CP+B will be closing its Miami office in March of 2018. Over the course of the next several months, the focus will be on winding down and relocating operations. The Miami office is CP+B’s smallest U.S. shop, and the agency’s Miami accounts will move to Boulder, Los Angeles and São Paulo. The agency also has offices in London, Copenhagen, Hong Kong and Beijing.
“The DNA of CP+B centers around incredibly talented people doing extraordinary things. It’s our obligation to our employees and our clients to create and maintain an environment where this can happen,” said Erik Sollenberg, CEO, CP+B. “As we recommit to our core philosophies, and reassess our structure, we have made the difficult decision to close our Miami office. While the official date is a few months away, we believe it is important to share the news now. This way, we can help each of our Miami people find a new situation for the coming year, whether it is within CP+B or beyond.”
In total, about 75 employees will be affected by this closure, the majority of whom work in finance and accounting. Those functions will now be centralized in Boulder. A number of people in the Miami office are being offered relocation to other CP+B offices, including executive creative director Tom Adams, who will be moving to CP+B LA. The agency is working with parent company MDC Partners to identify positions within the network, and additional full service support measures have been put in place to work with all affected Miami staff.
The leadership team of CP+B Brazil’s CEO/partner Vinicius Reis and chief creative officers/partners Marcos Medeiros and Andre Kassu–who added overseeing the Miami office to their responsibilities last year–will continue in their roles with CP+B Brazil. “Vini, Marcos and Kassuhave had extraordinary success in São Paulo, growing the office from four people to over 110 in less than three years,” said Chuck Porter, chairman of CP+B. “We all felt that the best path going forward was to allow them to fully focus on the opportunities there.”
“This was a difficult decision and we agonized over it,” continued Porter. “Our significant new business growth, however, has mainly been in Boulder and LA, and ultimately we decided that focusing our resources there will be better for the work and for our clients.”
This move comes on the heels of a number of recent and significant steps for CP+B including the hiring of Sollenberg, who spent 14 years as CEO of renowned Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors, with whom CP+B has a global strategic partnership. In October, Sollenberg was joined by award-winning creative leader Linus Karlsson, who most recently founded MING Utility and Entertainment Group, and prior to that served as chief creative officer of global brands at McCann-Erickson, creative chairman of Commonwealth/McCann, and co-founded Mother New York.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More