Well, this agency’s certainly keeping us busy today. We’ve received confirmation that Ewan Paterson, who’s spent over three years as chief creative officer at DDB Chicago, is leaving the agency. Paterson joined DDB Chicago in 2010 from CHI & Partners in London, where he served as executive creative director for five years. Regarding his reasons for leaving, the DDB Chicago camp says, “He will be moving back to London with his family. Ewan intends to take some time off and will remain available to us for the next several months as we make a transition to new creative leadership in Chicago.”

Paterson is no stranger to the DDB fold as he spent a decade in the agency network’s London office working with brands including VW and Sony. During his career, the creative exec also worked at BBH London, where he led campaigns for British Airways, Unilever and Vodafone.

As for his time at DDB and future plans, Paterson himself says, “Its been a fantastic three and half years and I’m proud of the agency’s transformation from the where it was in 2010. With six Cannes Lions over the last twelve months it’s evident that agency is becoming  stronger and more diversified creatively. I’ll miss the people who make up DDB Chicago hugely, but the stars have aligned for me and the my family to go home to London.  I intend to spend three to four months being a ‘dad’ for the first time-ever and then working on setting up my own agency.”

We checked with Kevin Drew Davis himself last week on what his next gig would be after leaving DigitasLBi earlier this month, but didn’t get the full story. Well, now we know as it’s hit the newswires and trades up north that KDD has assumed the newly created position of chief creative officer at DDB Canada. So why the move, Kevin? “DDB Canada has been on my radar for some time,” he says in a statement, adding, “From the senior executive team to its creative leaders, everyone I’ve met has demonstrated an unwavering passion for their work. DDB’s culture is balanced with a tremendous amount of humility and integrity, which is a rare combination. For me, it’s all about the people that surround you.”

As noted, this is the first time a chief creative officer has been appointed to lead all of DDB Canada’s integrated creative departments, which span Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver. Davis will be based in the agency’s Toronto office. In case you forgot, Davis spent two years as ECD for both Digitas San Francisco and Chicago prior to joining DDB Canada and spent several years as global interactive CD at W+K among other notable stints.

Where art thou, David Caruso? The subhead of the announce about this reads, “DDB Canada launches arresting campaign for the Vancouver Police Foundation” and somewhere a PR intern is smiling with self-satisfaction. Initially, the Vancouver Police Foundation approached DDB for a print ad that they could distribute in local newspapers with 1950s flair. Thankfully the agency got back to them and said something along the lines of, “Today we use computers.” Thus DDB Canada’s hometown office created a social media campaign around police sunglasses, wherein community members can purchase the glasses and, if they snap a photo of themselves and share it with the hashtag #VPDPartners, win a Ride-Along experience. The Department’s website will feature the photos from the contest.

Two 30-second spots advertise the sunglasses, with the best one featuring a large man skidding on the hood of a car. We watch him, like a beached whale, for a little too long until the tagline arrives: “Wearing the sunglasses supports the cops. It doesn’t make you one.” It’s cute, and shows why we need advertising agencies. Otherwise, these spots would have been 6×9 Ariel-font jokes in the back of the Vancouver Sun.

“In the short term, the goal of the campaign is simply to raise awareness for the Vancouver Police Foundation and show support for the VPD by wearing the sunglasses,” says Martina Meckova, executive director of the Vancouver Police Foundation. “Our long term objective is to increase the membership of the Foundation and broaden the support base, so that more people in Vancouver can benefit from the work that we do in the community.” Second spot after the jump.

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After 13 years spent moving up the charts at DDB, Paul Gunning has now taken on the top role as CEO of the agency’s Chicago office. Gunning replaces Peter McGuinness, who spent two years at the helm, but is leaving the agency and returning to New York to take on the role of chief marketing and brand officer for Greek yogurt brand, Chobani. Doesn’t seem too surprising considering that Chobani was a client of Gotham, the IPG-owned agency where McGuinness served as president/CEO before moving to DDB. As for Gunning, the newly minted DDB Chicago chief exec spent the last five years as CEO for Tribal Worldwide before assuming his new title.

In a statement regarding his appointment, Gunning says,  ”Chicago is my hometown, and DDB Chicago is one of the most storied and well-respected ad agencies in the world. I look forward to my new role and guiding the agency’s way forward with an emphasis on delivering outstanding results to our clients.”

Gunning first started out as an account director at Tribal DDB before moving up to VP/GM and then president before assuming his most recent role.

Well, this is a name we haven’t heard in quite some time, but yes, we’ve received word that Eric Johnson–aka “DJ Bunny Ears”–has left DDB Chicago after two-and-a-half years to take on an executive producer position at Search Party Music. In his new role, which he officially assumed on July 1, Johnson is collaborating with writer/director Wes Anderson’s music supervisor of choice, Randall Poster (go here if the name doesn’t ring a bell).

Anyhow, during his time at DDB Chicago, Johnson served as executive producer of music + creative integration and worked across the agency’s client roster including McDonald’s, State Farm, Reebok and Mars/Wrigley. During his career, Johnson also served as a music supervisor for eight years at W+K and had a two-year stint as executive music producer at Y&R.

