Eric Cruz has come aboard DDB San Francisco as executive creative director, partnering with ECD Ben Wolan.
“Eric is different from me in so many ways, and that is very intentional,” said Wolan. “I wanted a partner who has different skills and experiences than me, but shares the same passion for creativity as I do. Eric brings stellar design and experience skills and with his global lens he’ll help us craft more unexpected stories. I couldn’t be more excited to partner with him, expand our creativity, and grow the SF office.”
A Filipino-American globalist, creative leader, designer, and educator, Cruz brings over 23 years of industry experience. He has held various leadership positions at agencies worldwide such at Sid Lee, AKQA, Leo Burnett, and Wieden+Kennedy.
Most recently as Sid Lee USA and Digital Kitchen’s executive creative director for innovation & design, Cruz led the charge in pushing the boundaries of digital storytelling, products, platforms and experiences for clients including Facebook Reality Labs, Tubi, Journi, the Los Angeles Rams and Warner Brothers. Prior to that as AKQA Shanghai’s ECD, he led the Greater China team, helping to co-create the future through innovative brand storytelling for Nike, Jordan, Converse, Apple, Airbnb, NBA, Diageo, J&J, Gore-Tex, Lycra, The City of Shanghai and Hong Kong. During his tenure as Leo Burnett Malaysia’s creative leader, Cruz helped evolve and grow a traditional agency of 90 into a forward-thinking agency of 320.
Cruz began his career at Wieden+Kennedy where he spent over 11 years in Portland, Tokyo and London. He was co-founder and director of W+K Tokyo Lab, the agency’s creative think tank and experimental music label. Cruz regularly lectures to inspire the next generation of talent and has taught Design, Advertising and Moving Media at the Center for Creative Studies Detroit, Temple University Tokyo, and The One Academy Kuala Lumpur. Cruz was also a Founding Member of TEDx Shanghai, which aimed to ignite China’s innovation renaissance through creative dialogue, idea exchange, and transformative evolution.
Cruz said: “The DDB network has a strong legacy and the vision of creating Unexpected Works is one I have strived to live by throughout my career. The opportunity to engage with New Economy brands and explore new ways of brand building in the digital age and Web 3.0 is super exciting. I’m anxious to shake things up with John (DDB SF presient McCarthy), Ben, and the amazing team at DDB SF.”
Cruz has received global recognition on assorted fronts, including from the Tokyo ADC, Cannes Lions, ADC New York, One Show, D&AD, Spikes Asia, AdFest, The Webbys and Japan Media Arts Festival.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More