Burnett agency Arc gets top tier leadership overhaul

TOP ECHELON CHANGES in the leadership team at Leo Burnett’s Arc have put Chris Cancilla into the US CCO seat. Karuna Rawal was promoted to Arc US president and Chief Strategy Officer of Arc Worldwide, while Bob Raidt was upped from global president to global CEO.

Cancilla will oversee 150 employees in Arc’s US office and has the responsibility for driving the agency’s creative culture. He reports to Britt Nolan, Leo Burnett new US CCO.

Cancilla joins from VSA Partners, where he was associate partner/ECD for the past seven months and earlier served as Trisect’s CCO.

Rawal reports to Burnett CEO Rich Stoddart. She has been the agency’s EVP/business director/global planning lead since 2014, serving as strategic lead on #LikeAGirl campaign.

Nick Jones was tapped as EVP/global business development and innovation and Scott Fry is the new VP/group executive producer.

MARVEL STUDIOS BLOCKBUSTER “Captain America: Civil War” directed by Anthony and Joe Russo debuts today featuring a total of three minutes of main-on-end (MOE) titles and visual effects created by design company Sarofsky, led by ECD Erin Sarofsky and EP Steven Anderson.

Sarofsky created the 90-second MOE title sequence, title sequence — completely CG-based, while also being photo-real — and also 22 VFX shots in the film, under the direction of the Russo brothers.

This is Sarofsky’s fourth Marvel assignment, following “Captain America: The Winter soldier,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Ant-Man.” For their latest Marvel endeavor, says Anderson, “We had two teams going; one was focused on the MOE and one on VFX,” he said. “It was crazy rewarding to be working on multiple aspects of the film.”

Sidebar: Erin Sarofsky will be presenting at Lake FX Summit Friday, May 13 at 10:30 a.m.

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO. Holding company WPP, which had been invited along with Publicis Groupe and Omnicom to participate in the McDonald’s review, has bowed out. Reasons not reported. BTW: McDonald’s spent $1.42 billion on US advertising in 2014, making it the country’s 26th largest advertiser.

MORE TO COME? Let’s hope so as Dick Wolf hinted last March to The Hollywood Reporter there just might be a fifth “Chicago” TV show. Meanwhile, the characters of “Chicago Justice” will be introduced in next Wednesday’s episode of “Chicago PD.” (Spoiler alert!) Officer Burgess (Marina Squerciati) shoots an unarmed teenager after her partner, Roman (Brian Geraghty) is shot and seriously injured in their police car.

WHAT, NO LEO BURNETT? Leo Burnett tends to dominate advertising competitions but is nowhere to be seen in the 2016 Radio Mercury Awards.

For a change, FCB Chicago and DDB Chicago are right up there, among the 100 finalists. FCB’s six finalists put up at the top; all recorded at its in-house Lord + Thomas studio. DDB competes with four spots competing, recorded in its in-house The Studio and at Cutters’ Another Country.

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