John Maxham has joined DDB Chicago as chief creative officer. Maxham will oversee the creative product and staff of over 100, for clients that include McDonald’s, State Farm, Mars Inc., Capital One, Safeway, Emerson and The Field Museum.
For the past four years, Maxham has been a managing partner and executive creative director of Cole & Weber United in Seattle. There, he helped the agency grow its national and global stature, creating integrated campaigns for clients such as the International Olympic Committee and Microsoft's Office Division. Maxham also led category-defining work for the Washington Lottery with the "Department of Imagination" campaign.
Prior to joining Cole & Weber United, Maxham was sr. VP, group creative director at DDB Chicago leading all creative work on AT&T. However, Maxham’s advertising story began in New York, where he worked as a copywriter at Lowe. There, he created famous work for UPS that repositioned it from a package delivery company to a business logistics leader. John also created iconic work for Heineken’s “It’s all about the beer” campaign. During the time of that campaign, Heineken vaulted to the #1 imported beer in America.
After moving to the West Coast, John joined Team One advertising in Los Angeles. There, he led the advertising launch of Boost Mobile in the U.S. Under John's creative direction, and utilizing the memorable “Where you at?” campaign, Boost became the best selling youth mobile phone in the U.S.
Maxham’s brand experience also includes The Ritz-Carlton, Dell, IBM, Verizon, Jaguar, Lexus, Mont Blanc, Nissan, Del Monte, The Four Seasons, Dewar’s and Bacardi.
Paul Gunning, CEO of DDB Chicago, said, “Being equipped to take advantage of the exponential change digital, social and mobile have on marketing communications on behalf of our clients is, in my opinion, the hardest task of running an advertising agency. I truly believe our talent and clients will benefit greatly with John as our CCO and I am confident our agency will see new levels of growth and success."
