Stephen Butler has been promoted to chief creative officer of TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles. He succeeds John Norman who recently became partner/CCO at indie agency Translation.
As part of the restructure of the TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles creative department, Fabio Costa and Brent Anderson have both been promoted to the role of executive creative director, reporting to Butler.
Butler joined TBWA in July 2013 as executive creative director from Mother London. While at Mother, he was made creative partner in recognition of his contributions to the company. He helped grow Mother from 80 to 220 people as it evolved from a local British advertising agency to a global brand with offices in New York and Buenos Aires. Butler was also responsible for founding Mother’s Experience Design unit in 2012. In the first year, he and his team of designers, creative technologists and strategists delivered future facing projects for Unilever as well as groundbreaking global projects for Gucci, P&G Prestige, Elton John AIDS Foundation and the British Government.
When Butler joined Mother as creative director, he was the lead creative on the Orange account and created two award-winning campaigns: “Blackout” and “Dance.” Butler also led other significant pieces of international business for Mother, including mobile phone giant Motorola and global network operator Movistar. From these successes, he went on to lead and create award-winning campaigns for clients including Coca-Cola. He helped them to win Cannes Lion’s 2013 Creative Marketer of the Year award with his London 2012 Olympics campaign, which included a 60-minute documentary featuring Mark Ronson and was viewed by over six million people on YouTube. Butler also creatively led the IKEA account, which collected awards from major international advertising festivals, including D&AD and BTAA, for “IKEA Cats” and “IKEA Kitchens.”
In 2006, just a year after joining Mother, Butler was asked by U2’s Bono to help develop the RED project. Butler worked with Bono and RED’s partner brands, including Nike, American Express, Apple, Gap and Starbucks, to engage and drive the private sector into raising awareness and funds to help eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Prior to Mother, Butler was creative director at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where he led the creative vision for Levi’s across Europe. Under his creative leadership, the brand’s image returned to its iconic status. The release of Levi’s “Twisted” and “Odyssey” earned the brand seven D&AD Pencils, including a Black, and two Cannes Gold Lions. Following a string of additional awards and successes, Butler was nominated to the board of BBH in 2001.
He started his career as an art director at Condé Nast from 1994 to 1999, for titles including GQ and Vogue.
