The Motor City’s advertising scene is in expansion mode.
Doner Detroit announced that it has hired 11 new creatives in varying roles after winning a couple of new accounts.
“Doner’s new business momentum has led to an insurgence of talented creatives who are interested in joining us across our global network, and especially here in Detroit,” said Eric Weisberg, who became global CCO last July. “This infusion of new energy, skills and perspective will continue to push us to be more audacious and our clients to be more ambitious in unleashing new work.”
The new hires include:
- ACDs Bob Havlena and Katie Rivard, who come to Detroit from BBDO Atlanta and Ogilvy Chicago, respectively. Havlena most recently worked on AT&T and REI while Rivard wrote copy for brands like Huggies, Glade and Pinnacle Vodka after holding similar positions at FCB and Leo Burnett.
- Senior art director Kate Wojan, who had been an art director at both FCB and the Windy City patient engagement company Healthy Interactions
- Senior copywriters Stephan Lacombe and Liam Soren. The former previously wrote for digital shops Elephant and DigitasLBi in New York while Soren was at Tattoo Projects, a Charlotte, NC agency
- Senior designer Leah Cannaert, who was an ACD at Michigan’s own arts competition ArtPrize
- Burke di Piazza, Laura Haberman and Olivia Hill, copywriters formerly with Assembly, The Escape Pod and DigitasLBi. Interestingly, di Piazza recently transitioned from media planning to creative by way of a Doner internship.
- Art directors Bisi Okoye and Marissa Schmidt. Okoye was most recently freelancing at Huge and Schmidt just graduated from Michigan State University after majoring in creative advertising and design.
To our knowledge, the biggest recent wins for the MDC network’s Detroit office are Beaumont Health and Coca-Cola’s fairlife milk brand. Doner also lost grocery store chain Food Lion, which went to GSD&M without a review, earlier this year.