More than a year after officially winning the Infiniti business (and almost two years after rumors that the client would leave TBWA started circulating), CP+B has named two new creatives to work on the global account.
Steve Clarke will be ECD leading the global Infiniti team at CP+B Boulder while the shop’s Hong Kong office hired Bo Deng to serve as creative director on the global account. Both started their new gigs in January.
The London-born Clarke joins Crispin from Blue Hive, where he led the overseas Ford creative as deputy ECD and acting CCO for Europe; his team helped drive the 2015 European launch of the Ford Mustang. Clarke previously served as senior creative and CD at Hive’s headquarters, and his resume includes top creative roles at the London offices of Ogilvy, TBWA\Chiat\Day, DDB, Publicis and JWT. He was a freelancer for most of this time, during which he worked on campaigns for such clients as VW, Mazda, Pepsi, MTV and Unilever.
Clarke, whose hobbies include writing screenplays, has received several awards for his work as well as an “Ad of the Year” shoutout in Marketing magazine.
Deng spent more than two years with Ogilvy Hong Kong before moving to CP+B. A graduate of California’s Art Center College of Design, he worked as a freelancer at a long list of stateside agencies including GS&P, Deutsch, Team One and AKQA in addition to holding creative positions at the Chinese offices of Y&R, BBDO, Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis. His work includes the Lexus rebrand and VW Super Bowl spots from 2012 as well as the China launch of Gap Icons.
The release also tells us that Infiniti broke a global sales record last year after hiring Crispin and that the agency’s new growth model, now led by global CEO Lori Senecal, has included such significant hires as those of W+K veteran and L.A. ECD Kevin Jones, Miami creative lead Gustavo Sarkis and global chief strategy officer Eric Zuncic in addition to the PayPal and American Airlines wins.