Dove ‘Evolution’ Creatives Split from Ogilvy, Launch Swim

By Kiran Aditham 

Most of you are probably aware of the award-winning Dove “Evolution” campaign, which earned multiple awards and came to us courtesy of Ogilvy Toronto co-CCO’s Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk. But after 13 years at the helm of said agency, the ladies are leaving the agency and turning their attention to teaching with a new venture called Swim. As Kestin tells us, “Starting something new is scary, but awesome. And we’re putting all our energy into what’s been the best part of our jobs for all these years: teaching creatives to lead. It doesn’t come naturally to most of us, but we think it can be taught, encouraged, brought out, whatever you want to call it.” It’s not an unnatural transition seeing that the duo has been dishing out advice via Ihaveanidea.org and their career guide, Pick Me.

Kestin and Vonk’s time at Ogilvy will officially come to an end at the end of this month and will start their first Swim session on October 3 in New York. Expect the client training to “include client training “to empower clients to think more creatively as they tackle problems, and ultimately partner better with their agencies.”

Update: Ogilvy Toronto picked Ian MacKeller as its new CCO. He was most recently an ECD at Canada indie shop Bensimon Byrne.

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