Global creative agency Kirshenbaum, Bond, Senecal & Partners (KBS) has appointed Laura Forman to serve as executive director of brand strategy. Forman joins Kirshenbaum from Ogilvy & Mather where she was group planning director. Reporting to Ted Florea, KBS’ global chief strategy officer, Forman will be based in the New York office and will have a primary focus on PODS and Amex.
Florea said, “Laura brings extensive experience delivering world-class strategic thinking from shops like Goodby and Ogilvy as well as her own consumer insights company. This background makes her perfect to be a leader in continuing to champion our commitment to helping companies discover and live their greater purpose in culture.”
Forman shared, “KBS’ mission to combine humanity, technology and purposeful creativity was a real selling point for me in joining the agency.”
Forman’s responsibilities include overseeing her department of 12 brand strategists on all accounts and partnering with her data & analytics and product strategy counterparts. Forman will also play a central role in redefining KBS’ own culture, serving as a mentor across departments.
Spanning her 20-year career, Forman has led assignments for clients in multiple industries from Target to American Airlines to Chevy, as well as conducted research in more than 20 countries for global clients such as Heineken, Sprite, and ABSOLUT.
Forman’s previous positions include founder of her own strategy boutique, forthought, as well as having served as VP/account planner for Deutsch LA, planning director at Fallon and account planner at Goodby.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More