Creative directors Mark Bernath and Eric Quennoy have been promoted to executive creative directors at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. The duo will replace Jeff Kling, who resigned from the agency last week.
As the creative force behind the recent Nike “Write the Future” campaign for Nike Football, the team of Bernath and Quennoy spearheaded a globally integrated effort that drew worldwide attention, including more than 40 million online views and over 1.9 billion impressions on Facebook to date. As a team, they have created notable and award-winning work, including the “Here I Am” campaign for Nike Women and the FIFA Street 3 project for EA Sports that produced one of the top viral videos of 2008.
An industry veteran with 13 years’ experience, Bernath joined W+K Amsterdam in 2007 as a creative director working on the Electronic Arts and Nike accounts. He came to W+K from Ogilvy & Mather in New York, where he was a group creative director and created the digital re-launch of Foster’s Lager that won the agency its first One Show Gold Pencil. He also spent time as a creative director at Publicis New York, where he worked on the Fujifilm campaign that won the agency its first Cannes Lion. A North Carolina native, he is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lives in the center of Amsterdam with his wife and their three boys.
“We’re ready to strap on our safety goggles and play with the most ridiculously fun science experiment in the network,” Bernath said. “When you combine such creative minds from such different cultural backgrounds, the explosion that results can be so inspiring. We’re hopeful that our time with the chemistry set will continue to yield some brave new ideas from the Amsterdam office, and one or two beautiful disasters.”
Born and raised in Australia, Quennoy has been at W+K Amsterdam since April 2006 as a creative director on the Electronic Arts, Heineken and Nike business. Before W+K he was a creative director at Publicis New York, where he created award-winning work for Heineken and Amstel Light, and helped win the TBS account. Prior to that he worked for D’Arcy & Partners in New York, where he was a senior copywriter for three years. He began his career in Melbourne, Australia, working as a copywriter for seven years. He lives in Amsterdam with his wife and their two boys.
“Mark and I are journeymen,” commented Quennoy. “We’ve worked in a bunch of different agencies in a lot of different cities, and we both feel like we found our spiritual home here in Amsterdam. The independent nature of W+K, the incredible roster of clients, against the backdrop of this wonderful city is a hard combination to beat. We’re just honored that Dan [Wieden, co-founder and global executive creative director] has handed us the keys.”
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More