Chief Creative Officer of The Americas
Havas
1) Cognitive. Creatives are getting a handle on data and what they can do with it creatively. Data went from a research tool to becoming a creative tool. Although we are just scratching the surface, this is the year when the awesome possibilities made me fall in love with cognitive.
2) We created N8tive, a Havas incubator that puts brilliant graduates in charge. We are dismantling the traditional agency hierarchies that has young talent starting at the bottom. Instead we are putting them at the top of the pyramid. They report right into the CCO, work across all clients, and unlike traditional creatives, they are hybrids–markers, coders, experience designers, photographers and problem solvers.
3) #AdiosAmigo, our real time social goodbye to Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man. We got 2 billion impressions in 24 hours before TV ever launched and the highest sales numbers the brand has ever seen. We took a traditionally TV driven brand and transitioned it into a social first brand.
“Bob Dylan – StudioA Revisited” was another project I was proud of. We made a legend relevant to a young generation that couldn’t care less. At the end, an audience in their 20s started interacting with Dylan in his 20s, fifty years after the actual recordings. The jury in Cannes sent three Lions our way, but more importantly: we created everything, top to bottom, at Havas New York.
4) Real time social content is going to be big. Executions that happen in a matter of hours that result in millions of views, with minimal dollar investment is the next art form that will separate agencies from the pack. Brands are trying to understand how to get it right and become part of the conversation. A lot of agencies will talk a big game but only a few will actually deliver and lead.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More