Dive Brief:
- Facebook added to its advertising talent by hiring Andrew Keller, former CEO of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, to serve as the global creative director of its in-house agency.
- According to both Ad Age and Adweek, Keller will report to Creative Shop Chief Creative Officer Mark D'Arcy.
- Keller’s position is a new role in Facebook’s in-house agency and will consist of building partnerships with global agencies and working on creative strategy with those partners in developing campaigns.
Dive Insight:
Facebook has shown a lot of interest in building its advertising business, particularly mobile ads announcing in its Q4 2015 earnings call last week that mobile ads accounted for 80% of total ad revenue, up from 69% the same period the previous year.
Creating the new global creative director position for its in-house agency and making the Keller hire is more evidence Facebook is prioritizing its ad business.
Keller’s direct superior, D'Arcy, told Ad Age, "The things that have impressed me the most about Andrew over the years are his abilities not just to do work and draw other people to do work, but his ability to explain work, his ability to actually look at work and explain what is actually going on so you can learn from it."
Facebook’s in-house agency, Creative Shop, helps agencies and marketers create campaigns within Facebook and Instagram’s advertising platform that best make use of Facebook’s large store of user data and the technology around its different ad units.
The move shouldn't come as a surprise. At Advertising Week last fall, Facebook CMO Gary Briggs brought up the need having those involved in the same place to speed up the creative production process.
"Great creative comes from a really tight, specific brief," Briggs said. "We're constantly introducing new apps and new features, and a large amount of time that I spend is in product marketing. So, you want your agency to be tight with the product managers, and you really only get that when they're in the hallway."
