The VIA Agency, an award-winning advertising and marketing agency based in Portland announced today that Bobby Hershfield will join the agency as Chief Creative Officer, effective October 1. In his new role, he will report to CEO Leeann Leahy and will join the executive leadership team. He will be responsible for helping to set a creative vision for the agency and overseeing the creative direction for all clients as the agency continues its growth trajectory.
“We have bold ambitions for VIA’s future and Bobby is the perfect person to ignite our next phase,” said Leahy. “Bobby is that elusive and magical combination of creative excellence and boundless drive while also just being a great human with tons of integrity. We could not be more excited to have him on our team.”
The search for this role was International in scope and took place over the past 8 months.
Hershfield joins VIA from the community in New York, were he served as VP, Executive Creative Director. Prior to that, he was CCO and Partner at SS&K, where his “Awkward Family Viewing” campaign for HBO Go was awarded multiple Cannes Lions and was named Small Agency Digital Campaign of the Year in 2015 by Ad Age. In addition to his time spent at Ogilvy & Mather, where he worked on IBM and Yahoo!, he is also known for his work on Rembrandt, KY, Jet.com, President Obama's 2012 campaign and Target. In 2016, Hershfield was named one of Adweek’s Top 50 Creatives.
Hershfield started his career in account management at DDB, Chiat/Day and Weiden + Kennedy where he was widely regarded as a rising star. Never one to rest on his laurels, Bobby took the leap from account management to creative in 2000, becoming an integral part of the W&K creative department working on Nike, ESPN and authoring the award-winning Beta 7 campaign for Sega. Since then, he has gone on to become a highly awarded creative leader and his work has been recognized by Cannes, The One Show – where he won “Best in Show” two separate years – The Andy’s, Art Director’s Club, WEBBY, Clio, D&AD, CA and TED. Hershfield is also on the Advisory Review Committee of Ad Council.
“This is the perfect move at the perfect time. I feel with VIA, we just belong together,” said Hershfield. The values, principles, culture and desire to do amazing things are so in keeping with my own beliefs and ambitions. I'm hoping this is where I can channel all of my experiences, all of my collective learnings, failures and successes into helping build something quite special.”
