Bartle Bogle Hegarty

It only seems like yesterday that 180 LA creative director Ari Weiss was discussing “shrinkage” in relation to the agency’s campaign for Boost Mobile. My, how things change so quickly. Weiss has now packed his bags and is headed back to the East Coast to assume an executive creative director role at BBH New York. Though the agency’s still without CCO, it’s boosting its ECD team as Weiss becomes the fifth in the roster, joining Jon Pearce, Mike Shackle, Calle Sjoenell and Pelle Sjoenell.

As for background, Weiss began his career at now-defunct Cliff Freeman & Partners before moving on to BBDO, then heading to the West Coast to take on creative roles W+K, Goodby and eventually 180. Now at BBH, Weiss will serve as ECD on Axe.

A pair of associative creative directors have joined the fold at BBH’s New York office, namely Jesse Juriga and Nate Able. Juriga (left) arrives from Droga5, where he spent four years and worked as a creative on several Puma projects including “Index” and “Social” as well as campaigns for Rhapsody/Jay-Z, The New Museum Launch and the Tap Project. Now at BBH, Juriga will join up with the agency’s Google team.

Able, meanwhile, has spent pretty much his entire career on the West Coast, moving from an AD at McCann Worldgroup SF to a similar post at T.A.G., where he was part of the seemingly massive team that worked on Halo 3 “Believe.” When T.A.G. evolved into agencytwofifteen in April of last year, Able got bumped up to ACD and continued working on Microsoft/Xbox (including promos for the live action series, Bright Falls) as well as Nescafe Mexico.

While it adds more creatives, BBH NY is still without CCO but the search continues for someone to replace Kevin Roddy, who resigned last fall. Current day-to-day creative is being overseen by three ECDs, Calle Sjoenell, Jon Pearce and Mike Shackle.

If you’re feeling a bit selfish this holiday season, BBH is offering you more you time with “Holiday Alibis,” the agency’s holiday card that essentially let your email BS to whomever and get out of spending holidays with the family. It’s kind of antithetical to the whole spirit of the season, but if you’re feeling the urge to be mildly amusing, take your pick and send to your loved ones here.

The tagline says it best, “Say it without saying it.” Men are too macho to show their feelings toward one another in public or arguably in general. I don’t know, it’s just the way we are.

BBH NY does a clever job of exploiting this truth, poking fun at it and in the end the agency produced a campaign to be proud of. Any man who gives another man a bottle of Johnnie Blue has some kind of  motive which is very well depicted in this campaign when the son-in-law presents his father-in-law with a bottle in a desperate attempt to gain the latter’s acceptance. It’s no award-winning, Robert Carlyle-narrated effort but everyone has to pay their Christmas dues. Check out the second spot in the campaign after the jump.

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Having already lost its U.S. Levi’s account to W+K in 2008, BBH and the brand have parted ways across the Atlantic. It ends a 28-year relationship between the two parties, though according to Campaign, their bond is said to have “deteriorated in recent times, as the agency struggled to get its creative ideas through to production.”

BBH in fact hasn’t done anything really for Levi’s since a Levi’s Originals campaign in 2008. Still, the agency is being credited for turning one of its founding clients around in the mid-80′s with the “Launderette” ad that was set to the tune of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

More: “Levis: This Country Was Built By Slaves”

Waving goodbye via a letter is just so boring and overdone these days. If you’re going leave your agency, say why and not burn any bridges in the process, try Andy Grant‘s route. Maybe it’s been done a few times before, who knows, but the former BBH art director, who a tipster tells us helped create last year’s Vaseline “Prescribe the Nation” campaign, opted for a presentation (and a little heartstring tug) as his resignation letter. The first slide’s below and you can check out the rest of Grant’s bid adieu after the jump.

More: “BBH Layoffs Include Rob Rasmussen”

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That’s what one spy hypothesizes, telling us that the “G.O. IV Fortune” treasure hunt that we reported on a few days back was actually conceived by BBH some seven years ago for the same client. The tipster says:

“BBH presented the Go [IV] Fortune idea in 2002 for the launch of Type 1 Jeans. The idea was to literally bury $100,000 in gold coins somewhere in America and giving people clues how to find it. Back then it had the title ‘The Gold Rush.’ They never bought it and instead did a crappy online version of it. Now seven years later they finally do it, another agency gets credit, and they made it so complicated that many people don’t want to participate.”

We checked with a source familiar with the BBH matter, who tells us that this theory “makes sense” and the “Gold Rush” was meant to be part of a Super Bowl campaign. Unfortunately, the CD, Thomas Hayo, nor the account people involved are with BBH anymore. We’ll hopefully get more info on this as time progresses.

More: “Levi’s: This Country Was Built by Slaves”

AgencySpy has learned that Bartle Bogle Hegarty laid off an unknown number of employees, including ECD of innovation Rob Rasmussen.

We’re still seeking details regarding the matter, but a source informs us that the writing was on the wall. No word yet on just how many people are without work today, or if more cuts are set to come.

Rasmussen, for one, only joined the agency in November, 2008. Previously he was an ECD at R/GA New York.

Update: An agency representative sent the following statement. “In response to the challenges of the current economic climate, and in an ongoing effort to ensure the future financial health of our agency, BBH New York has made the difficult decision to reduce our staff by 12.”

More: “Did R/GA’s Siloed Structure Push Rob Rasmussen Back to Traditional?”

Brand Republic reports today that at an agency-wide meeting in London this morning, senior management at BBH announced that 10% of UK staff (approximately 40 people) will be made redundant.

Once again, the economic downturn is cited as the major reason along with a “broader structural review”, which BBH CEO Ben Fennell tells BR “will see us becoming more commercial by embedding data into our strategy, embedding more technology and technologists into our creative offering and creating a faster and leaner delivery system for our clients.” On a positive note, he adds that BBH “actually made almost 20 hirings already this year to increase our level of knowledge and expertise in all departments.”

According to the report, today’s layoffs affect all departments and levels of seniority and come five months after BBH instigated a 3.5% pay cut across the agency.

More: “We Hear: Mike Follett/Others Depart from Tribal NY”

Today, Adweek has an article up about digital shop, Razorfish, getting into the broadcast game for detergent brand, All. If anyone caught that last episode of Celebrity Apprentice (and I’m sure you didn’t), you’ll recall that the teams were tasked with creating a “viral” video for the brand. The results were pretty mediocre, but whatever. The agency went on to take two of the contestants, Joan and Melissa Rivers, and feature them in Razorfish’s first ever broadcast production. You can watch it above.

From the article: “Razorfish has a history in digital media and developing Web sites,” said Marc Lucas, executive creative director for Razorfish in New York. “In the last 12 to 18 months, we’ve made a push to be a marketing services company and being more media agnostic.”

All just recently put its creative account into review. While BBH is the incumbent, it ended up goin to Lowe. However, wouldn’t it have been rad if Razorfish just snuck in there and took the booty? Forget about whether you like or hate the spot. Isn’t just a wee bit exciting to see a digital agency is now just an agency and vice versa? Lines are blurring left and right. Consider that GlobalHue, which has long been billed as the the biggest multicultural agency, won their MGM Grand account as just an agency – serving every color, gender and platform under the sun. Finally – the whole bag of goods is getting mixed up. It’s about time.

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