R&R Partners, the shop that created “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas,” has lured Chuck Monn to town as its chief creative officer. Monn is best known for his long tenure at TBWA\Media Arts Lab, last serving there as executive creative director.
Monn, who had most recently been freelancing, spent 15-plus years at Media Arts Lab where he led the the development of Apple’s iconic “Shot on iPhone” platform, as well as worked closely on “Mac vs. PC” and dozens of other groundbreaking campaigns for the leading brand.
Throughout his career, Monn has won over 100 international awards including Cannes Lions, Cannes Grand Prix, D&AD, One Show Gold Pencils, Effie Awards, Webby, and even nominations for the commercial primetime Emmy.
This will be Monn’s first time in the top leadership role, where he’ll bring a creative-first approach to the next era of R&R’s creative efforts.
Monn’s arrival caps 18 months of under-the-radar staffing moves that include the addition of more than a dozen senior-level hires across the account, strategy, production and talent teams. The most notable include:
- Matt Matzen, chief marketing officer (formerly EVP, Deutsch LA)
- David Panzarasa, head of talent (formerly TBWA\Chiat\Day)
- Kat Urban, head of integrated production (formerly TBWA\Chiat\Day)
- Richard Oldfield, head of strategy (formerly R/GA, TBWA/Media Arts Lab)
Monn’s new-look creative department will work hand-in-hand with R&R Partners’ unique mix of offerings, which includes everything from its full-service creative agency to government affairs, crisis communications, and other practices, including House of V, a digital innovation firm specializing in AR/VR experiences. It’s this unique mix of talent that allows R&R to create work that pushes far beyond what the average agency can produce.
“Creativity has always been a part of what we do at R&R, but for most of our history our involvement in some of the industry’s most iconic work has flown under the radar,” said Michon Martin, president of R&R Partners. “As we move into our second half-century, we’re excited to welcome Chuck and other new team members, who we believe will help us create bold, exciting work that gets people’s attention. We’re built to do something unique: take on challenges/monumental tasks that transcend marketing at a time when our industry needs to learn how to solve business problems in non-traditional ways. This new creative firepower is going to help our talented, multi-faceted team to do just that.”
Monn said, “After years working on some of the biggest ad campaigns in the world, the opportunity to work with an independent agency that’s hungry to leverage creativity to solve business problems in unconventional ways was something I absolutely jumped at. R&R has all these different minds that come together to solve problems in a unique way, and I can’t wait to work with the team to do things that push the boundaries of what people expect.”
James Earl Jones, Lauded Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies At 93
James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, "The Lion King" and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York's Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of "The Gin Game" having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.
"The need to storytell has always been with us," he told The Associated Press then. "I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn't get him."
Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in "Field of Dreams," the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit "The Great White Hope," the writer Alex Haley in "Roots: The Next Generation" and a South African minister in "Cry, the Beloved Country."
He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader ("No, I am your father," commonly misremembered as "Luke, I am your father"), as... Read More