Becky McOwen-Banks will be joining VaynerMedia London as its first executive creative director effective on March 9. McOwen-Banks joins from FCB Inferno in London where she was creative director for more than five years creating award-winning work for UEFA Women as well as BMW, Nivea, NS&I and The Girl Effect. In her new capacity, she will report to Sarah Baumann, VaynerMedia London’s managing director.
McOwen-Banks’ appointment is the latest announcement as VaynerMedia London bolsters its management team following the hire of Baumann in June 2019. During this time, the agency has garnered attention across the local market with diversified creative work across a number of clients including NatWest, Shell, 7UP and UNICEF.
Prior to FCB Inferno, McOwen-Banks held creative director and senior roles at Iris Worldwide, Geronimo (now Psona Twelve) and as executive creative director at New Republique in Sydney, as well as running her own creative consultancy. She was a founding member of Creative Equals with Ali Hanan and continues to be dedicated to driving change and promoting and celebrating diversity.
In addition, McOwen-Banks is currently a scholarship student at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership prestigious MBA program and is a frequent judge and panelist at Cannes Lions, D&AD, Creative Circle, the Drum, IPA and TedX speaker.
Baumann said of McOwen-Banks, “Her approach to creativity and leadership play well into VaynerMedia’s core values. She has a strong focus on diversity, an obsession with exploring new communication and business models built for the now, and finds innovative ways to disrupt the old order and understand audiences–she is the final piece we need to complete our leadership team in London.”
Rob Lenois, global chief creative officer of VaynerMedia, added: “The creative momentum we’ve experienced across the board recently has been phenomenal. Hiring Becky as our very first Executive Creative Director for the London market speaks volumes to where we are going. As we continue to boost our creative offering and output across our global locations, we couldn’t be more energized and excited about the next chapter for VaynerMedia.”
McOwen-Banks described VaynerMedia as “an innovative agency,” adding, “It was clear from our first conversations that Sarah and the leadership team echo my excitement and dedication to creating communications for today, and are willing to explore how we can do that. It is the perfect opportunity for me to bring together my learnings from my MBA, my curiosity for innovation, and my personal ongoing commitment to changing advertising for the better–to be an exciting and open industry for all.”
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More