Team One has brought Gavin Lester on board as group creative director, Craig Crawford as creative director and Tim Meraz as director of brand design. Additionally, Phillip Squier has been promoted to group creative director and James Hendry to a creative director’s post.
Lester will serve as group creative director on Lexus; he comes over from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and previously from BBH, London. Over the years he has worked on such accounts as Levi’s, Audi, HP, Netflix, Comcast, Saturn, Adobe, Perfetti, Warburtons Bread, Lynx/Axe, Lever Fabergé, Birds Eye, Sony Ericsson, KFC, Tower Records, National Union of Students, L.A. Mission, Häagen-Dazs, Peugeot, Abbey National, Greater London Authority, Microsoft and Laphroaig Whisky.
Meanwhile Crawford returns to Team One as creative director on new business after a stint at TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles. In addition to new business, he will also contribute to Team One’s Lexus account whenever possible. And Meraz joins Team One after three years at Publicis & Hal Riney as worldwide design director.
As for the aforementioned promotions, Squier moves up from creative director to group creative director. He originally joined Team One in June 2006. He previously worked at Arnold Boston; Ogilvy Los Angeles, where he served as worldwide creative director on Motorola; Bozell and Fallon, both in New York; DDB Seattle and TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles, among others.
Hendry, who’s spent many years on Lexus at Team One, has been upped to creative director. He will partner with Crawford on all new business efforts as well as on their continued collaboration on Lexus. In his extensive career, James has worked at TBWAChiatDay, FCB, Needham Harper & Steers, The Shalek Agency and Ogilvy, all in Los Angeles, as well as Coleman RSCG London and Hall Advertising in Edinburgh. He has produced highly respected work for Lexus, Sunkist, Wells Fargo, Honda, Fox TV, Farmers Insurance, British Telecom, Speedo and many other brands.
Team One executive creative director Chris Graves noted, “We’re upgrading by bringing in creative leadership that can partner together with me and with each other to build a stronger, more courageous creative culture across all disciplines.”
These hires are the final piece of a puzzle begun in January when the agency literally tore down the walls between various disciplines and consolidated all creative teams from every discipline on the same floor. Graves related, “We found that geography matters. So we created ‘collision spaces’ where people would organically interact.” To which he added, “Don’t underestimate the power of proximity.”
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More