R/GA has opened its fourth U.S. office, setting up shop in Austin. The new office will serve as an innovation hub for R/GA’s rapidly expanding mobile and social business capabilities, with Richard Ting, recently promoted to exec VP/global executive creative director, mobile and social platforms, overseeing its growth from New York. Leading the office’s day-to-day operations will be R/GA mobile and social veterans Kyle Bunch, group director, mobile and social platforms, and Paul Dery, exec creative director.
Bunch and Dery will be joined by Peter Kim, managing director, business transformation, and Katrina Bekessy, director, technology and design. Kim joined R/GA from the Dachis Group, where he built one of the world’s first social business advisory firms into a multimillion-dollar consulting practice. Bekessy, an R/GA veteran, will help foster the office’s growth by building out the technology group and tapping into the deep pool of technical talent in the city. The office, located in the historic Littlefield Building in downtown Austin, is currently home to 15 employees and is aiming to grow to between 30 and 50 by the end of 2013.
Ting has been with R/GA for more than 10 years, leading and developing the mobile and social platforms group. He has built it into one of the top five mobile agency groups by revenue in the U.S., with over 50 employees and a presence in R/GA’s Buenos Aires, Chicago, London, and San Francisco offices. Under his guidance, the group has launched a variety of initiatives, from responsive web work for Grey Goose, L’Or๏ฟฝal, and Johnson & Johnson to mobile apps for Nike, Converse, and MasterCard, among others.
Bunch, who will report to Ting, has been at R/GA for more than five years. During this time, he has helped lead the agency’s growth in social and mobile, working across a base of diverse clients including Nike, Verizon, Converse, L’Or๏ฟฝal Paris, Unilever, and Google. Bunch is also a digitalentrepreneur who has launched several successful ventures such as Blogs withBalls, Blogebrity, and SEOintelligence.
Dery has been with R/GA since 2009 and will be reporting to Nick Law, exec VP, global chief creative officer. Prior to R/GA, Dery worked in the copy department of M&C Saatchi in Sydney after successfully being accepted to the prestigious AWARD School of Advertising. While at R/GA, he has helped create some of the agency’s most memorable global projects including “Ask Buck,” MasterCard’s hero campaign for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and “That’sNotCool.com,” a pro bono campaign for the Department of Justice, Ad Council, and Family Violence Prevention Fund.
Bekessy serves as the technical glue across disciplines at R/GA, working closely with creative and experience design teams to ensure that R/GA products represent the best in technology and creativity through the use of prototypes and experiential development. At R/GA, she has focused primarily on accounts such as L’Or๏ฟฝal and McCormick, producing award-winning mobile and social apps for McCormick including Lawry’s Digital Dinner Bell, an Android-based app that lets family members know via SMS, Facebook, and automated phone calls that dinner is ready. Prior to R/GA, Bekessy worked in academia as a web development instructor and on grant-based research through Parsons School of Design, where she received her MFA in design and technology.
Bob Greenberg, chairman, and CEO, said that the Autin office represents “a great opportunity to expand our mobile and social capability. Austin is a forward-thinking, creative hub that has seen explosive growth over the years and we look forward to contributing to the continued evolution of the city.”
ADCOLOR | The One Club Creative Award Winners: Translation’s Jason Campbell and League Twenty Two’s Ashley Henderson
Jason Campbell, chief creative officer at Translation Enterprises, and Ashley Henderson, founder and CEO at League Twenty Two, are the recipients of this yearโs ADCOLOR | THE ONE CLUB Creative Award, presented this past weekend at the 18th annual ADCOLOR Awards ceremony, part of the 2024 ADCOLOR Conference in Los Angeles.
Now in its 15th year, the ADCOLOR | THE One Club Creative Award is given to a professional in a creative field from a historically excluded community who has demonstrated extraordinary talent and achievement within the media, creative, digital, and traditional advertising disciplines.
The honor is presented jointly by The One Club for Creativity and ADCOLOR, the organization dedicated to celebrating and promoting professionals of color and diversity in the creative industries.
The award was co-presented on stage by Adrienne Lucas, head of DEI & strategic partnerships at The One Club, and Courtney Richardson, creative director at Droga5, who won the award in 2021.
โThe One Club has for decades provided programming such as ONE School, Creative Boot Camps, and annual Where Are All The Black People conference and career fair that helps solve the industryโs diversity problem,โ said Kevin Swanepoel, CEO, The One Club. โWeโre proud to work with ADCOLOR and recognize Jason and Ashley for their inspiring accomplishments.โ
Campbellโs Caribbean roots color his creativity, his perspectives, and have been instrumental in how he got to where he is today.
He has worked for brands including Nike, the NBA, Verizon, Impossible Foods, Airbnb and Beats by Dre, and held a teaching position at Miami Ad School. Prior to his professional career, he received The One Clubโs Patrick Kelly... Read More