What we used to call heads of TV were an endangered species for a while but now, with online films taking over the world, they’re not and former MD of production company Cut+Run Leila Bartlam (left) has landed the plum role of head of film for Havas Worldwide in London.
Bartlam, a former head of TV at Adam&Eve (now part of DDB London) where she worked on John Lewis, Halifax and Google among others, replaces Clare Donald who left to join Google.
Havas London CEO Russ Lidstone says: “Film and film production are a strong part of our integrated creative offering and we are constantly looking for ways to strengthen them further. Leila has a great track record and industry reputation having set up and run the TV department at Adam & Eve.”
Congratulations to Leila Bartlam on her new position and three cheers to Havas for appointing her. There has never been a greater need than now for real film production expertise in ad agencies, especially at holding company or group level. As we’ve been pointing out for ages, agencies have been quite neglectful of this particular area of expertise (understandably though due to TV departments having become cost-centers) which could prove extremely dangerous quite shortly as the demand for ‘content’ grows inexorably. We are just about to re-release a document relevant to this topic which we wrote last year. The lack of focus by agencies in protecting their ‘product’ is leading directly to decoupling by clients from agencies.
http://www.m-a-d-e.net/decoupling-for-tv/