Lifestyle-marketing and culture agency Cashmere has hired Frank Dattalo as EVP, executive creative director. Dattalo will be responsible for driving growth and leading creative efforts across all lines of business including Taco Bell, Google, Budweiser, and Disney. He will report to Cashmere president and chief creative officer, Ryan Ford.
“Frank is a best in class creative who brings immense creative bona fides and an innate sense of balancing story and systems,” said Ford. “His work exhibits a deep understanding around the intersection between culture, brands and digital media and how it manifests it with brilliant and beautiful creative.”
“It’s a privilege to join Cashmere, an agency I’ve long admired for its independent spirit, inclusivity and unwavering commitment to pushing culture forward as their purpose–a focus that deeply aligns with my core values,” said Dattalo. “I’m excited to build on the momentum as culture and self-expression are the guiding forces that help fuel meaningful conversation and connect brands to more diverse communities. I’m passionate about creating the right conditions for the agency, our people and our clients to do their very best work to help change the world.”
Dattalo joins Cashmere from Critical Mass, LA where as VP, executive creative director, he helped brands like Nike, Peloton, and AT&T connect more deeply to culture through holistic, digital experiences with a social-first mentality. He oversaw the groundbreaking AT&T’s Fiber campaign with NBA legend, Kevin Garnett campaign and the decorated Gif a Little Love campaign, which used media and data to connect people when COVID hit holiday travel. This campaign was recognized by The One Show, ADC, Webbys and the Shorty Awards. Prior to Critical Mass, Dattalo held creative roles at R/GA, LA leading Nike Basketball and Apple in Cupertino, helping launch Apple Music, iPad and Apple Watch.
Last year, Cashmere saw its client opportunities expand as clients were looking for new and unique ways to unlock culture and foster deeper connections with Gen Z consumers. The agency worked on everything from hit TV shows and #1 Box Office films including FX’s Atlanta, Sony Pictures’ The Woman King, Netflix’s YOU People, and Apple TV+’s Emancipation; created content that trended; broke client KPIs; and integrated deeper into their merger with Media.Monks to help supercharge work with clients like Amazon, Google, AB InBev, Netflix and Disney.
Dattalo joins a group of veterans who have joined Cashmere including chief strategy officer Aki Spicer, chief operating officer Erick Erickson, and VP, group creative director Rebecca Williams.
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More