Mediabrands Content Studio (MBCS) and Vice Media Group (VMG) have formalized a global production partnership. Effective immediately, VMG will make its entire suite of global production content capabilities and creator teams available to Mediabrands agencies and clients worldwide.
The new arrangement is the logical next step for the two companies which already have a rich, extensive working relationship and share similar approaches to content. For the first time ever, Mediabrands and its clients will gain access to all the production teams, creators, and talent that powers all of VMG’s brands including VICE, i-D, Noisey, Refinery29, VICE News, VICE Studios, and Pulse Films, globally–focusing the partnership on creative solutions without committing to any media spend, ad buy or content placement on VMG’s media properties. As well, Mediabrands and its clients will now have access to a full turnkey global production infrastructure that can develop, facilitate, and create a diverse array of brand-owned and controlled content, which can then be placed on clients’ O&O and desired media channels. Likewise, VMG will now have direct access to Mediabrands comprehensive portfolio of clients around the globe, as the preferred production partner, through which it can directly develop content, support, and engage on production deals.
“The VMG partnership will allow us to deliver consistent content capabilities across our top markets at the highest level regardless of media commitment,” said Brendan Gaul, Mediabrands global chief content officer. “The unbundling of media and content is a gamechanger in the way we can quickly respond to a client’s content need anywhere, for any use with exceptional creativity.”
Co-brokered by Brett Henenberg, MBCS’s global head of production, and VMG’s SVP of global production Dan Bowen, the partnership marks the first deal from Interpublic’s newest creative practice since launching in November 2020. “The power of this partnership is that it allows us to deliver high quality, low cost, fast and agile production. The old saying ‘you can only choose two between good, fast and cheap’ no longer applies as the global scale of this deal allows us to truly deliver all three anywhere in the world,” added Henenberg.
Mediabrands emerging film and television development practice, TRAVERSE32, will also benefit from the MBCS/VMG deal. Through the partnership Pulse Films will co-develop a slate of original entertainment properties with TRAVERSE32, founded by Gaul and Henenberg last December.
Bowen said, “The IPG Mediabrands team understands the best way to tap into our extensive offering at VMG and will bring VMG a level of first person brand access media companies rarely get. With production across the full spectrum leading and media supporting, together we are positioned for some exciting work and creative collaboration.”
Davud Karbassioun, global president of commercials & branded, Pulse Films, said, “Brendan & Brett have a unique track record for guiding their diverse portfolio of brands to properly create and own entertainment IP in a truly innovative, meaningful and rewarding way. There is a big opportunity for brands at the heart of this partnership that we are excited to dive into with TRAVERSE32.”
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More