despite his new title, he will retain oversight for key clients such as Jaguar, Charles Schwab and ExxonMobil, all of which were added during Berger’s tenure at the helm.

Moving forward, Alan Burgis will serve as CEO of Euro RSCG in S.F., while Jeff Brooks and Andrew Benett run N.Y. operations as co-presidents.

Bess’ new title comes in addition to serving as CEO and president of the outpost in Chicago.

All told, the shop’s North American operations employ 3,000 staffers and also include Euro RSCG offices in Dallas and Toronto, as well as communications firm the Abernathy MacGregor Group and the Euro RSCG DRTV a direct-response unit…

In its earnings statement in February, parent Havas noting that Euro RSCG’s 5.5 percent revenue increase in 2007 helped boost the parent company’s overall global revenue 4 percent. The agency got off to good start in 2008: the New York office added lead creative chores on the $225 million LendingTree account (from IPG’s Mullen) and the Chicago unit is competing in the final round of Burlington Coat Factory’s $60 million review.”

I have had the opportunity to chat with both Bess & Berger in the past to shoot the shit & network — they seem like good blokes…so good on them.  Nice to see some of the nice folks progress in the business…although they are already pretty high up on the ladder of course.
(I can feel the critics lining up for their shots now…)

EuroRSCG has replaced John Rausch on the Sprint account by promoting from within. Bernardo Gomez is the winner and you can now call him Group Creative Director thankyouverymuch. Gomez has works on the Citibank account (the shops second biggest client behind Sprint) and is more than supporting the shop’s new Effen Vodka campaign. Way to work that ladder, Bernie. Congrats.

EuroRSCG’s Chicago management will give staffers bonuses. Hot damn! The entire staff will receive at least $1000 with certain people receiving more based on performance. EuroRSCG normally follows a set guideline for raises and bonuses, which is stricter than most agencies. So, what’s with skipping all the paperwork? Who cares? We’re sure no one is complaining.

As for Rausch and the coup… One of, if not the biggest accounts that EuroRSCG holds is Sprint. Often, the account has run smoothly without a creative director. Postaer has stepped in where necessary, but his other responsibilities has kept him from really holding it down. They couldn’t slide over Blake Ebel because he was to busy brilliantly handling what we hear is a testy client, Citibank. Sprint was happy. The agency was turning in good work and managed to go without a group creative director for years. So why hire a group director at all? Rausch had been at DraftFCB for a short stint of six months before making this bounce to EuroRSCG, so why him?

WE HEAR that… The account people on Sprint, who had worked with him, previously, recruited Rausch. They liked him. Postaer, doing what anyone would have done, went along with it. Here’s what we know about Sprint - it’s a demanding client with non-stop, direct response projects rolling through the gates. Again, EuroRSCG had been doing a great job, so all Rausch had to do was keep it real, let the staff do their thing. Instead, Rausch recruited a creative director. He began dabbling in the business. The creative team wasn’t having it sending complaints up the food chain.

Senior management at EuroRSCG had to do something. The creative team was called in and told that Rausch had some objectives to hit, hadn’t, it wasn’t working out, blah, blah, blah. They asked Rausch and his hire to leave.

And that folks, is how senior management should respond when a new leader doesn’t mesh with a fully functioning, high-level creative team. Good luck to Rausch and bravo to the management. Sprint team? Nice fucking work.

His comment made in response to another comment that called him posuer made on a recent story we wrote about Euro RSCG, makes us heart him. Don’t you love a (wo)man who knows how to comment? Swoon.

“Mon dieu! We have been found out! Let this serve as my confession. Shotton is correct. I was “posing as an intellectual.” It was intended as a ruse to fool certain liberal factions of our company. Alas, it became an obsession. When Shotton revealed the “sane people were trying to escape” I ordered the exit doors barred. This action was impetus for the “revolution” Agency Spy reported. Unfortunately, the “coup” left several brave creative directors mortally wounded and they had to be taken out. May the Gods of Advertising have mercy on them… and on my soul. So say I, on this the 5th day of March, 2008. -SRP”

John Rausch is no longer at Euro RSCG Chicago. John has held the post of SVP/group creative director on the Sprint account, since June 2007. Apparently, some folks went with him. The story we hear, is that John took ‘em on. Took ‘em all on, which raised some hackles and prompted a mini-coup by the creative team. No shit. We tried contacting Euro RSCG’s press gal three times, but she ignored, so we don’t have a quote or confirmation from the agency to match this story of revolution.

Why does this matter to you? Not us covering our ass, but about John leaving the agency? Because Sprint may be looking to be put this end of their business, direct marketing, up for review, silly. Yeah, that’s the word on the street. Draft? You listening? It’s no joke with $13,000,000 in annual fee revenue on the line. Start your engines.

LendingTree, who had a $508M loss this past 4Q, has appointed Euro RSCG New York as its Integrated Agency of Record. Notice the integrated bit. Isn’t thata nice touch? The win is Euro RSCG New York’s first since they consumed 4D, the agency’s digital arm.

The press release also takes a stab at all other death stars out there:

“This move put digital at the core of the agency’s operations and under a unified management team and P&L — in sharp contrast to how the majority of larger agencies still operate in a siloed manner regarding digital.”

“Digital is fully embedded into every conversation which underscores their commitment to their new model and provides them with a competitive point of difference that’s especially relevant for a business like ours,” said Doug Lebda, founder of LendingTree and president of IAC.

Did the agency write that bit for Doug? Anyway, Euro RSCG will work with LendingTree on new product innovation, creative development, digital marketing and planning. Um, they might need more than that to right their mortgage crises induced troubled ship. LendingTree is also being spun into a publicly traded company. This should be so much fun for EuroRSCG to deal with.

Catch this though - Mullen (the incumbent) “will continue to provide media planning, buying and analytics services for the company and will work on select creative and digital project.” Bizarre. If RSCG is so integrated, why step outside the agency or the family, Havas, to get the rest of this done?

We like this new spot form Euro RSCG for EDF Energy. The commercial features “recycled” content from the song to the imagery and just starting airing on the 6th of January. Cute right? Besides, anything with a shot of JFK in it falls into the inspiring category.