FCB NY Forms Kellanova Team with Droga5’s Dan Kelly

Former Droga5 executive creative director Dan Kelly is headed to FCB New York to co-lead a team overseeing Kellanova brands Cheez-It, Pringles, Rice Krispies Treats, and Eggo, following IPG being named creative partner on priority brands earlier this year.

Kelly takes on the role of executive creative director. He joins Drew Halpern, as svp, group account director, and Nayantara Mukherji, who joins from Madwell as svp, group strategy director, on the account’s leadership team.

“The chance to work on these iconic brands is a tremendous opportunity to carve out a killer team of wildly creative and results-driven minds who will not only shape the brands, but also the culture of the agency as a whole,” said FCB New York CCO Michael Aimette in a statement.

The trio will aim to create work that grows Kellanova’s brand portfolio. FCB NY and Kellanova are already developing brand campaigns for the first quarter of 2025 for Cheez-It, Pringles, and Rice Krispies Treats.

A major focus will be modernizing the brands and positioning them to win today.

The team could not disclose if there was a Super Bowl spot in the works for any of the brands, but Pringles has been a mainstay in the Big Game for the last few years.

A new team to reimagine iconic brands

Kelly is a creative leader who has worked across a wide range of brands, including Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Twix, Lowe’s, the NFL, CA Lottery, Kia, and Carl’s Jr. Prior to joining FCB New York, he led creative teams at Droga5, working with Bosch, Paramount+, and IHop—for which he won two Gold Effies and two Cannes Lions, among other awards—as well as Johnsonville and Sprint.

Kelly said he saw the chance to work on Kellanova’s brands as one he had to take, especially as a huge snack food fan.

“To be able to have fun reimagining iconic brands felt like something I couldn’t pass up. It just felt like an exciting next chapter. FCB is really killing it. They’re on the way up,” Kelly told ADWEEK.

Mukherji was most recently head of brand strategy at Madwell, where she led work for clients including e.l.f. Cosmetics and Visible by Verizon. Before that, she spent seven years at Saatchi & Saatchi, overseeing strategy for P&G’s Fabric Care portfolio at a time when the “It’s a Tide Ad” campaign was awarded numerous prizes, including Titanium at Cannes Lions.

“They’re big brands with big ambition. And that’s the most exciting thing you can hear as a strategist,” Mukherji told ADWEEK.

Halpern joined FCB New York in January to help lead IPG’s creative approach to the global Kellanova review. Prior to that, she held positions at Mischief, Terri & Sandy, and Ogilvy, working with brands including Gerber, Ferrero Rocher, Keebler, Avon, Molson Coors, and UPS. She has collected numerous awards, including being a six-time Effie winner.

“The three of us, when we met, we each had a similar passion for this industry and a similar passion for building a really strong team that does incredible work, that moves these businesses forward, but also is a place where people are going to enjoy working and are going to have a great time doing it together,” Halpern told ADWEEK.

Brands that deserve to have fun

FCB will work with fellow IPG agencies Momentum and Weber Shandwick to bring campaigns for Kellanova to life. Kelly said that they are building the “snack pack” team for the work, “getting like-minded people who are ambitious want to come in and just do the best work of their career.”

The team is most excited to work with iconic brands that they love, and that they grew up with.

“They deserve to have work that’s fun. That’s been the mentality we’re all looking at…In a world that can be very serious right now, what a joy to bring some laughter, some excitement, and fun to the world,” said Halpern.