Israel Diaz has joined Y&R Canada as its chief creative officer, filling a position that has stood empty for several years. Diaz, 42, officially assumes his new role on Monday.
He joins Y&R from David & Goliath, where he spent the past year as its executive creative director. Working from Y&R’s Toronto office, he is tasked with revitalizing the agency’s creative product, which he said has been the “missing piece” in an otherwise sound business.
He arrives at an agency that is currently in the midst of an ambitious global overhaul being led by global chief creative officer Tony Granger and new global chief executive David Sable, who is taking over for outgoing CEO Hamish McLennan.
While Y&R’s Canadian operations are strong financially, buoyed by longtime clients such as Ford and Colgate-Palmolive, Diaz admitted that the agency has been “nearly invisible” from a creative standpoint for some time.
“It’s going to take a while to get it to that level,” he said. “It’s not going to be an overnight thing. There’s going to be some work to do in terms of upping our creative reputation, getting into the awards shows, attracting new clients that we can do some great creative work for, as well as attracting talented people.”
He singled out digital, mobile and social media as key areas of focus. “The traditional stuff is pretty well covered,” he said. “We’ve got the competency for that, but interactive and digital are essentially going to be the focus.”
Pointing to the Y&R network’s 49 Lions at the 2010 International Advertising Festival in Cannes–where it placed third in the Network of the Year competition–Diaz said that Y&R is on the “cusp of greatness” as it continues on the turnaround strategy engineered by Granger.
“It’s primed to be a creative force,” he said. “It’s turning stuff around in other markets, so I think it’s Toronto’s turn.”
While there is continued focus in the advertising world on hot new boutique agencies, Diaz said that this is a perfect time for heritage brands like Y&R to reinvent themselves.
“They have a great pedigree,” he said. “And now it’s a matter of being able to adapt, be more scalable and adapt to the market–they can do that because they have a solid foundation. For the most part I think it will be easier to do.”
Diaz joined David & Goliath as its executive creative director last January, when the Los Angeles-based agency established a Canadian office to service the Kia Canada account it won from Publicis Canada. However, Kia’s head office in Korea subsequently decided to move the account to its internal agency Innocean Worldwide.
Diaz said that David & Goliath had promised Kia it wouldn’t grow its client roster for a year while it focused on stabilizing and growing the Canadian business. “I think we were a lot quicker doing that than we had planned,” he said, pointing to the creation of the “Drive Change” platform. Some of the agency’s 15 staff members have subsequently relocated to L.A., he said.
He also flatly denied industry scuttlebutt that he was unhappy at David & Goliath. “I was very happy there,” he said. “I thought it was a great culture and I loved the philosophy.”
The agency’s “bravery” philosophy was focused on attracting underdog clients that would be “scrappier” and “braver” than category leaders. Diaz said he feels a sense of unfinished business that he never got to implement the philosophy on a larger scale.
“It was just untimely and unfortunate, but things happen for a reason,” he said.
