New Business—Zerotrillion
North American retail loyalty program Drop has chosen Zerotrillion as its creative and strategic lead agency following a multi-agency review.
The agency, which launched in 2019 with offices in Toronto and Amsterdam, and recently opened in New York, will develop a brand platform, identity and national marketing campaigns for the Canadian fintech that is expected to roll out through Q3.
In a statement, Anna Shea, Drop’s senior director of brand, growth and partnership marketing, said the company chose Zerotrillion for its “knowledge of Web3, forward-thinking customer experience design chops, and most importantly, the ability to envisage a future for Drop as ambitious as we do.”
Promotions—Media Experts
Media Experts recently promoted two long-term team members to vice-president roles.
Previously managing director, operations, Rachel Arts (left) is now vice-president, operations. She will continue to be responsible for critical decisions in media execution and workflow, while also overseeing business solutions, project management teams, and working closely with the finance team.
Pina Cuffaro has been promoted to vice-president, investments, a newly created senior role on Media Experts’ centralized buying team. Pina will continue to lead and oversee the broadcast team, the investment team and the procurement team, while expanding her purview to include the growth of Media Experts’ connectivity to IPG partner agencies, teams and media vendors.
“Rachel and Pina’s promotions recognize the tremendous value they’ve both brought to our clients, team and company for over a decade,” said Robert Jenkyn, CEO, Media Experts.
Hires—Bimm
Creative agency BIMM has made a number of additions to its creative department, following a period of sustained organic and new business growth.
Harjot Bal joins BIMM as UX design director. Bal was most recently senior manager of design systems at global digital consultancy Appnovation. Other senior hires include new ACDs Steve Di Lorenzo, Sandra Tiano and Brendhan McCarthy.
“We are thrilled to add such a wide range of creative talent to our team,” said BIMM chief creative officer and partner, Roehl Sanchez. “They are what I call ‘creative realists,’ which means that they approach creative openly and with no discipline bias. They do not believe that the big idea trumps all, or that you live or die by the 30-second spot. They appreciate that brand relationships are built upon thousands of touch point experiences… They will go for the big ‘wow’ when it’s warranted, but they also find equal pleasure and fulfillment playing in the details of a one-to-one communication.”
BIMM has grown from 60 to 130 people in the past two years, and recently won the CRM portion of the Rogers business. Other recent additions to the creative department include: Ramon Charles; Ashley Major; Adam Zarudny; Allison Boyd; Carmen Chimiski; and Mackenzie Pantaleo.
New director—Someplace Nice
Boutique production company Someplace Nice has welcomed multi-award winning director Jonathan Zames to its roster for representation in Canada.
Born in Montreal and now based in New York, Zames works in both French and English. He has overseen campaigns for Apple, Samsung, Tide, Smirnoff, and Gillette, and worked with major production companies including Caviar and Bullitt. Before that, he was a lead creative for Google, overseeing the video creative for many of the brand’s campaigns.
“I’ve been intrigued by Someplace Nice for a while, as I heard great things from so many collaborators over the years,” said Zames. “When I finally met Estelle [Weir] and Chilo [Fletcher], it was just an obvious no-brainer. While I’m based in the US, I’m a proud Canadian so I’ve decided to make Canadian work my overriding priority right now.”
Hires—Yield
Yield has hired Danish (Dany) Saeed as senior copywriter. Saeed has worked in the advertising and branding industry for more than 10 years. He was previously a creative director at JWT Pakistan, and has worked on some of the world’s leading B2C and B2B brands, including Unilever, Shell, P&G, Nando’s, Fly Emirates, KFC, Standard Chartered, VimpleCom and more.
Hires—Reprise Canada
Reprise Canada recently appointed two new vice-presidents. Jassim Ali has joined as VP, client business partner, leading an agency team responsible for accelerating client business growth.
Ali (left) joins Reprise from IPG sister agency MRM/McCann, and will be part of the senior leadership team, focused on the agency’s most senior clients.
Duncan Cameron joins Reprise as VP, performance marketing strategy. Aside from leading performance marketing solutions for clients, Cameron will champion the agency’s strategy education and training to ensure team members have the skills to help clients build and accelerate the movement of customers through category-specific digital journeys.
Hires—BBDO
BBDO Canada’s chief creative officer Max Geraldo has made a number of new hires to his creative team.
The recent additions include Jake Bundock (far right in photo below), who joins as associate creative director from Cossette; associate creative director, Sarah Deziel (second from right) who joins from Publicis; senior creative team of Andrew Schuler (far left) and Samantha Harris (second from left) who join from Sid Lee; Olga Netaeva (fourth from left) as art director from Cossette, and copywriter Hailey Ireland (fourth from right) previously at Recipes Unlimited.
“BBDO is made up of a group of talented people around the world, all in relentless pursuit of creativity and innovation—and Canada is absolutely abundant with that kind of talent,” said Geraldo (first on the left, with senior vice-president and executive creative director Derek Blais, third from right). “We’ve been focused on finding and attracting even more talent who share our vision in creating progressive work to continue to shape the future of our company and industry.”
