McCann Worldgroup has named Chris Macdonald and Nannette Dufour to new leadership positions. Macdonald has been promoted to president, Advertising & Allied Agencies, and Dufour to president, Global Clients & Business Leadership.
Harris Diamond, chairman and CEO, McCann Worldgroup, said, “Nannette and Chris will work along with Bill Kolb, who is president, Diversified Agencies, to further drive creative marketing solutions that will help our clients thrive in this business environment. With this leadership team, which also includes global creative chairman Rob Reilly and global chief strategy officer Suzanne Powers, along with our discipline and operational leadership, we are well positioned to further accelerate our ability to create growth opportunities for our clients and deploy the best set of multiplatform resources anywhere in the world.” (Luca Lindner, who has been president of McCann Worldgroup, has announced his planned mid-2018 retirement from this full-time role and will serve as a consultant to the leadership team.)
Macdonald’s responsibilities are being expanded from North American regional to global with oversight of McCann Worldgroup’s advertising and allied agency resources. Macdonald first joined McCann London in 2005, where he was promoted to CEO. In 2013, he became president of McCann New York and was promoted in 2016 to president of McCann North America.
Dufour will add operational oversight over all of McCann Worldgroup’s global and key regional accounts, ensuring that all of these clients are receiving the required geographic and discipline resources. Dufour first joined McCann Worldgroup in 2012 and was named chief client officer in 2015.
McCann Worldgroup led all agencies in global and U.S. new business wins in 2017, according to R3 Worldwide. McCann was recently recognized as Network of the Year at the 2018 International ANDY Awards, following many top global creative honors in 2017. Last year the agency won the most top Grand Prix (six) at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and was the most awarded Cannes agency in North America. Also in 2017, McCann was named Agency of the Year and/or Network of the Year at the Clio, One Show, Cresta, Epica, Midas, New York Festivals, LIA, ANDY, ADC, Golden Drum, and Cristal awards festivals as well as at the EFFIEs shows in North America, Latin America, and the Middle East/North Africa.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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