In a move designed to help revitalize the agency, Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), Culver City, has hired Geoff McGann as creative director.
At O&M, McGann will be in charge of creative for all accounts other than Mattel; these include Symantec, Mail Boxes Etc. and Noggin TV Network. According to McGann, the West Coast-based shop is also helping on work for Jaguar, whose agency of record remains O&M, New York. McGann assumes the post after freelancing for O&M since mid-October. He takes over the creative director duties previously handled by Steve Chavez, who will be freelancing.
McGann joins the agency following a commercial directing career; he was most recently repped by bicoastal M-80, which he joined late last year (SHOOT, 12/17/99, p. 1). McGann said he intends to maintain a relationship with M-80 for any O&M spot projects that he is best suited to direct. Prior to M-80, he directed for a short while at bicoastal Manifesto. Before this, he spent several years at Los Angeles- and Minneapolis-based A Band Apart Commercials, a stint preceded by two years at bicoastal HSI Productions.
His move to O&M represents McGann’s return to his roots as an agency creative. In 1987, he started out at Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), working as a writer before shifting over to art directing. Over the next five years, he primarily worked on Nike. In ’92, McGann formed his own creative consultancy and freelanced as a creative director and art director on campaigns out of agencies including W+K and DDB Chicago.
McGann told SHOOT that as a director, he was uncomfortable doing work that he perceived to be creatively lacking. "At the beginning, the technical aspects of being a visually driven director were cool," he explained. "But as I became more comfortable with the craft, I became more demanding on the creative end. As a director, you’re not really the filmmaker. The creative people at the agency control the outcome of the project."
While considering a return to the agency arena that would allow him more creative control, McGann met with O&M New York president/CCO Rick Boyko this summer. Although he had some preconceived notions of O&M as a big shop with inherent creative limitations, McGann said he was persuaded that the agency was open to change.
"When you look at what [Boyko] has been able to do there in New York over the last few years," noted McGann, "it’s hard not to get excited about what the possible future could be for O&M. What is most interesting to me is that the L.A. office [of O&M] is in a prime position to become something interesting as long as people stay committed. The idea is to pursue work with the eagerness and aggressiveness of a small shop.
"With most shops that get bigger and bigger," McGann continued, "there is less eagerness to do really experimental, interesting work because that’s not [compatible] with the structure of a large agency. But [interesting] is definitely the objective of this office. Everyone who’s here is committed to that."
O&M plans to actively pursue new business after the first of the year, according to McGann. Those accounts could potentially include clients with relatively small billings, as long as they offer creative potential. This would represent a new approach for the agency, said McGann.
Another of McGann’s goals, he related, is to fortify O&M’s creative department. The shop is already looking at potential candidates, and McGann expects to begin hiring in March. He added that prospects include people who don’t have a traditional advertising background, such as photographers, designers and writer/directors.
"If you’ve been, for example, a great furniture designer, why wouldn’t you be able to be an effective creative in the right environment?" he commented. "To me, if you’ve got a person who knows how to think, they’re going to know how to think creatively in any box they’re put in."
