Digitas Chicago Nabs CPG Marketing Maven Anita Puri

Puri Joins as SVP Marketing for Kraft Account

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Mar 03, 2010, 12:08 ET

CHICAGO, March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Susan Canavari, exec-vp, Digitas, today announced that Anita Puri joins Digitas as senior vice president of marketing for the Kraft account. Puri will be based in the Chicago office and report to Canavari.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100303/NY64326 )

"It's a coup for us that Anita joined Digitas and the Kraft team," said Canavari. "With her expertise in the industry marketplace coupled with her brand building experience, we knew she was the right leader to add to this already strong team."

Puri joins the agency from Quaker Foods & Snacks as director of marketing leading the Equity and Marketing Communications Group for the PepsiCo division. In this role, she led the development and execution of Quaker's first unified megabrand positioning with the launch of the "Go humans go" campaign. Puri brings to Digitas expertise in developing brand identity and positioning, creating integrated marketing solutions, developing and commercializing new products and leading market research efforts. Her past PepsiCo positions include director of Consumer Insights and Strategy and senior manager, Marketing Innovation.

Prior to joining PepsiCo, Puri worked in Marketing Communications at Ameritech. She also spent 12 years in the Chicago ad community leading teams for ad agencies, Leo Burnett, FCB and Element 79 Partners. During that time, she worked on a variety of accounts including Oldsmobile, Phillip Morris, Amoco, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Kelloggs, Sara Lee, and Quaker.

"I'm excited to join Digitas and especially the Kraft account," said Puri. "I've already met the Digitas team and the energy is infectious. It's inspiring to work for a client that embraces marketing innovation."

This appointment is the second strategic move to serve the growing Kraft relationship. The formation of the KraftOne Team was announced in early January. The team serves the Kraft global AOR relationship, uniting Digitas, Mediavest and Kraft-dedicated talent and combining the agency's capabilities into a seamlessly integrated, digitally centric organization that delivers cross-channel activation and scale, as well as content solutions, analytics and innovation.

This announcement comes on the heels of the recent appointments of Colin Kinsella, President, Digitas North America, Ashley Swartz, Senior Vice President, Marketing on the Samsung account and Joe Lin, Senior Vice President, Creative, Stamford.

About Digitas

Digitas is a leading digital marketing agency, helping the world's biggest brands develop, engage and profit from building profitable relationships with their customers. The Agency pairs media, marketing, technology, creativity, imagination and analytics to ignite emotional bonds between people and brands. Digitas also operates the brand content platform, The Third Act:, the independent healthcare marketing brand, Digitas Health, as well as Prodigious Worldwide, the world's only standalone, global digital productions company. With sister agencies Starcom MediaVest, ZenithOptimedia and Denuo, Digitas is a member of Publicis Groupe's VivaKi -- a global digital knowledge and resource center that leverages the combined scale of the autonomous operations of its members to develop new services, new tools, and new partnerships.

Paris-based Publicis Groupe S.A. (Euronext Paris: FR0000130577) is the world's third largest communications group, the world's second largest media counsel and buying group, and a global leader in digital and healthcare communications. With around the world activities spanning more than 104 countries on five continents, the Groupe employs as many as 44,000 professionals.

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SOURCE Digitas