Gary Pascoe has been named chief creative officer, North America, at Chevrolet agency Commonwealth. Pascoe joins the McCann Worldgroup unit from JWT/Team Detroit where he was executive creative director, executive vp.
Pascoe will oversee Commonwealth’s approximately 60-person creative department in Detroit. The role is effectively a new position established after the consolidation of Commonwealth at McCann in March.
(Commonwealth was previously established as a joint venture with Chevrolet’s U.S. creative lead agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Agency principal Jeff Goodby had been involved in creative oversight of the General Motors brand as well as Ralph Watson, who Goodby hired from BBDO New York to serve as ecd, creative lead in Detroit. After Commonwealth's split with GSP, Watson moved to the agency's flagship in San Francisco while other Goodby and Watson Chevy hires, ecds Andrew Reed and Larry Frey, were laid off last week.)
Linus Karlsson, chief creative officer, global brands, at McCann Erickson, has been spending more time in Detroit since the agency consolidation but remains New York-based in his global role.
Since joining Team Detroit in 2010, Pascoe has been responsible for Ford Cars, North America and helped launch Ford’s first global ad campaign for the Ford Focus. After beginning his ad career in the mailroom at Doner, Detroit, the copywriter moved to TBWA in St. Louis and then The Richards Group in Dallas.
In 1997, Pascoe joined TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles. During his eight years at the agency, he worked on Weather.com, Nissan and Taco Bell’s ‘Chihuahua’ campaign. He also helped re-launch Levi’s and worked on Sony PlayStation. In 2005 Pascoe returned home to Michigan and at BBDO Detroit, he worked on Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and AT&T.
In addition to Pascoe, Commonwealth said it hired three Chevy veterans, Bob Guisgand, Duffy Patten and Erika Kayuk as creative directors. Patten, a copywriter, was most recently a cd at Fallon Minneapolis and prior to that he was an associate creative director at Campbell Ewald, Detroit where he worked on Chevrolet. Likewise, Guisgand, an art director, was a cd at Fallon and previously was on the Chevrolet business at Campbell Ewald. Kayuk, an art director and designer who was a cd at Organic, will focus on Chevy.com.
