Four Wieden+Kennedy (W+K) staffers have been named partners in the independent advertising agency: Portland managing director Tom Blessington, London managing director Neil Christie, Portland executive creative director Mark Fitzloff and global interactive executive creative director Iain Tait.
They join co-founder and CEO Dan Wieden, Dave Luhr, Susan Hoffman, Bill Davenport, John Jay, Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth as agency partners of the global W+K network. This is the agency’s first partnership addition since Davidson and Papworth were appointed in 2009.
Blessington first joined W+K in 1990 after working for Hill Holliday in Boston. Over the course of the next 12 years, he ran the Nike accounts in both W+K’s Portland and Amsterdam offices, worked as group account director for Miller Brewing Company and Coca-Cola in the Portland office, and was the first managing director of W+K’s New York office, which he expanded from a media-buying operation to a full-service creative shop. Blessington then spent four years at TBWAChiatDay in LA before returning to W+K Portland as managing director in 2006.
Christie began his career in advertising at ABM and in the 1990s helped build Yellowhammer into a top shop known for hard-hitting work. Christie went on to work two years at BBH and eight years at TBWA, where he ran such accounts as Nissan and Cadbury and was promoted to client services director and eventually managing director. While at TBWA, the agency topped the new-business league and the awards tables. Christie began as managing director of W+K London in 2004.
Fitzloff came to W+K in 1999, working as a copywriter on the AltaVista, Nike and Coca-Cola accounts. When appointed creative director on Old Spice, Fitzloff was charged with reinvigorating “your grandfather’s deodorant.” Fitzloff helped breathe new life into the old, iconic American brand and, in doing so, helped create some of the best, most recognized work to come out of the Portland office in recent years.
In 2008, Fitzloff was appointed to the Portland management team as executive creative director and has since continued to lead work that both wins awards and pushes the client’s bottom line.
Tait joined W+K as global interactive executive creative director in 2010. Prior to joining W+K, Tait was a founder and creative director at digital creative agency Poke, where he worked for such clients as American Express, Orange, Yahoo! and Zopa. Upon starting at W+K, Tait worked on the game changing Old Spice interactive “Response Campaign.”
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