Rebecca Carrasco, head of Facebook's internal agency Creative Shop has left the business after less than a year in the role.
Carrasco was poached from Clemenger BBDO Sydney in November last year where she was creative director. Her appointment was seen by many as a creative coup for Facebook, which was taking steps to ramp up its creative chops.
Carrasco has also held senior creative roles at Colenso BBDO New Zealand, Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand and Sydney, Mullen Lowe (which was then Lowe Hunt) and was a partner at Colman Rasic Carrasco until 2010. It's not known what Carrasco's next move will be, but it's thought she could be taking some time off from the industry.
There has been a trend of creative talent being lured away from creative agencies towards emerging digital and tech players with a string of appointments both locally and in the UK and US. Earlier this year Facebook Australia also hired Colenso BBDO ECD Andy Blood as creative strategist. He relocated to Sydney for the role. The APAC head of Facebook's Creative Shop Fergus O'Hare previously spent 12 years at Ogilvy and Mather.
In the US, Grey global CCO Tor Myhren joined Apple, Crispin Porter + Bogusky CEO Andrew Keller moved to lead Facebook's Creative Shop, TBWA ECD Rudi Anggono and Cheil USA CCO Lars Bastholm both moved to Google.
Many agency bosses on both the creative and the media side have voiced their concerns about competing for talent with the likes of Facebook, Google and Spotify, which offer compelling packages and perks.
However, Carrrasco's departure after a relatively short tenure is also indicative of the trend's reversal – something also being seen overseas. It raises questions from the creative community about those digital players' ability to retain and motivate creative talent after tempting them across.
Earlier this year AdWeek in the US outlined how Helen Pak, Saatchi & Saatchi EVP and co-executive creative director moved from the agency to Facebook's Creative Shop in the US, and then left within a year to return to an agency side role with Havas where she is now CEO of its Canadian operations.
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