Jim Elliott has been hired as chief creative officer of Young & Rubicam, New York. He is slated to start his new position in early June and will be responsible for overseeing creative direction and work for all of the agency’s clients including Land Rover, Campbell’s, Dell, LG, Dannon, Fisher-Price, Virgin Atlantic, Xerox and the National Hockey League.
Elliott is joining Y&R from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, where he spent the past five years, serving most recently as group creative director, working on such accounts as Häagen-Dazs, Hyundai, Denny’s, HP, Yahoo! and Netflix. He also was part of the team that landed the Sonic Drive-In chain for Goodby.
Elliott’s work has garnered awards from Cannes, D&AD, One Show, CLIO, Kellys, ANDYs and the Effies. His work for both Nike and Häagen-Dazs has earned AICP Show honors and is on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art. And his “Help the Honey Bees” campaign for the Häagen-Dazs won the first-ever Green Pencil awarded by the One Club.
Prior to Goodby, Elliott served as creative director and partner at Cole & Weber United in Seattle, Washington. Elliott came to Cole & Weber from Mullen Advertising.
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse, David Edwards and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles. Nakamura Whitehouse, Edwards, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years. Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation. EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.” Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.” 34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More