- Andrew McMains

NEW YORK Yet another creative team is leaving TBWA\Chiat\Day here in the  wake of executive creative director Gerry Graf's exit.

Copywriter Eric Kallman and art director Craig Allen, who handled Mars brands such as Skittles and Snickers, are heading to independent Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., to work on Procter & Gamble's Old Spice and CareerBuilder. At Wieden, Kallman and Allen will remain a team.

At Omnicom's TBWA\C\D, the duo helped create Skittles spots such as "Pinata Man," "Touch" and "Beard." Their reel also includes a Snickers commercial that broke during the 2007 Super Bowl in which two mechanics who engage in macho antics accidentally end up kissing. Gay rights groups objected to the spot -- and a corresponding Web site on which professional football players reacted negatively to the "man kiss" -- prompting Mars to pull the commercial. Allen, who joined Omnicom's TBWA\C\D in 2003, and Kallman, who came aboard about a year later, will leave the agency in two weeks, an agency representative confirmed.

Graf resigned from TBWA\C\D in January to become chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi here. Since then, group cd Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal have left (to become ecds at WPP Group's Young & Rubicam in New York), as has copywriter Isaac Silverglate and art director Jeff Anderson (to become cds at independent Droga5 here). Like Kallman and Allen, the other teams worked on Mars -- TBWA\C\D New York's largest account -- though Silverglate and Anderson also handled Sprint before that account left last summer.

TBWA\C\D, which is still finalizing a deal with Y&R Chicago CCO Mark Figliulo to become chairman and CCO, now has 18 creatives, the agency rep said. The agency's Tequila and TBWA\WorldHealth units employ another 16 and six creative staffers, respectively.

This story has been corrected to reflect that Droga5 is an independent agency.