Will Reconfigure Ketchum Office; Hires Bianchi
LOS ANGELES–TBWA Chiat/Day has made it official: The agency will return to San Francisco with a full-service office next month to re-establish itself in the growing ad market there and to pitch Levi Strauss & Co.’s estimated $90 million jeans account. The agency has also retained former executive Carisa Bianchi to work on the Levi’s pitch.
“We’re going,” said Bob Kuperman, president and chief executive officer of TBWA Chiat/Day North America. He confirmed earlier reports that sister Omnicom Group agency Ketchum Advertising’s San Francisco office will be reconfigured into a TBWA Chiat/Day operation and augmented with new executives [Adweek, Nov. 17].
Kuperman also confirmed that Bianchi, a former account executive at the agency who decamped in February to co-found The Leap Partnership’s Los Angeles office, has returned to work on the Levi’s pitch. “[Bianchi] is involved with us on a freelance basis,” he said. The pitch is being spearheaded by Ketchum, San Francisco, not TBWA Chiat/Day’s Venice, Calif., office, and is “drawing talent from all over the TBWA Chiat/Day system,” he said.
“[The office] has been like a slow, steady caterpillar for a long time, and now it’s ready to turn into a butterfly,” Dianne Snedaker, president of Ketchum, San Francisco, said of the changes.
The return of the West Coast’s traditional creative leader to San Francisco–the former Chiat/Day ran an office there from 1980-90–has some concerned that the already taxed pool of creative talent in the Bay Area will be further depleted. “How many more agencies can we have here?” asked Rich Silverstein, principal and co-creative director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. “But I have to say, ‘Welcome.’ Lee Clow has a great legacy, and we respect him professionally and personally. Their move back to San Francisco is OK by me–I just don’t like to see them or any other shop steal people from our agency.”
In the Levi’s review, Bianchi will compete against her former Leap co-managing partner, Steve Rabosky. He and former TBWA C/D and Hal Riney & Partners creative director Steve Sweitzer are assisting incumbent Foote, Cone & Belding, San Francisco, Rabosky confirmed. –with Joan Voight
TBWA C/D Returns to S.F.
