Troy Kelley Joins Deutsch LA as EVP

By Patrick Coffee 

troy kelleyTroy Kelley, a proponent of all things digital who held top positions at various New York-based agencies, moved West last month to join Deutsch LA as its EVP/group account director.

In the early stages of his new job, Kelley will work on ecommerce projects for clients Volkswagen and Taco Bell, but the agency tells us that his role will soon expand to include other brands on the Deutsch roster.

Kelley started his career on the client side with Merrill Lynch before moving into the dark arts of advertising with an interactive marketing director position at Ogilvy. He then scored the SVP/director of digital marketing gig at Arnold, where he worked on the Hershey, GSK and Clinique accounts. He left Arnold to run the Walmart account at R/GA in 2011 and spent almost three years there before Naked Communications hired him in an attempt to shake things up last year.

Advertisement

The release tells us that Kelley helped transform Naked “from a global leader in strategy to a digital creative shop” in just over a year. That agency hasn’t been on our radar as of late, though it did name Adrien Bindi of Y&R, W+K, GS&P and more as its CCO one year ago. (We assume the relationship between Kelley and Bindi didn’t work out, because the latter does not mention Naked anywhere on his digital resume.)

Here’s Kelley’s quote on joining Deutsch:

“It’s a great homecoming for me, rejoining the IPG family with an agency that has such momentum. In a place like Silicon Beach that’s so rich in digital talent, Deutsch is one of the few agencies whose focus on delivering both digital advertising and eCommerce platforms for clients allows me to bring all of my experience to bear.

As a former agency CEO, I have first-hand experience running a business and I look forward to working with clients on a deeper level, where we’re actually ingrained in their businesses rather than simply creating campaigns.”

Deutsch has been on a hiring spree of sorts in 2015, most recently plucking up three of goodness Mfg.’s co-founding partners. The move to beef up staff in LA follows last year’s Sprint win, and Deutsch debuted its first full campaign for the new client last week.

Advertisement