John-Paul Cannucciari
00Global Creative Director
My career began with a VHS camcorder and a cast of unpaid family members. The budgets got bigger. The little brother still hasn't been paid.
Right out of school, one of my professors asked me to start a company with him in Boston. We made playful learning tools in Flash, the kind of thing that wasn't aimed to gain attention from top creatives in NYC. Somehow, some creatives at Ogilvy in New York noticed our Flash sites and my VHS camcorder skills, and offered me an Art Director job.
New York turned into 15+ years of big swings with brilliant people: launching Citi Bike, painting a stop-motion film across an abandoned stadium in Miami for Heineken, jumping out of hot air balloons, diving in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with sharks, animating a film about my Italian nonna and her dog with Pixar directors, and getting soap to millions of people with the WHO. You may or may not have seen me in a JFM TikTok.
These days I live on an island across the water from Seattle, and life is mostly about our kids. And teaching them how to work things like a VHS tape player.
Even though I'm located in the PNW, I still mainly work NYC and Europe hours. I also speak Italian, and my kids love to correct my toddler-level Japanese.
“JP is the kind of talent that manages to surprise you at every creative round. The craft he puts into projects is insane. We've done a lot of global campaigns together, and something complex has never felt so easy. He is passionate about big ideas and has a knack for making them simple and accessible. JP can be tireless and obsessed with the perfect execution without slowing down things or overcomplicating. On the contrary, he ends up making those ideas even more memorable.”
“JP's way of seeing the world is inspiring to me. Under his watchful eye you can rest assured that attention is being given to the details that matter, even the ones you'd never otherwise see. He knows how to push his teammates and creative partners on projects in ways that always make the work better and in ways that build the strongest of relationships, too. I have come to expect great things. And JP always brings them.”
“While I was the Chief Creative Officer of Publicis NY, I oversaw closely the work on Citibank. John-Paul was a wonderful member of the Citi creative team. JP was instrumental in creating the work that went into the Citi Bike launch, the most successful bike share program in the world. JP is a wonderful art director with incredibly strong design skills that go beyond the typical advertising art director. As a member of a team, JP is a wonderful partner, collaborator, and spirit. I never saw JP be anything except positive on an account that was always challenging and demanding.”