Ana and Hermeti Balarin, the Brazilian husband-and-wife team who lead Mother London’s creative output, have been poached by Wieden+Kennedy to become co-executive creative directors of its flagship office.
The Balarins replace Eric Baldwin, who has been chief creative officer at W+K Portland since 2017.
Their statement said: “When we came into advertising there were two agencies we dreamt of working at: Mother London and W+K Portland. We feel extremely lucky to have grown up in one of them and now incredibly honoured to have been invited to help lead the other.”
The Balarins have been at the agency for nearly 15 years and count KFC’s “FCK”, Greenpeace’s “Rang Tan” and IKEA’s “Silence the Critics” among their successes. They will leave in January 2022.
It will be a big loss for Mother, which recently won Ad Age’s International Agency of the Year for the second time in three years. There’s no news yet of a replacement for the duo, but there are currently around 20 creative directors at the agency, presumably all keen to take their place.
Robert Saville, founder of Mother London, said: “It’s with a mixture of sadness and admiration that we say goodbye to Ana and Hermeti from the Mother Family. They’re testament to the way that Mother nurtures and grows some of our industry’s greatest talent. And we wish them every success in their new role.
“Mother has always embraced what’s next and the opportunity that it presents. We look forward to making that happen for our people and our clients.”
