Big news on the Ogilvy & Mather front today as Teddy Lynn, who was chief creative officer of content and social at the WPP giant’s New York office for less than two years, has left to become global chief creative officer at … Bloomberg Media.
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise: Bloomberg has been expanding its in-house marketing efforts in recent years by hiring talent away from creative agencies. A 2015 Digiday profile noted that Bloomberg creative unit employed 60 people handling work for external clients like Morgan Stanley.
In August, the company hired former Dentsu chief insight officer Michelle Lynn to head its global data science and insights team, and last month it named former Vizeum CEO Stephen Feuling as leader of a new b2b offering as part of the internal content studio Kinection.
From today’s Adweek story: “Lynn will lead a team of creatives, editors, copywriters, designers and producers who will make branded campaigns and experiences to fuel Bloomberg Media’s projects.”
An all-staff memo sent by North American CCO Steve Simpson states that Lynn left to “reunite with a longtime colleague” but does not name this party. Bloomberg Media CEO Justin B. Smith shared the news this morning.
Thrilled to announce @TheTeddler is joining us @BBGMedia as Global Chief Creative Officer https://t.co/mxrQnzMVyk
— Justin B. Smith (@Justin_B_Smith) December 1, 2016
The memo also states that OgilvyOne CCO Alfonso Marian will take on most of the work previously handled by Lynn, whose departure follows that of CCO Corinna Falusi (who went to Mother New York) as well as Chicago ECD Liz Taylor (FCB), New York GCD Chris Van Oosterhout (Publicis), ECD/partner Steve Howard (MullenLowe) and global head of planning Colin Mitchell (McDonald’s).
Lynn, who co-founded IPG’s Mediabrands Publishing, joined Ogilvy early last year along with his partner Mark Himmelsbach, who is currently president of content and social at the larger Ogilvy organization. He previously served as EVP, director of content at BBDO New York and held similar positions at UM and Arnold after a long stint in production at New Line Cinema, where he worked on the film “Pleasantville.”
Here’s the all-staff memo.
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ALL NEW YORK STAFF
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TEDDY LYNN
Teddy Lynn, who joined Ogilvy 20 months ago, is leaving to reunite with a longtime colleague and take a new role with a national media company.
While we all wish that Teddy’s time here had been longer, the impact of his body of work will need to compensate for the brevity of his tenure.
This work includes the Lifeline project for Qualcomm, at the heart of which was a 30-minute film produced in China and directed by Armando Bo; the Hashtag 500 and recent promotions of The Chase for NASCAR; and a collaboration, a year in the making, between Alex da Kid and IBM Watson, the outcome of which was the song “Not Easy,” which rose to the top of the Billboard, Spotify and iTunes charts.
With Mark Himmelsbach, Teddy recruited and inspired a strong group of experimenters—led by Aaron Mosher, Dave Yankelewitz and Merrin McCormick—who even now are in the thick of making inventive new work for our most significant clients.
Alfonso Marian will take on Teddy’s duties across the broader creative group and will lead the creative department in New York. In his usual quiet, relentless way, Alfonso has played a critical part in shaping a creative culture of force, excellence and strong execution: in other words, a maker’s culture.
Alfonso’s load will be easier because of the support of very strong creative group leads who have, after the redesign of the function, taken on more responsibility, and who are more deeply engaged than ever in the work and in the clients’ businesses—exactly as intended, it’s nice to report.
We thank Teddy for the work he led and helped create, and we wish him well. We are also very sure we will work with him again in his new role very soon.
Best,
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