The phrase "in real life" has become a curious modifier in an era when many advertising professionals spend their days staring at screens, optimizing for platforms that did not exist a decade ago. But for Mariano Jeger, who joined the out-of-home advertising company OutFront on Monday, the initials I.R.L. will now appear on his business card.
Mr. Jeger, a former executive creative director at Droga5, part of the Accenture Song empire, is the first chief creative officer of something called IRL Studios. The new division will combine OutFront's existing creative agency, Creative Studios, with its creative innovation technology unit, XLabs, into what the company hopes will be a single, coherent offering. (Whether the combination of a creative studio and a technology lab produces something greater than the sum of its parts, or simply a longer organizational chart, remains to be seen.)
Mr. Jeger will report to Stacy Minero, who holds the title of chief marketing and experience officer at OutFront.
The appointment represents a rather traditional trajectory for an agency creative who has spent time at several of the industry's most celebrated shops. Before his tenure at Droga5, where he oversaw accounts including Chase Sapphire, Microsoft and Fever-Tree, Mr. Jeger spent two years at TBWA\Media Arts Lab working on Apple. Before that, he logged a decade at R/GA, the Interpublic unit, where he rose to vice president and chief creative officer for its Spanish-speaking Latin America business.
Out-of-home advertising, of course, has been enjoying something of a renaissance as marketers rediscover the appeal of messages that cannot be skipped, blocked or scrolled past. For Mr. Jeger, the move suggests a certain confidence that in real life, there is still something worth looking at.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Droga5 Creative Mariano Jeger Joins OutFront, Launches IRL Studios"