Joyce King Thomas - AgencySpy

McCann Launches XBC, Welcomes King Thomas Back to the Fold

Kiran Aditham — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:40:13 +0000

Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder. After two-and-a-half years away from McCann, the place where she spent 16 years of her career and last served as CCO of the New York office, Joyce King Thomas has returned to the agency to take on a new role as president of McCann XBC (or “ExtraBoldCondensed”–sorta like a hair care product). The new, peculiarly titled unit will focus on McCann’s MasterCard biz and thus King Thomas should feel right at home considering she co-created the “Priceless” campaign for the brand some 15 years ago while at the agency.

McCann XBC (thank heavens there’s no “Team” moniker) will work in tandem with all other IPG agencies currently serving MasterCard in 112 markets including R/GA, Octagon, UM and MRM. Along with King Thomas, the new division’s leadership includes Richard O’Leary, currently global account director for MasterCard, who will serve as managing director, and Devika Bulchandani, who will assume the title of global strategy director.

Newly installed McCann Worldgroup CEO/chairman Harris Diamond says of the returning King Thomas, who will take on her new role in January, “I am excited that Joyce will be leading McCann XBC. Her ideas, creativity and strategic understanding of the MasterCard brand are unparalleled.”

In between her two stints at McCann, King Thomas served as a creative consultant, traveled to India, worked on efforts including the Passion Project and most recently worked as a partner at long-form journo site, Longreads.

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Karlsson Headed to McCann After All

Kiran Aditham — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:55:51 +0000

Well, at least we sort of scooped AdAge on this yesterday. But after giving us a solid NO when we inquired, McCann indeed announced to staff at an internal meeting this afternoon that Linus Karlsson is joining the agency and will lead creative in both New York and London, effective February 2011. My, how quickly things change. Karlsson as we know suddenly left Mother and now we know that the CCO/chairman was probably too big to pass up. With McCann and Euro RSCG taken care of, who’s next to fill their vacant top creative post?

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Who’s Hitting Up the Contagious/Moth Event Tonight?

Kiran Aditham — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:08:33 +0000

The Advertising Week festivities are slowly drawing to a close and while we’ve hit up our fair share of panels that were fun and interesting, we’re particularly looking forward to this event tonight that’s being thrown by Contagious, Organic and non-profit group The Moth. We figured we’d give our buddy Nick Parish over at Contagious some free publicity for this affair, which is being billed as a StorySLAM and will feature the likes of Gerry Graf, Joyce King Thomas and Eric Silver. We’ll be there so come say hi. Get more info here.

More: “Tuesday Poll: Who’s Excited for Advertising Week?“

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