Cheil UK has appointed David Bedford as its digital strategy director, a newly created role at the agency.
Bedford, who is the former head of planning at Gyro, will be responsible for leading the strategic output and the future direction of Cheil’s digital platform business including setting direction for Samsung.com, Members loyalty platform and digital retail strategy across the UK and Europe.
He joins the Cheil board’s digital leadership group providing direction to internal teams as well as building strong client relationships. He reports to David Coombs, the head of strategic services at Cheil UK.
Bedford was also previously head of planning at Geometry. He most recently served as a freelance strategic consultant at Lida where he worked on Costa Coffee and Experian, and Wunderman, where he was strategy lead on BT’s CRM and Shell’s global CRM.
Along with Shell and BT, Bedford has led strategy for brands including HSBC, Visa and Vodafone. He was also behind the creation of Vodafone’s content hub “Your Ready Business.” His work has won the IPA Social Works best practice content effectiveness in social media 2015, and he led the Government “Act FAST” campaign which won an IPA Effectiveness Gold. He has also won two Business Marketing Association Awards of Excellence for Thought Leadership and Content Marketing.
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More