Crispin Porter’s LA creative moves underline growing ambitions

Agency of the moment Crispin Porter + Bogusky, owned by Canadian-based MDC Partners, is having another crack at the Los Angeles market with the move of Boulder-based creative director Tiffany Rolfe and new hiring Jason Gaboriau, formerly a partner at New York agency Amalgamated, to be joint ECDs in Los Angeles.

The agency, with its headquarters in Miami, tried to establish itself in LA in 2003 but retreated to Miami, keeping only a production office. Now the agency plans to offer a full service as well as post-production.

Beefing up LA signals that Crispin Porter, which was recently voted Ad Age’s agency of the decade, is intent on taking on the big boys although it still lacks an outpost in New York where MDC’s other main agency Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners flies the MDC flag.

MDC also recently bought a minority stake in happening LA agency 72andSunny but it evidently thinks that California with its plethora of entertainment and technology clients has enough business to go round.

Crispin Porter has also expanded into Europe recently, with the purchase of Daddy in Sweden and a new office in London, and Canada, with the purchase of Zig.

The agency has recently emerged as food giant Kraft’s favourite, with the award of the global Milka chocolate account, and a number of US assignments including Jello. Earlier this week it lost out to Saatch & Saatchi in the battle for a new global branding campaign for Chinese computer maker Lenovo.