TOM KUNTZ, SUPERNATURAL DELVE INTO CONSPIRACIES FOR KAYAK
KAYAK, the travel search engine, is doing its part to help navigate the dramatic increase in travel costs. Their new campaign supports an upcoming glow up to its Explore feature which helps people discover all the places they can travel to on a given budget.
Travel search engine KAYAK’s 2023 campaign builds on the brand’s conspiracy-theory adjacent “KAYAK Deniers” brand platform launched in early 2022. Made in partnership with the AI-backed creative agency Supernatural, the new campaign tackles today’s travel realities head on…if you believe in conspiracy theories.
The first challenge the campaign tackles is economics. Although it can be expensive to travel, with KAYAK you don’t have to be rich to find the perfect flight, stay, rental car or vacation package. To wit, the first set of ads depicts couples surprising one another with upcoming trips to places so awesome the recipient suddenly believes they are in fact rich. Alas they are not (financially, anyway). Their partner simply found an amazing travel deal on KAYAK.
The second set of ads speaks to the unseen powers arbitrarily driving the cost of travel up as a way to control the industry. These “Elites” are nefarious and trying to ruin humanity! However, they’re not human, or real, and thus easily defeated by great travel deals on KAYAK.
Both “Rich” and “Elites” spots are directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ. The animation was created by Legacy Effects, well known for their character design for major films such as The Avengers and Jurassic World. All :30s and :15s spots are currently appearing across broadcast and social.
NY WOMEN IN FILM & TV SCORE AT SUNDANCE
New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) made its mark at the recently wrapped Sundance Film Festival. Twenty-one projects from 24 NYWIFT members were official festival selections.
The 21 projects span 10 categories and exemplify the diversity of talent within the NYWIFT community. As the leading non-profit professional association for women in media in New York, NYWIFT boasts a membership made up of not only directors and producers, but writers, editors, casting professionals, actors, business executives, attorneys, and so much more. Many of those key leadership roles are reflected the in the 2023 NYWIFT Sundance roster.
The vast majority of the NYWIFT member projects are female-driven and focused on narratives from marginalized communities, including BIPOC stories, voices from the disabled community, LGBTQIA+ dramas, and films about the immigrant experience.
“We are thrilled to see so many of our members included in the 2023 Sundance roster, and doubly pleased to witness our smart, forward-thinking community bringing diverse stories and underrepresented narratives to the screen,” said NYWIFT CEO Cynthia Lopez.
The full listing of NYWIFT member projects by category includes: From the Collection–Slam (production coordinator Eleni Yiovas Tsokanos); Next–King Coal (post supervisor Jean Lane) and To Live and Die and Live (producer Dana Offenbach): Premieres–Cat Person (head of production: Goldcrest, NYWIFT board member Gretchen McGowan), Eileen (stunt double for Thomasin McKenzie Ashley Pynn and costumer Margaret (Meg) Galvin), Invisible Beauty (editor Chris McNabb), Judy Blume Forever (producers Marcella Steingart and Sara Bernstein), Landscape with Invisible Hand (stunt coordinator Nitasha Bhambree), Plan C (EP Jess Jacobs), and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (producer NYWIFT advisory board member Annetta Marion); Spotlight–Joyland (producer Katharina Otto-Bernstein); U.S. Documentary Competition–Joonam (EP Ruth Ann Harnisch), Little Richard: I Am Everything (director Lisa Cortes and EP Amy Entelis), and Victim/Suspect (EP Carolyn Hepburn); U.S. Dramatic Competition–Magazine Dreams (producer Jennifer Fox) and Shortcomings (additional DP Jendra Jarnagin); U.S. Fiction Short Films–Ricky (associate producer Sandra Manzanares) and Take Me Home (director Liz Sargent); U.S. Nonfiction Short Films–Under G-d (director and writer Paula Eiselt and EP Ruth Ann Harnisch); World Documentary Competition–The Longest Goodbye (EP Lois Vossen); and World Cinema Dramatic Competition–Shayda (EP Caitlin Gold)
PEOPLE ON THE MOVE…..
Sausalito, Calif.-based agency Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners (BSSP) has hired Thomas Simmons as its new chief financial and operating officer and Trina D. Arnett as head of marketing sciences. Simmons will head fiscal responsibilities and operational enhancements that keep BSSP competitive. In a new role for the agency, as the head of marketing sciences, Arnett will lead the expansion of the department and agency capabilities like marketing mix modeling, holistic analysis, data integration, and custom quantitative measurement methodologies. Both executives will report to Tracey Faux Pattani, BSSP’s CEO. Simmons comes to BSSP from Los York, where he served as chief operating officer, and before that he was at Amobee as director of corporate development & strategic planning. Arnett joins BSSP with 30 years of experience in market research and analytics, most recently serving as an assistant teaching professor of analytics in the department of advertising, public relations, and media design at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Prior to teaching, she was the chief analyst at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, where she developed and led the analytics department for the agency. Following her time at CP+B, she launched her own analytics consulting agency, trinalytics, LLC, which she has been running for over 10 years….
