Facebook's in-house agency appoints CP&B’s ex-CEO Andrew Keller as global creative director
Facebook has hired Andrew Keller - former chief executive and executive creative director at CP&B - as its global creative director for in-house agency Creative Shop, designed to help brands and agencies unlock the full potential of Facebook and Instagram’s platforms.
In his newly created role, Keller will report to chief creative officer for the agency Mark D’Arcy, who joined Facebook in 2011 from Time Warner to oversee its creative arm.
Keller served as CP&B’s CEO for five years, prior to which he was executive creative director for 12 years.
On Keller's appointment, boss D'Arcy said: "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."
Keller added: "Advertising at its best sparks a conversation, builds a relationship and creates value. Over the last few years Facebook and Instagram have changed storytelling forever by bringing people and brands closer together in new ways. I’m excited to join The Creative Shop team and to partner with the industry to continue this evolution of storytelling."
Facebook Creative Shop was created in 2013, with the aim of helping brands and agencies be more creative and increase the impact of their work through a better understanding of how best to use Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram in their campaigns.
With Creative Shop, agencies and brands can collaborate with 150 specialists within the field to craft campaigns that combine their creative ambitions and business objectives with the two platforms’ social environments, data and technology.
The division has shifted its focus on to mobile most recently, exploring new ways that brands and agencies can keep apace with the growth of mobile content, such as through the immersive Canvas ad format that Facebook began testing with brands last year.
"What we find is all agencies, but particularly creative agencies, like learning from building and procreating. And all the principles and theories in the world are super valuable, but what we really like to do is have people on the other side of the table that they can work with and learn from and bring these ideas to life," D'Arcy said.
Creative Shop has worked with brands including Budweiser, Ford, Sprint, Toyota, Newcastle and Amnesty International in their campaigns as well as agencies such as Droga5, 360i, DigitasLBi, Colenso BBDO/AIM Proximity and Blue Hive.
The agency participates in Facebook's Anthology program, working with brands, agencies and publishers like Vice, Funny or Die and The Onion to create custom branded videos to run on the social network. It also introduced the Creative Accelerator program last year to work with brands and agencies in developing countries.