Bill Oberlander has joined JWT New York as executive creative director, where he will oversee the Microsoft Commercial business. He joins a Microsoft team that includes Jeremy Postaer on Bing and Jim Hord on Microsoft Office.
Most recently, Oberlander served as chief creative officer/executive VP of Cossette New York. There he worked on Estée Lauder, Carlsberg Beer, and Cannondale Bikes, among other brands.
Prior to assuming the lead creative role at Cossette, Oberlander was exec creative director at McCann Erickson, where he pitched and won the $350 million Intel business. Before that, he also spent time at Ogilvy on Motorola, AT&T Wireless, Sprite, Ameritrade and Nestlé Waters.
During the 1990s, he served as a managing partner/exec creative director at Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners. Under his watch, the agency grew from 17 employees to 400. It also blossomed from two accounts to a wide portfolio of clients, which included Citi, Coach, Target, and Snapple.
As former president of the Art Directors Club, Oberlander is also credited with re-establishing it as a top industry organization. Under his watch, the ADC launched the Young Guns Awards Show, recognizing industry talent under the age of 30.
He currently teaches advertising at the School of Visual Arts New York and serves on the Ad Council Creative Review Committee, where he reviews and directs pro-bono campaigns for the country’s leading non-profits.
Karla SofÃa Gascón Could Make Trans History For Role In “Emilia Pérez”
Karla SofÃa Gascón's performance in "Emilia Pérez" as a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery to become a woman has brought her global acclaim and set Gascón on a path that may make her the first openly transgender actor ever nominated for an Oscar. But on this morning, she's feeling contemplative. "I woke up with such a philosophical streak," Gascón says, smiling. "In life, everything can be good or bad. We are a mix of so many things. There are things that make you happy and instead they make you sad, or the other way around." The dichotomies of life are a fitting subject for Jacques Audiard's "Emilia Pérez," a film that puts just about every genre — musical, crime thriller, melodrama — into a grandiose mixer, and, by sheer nerve, manages to coalesce into one of the year's most memorable movie experiences. "Emilia Pérez," which began streaming Wednesday on Netflix, is widely expected to be a best picture nominee. At the center of the "Emilia Pérez" phenomenon – which began with a barn-storming premiere at the Cannes Film Festival — is Gascón who plays both the menacing cartel kingpin Manitas and the woman who emerges after Manitas fakes his own death, Emilia Pérez. Years later, Emilia contacts the lawyer who facilitated her transition (Zoe Saldaña) to her reunite with her wife (Selena Gomez) and their children. The wild swings of "Emilia Pérez" – a movie that has earned comparisons to both "Sicario" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" – wouldn't be possible without Gascón. In Cannes, she and her co-stars shared in the best actress prize, which Gascón accepted. "We've been insulted, denigrated, subjected to a lot of violence without even knowing why," Gascón said that evening. "I think this is award is so much more... Read More