SANTA MONICA—Eric King, who exited his associate creative director’s post at TBWA/Chiat/ Day, San Francisco, in November, has made the jump to director, joining bicoastal Headquarters. King, who’s directed a smattering of spots in recent years, is best known for an agency creative pedigree that spans four shops: BBDO New York; Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore.; Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; and TBWA/Chiat/Day.
At the latter, King was part of the creative team that turned out FOX Sports Major League Baseball’s "Beware of Things Made in October" campaign, directed by Baker Smith of Santa Monica-based Harvest. The lauded spots—"Nail Gun," "Leaf Blower" and "Boat"—individually and collectively made their mark last year at such shows as the Cannes International Advertising Festival, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers Show, the London D&AD competition, the One Show, the Clios and the Andy Awards. "Nail Gun" also received a primetime Emmy Award nomination in 2002, and helped earn Smith his first of two consecutive Directors Guild of America nominations as best spot director of the year.
King and Jeff Labbe (now senior VP/creative director at Leo Burnett USA, Chicago) were writers/art directors on the FOX Sports campaign, teaming with TBWA/Chiat/Day executive creative director Chuck McBride, writer Scott Wild (now a creative director at Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago) and producer Betsy Beale (now executive producer at bicoastal Lost Planet).
Collaborating over the years with directors like Smith, Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA and Spike Jonze of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ), among others, had a pivotal influence on King’s aspirations. "You spend enough time working with enough great directors, you want to be one yourself," related King. "You see directors help turn a good script into a great spot and it has an impact—you learn from them and you want to take the next step. I’ve been lucky to have been able to learn from great directors, creative directors and producers."
Toward the end of his three-plus years at TBWA/Chiat/Day, King directed a four-spot package on the side for Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom, out of New York agency FunCryHappy. The theme of the campaign is to trust your gut instinct. In one spot, a guy is hallucinating at a party. His gut instinct tells him to stop partying, to put down his beer and chill out. The ad relates that your gut is smart, so if it tells you to eat a Jody Maroni sausage sandwich, then go with your gut.
Produced by MJZ, the offbeat spots broke in select markets, including Los Angeles, in late December. King credited West Coast rep Steven Monkarsh with being his sausage link to the Jody Maroni job. A relative of Monkarsh runs the Maroni chain of restaurants, and the veteran rep turned King onto the possibility of helming the work.
The Jody Maroni spots represented King’s third directorial gig. The first came in ’99, when he was an art director at Goodby—he got the chance to co-direct a spec spot for Levi’s, teaming with then aspiring helmer John Dolan (now at bicoastal Anonymous Content). The spec piece was a spoof on a Cops-style reality TV series; it covered the exploits of a pants burglar and the trouser-less victims he left behind.
Then about a year-and-a-half ago, King directed a Peninsula Symphony spot for TBWA/ Chiat/Day. The agency’s head of production, Jennifer Golub, came to him with a commercial that takes place in the meat section of a supermarket, where tinny sounding symphonic background music is being played through a cheap speaker. The butcher hacks away at some meat with a cleaver, making it even more difficult to hear—much less enjoy—the classical music. Produced through now defunct Public Works, the ad notes that music is meant to be heard in a more audio-friendly environment, creating the opportunity for a smooth segue to San Francisco’s Peninsula Symphony.
AGENCY EDUCATION
In the middle of his senior year at the School of Visual Arts, New York, King landed an internship at BBDO New York. He was then hired there in the self-described hybrid role of "junior art director/slave/Christmas invite creator." During his eight months there in ’93, he benefited from "an incredible education," working with creatives such as Michael Patti and Don Schneider primarily on Pepsi.
Then W+K called and King moved to Portland, starting there as a "junior/junior/junior creative" and moving up the ranks to become a full-fledged art director within three years. He worked for and learned from such noted W+K creatives as Jim Riswold, Susan Hoffman and Hank Perlman (who is now partner/director at bicoastal/international hungry man). Two of the noted jobs King worked on at W+K were for Nike: a Jonze-helmed ad in which tennis greats Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi set up a net and play a guerrilla match at a busy city intersection; and a Pytka-directed baseball strike spot, in which a lone fan is trying to do the wave in a cavernous stadium.
King exited W+K to begin what turned out to be a two-and-a-half-year stay at Goodby. Among his endeavors as a senior art director there were pitching and winning the Wall Street Journal account. In ’99, King moved to TBWA/Chiat/Day, where he got the chance of a professional lifetime—to work alongside the aforementioned McBride, whom he described as "one of the flat-out best people in the industry to work with. He demands great work and makes you a better creative."
HEADQUARTERS
Though he never collaborated with Headquarters while on the agency side, King said he was drawn to the company based initially on its reputation and then ultimately on the rapport he struck up with the people there, most notably president/partner Tom Mooney and managing director Shelly Townsend.
"From all my agency contacts—and reps, as well—I heard nothing but the best about Tom and Shelly," related King. "When I met and got the chance to know them, those impressions became real for me personally. Tom has run a company successfully through good and bad years in the industry. His sense of humor is an attraction, but he’s also very serious about the business, about building directors careers and the company. He and Shelly make me feel comfortable about the business and the career transition I’m making."
As an agency creative, King came close to collaborating with Headquarters, specifically the directorial team of Adam Cameron and Simon Cole, a.k.a. Joe Public. "A couple of times we wanted Joe Public to direct, but schedules didn’t quite work out," said King, who’s grateful that serendipity finally got him and Headquarters in sync now that he’s embarking on a directorial career.
King rounds out a Headquarters directorial roster consisting of Agust Baldursson, David Cornell, Eden, Joe Public, Steve Reeves, Lloyd Stein and Eric Steinman.
