Boutique Call

If our pleasure from being on the outside looking in wasn’t even more gratifying, here’s this self-promo to solidify things from a San Francisco shop called School of Thought, which makes a Bob Ross show look like Soul Train. SoT includes the services of co-founder/creative director and Agency.com alum Joseph Newfield (who we believe was not involved with the Subway “Fist Bump” fiasco) and former McCann SF ACD Tom Geary, who formed the operation in 2008. Yep, there are “power hours” and free lunches involved, ad school kids, so feel free to sign up.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

You might not know Fred Abercrombie‘s name right off the bat, but to provide a reminder, while at Organic, the copywriter penned the horrifying, yet intriguing Meth Project PSAs that were directed by Darren Aronofsky. Anyhow, after a year at Organic, which was behind said campaign, Abercrombie has moved on to launch his own, Petaluma, CA-based shop called ABERCROMBIE+ALCHEMY. Abercrombie & Co. are still a couple of weeks from an official site launch/announcement, but they did take the time to create this clip for the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, specifically its Audio Program series that’s being held in San Francisco at month’s end. Check out more info here.

For those who remember Ben Silverman’s 10-year old production studio Reveille, we thought we’d let you know that one of its wunderkinds has moved on. Chad Bennett, who served as head of brand development at said shop for eight years, has now launched Populus Brands. which is based on content production.

Bennett says in a statement, “Content producers have the full attention of their audience, but many do not have the time or resources to fully leverage them. There’s huge opportunity to use content to develop and build lifestyle brands that complement the viewer experience and drive a maximum number of ancillary revenue streams. Populus Brands will focus on leveraging the audience’s relationship with the content to create tangible products and experiences that viewers can bring into their everyday lives.”

Joseph Jaffe, the man behind the Jaffe Juice blog and Crayon, the latter of which was acquired by Powered two years ago, is back in the agency biz with his new operation called Evol8tion. The idea behind the one-time TBWA\Chiat\Day and OMD staffer’s new shop is to bring start-ups and brands as well as Madison Ave and Mountain View together. According to the man himself, “The startup lives in the epicenter of technology-inspired innovation. But brands are often not brought into the picture until the startup is so far downstream in the process that it’s too late to influence direction, partner or truly innovate.”

Jaffe is kickstarting Evol8tion with a product called “Matchmaker,” which, wait for it, helps start-ups find their “brand soul mate.” Anyhow, you can find out more from the link above about Evl8tion, which has attracted clients like AB-InBev and Kraft to the fold.

It’s been a little while since we’ve rolled out a Boutique Call post, but since the category seems somewhat wide open at this point, we’ll let you know that Shaz Sedighzadeh has started up a new operation called The Supply.

Sedighzadeh set up the new shop, which is being dubbed as a “a resource representation entity for digital and creative talent,” following a two-year stint as a digital producer at CP+B, where he helped produce work for Old Navy, Coke Zero and Microsoft Windows. Prior to Crispin, the new entrepreneur spent a few months on the digital production side at Tool of North America.

Want an explanation of what The Supply does? Well, regarding his new operation, here’s a statement from Sedighzadeh, who lives in Denver but shuttles between NY and LA often: “The world of traditional staffing, simply matching keywords on a resume, has been a working model for some time, and may continue to be in some capacity. But in the digital advertising world today, things are shifting way too fast to solely be supported by the standard candidate sourcing methods. Talent specialists and reps now need to think like experienced digital producers and strategists; they need to ‘get it’, knowing what the project/campaign consists of, what type/level of specific talent is needed, matching resources with the timeline/budget, identifying what design aesthetic needs to be applied, whether it’s a job for a vendor or a couple of freelancers, and the list goes on.”

Welcome the world of Grok, which despite its rather questionable name, explains, “comes from a word in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, which means ‘to communicate with deep empathy; to understand
(someone or something) profoundly or intuitively.’” So, who founded this shop, you might ask? Well,  Julie Bauer, Steve Landsberg and Tod Seisser, the last of which served as CCO at Saatchi & Saatchi New York. Seisser, if you need to know, spent six-plus years as CCO of Saatchi NY, while Bauer was a client/strategy exec at the likes of Ogilvy and Saatchi.

Here’s a statement from Bauer, which reads, ““Our very first assignment as an agency was a small project for Estroven, back when it was owned by Amerifit Brands,” said Bauer. “Amerifit was acquired by Martek which was, in turn, acquired by DSM. Throughout all these changes our responsibilities grew based on a record of outstanding sales results and a relationship built on trust. Today, they’re one of our most valued clients.” The full-service Grok, which resides in NYC’s Flatiron District, says it “saw their company grow from three to 20 employees and nearly $80 million in billing.”