The DDB network’s Miami-based Hispanic-focused unit Alma has confirmed that two of its creative leaders, Diego Yurkievich and Hernan Cerdeiro, who just picked up a couple of Silver Lions last week at Cannes for their work on Glad, have left to pursue other interests. In a statement, Alma president/chief creative officer Luis Miguel Messianu tells us, “We enjoyed working with both Hernan and Diego and wish them the best in their future endeavors. We are looking for creative leadership that aligns more closely with our culture.” As mentioned above, Alma the search is underway for new creative leads at the agency.

The Argentinean natives had been with Alma DDB for three years give of take, Yurkievich (pictured) joining up as SVP/ECD after serving in the same role at GlobalHue New York. During his career, the senior creative has also worked at the likes of W+K and the Cali branch of the Miami Ad School. Cerdeiro, meanwhile, held a VP/creative director position at Alma after working at the likes of Y&R and McCann’s Buenos Aires offices. Trying to put some positive spin on the departures, Messianu adds,  ”We attract top talent and work to get the absolute best results for our clients. Over the years, many of our alumni have taken what they’ve learned into the marketplace, and raised the bar across the industry.”

In case you haven’t heard the news today, 15-year Deutsch LA vet Jason Elm, who last served as EVP/group creative director on Diamond Foods and Playstation (he was joined by 180LA alum Gavin Lester on the latter account late last year) has assumed the chief creative officer post at DDB California. Elm assumes a position that’s been left vacant at the Omnicom-owned agency’s Cali operations (L.A., San Francisco) since January when Lisa Bennett stepped down from her CCO role. Bennett has since been appointed as EVP/creative for DDB North America.

As for Elm, during his lengthy stay at Deutsch LA, where he started as a copywriter, the senior creative subsequently played a major role in PlayStation efforts, creating the Twitter feed for @TheKevinButler and leading creative on the award-winning “Michael” work for the console. His new boss, DDB California (formerly DDB West) CEO Mike Harris, speaks his name and sings his praises in a statement, saying, “Jason was recently, and rightly so, named to Business Insider’s ‘people most-sought after by rival agencies’ list. He is a creative genius and a superstar in the industry and I have no doubt that his creative vision will elevate the level of our work, across departments.”

Via the tips line, we received what appears to be a memo from Doner top dog Rob Strasberg that goes a little something like this:

“Great news! We’ve landed a big, colorful fish from San Francisco – Chad Ackerly.
Not only a super talent but a super good guy, Chad comes to Doner with tons of experience doing great work for all types of clients – not to mention a stellar new biz track record.
I’m super pumped and stoked and jazzed (not really sure about jazzed – but my toes are tapping) for him to start at the start of June.

Check out some of his work and his bio.

http://cargocollective.com/chadackley/

http://cargocollective.com/chadackley/Bio
Rob

–

Rob Strasberg
Co-CEO/ Chief Creative Officer”

We’re trying to get official confirmation from the MDC-owned, Southfield, MI-based agency, but in the meantime, Strasberg might want to get the spelling of his new hire’s name right as it’s actually Chad Ackley (yeah, we know, calling the kettle black, blah blah). Anyhow, Ackley has spent the last decade at DDB San Francisco, where he primarily served as group creative director  on several campaigns for various Clorox Company brands such as Tilex, Pine-Sol and, yes, Clorox. Ackley started out as an art director at DDB SF but was soon elevated to one of the first creative director roles at the agency. Prior to his time at DDB, Ackley spent nearly a decade as well at Leo Burnett. We’ll update if and when we find out what his new title is. 

We’ve just received confirmation that Joe Cianciotto, who’s spent well over nine years at DDB and works out of the New York office, has been appointed to the newly created position of chief digital officer at the agency. Along with his new CDO title, which he will take on effective immediately, Cianciotto will also maintain his position as executive creative director, a role he’s held at DDB for the last six years (he also served as director of digital integration for the last three). During his career, the senior creative also spent over six years at Publicis, where he last served as an ACD. Cianciotto will continue to work out of DDB’s NYC office.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which famously flies from The Netherlands to the Nether Lands™, is giving regular schmucks like you and me a chance to float around in outer space for a while. What this has to do with flying to different locations on Earth is unclear, but KLM along with agencies RAPP and Tribal DDB Amsterdam probably figured, “Hey, Axe is giving away a trip to outer space. We should do that too.” And do that too they are.

Of course, a campaign doesn’t begin and end with just giving away tickets to space. As every advertising veteran knows, the difficult part is determining  who actually gets the tickets. Ever the pragmatists, KLM have decided that this makes the most logical sense: They are launching a balloon with space tickets inside of it from Area 51 on April 22, with viewers of a live stream predicting at what altitude the balloon will pop. Should you guess correctly, you get the space tickets.

Should advertising ever be lauded for any one attribute, it should be its practicality. Credits after the jump.

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