Fabio Costa, Brent Anderson promoted to exec creative directors
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.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More