McCann Hires Dos Equis Lead Jim Hord as ECD on the Microsoft Account

By Patrick Coffee 

The New York offices of McCann and its dedicated Microsoft unit m:united have hired Jim Hord as the agency’s newest executive creative director.

Hord rejoins the IPG family after spending two years as ECD at Havas, where he led Dos Equis and TD Ameritrade. His departure–not coincidentally–follows that of The Most Interesting Man in the World, who left our sad planet for a new life on Mars last month. (The character, of course, debuted long before Hord joined Havas.)

He will be working on the Microsoft account along with three additional ECDs: Priti KapurLew Willig and David Banta. All three joined over the past year-plus and assisted with the Windows 10 launch at various stages, but the McCann organization did not announce their arrivals. Kapur has held creative roles at StrawberryFrog Mumbai, Saatchi & Saatchi Delhi, DDB Singapore and more in her 20+ year agency career, while Lewig spent several years with BBDO New York and Havas working on such brands as AT&T, Heineken and Visa before moving to McCann last year. Banta was SVP/group creative director at Hill Holliday before he made his way to New York and McCann in 2015.

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Hord is not new to the Microsoft business. Prior to joining Havas in 2014, he worked on the computing giant and other accounts while serving as ECD at JWT New York. Earlier in his career he was at Y&R, Lowe and R/GA, where he handled copy for Nike and worked on the Nike+, Nike Running and Nike Women sub-brands.

His departure doesn’t really tell us anything about the future direction of Havas’ Dos Equis work. We continue to predict that the brand will soon introduce a new Man who is somehow even more Interesting than his predecessor.

This news certainly looks like an expansion of Microsoft’s relationship with the McCann organization, though agency spokespeople declined to comment on the matter today. One thing is clear: smartphones, tablets and operating systems aside, Bill Gates is placing his bets on the cloud.

All aforementioned ECDs report to chief creative officers Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy.

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