TBWA Is Ready To Rock

Disruptunes is the latest and properly best idea to come out of TBWA in some time. The program allows musicians from within the side shop to upload their tracks to a server. Currently, there are over 100 songs in the database for employees to share, enjoy and rate.

See? This is good. This is an agency showing some love for its staffers. Okay, admittedly, we’re stretching this whole Valentine’s Day thing a little far on this one, but hell… it’s still awesome.

We’d love to hear some of the tunes. If you’re one of the 50 plus bands who have uploaded a track to Disruptunes and are looking to get some play, contact us at agencyspy at mediabistro dot com. We could do one a day or something like that.

AdFreak has a link to song by TBWA hit sensation, The Generators. Get it here.

Art Directors Gone Wild

Sometimes we feel bad for art directors. You know when you walk by the AD’s highly decorated desk and she/he has that crazy look in their eye? Kind of like that tiger at the zoo right before he attacked? You know the one. It’s hard being an AD. So much creativity and so few outlets.

Maybe that’s why they always have side projects from hosting shows in galleries to running small stores or just making weird videos for the hell of it. Sometimes, advertising just isn’t enough. We understand.

Sean Ohlenkamp probably knows all about that caged in feeling. Consider that this art director from TBWA Chiat Day/Tequila has taken a photo of his desktop everyday for the past year. You can watch it shift and shake to a cute little soundtrack here. One note to Sean – consider uploading the vid to YouTube.

Anyway, we’d like to find other art directors who have gone wild. If you’ve got a good side project (videos, movies, art, writing, etc.), send it our way – agencyspy at mediabistro dot com or IM: agencyspy

Lew Lara Joins TBWA

TBWA Worldwide and Lew Lara Propaganda e Comunicacao Ltda (Lew Lara), the largest independent advertising agency in Brazil, have joined forces to create Lew’Lara\TBWA.  The agency was founded by Luiz Lara and Jaques Lewkowicz and currently has more than 250 employees, as well as offices in Sao Paulo, Rio and Brasilia. Its current key clients include TIM, Arthur Lundgren, Schincariol and ABN Amro.

Lara (pictured above) will continue on as president of the agency. He is a former president of the Sao Paulo Advertising Association and, most recently, was named “Advertising Man of the Year” in 2006. Lewkowicz will continue in the role of Creative Director.

Read more here.

And The Sexiest Man In Advertising Is…

Thanks to everyone who voted in Agency Spy’s First Annual Sexiest Man In Advertising Competition. With 494 votes cast we do have a winner! But, first, we’d like to point out that the original posting received thousands of hits. Hmmm…. so we’re guessing that in this male dominated and mostly heterosexual business of ours, you fellows decided to skip out on the whole voting thing. Well, we got emails to that affect anyway. Whatevs. We had some fun, some laughs and we’re glad to see the we have a winner!

In ninth place is Selmat Datang Chen of W+K with 2% of the votes. In eighth place is Mauro Alencar of Publicis Modem (3%). Seventh is Juan Cabral of Fallon UK (4%) and sixth is Jose Molla, founder la comunidad in Miami, with 9%. Coming in at number five is Nick Law, CCO of R/GA, with 10% of the vote. Fourth is Feh Tarty, an AD at Goodby, (12%). Third place goes to David Droga of Drgoa5 (13%) and the runner-up is Ajaz Ahmed from AKQA (20%).

And with 28% of the vote, thewinner is…. Geoff Edwards SVP of the SF TAG Unit at McCann Erickson!!!

Everyone knows how much we dislike McCann Erickson. However, the agency’s one shining star is certainly their Tag units where Geoff is an SVP and a group creative director at the SF branch.

Geoff is 38 and a Detroit native. He started out as an intern at Chiat/Day in New York 14 years ago and helped Spike Lee launch Spike DDB in 1996 (sweet!). Edwards pulled stints at Element 79 Partners and, prior to that, Interpublic Group’s Foote, Cone & Belding, as well. He then went on to work at TBWA/C/D SF where he was paired with his longtime partner, Scott Duchon, who was once named GQ’s Man of the Month. Chuck McBride once said of the team that “I find them to be incredibly tenacious. A lot of people get worn down by negative process. They take the adversity and use it to their benefit. They come out heroes that way.”

Having worked on Playstation and Adidas might have helped Edwards co-create/manage that wonderful, award winning “Gears Of War” spot this past year. Check out his Clio stats here and his Cannes credits here. For Art Director’s club shout outs, see here. Creativity Online recently held a Q&A with our sexiest man where he had this response to the question, what’s the process like becoming leaders [rather than strict creatives]?

“Honestly, I think it’s an evolutionary process. You don’t learn to be a leader, it’s based on past experiences, on people who have influenced you and influenced your career. A huge influence on me is Bob Scarpelli. He’s the (film and press) jury chair this year and I can’t wait to see him. When I was at DDB/Chicago, I learned a lot from him. There’s this one quote that I carry around that he always said, and that’s “All good ideas find a home.” It’s so true because a lot of ideas aren’t bought, but you hold on to those thoughts and at some point there will be an opportunity. For instance, the song we put on the Gears of War spot, that’s a song Scott had always kind of kept with him, and then this spot came out and was a perfect opportunity. So I think leadership is about grabbing the positive experiences we’ve had in this industry and galvanizing them, and incorporating them into your personal style. It starts from the core. The core of it are talented teams. They’re the young people. They’re shaping the culture of the industry. They’re coming up with the ideas. They’re charged with that and it’s up to Scott and myself to recognize the good ones and direct them, not impose too much of your will.”

