Fallon has promoted Kara Buckner to agency president and Nikki Baker and Leslie Shaffer to co-chief creative officers. Buckner has been elevated from managing director and retains her title as chief strategy officer. Baker and Shaffer have been promoted to co-CCOs from their role co-leading the agency’s creative department in New York.
Together, Buckner, Baker and Shaffer will be responsible for helping Fallon across its Minneapolis and NY offices navigate client and cultural challenges related to the pandemic and a rapidly shifting media environment while tapping into the opportunities of new talent, new clients, and modern ways to help brands reach their objectives through creativity. Matt Garcia, who joined the agency from Publics Groupe partner agency Rokkan last summer, will continue in his role as managing director, New York. All four will report to CEO Rocky Novak.
Fallon has charted consecutive years of growth, with momentum coming through new work for clients like Walmart, Arby’s, KeyBank, Hotwire, Comedy Central, Showtime, Back Market, Minnesota Timberwolves, and more.
As a strategic-creative leadership team, Buckner, Baker and Shaffer have turned out new work for brands like Walmart, KeyBank, American Home Shield, and Back Market.
Buckner previously worked for Fallon from 1997 to 2010 when she helped lead Emmy and Effie-winning efforts for PBS and United Airlines. After running her own consulting practice for nearly a decade and working with brands like Google, Nestle Purina, and Target, she returned to the agency in 2019 as chief strategy officer and managing director. She now heads the account leadership and strategy departments, setting vision and driving strategic, creative, and operational excellence across the agency. Baker and Shaffer joined Fallon as co-executive creative directors in 2018 with accolades that include Cannes, Clio, D&AD and The One Show awards.
Review: Director Morgan Neville’s “Piece by Piece”
A movie documentary that uses only Lego pieces might seem an unconventional choice. When that documentary is about renowned musician-producer Pharrell Williams, it's actually sort of on-brand.
"Piece by Piece" is a bright, clever song-filled biopic that pretends it's a behind-the-scenes documentary using small plastic bricks, angles and curves to celebrate an artist known for his quirky soul. It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it's a bit of both.
Director Morgan Neville — who has gotten more and more experimental exploring other celebrity lives like Fred Rogers in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?,""Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain" and "Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces" — this time uses real interviews but masks them under little Lego figurines with animated faces. Call this one a documentary in a million pieces.
The filmmakers try to explain their device — "What if nothing is real? What if life is like a Lego set?" Williams says at the beginning — but it's very tenuous. Just submit and enjoy the ride of a poor kid from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who rose to dominate music and become a creative director at Louis Vuitton.
Williams, by his own admission, is a little detached, a little odd. Music triggers colors in his brain — he has synesthesia, beautifully portrayed here — and it's his forward-looking musical brain that will make him a star, first as part of the producing team The Neptunes and then as an in-demand solo producer and songwriter.
There are highs and lows and then highs again. A verse Williams wrote for "Rump Shaker" by Wreckx-N-Effect when he was making a living selling beats would lead to superstars demanding to work with him and partner... Read More