Surf's Up At TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles In 2019

LOS ANGELES, April 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles today announced the addition of three leaders to its executive team: Michael Claypool, as Managing Director; Simon Wassef, as Chief Strategy Officer; and Kelly Rosen, as Director of New Business Development. Reporting to agency President, Erin Riley, each will play a critical role in accelerating the growth of the trailblazing West Coast agency and intensify its commitment to creating breakthrough disruptive work that delivers on the Media Arts philosophy of visionary creative leader, Lee Clow, who formally announced his retirement in February.

Clow believed that creative agencies had a responsibility to tell the total brand story; from communications to packaging and even product design, everything had to be true to the brand's ethos and purpose. He started referring to his philosophy as Media Arts in the early 2000s. In early 2018, TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles put a focus on reimagining Media Arts for the modern landscape. Grounded in the agency's enduring Disruption practice, Media Arts is the method that combines brand strategy, connections planning, data intelligence and experience design to bring disruptive ideas to market.

This new approach to Media Arts is working; the agency has been able to bolster its client roster, with three new "agency of record" wins—Blue Diamond Growers, Supercuts and Robinhood—as well as new creative assignments from Google Play, McDonald's McCafe, and Disney+, the new video-on-demand service of Walt Disney Studios. The agency has also expanded its client relationships, with PepsiCo, which earlier this year shifted responsibility for digital work on its Gatorade brand to the agency, and with Intuit, which tapped TBWA\Chiat\Day for its global social-content-creation needs for its QuickBooks brand.

"We draw great confidence from knowing that the disruptive ethos and methodology at our core have been unquestionably proven over fifty years. It fuels our ambition to be the most progressive creative company on the planet," said Erin Riley, president of TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles. "The momentum we're experiencing now validates our approach as we continue to evolve our product suite and disrupt ourselves. We have rounded out our executive team with people who share our values and commitment to creativity, and who also bring distinctly different work experience—this is what will keep us forward thinking."

"Lee's insight that we should be Media Artists was a defining moment in our industry. We are honoring his legacy by bringing this type of end-to-end disruptive thinking to the forefront of everything we do," said Renato Fernandez, chief creative officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles. "It's now up to us to create what's next in the industry. Simon, Michael and Kelly share this drive and aspiration, and I'm thrilled to have them as partners." 

TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles' new Managing Director, Michael Claypool, will instill Media Arts practice into all of the agency's ways of working. "My role will be harnessing the myriad of expertise within these walls to power the whole agency," he remarked, "It's what excites me most." He will lead office operations, ensure integration across departments, and counsel new and existing clients. Michael brings a wealth of business-transformation experience from his previous role as managing director at HUGE, where he spearheaded go-to-market strategy and delivery for high-profile brands such as Google, Nike, Hulu, Disney, Fox Studio and JetBlue.

Chief Strategy Officer Simon Wassef will focus on maintaining the strategic excellence that has been the hallmark of the agency, while delivering the breadth of disciplines modern businesses and brands require. "This is an exciting time for strategists—we have the opportunity to design entire brands, build business models, and develop experiences and campaigns that rock," he continued, "Media Arts gives us the opportunity and the responsibility to do that."

He joins the agency from R/GA London where, as EMEA executive strategy director, he led a diverse team driving business and brand strategy for Nike, Diageo, Samsung, Beats by Dre, IKEA, Google and Hyundai. His resume boasts leadership roles around the globe at AKQA, BBDO and Droga5, as well as Jay Chiat and Account Planning Group (APG) Gold awards, and a Grand EFFIE for "Pinkie," Australia's most successful road-safety campaign ever.

Director of New Business Development, Kelly Rosen, who started with TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles in the summer of 2018, has been working closely with the agency's leadership team to evolve how the agency goes to market and presents its new capabilities to a pool of ever-more-discerning prospective clients. The recent wins of new accounts and creative assignments demonstrate Kelly's role in transforming the agency's approach.

Rosen joined the agency after spending 14 years with New York agencies, including Grey, DDB, Publicis and 360i. She brings keen creative intuition and a sensitivity to client needs that have delivered strong results for her new home on the West Coast. "It's been an honor to play a role in helping to grow and evolve such an iconic agency," said Rosen. "The combination of passion and momentum that reverberates throughout the agency—especially within this leadership team—inspires me." 

About TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles
Shunning the conventions of Madison Avenue, Chiat\Day kick-started the West Coast ad boom in 1968 and eventually brought its creatively audacious California style of advertising global when it merged with international agency TBWA in 1995. The agency quickly built a reputation for challenging the status quo in a number of industry firsts. Whether that meant launching the revolutionary Apple Macintosh via the now-legendary "1984" commercial, inviting consumers to experience travel in a whole new way for Airbnb, keeping the crazy Energizer bunny going and going, fueling the Gatorade brand with its "Win from Within" philosophy, or refreshing the world with Pepsi, over the course of five decades, TBWA\Chiat\Day has become one of the most prolific ghostwriters of brand storytelling.   

About TBWA\Worldwide
TBWA is The Disruption® Company: the cultural engine for 21st-century business. Named one of the World's Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company and Adweek's 2018 Global Agency of the Year, we create disruptive ideas that locate and involve brands in culture, giving them a larger share of the future. Our collective has 11,300 creative minds across 275 offices in 95 countries, and also includes brands such as Auditoire, Digital Arts Network (DAN), eg+ worldwide, GMR, The Integer Group®, TBWA\Media Arts Lab, TBWA\WorldHealth and TRO. Global clients include adidas, Apple, Gatorade, Henkel, Hilton Hotels, McDonald's, Michelin, Nissan and Singapore Airlines. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and like us on Facebook. TBWA is part of Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC).

About Omnicom Group Inc.
Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) (http://www.omnicomgroup.com) is a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom's branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

SOURCE TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles

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