TBWA Exits Review For Royal Caribbean

TBWA/Chiat Day has exited the review for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines just three weeks before final presentations. That leaves Draft/Initiative, JWT/Mindshare and Saatchi & Saatchi/Mediavest. Both the brand and the agency have told AdWeek the decision was mutual.

Current duties are with MPG and Arnold Havas. The latter is cutting about 5 percent of its staff, as it prepares for the loss of the Royal Caribbean account. Read More Here

Omnicom Owns The Gunn Report

BBDO Worldwide takes the honor of being the Most Awarded Agency Network in the World for a record fifth time from The Gunn Report. BWA\Chiat\Day as Most Awarded Agency in the World and third Most Awarded Network. DDB Worldwide was named the World’s Most Awarded Network in Europe. Of the top 50 most awarded agencies, 12 were part of Omnicom. Among interactive agencies, four of the top 25 were from Omnicom.

On only one occasion has The Gunn Report, which has been publishing since 1999, seen a network take that top spot that was NOT part of Omnicom.

Source 

Sony Gets It Right. The New PS3 Ad.

If you read us reguarly, then you know that we are huge gamers and love the genre’s advertising. Check out the latest PS3 spot above. Comments from the Playstation blog include:

“That is what I, am talking about! Makes me wanna buy a PS3 all over again! My applauds are to everyone who made these ads.”

“Those actually don’t suck… they don’t suck at all”

and “OMG that is advertising, the white room ads were ok, but these are amazing, if I did not own a PS3 those would make me go out and buy one plus we got some great games coming out. Honestly Sony great job, really good advertisements.”

Yes, these accolades are coming from Playstation die-hards, but we agree as owners of an Xbox 360, a Wii and a Nintendo DS Lite that this spot is far, far, far, better than what the brand has been churning out with the help of TBWA/C/D (ed.’s note: the account is in review). Sony’s game division suffered a massive $847 million loss during its second quarter thanks to the turgid sales of its Playstation 3 console, which retails at a lower than profit price tag (click here to read more, second item down). The brand has also recently seen ads from its recent campaign, “This Is Living” get banned by the ASA. Plus, the first run PS3’s were a large disappointment for many gamers and their advertising has a way of just pissing folks off. Keep in mind that recently Xbox began shifting their advertising to focus on the experience of using the system. Maybe Playstation has caught on that catering to the senses works better than hard edged disenchantment/violence or just irreverent creative. This commercial also pimps games only available on the PS3. An old trick that has been known to work.

We’re also wondering if the song, “Ladies and Gentlemen,” by a band call Saliva will hit the Top 20 charts if/when the spot makes regular rotations on TV. It happened for Old Navy and Gears Of War, so…

Regardless, way to go Playstation. You almost have us.

Read More: Vincent Gallo + Terry Richardson’s New Ad Campaign

TBWA Does Iceland

Let’s give a warm welcome to TBWA\Reykjavik. With a staff of 20, the Icelandic agency joins TBWA in order to provide better service to both domestic and international clients. The new shop is already serving Icelandic clients that operate worldwide.

Read More: McCann And The Ad Council’s Small Steps

WAMU Hires TBWA/Chiat Day

Washington Mutual has hired TBWA\Chiat\Day in Playa del Rey, Calif., as its lead agency on its $173 million-plus ad account taking out incumbent Leo Burnett. The Chicago based agency has had the account since 2005 during which time they created a series of quirky ads potraying WaMu as a “modern” bank. Not what the shop needs now since WaMu has taken a serious hit from the recent mortgage meltdown surging through the US. Their earnings, which are to be released today, are expected to report write-downs of nearly $1 billion, as well as coming in at a 75% lower net income figure. Hell… they’re trading at 26 cents a share last time we checked.

Meanwhile, Burnett recently picked up the Buick and GMC business replacing Cadillac, which bounced to Modernista!. So, if they can hold on to Samsung, they should be able to shoulder through this loss, as presidents Rich Stoddart and Juan Carlos Ortiz continue to iron out the kinks.

TBWA Has A Language Problem

Sears Canada announced that it has selected TBWA as its advertising agency of record. Maybe the US should look into a similar strategy. Sears Holdings saw a profit drop of 40% during the second quarter.

Who wrote this press release? In the obligatory blurb about TBWA at the bottom of the release, they describe the agency as disruptive. “TBWA\ Worldwide (www.tbwa.com) creates disruptive ideas for global clients-” It’s just interesting the word choice there. Do they really mean disruptive? From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: dis·rupt

1 a: to break apart : rupture b: to throw into disorder <agitators trying to disrupt the meeting>

2: to interrupt the normal course or unity of

Number 2 it is. So, TBWA’s work “interrupts the normal course or unity of” a consumer’s day-to-day life. That negative connotation is probably not what they really want to say. Synonyms for disruptive include: upset, disturb, interrupt, dislocate, disorder, mess up, unsettle. Do you want to be the agency who creates advertising that “unsettles” or “disturbs” someone’s day? That’s right. That’s the kind of advertising consumers hate. Telemarketing is disruptive. Good advertising is… is… let’s use impactful. Synonyms for impact include: impression, effect, bearing, power, control, sway, influence.

Nit-picking, nit-picking… Look, we’re not always the best with words either. Evidence is this blog. We write fast and we write hard. However, if we were penning a press release about our company that would be used repeatedly and sent worldwide, we would damn well be exacting about our language.

Read More: How Bad Do You Want To Work In Advertising?