John Noble To Head Eyeball Chicago
March 20, 2012 by Andrew Schneider
New York-based creative company Eyeball will launch a new full service office in Chicago and has hired industry veteran John Noble to lead it as executive producer/managing director.
"Eyeball is home to incredible talent and I've always been impressed by both the highly creative work and the business model,” Noble says. “They're ahead of the curve with a healthy balance of corporate and ad agency clients, and that's the way I've always tried operate in my career....ahead of the next big thing. I am extremely excited and honored to bring my talents to the team at Eyeball."
Noble was most recently the executive producer at ONE at Optimus and was responsible for setting up the production entity for Optimus Chicago/Santa Monica. He has also produced for The Martin Agency, DDB, BBDO and Chiat Day and has served on the board of AICP and the Midwest Independent Film Festival.
Eyeball Executive Producer/Partner Ben Spivak says that the last several years have seen tremendous growth for the company and their expansion to Chicago from their primary office in Soho, New York, made Noble the perfect choice.
"2011 was a banner year for us and we've wanted to expand into the Midwest for quite some time, but we needed a high profile industry pro to lead that effort,” Spivak says. “With Noble becoming available, the timing could not have been better.”
Noble will executive produce content and guide the Eyeball’s growth in the Midwest, Southeast and Texas.
"We couldn't be happier to welcome John to our executive staff,” says Limore Shur, Eyeball’s executive creative director and founder/partner. “We've known each other for a long time and he’s an extremely talented, forward-thinking leader.”
Noble is leading the charge by establishing a presence in Chicago, first as himself, but in the coming months, by building out a facility.
“I’m the presence in Chicago right now, but we’re going to build an office here,” Noble says. “We’ll have a creative director or two on site plus top notch designers.” It won’t be as big as the mother ship (New York office), but it will indeed be full service with the engine and creativity of New York team when we need it.”
Noble and the Eyeball team believe that the Chicago and Midwest market provides them a great opportunity.
“This is really putting a flag down here in Chicago,” Noble says. “This is the market that we feel is completely untapped and ripe for us. The combination of high design and live action is evolving with more and more content going in that direction. Atheistically, with its high design skills and live action chops, Eyeball is a perfect fit for Chicago’s creative needs.”
“Bringing this level of work to Chicago is going to be huge and creatively the fit is just perfect for me, Eyeball is always challenging the norm, raising the bar on each new project and that just excites the heck out of me,” he says.
Another thing that attracted him to Eyeball, above offers from companies around the country, was their creative focus and small group mindset: each project has a core group that supports it through its entire process. In Chicago, it will be Noble, a creative director and lead designer.
“Those people will be concentrated on the work, your brand and nothing else,” Noble says. “That’s why the work on the reel look this good, this polished.”
“I love Chicago, I’m not going anywhere,” Noble continues. “But the entire Eyeball nation is expanding. They’ve had a select group of clients over the years and they’ve stayed extremely busy. Being able to offer their capabilities to clients in the Midwest, Southeast and Texas is exhilarating.”
They’ll be hiring soon and are actively seeking Midwest representation. The company has recently expanded beyond New York City to Seattle as well as Chicago.