New capabilities supported by 4 key hires--chief experience officer Alex Wills, chief brand officer Alex Schneider, global strategy director Anna Fogg, global director of creative tech Aleissia Laidacker
Global creative production studio The Mill, known for its legacy in visual effects and post, is further evolving its offering to incorporate creative strategy and ideation, production, and experiential marketing.
CEO Josh Mandel said, “The expansion of our business offering comes in response to the new challenges faced by brands looking to reach and engage audiences in new and emerging spaces online and virtually. These spaces are creating new opportunities to shape a consumer experience that demands the latest in visual effects and tech enhanced storytelling.”
The development is underpinned by the hiring of several senior figures from the advertising agency and creative technology world to drive these new capabilities forward; Alex Wills as chief experience officer, Alex Schneider as chief brand officer, Anna Fogg as global strategy director and Aleissia Laidacker as global director of creative technology.
As chief experience officer, Wills will be responsible for defining The Mill’s future role in developing transformative experiences for audiences, brands and fan cultures. He comes to The Mill with a wealth of experience in defining brand strategies and new audience experiences that hinge on innovative thinking and emerging technologies. He has played an integral senior leadership role in building innovation at R/GA and AKQA, partnering with brands such as Nike, Google, Guinness and Beats by Dre.
Chief brand officer Schneider joins The Mill from Wednesday Agency Group, where he was global CEO. Schneider is a seasoned marketing executive with over two decades of experience helping grow creative agencies, brands and content studios. Prior to joining Wednesday, Alex was the managing director of R/GA Portland, and held senior leadership roles at Deutsch LA and 72andSunny. In his new role, Schneider will focus on ensuring The Mill is able to meet the creative challenges of brand partners across the gaming, fashion, automotive, technology and lifestyle industries, harnessing and developing The Mill’s creative strategy and production practices and global capabilities. He will also lead global expansion plans as The Mill explores new territories.
Fogg, newly appointed global strategy director, will be working with clients to define the trends in culture and behavioral shifts impacting modern audiences as they migrate into new spaces online. Bringing together the cross disciplinary skills of The Mill across technology, brand storytelling and visual effects to create strategic solutions that cement brands in culture. Fogg has 15 years of strategic experience in creative agencies working for VCCP, Cheill and Naked Communications before joining The Mill.
To further bolster The Mill’s investment in the emerging technology and experiential marketing space, Laidacker has joined The Mill with a focus on developing the company’s offering across Augmented/Virtual Reality, AI, game development and immersive technologies. Previously at Magic Leap and Ubisoft, Laidacker has over 20 years of experience at the forefront of technology-based media and entertainment.
The production studio now has three connected business sectors underpinned by the brand’s legacy at the intersection of art and technology; Visual Effects, Creative Production and Experiences. The production business has grown to include over 40 rostered directors and creative strategists, that will be working with brands and agencies across linear film and immersive and interactive experiences.
This evolution of the business is in response to the changing media landscape of the past 12-months. The Mill has already been working directly with brands such as HBO, EA, Amazon and Spotify on award-winning campaigns across the interactive and experiential marketing space.
Chief experience officer Wills shared, “Our goal is to ideate and produce innovative content and experiences that draw on our 30-year legacy of visual storytelling and unique understanding of modern audiences. Emerging technology allows brands, products, and entertainment properties to move ever closer to their audience in new ways. We’ll be building out our capabilities to work across every medium from filters and real-time avatars through AR and VR to magical full-blown location-based experiences. We have actively been building an Experimental Design Studio and Real-Time 3D powered Creative Technology team, in order to rapidly scale our offering to further bring our world class CG craft into interactive experiences, enabling us to deliver next generation audience experiences.”
Changes Afoot For Cannes Lions 2025, Including Increasing Festival Access For Underserved Communities
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is putting plans in motion for its 72nd edition, set to take place from June 16-20, 2025 in Cannes, France. The Festival has announced that it will double funding to provide €2m (some $2,150,000) worth of complimentary passes to underrepresented talent and underserved communities through its Equity, Representation and Accessibility (ERA) Pass, returning for a second year.
Frank Starling, chief DEI officer, Lions, said the increased investment was “crucial to continue to drive progress for both Cannes Lions and the industry.” Starling added, “The ERA pass plays an important role in fostering a global representation of talent within the creative communications industry at Cannes Lions, and to date our funded opportunities have reached creatives in 46 countries globally. With the Festival being the destination for everyone in the business of creativity, we recognize the importance of creating equitable access to it, and this is why we’re prioritizing increased representation from the Global South to support a greater range of voices and perspectives from the region at the Festival.” Applications for the ERA pass are open now and close on December 5, 2025. More details can be found here.
With submissions into the Cannes Lions Awards opening on January 16, 2025, innovations to the Awards have also been announced today. Glass: The Lion for Change celebrates 10 years since its introduction. The Glass Lion was launched to champion work that used creativity to drive a shift towards more positive, progressive and gender-aware communication, and Marian Brannelly, global... Read More