Driscoll Reid and Chris Hutchinson
Wieden + Kennedy, Portland
If you think you're clever by calling them Driscoll and Hutch with a coquettish wink and nod to the buddy cop duo, sorry, you're too late. Driscoll Reid and Christopher Hutchinson have already resigned themselves to the fact that some nicknames are just too readymade to argue with.

It might be worth a cheap laugh, but the Wieden + Kennedy, Portland creatives are too busy riding the upward trajectory of their nascent career to care. In their two years as a team they've crafted clever spots for EA Sports ("Mech Warriors" and "Indoors") and have recently started turning out work for Nike, including a spot for W+K, Tokyo that endeavors to transport the cultural relevance of Just Do It to Asia. They're currently working on projects for Nike Latin America and Nike US, along with the recently released "Chalk".

Driscoll and Hutchinson's early successes are not without great effort, nor without great reward. The pair met in 2004 in the initial year of Wieden + Kennedy's creative school/experiment, WK12, after a stint of working in, hating and then returning to advertising. A year-long intensive program, Hutchinson likens the WK12 application drill to "this crazy kind of Da Vinci Code process". They both got in and were hired the day after they graduated in 2005.

Both avid sports fans and artists who are inspired by youthful innocence, the 30-year-old art directors are headed to the agency's Tokyo office in January, where they'll be a creative team on Nike. San Diego native Hutchinson is blasé about the move while Vermont native Driscoll is admittedly a little more "freaked out".

Still, they're greeting the prospect of working in Tokyo with keen enthusiasm. "The thing about Asia is that campaigns grow all these tentacles," says Driscoll, referring to the current Nike work that afforded them the rare opportunity to design a Nike shoe.

"Wieden is a great place," adds Hutchinson. "It really encourages our freedom and our creative thinking. It allows us to have this framework where we can put our voice out there through the work."

Now, if their colleagues could only come up with a more inspired nickname...
Wieden + Kennedy> http://www.wk.com

Jon Willard and Jesse Gazzuolo
Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
You know the feeling. Someone you barely know or perhaps borderline dislike is leaving/getting older/retiring, the office group-solidarity reflex has gone off like a thirtysomething woman's biological clock and seemingly normal people are guilting you into participating. Goodby Silverstein & Partners' Jesse Gazzuolo and Jon Willard pinpoint this awkward social engagement in Comcast's "The Early Episodes" with a handiness that belies the fact that they've been working together for less than a year.

The three-spot campaign, directed by David Shane of Hungry Man (see Director's Chair, pg. 14), parachute drops children into the adult office world with uncanny accuracy. There, they engage in water cooler talk and debate the various merits of things from their favorite video-on-demand programs, like "The Mail Time Song" and the "Can-Do Crew". The gracenote comes when one young employee deadpans, with awkward perfection: "Jean's retiring so we're having... a little... thing..."

Willard (31), a former web designer and graduate of Portfolio School, says the campaign came from the thought, "What if kids talked about their show they way we talk about something like Lost or The Sopranos or Entourage?"

"From there it was a pretty easy jump to the office where [people] kind of waste a lot of time talking about TV at work," notes 32-year-old Gazzuolo, a native Minnesotan who studied at Brainco after a stint as a media planner.

While the kids were given little coaching as to how to capture the ho-hum rhythm of office talk, their delivery all but makes the campaign. Adds Gazzuolo, "Unfortunately, these kids are going to have a pretty good grasp on all of this in about 12 years!"

In addition to the Comcast VOD campaign, the pair have also produced a print campaign for the client and is currently working together on an HD-DVD initiative. And while they admit to talking far too much about TV at work, at least they've managed to escape the drudgery of office life.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners> http://www.gspsf.com

Evan Fry AND John Parker
Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami
Let's get this straight - Evan Fry and John Parker do not like musicals. At all. Though you can be forgiven for thinking they do. As the creatives behind musical extravaganzas "The Whopperettes" and "Fantasy Ranch" for Burger King, they've certainly got a handle on the genre. To their relief, rather than serving to pigeonhole the Crispin Porter + Bogusky creatives as 'the musical guys', their aptitude for song-n-dance numbers merely emphasizes their creative range.

In three years as partners, ACD/copywriter Fry and art director Parker have run the creative gamut from Burger King (including the integrated "Dr. Angus" campaign) and The Gap ("Dust") to VW ("Low Ego Emissions") and the recent Whadafxup campaign for Truth.

Both Fry, a West Coast native and journalism grad from University of Oregon, and Parker, a Floridian and new father, had several years logged in the agency world before hooking up in Miami. But it was their work for The Gap that thus far ranks as their 'career highlight'.

The spot took on a new flavor when director Spike Jonze came on board. "He was interested but the script originally started with a band playing at the Gap. We got on the phone and he was like, 'Yeah... I want to fuck up a Gap... but I don't like this band'," says Fry in an excellent Spike imitation. The team changed it and Jonze got his wish.

Fry and Parker have also got in on the Truth action, coining Whadafxup for its most recent campaign. Along with carrying on the campaign's guerilla filmmaking torch, the pair is also working on a feature length doc for Truth, directed by Eddie Moretti of Vice Films.

In the future, they'll churn out their work from Boulder; Fry and Parker are among the legions of CP+Bers heading to the agency's new Colorado office. Fry has already set down roots - and claimed most of the duo's office space - and Parker will follow when his months-old baby is a few older. "I'm a big fan of turning my life upside down every few years," offers Parker.

But being at Crispin is worth it. Says Parker: "It's like being a kid in a candy store. You work hard but we've both worked at other places and know this is a great opportunity."
Crispin Porter + Bogusky> http://www.cpbgroup.com