Robert Fagan, David Charles and Eric Barrett, outside their KesselsKramer LA office

Since this summer KesselsKramer has opened a new office in LA. KKLA, situated in a former communist bookstore in LA’s Chinatown, already employs 16 people, working for three different clients; Ubisoft, Museum of Comtemporary Art, and a liquor brand. KKLA is led by MD Eric Barrett (founder of Mirror Films and the X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival), ECD David Charles (ex AKQA and 72andSunny LA), and Head of Integrated Productions Robert Fagan (founding member of 42 Entertainment). The new office will not just focus on advertising, but also on branded content and entertainment, thus bridging the divide between advertising, art, music, film and publishing.

Garofalo Pasta is an Italian pasta brand trying to set foot on the American continent. Together with 72andSunny the brand has created this ad character Lele (or “brand ambassador” as the press release calls him); an Italian chef from Napoli. This film shows what he did to literally get a foot in the door – before sleeping on people’s couch. There’s also a Facebook page following Lele’s experience and asking New Yorkers to invite Lele to their house to cook – two lucky winners will receive an evening with Lele, the rest a free bag of pasta. Though Lele comes across a little hyper (if not annoying), an interesting aspect of the concept is that it shows how brands more and more try to integrate their stories into blogs and social media to get their message across in more subtle and natural ways. Especially for an authentic Italian pasta brand, this ‘natural’ media strategy seems well chosen. The film was directed by Victor Quinaz and produced by Drewstone (NY).

Nic Owen will be joining 72andSunny as Managing Director. According to ECD Bryan Rowles he was hired to “further round out the agency’s global perspective.” Owen has 15 years of experience working at M&C Saatchi London, W+K, Mother and Anomaly New York. Owen about his new position: “When I was presented with the opportunity to join 72andSunny Amsterdam, I had no choice but to cut my American adventure short.” We hope he’ll be enjoying this new adventure.

glue Isobar, part of Aegis plc, has appointed Nick Bailey as Executive Creative Director. This major appointment for the agency comes after a six-month international hunt for the new head of the creative department. Bailey joins from AKQA where he has been ECD for the past four years. He will oversee the entire creative output and be part of the UK Executive Team. Since 1998, Bailey has built an international reputation as a strategic creative leader, having produced countless globally recognised, digitally driven brand campaigns. According to the press release he was behind one of the most awarded pieces of work in the history of digital marketing: Heineken Star Player and was recently named a Top Ten Creative Mind by AdWeek. Bailey has been in the digital industry for 15 years now: the last four as ECD at AKQA, working in both Amsterdam and London, and before that at Oyster Partners (now LBi).

The 1% club is a club of people that donates 1% of their income, time, and knowledge to developing countries. The club asked The very small office of Johan Kramer to promote its cause and the agency came up with a commercial that only uses 1% of your screen. We’ve already seen the world’s shortest commercial, created by KesselsKramer for TNT Post, and now there’s the world smallest commercial. Kramer wrote 7 short scripts with 1% Club members explaining in their own words what the club does. Produced by 100% Halal, sound by Sizzer.

To promote the Week of Children Books (‘Kinderboekenweek’) KesselsKramer and freelance art director and photographer Simon Wald-Lasowski craftfully created this character from real books. There’s also an animation - not adding much to these posters, for that matter.