Today in More CP+B News, the agency’s Los Angeles office has found its newest executive creative director in Wieden+Kennedy veteran Kevin Jones.
Jones will lead all creative efforts at the office moving forward, and he brings more than two decades’ worth of experience to the role. He spent approximately ten years in different positions within the W+K organization, beginning his career as a writer there and advancing to directorial roles at W+K and Hal Riney while performing freelance creative work for other major shops like Goodby and Publicis.
Jones held the CD position at W+K Portland since 2009 before accepting CP+B’s offer, and his name appears atop much of the agency’s recent work for auto clients like Chrysler and Dodge as well as Target, Nike and T-Mobile.
In the new role, Jones effectively replaces current LA ECD Sue Anderson, who left TBWA for CP+B in early 2013 and shared West Coast directorial duties with Jason Gaboriau. You may recall that the latter ECD departed back in September, and the release tells us that Anderson made her decision to step down from her full-time position in order to “concentrate on a number of creative endeavors including working on her book” around the same time. She will continue to work with the agency in a limited capacity, and her responsibilities currently involve assembling a new team to work on the Charles Schwab account.
A source tells us that news of Anderson’s departure did not come as a great surprise to those in the CP+B LA creative department but that many expected the ECD position to go to an internal team member rather than an outside hire. We also hear that the decision to hire Jones, along with the April appointment of Ralph Watson to the CCO position in Boulder, was led by Chuck Porter himself in an attempt to take a more active role in reshaping the agency. Another source tells us that the Jones hire reflects a desire to ensure that the LA location does not function as a “satellite office.”
Beyond his advertising career, Jones is also an established musician and writer: he won a fiction fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin, and his work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and other literary awards.
The accounts under his directorial control will include Charles Schwab, NBA2K, Applebee’s, A.1 Sauce, Grey Poupon, and more.