After simmering in beta for the past six months, WE ARE Pi has now officially opened this week. The Amsterdam-based shop was founded by four ex-W+K Amsterdam folks–Jamie Kim, Rick Chant, Barney Hobson and Alex Bennett Grant–and counts clients including Deloitte, Lego, Bread & Butter, TEDx Amsterdam and Habitat For Humanity. If you were curious about the shop’s mission statement/concept, the Pi gang says, “WE ARE Pi will use creative storytelling, technology and interactive experiences to bake shared-value into communications for brands, causes and entertainment.” Sounds a bit familiar, don’t it?

Anyhow, the WAP founders say that for the past six months, they’ve been road-testing this “shared-value” proposition with partners such as Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels, Lowlands music festival, and NYC’s Uniform Project. As for background, Kim (pictured above, right) spent about three-and-a-half years at W+K Amsterdam and served as an interactive producer, Chant worked as a copywriter, Hobson was an AD and Bennett Grant spent three years during the same period as an account director.

 

It’s been a while since we dusted off the Call, but since this is an agency that proposes “game changing marketing  ideas” (how novel), we were only compelled to post. Anyhow, there’s a new shop in Boston starring president Tom Schneider and EVP, creative/strategy David Abend, who have teamed up to form the HaloEffect. Schneider served as CMO at Alloy Media & Marketing for three years while Abend spent four-plus years as VP/GCD at Digitas and had copywriting/creative director stints at the likes of Hill Holliday and Arnold (lordy, this guy’s more loyal to Beantown than Ben Affleck).

As for what HaloEffect has accomplished, the agency has completed the launch of Groupon for grocery and are currently working on marketing concepts for Nuance, Sokolove Law and Johnsonville Sausage. We’ll leave the “game-changing” judgment up to you,but here’s the Halo’s site to help you make your decision.

Two boutique calls in one month? Well, you don’t say. Anyhow, NYC is home to a new agency launched by Madison Ave vets dubbed The Fearless Group (no relation to Alex Bogusky‘s FearLess Revolution, we believe). The name of this new shop, which made its presence known in Times Square recently (above), is pretty appropriate when you consider the words of partner Robert Davidman, who says, “Fear has played a major part in decision making in advertising and marketing. We at Fearless contend that it’s a phenomenon everyone knows about, but doesn’t want to acknowledge. The fact is fearful behavior produces safe advertising and yet safety is not an obviously desirable communications objective. Brands and agencies need to confront and manage fear in order to properly communicate with today’s consumers from TV through to Twitter.”

Davidman’s co-conspirators at Fearless include former Universal McCann chairman/CEO Robin Kent, former IPG partnership CEO/TBWA London OG Jerry Judge and ex-BBDO, Saatchi, Y&R New York senior creative Peter Gibb. Early TFG clients include local eatery Pure Foods and if you’re looking to delve further into the agency’s philosophy and check out full bios, the website is up and running.

Ah yes, it’s been quite a while since our last Boutique Call, so nothing like a Friday to dust off the old category. Your latest new shop to open up is Good Girls, which consists of ex-BBH and StrawberryFrog creatives. Founded by Holly Lynch, who serves as CEO, the Tribeca-based outfit officially opened its doors today and dubs itself “a branding/advertising company with a niche in working with entrepreneurial women.”

Here’s Good Girls four-step brand-building process:

•       In-Take Phase – Each project begins with an in-take session, during which The Good Girls works with each client company to construct a dedicated team that will bring their brand to life
•       Workshop Phase – An action-based brand-creation workshop to develop an initial brand brief and identify the company’s communications objectives and technology requirements
•       Brand-Concept Phase – The creation of the brand concept or prototype, and an initial business and marketing plan focused on the long-term engagement of customers with the brand
•       Brand-to-Market Phase – Drawing on a team of independent partners who can best bring the concept to life, The Good Girls provides a full suite of creative and production services focusing on digital execution and in-market success-measurement and analytics tools

Other Good Girls staffers include chief creative Raanan Gabriel, who arrives from MRM Worldwide, where he served as VP, director of digital creative production. Joining Lynch and Gabriel is BBH/KBS+P/Euro RSCG alum Alexa Knight, whose title is director of strategic development, and creative Shawna Laken, a Strawberry Frog and Saatchi & Saatchi alum.

The full Good Girls site looks like it has some time to launch but you can find out some info here.