The Irvine office of advertising agency Draftfcb has added another key hire for its creative team, which has been reworked over the past month.
Michael Bryce joined the office as executive creative director earlier this month, taking over duties from Teddy Brown, who moved to Draftfcb’s Chicago office in October.
Draftfcb had hired Eric Springer earlier as chief creative officer, a newly created position at the shop. Springer also started in Irvine earlier this month.
The agency also announced plans to open a satellite office in Los Angeles as soon as space is secured with the goal of strengthening its presence in Southern California.
The Irvine office of Draftfcb counts Taco Bell Corp., which has its corporate headquarters near the agency in the Irvine Spectrum, as its main client.
Draftfcb has handled Taco Bell since 2000, but last year it lost the media-planning segment of the fast-food chain’s business. The agency continues to handle creative work for Taco Bell’s broadcast, merchandising and multicultural advertising, along with other duties.
Draftfcb is currently pushing Taco Bell’s “Live Más” campaign, which launched last year. The campaign includes work for Doritos Locos Tacos and the Cantina Bell menu line.
Springer and Bryce are familiar with each other. They previously worked together at Los Angeles-based ad agency Deutsch Inc., a sister company of Draftfcb, on the agency’s Volks- wagen account.
Springer most recently served as chief creative officer of Santa Monica-based ad agency Pitch.
Bryce most recently worked as creative director at Los Angeles-based ad agency 72andSunny.
Draftfcb’s Irvine office is among the largest ad shops in Orange County. It has an estimated $200 million in annual billings, with Taco Bell accounting for a significant portion of the total. Draftfcb is part of New York-based Interpublic Group of Cos.
Newport Beach and Co.
Visit Newport Beach Inc. has rebranded under a new parent not-for-profit organization called Newport Beach and Co. as part of its bid for a better blend of marketing efforts by various entities that promote the city as a destination for dining, special events, filming and tourism.
“This new organization is designed to bring these collective interests together, leverage all of their resources and create a consistent and unified message,” said Gary Sherwin, chief executive of Newport Beach and Co. and prior chief executive of Visit Newport Beach.
Newport Beach and Co. will oversee the existing entity Visit Newport Beach, which focuses on tourism. It also will be in charge of four newly created units: Dine Newport Beach, to promote restaurants; Celebrate Newport Beach for event planning; Enterprise Newport Beach, which will conduct business-to-business advertising and support business improvement districts; and Film Newport Beach, which will aim to boost filming and production projects in the city.
The units will get funding from Newport Beach and Co.—itself funded by hotel bed taxes—as they get up and running, said Vicki Higgins, senior vice president of marketing at Newport Beach and Co.
The goal is to eventually have each unit be self-sustaining, she said.
Newport Beach and Co.’s headquarters is in the Visit Newport Beach office in Newport Center.
UCI Athletics’ Rewards Program
University of California, Irvine, launched an online social rewards program called Eaters all Win, designed to reward fans for supporting UC Irvine athletic teams. UCI fans are able to create an account on the rewards program’s website at eatersallwin.com and link it to their social media accounts to earn points that are redeemable for prizes.
Points are earned by buying tickets, donating to the Anteater Athletic Fund, attending UCI sporting events, checking in on foursquare and interacting with the UCI Athletics’ Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Prizes include UCI merchandise such as baseball hats, wristbands, flags and other items. The store will be updated regularly with new rewards and special offers for fans.
UCI hired Minneapolis-based sports marketing firm Row27 to create the social rewards program, which is slated to run through the end of the academic year with the possibility to reinstate after that time.
UCI is Orange County’s second-largest employer with roughly 22,000 employees. It had about 22,000 students enrolled for the fall 2011 quarter.
Social Strategies
Among recent strategies involving social media:
n Laguna Beach-based digital marketing agency Netscope Inc. created a recipe-themed, prize-giveaway Facebook campaign for Parsippany, N.J.-based B&G Food Inc.’s Crock-Pot Seasonings Mixes brand. The winner of the most-voted-on recipe received a year’s worth of groceries plus $500 worth of Crock-Pot Seasoning Mixes.
n Irvine-based auto maker Mazda North American Operations is promoting Miata Mondays by sharing information about its Miata model and asking fans to post pictures of their Miata on Mazda’s Facebook page.
Bits and Pieces
Irvine-based PR firm Global Results Communications Inc. has added mobile ad platform company RevMob and mobile network management company Centri Technology as clients and will assist in media relations, industry awareness and social media engagement. … Tustin-based PR firm Echo Media Group hired Justine Mrsich as an account coordinator.
