Microsoft Commercial Reveals Company’s Outlook on Gay Marriage

First, Amazon treated gay marriage like it was no big whoop in its latest Kindle ad. And now this. Microsoft has juxtaposed becoming a professional stuntman with getting gay married in its latest Outlook.com ad from Deutsch in New York. Much like the Kindle spot, the lesbian wedding here is treated as nothing out of the ordinary. That's right, a truck explodes (you'll remember the stunt driver from the launch ad for this campaign), and then some lesbians get married, and it's no big deal—as the happy Outlook.com user congratulates her newly married friend, pressing her hands together with an expression of sheer delight. Truly, when juggernaut advertisers decide that endorsing gay marriage won't hurt their bottom line, there's been a sea change in society.

Ahlibank: Mask, Arab Man

It’s all about truth and transparency in banking.

Advertising Agency: FP7 / MCT, Oman
Executive Creative Director / Creative Director / Art Director / Copywriter: Noufal Ali
Art Director: Renjith Pillai
Copywriter: Dhruv Chatterjee

Ahlibank: Mask, Arab Woman

It’s all about truth and transparency in banking.

Advertising Agency: FP7 / MCT, Oman
Executive Creative Director / Creative Director / Art Director / Copywriter: Noufal Ali
Art Director: Renjith Pillai
Copywriter: Dhruv Chatterjee

U.K. Political Parties Reach Deal to Regulate Newspapers


Britain’s main political parties have agreed on new measures to regulate the press after Prime Minister David Cameron and his coalition partners split over the issue last week.

Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives reached a deal in late-night talks with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats and the opposition Labor Party to introduce a Royal Charter creating a new newspaper complaints body, backed by a clause in a bill passing through Parliament today that will make it difficult for the nature of the charter to be changed.

That may have given the Royal Charter, favored by Mr. Cameron over new press regulation directly from Parliament, enough standing for the Labor Party and others who favored the “statutory underpinning” for new rules suggested by Judge Brian Leveson following the News Corp. hacking scandal. The prime minister had said he opposed any kind of law regulating the media.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Ahlibank: Mask, Expatriate

It’s all about truth and transparency in banking.

Advertising Agency: FP7 / MCT, Oman
Executive Creative Director / Creative Director / Art Director / Copywriter: Noufal Ali
Art Director: Renjith Pillai
Copywriter: Dhruv Chatterjee

A opinião dos outros

É constante, para não dizer diária – quiçá de hora em hora, como aqueles avisos da Telesena -, a reclamação que ouço de colegas e amigos que trabalham em propaganda sobre a babaquização do mundo. As pessoas, segundo a opinião destes colegas e amigos, estão muito “caretas” hoje em dia. O consumidor “não sabe mais rir de uma piada”, virou um “chato”. Até porque, “porra, é só uma brincadeira”.

Não raramente a reclamação vem acompanhada de uma lista com os últimos comerciais questionados junto ao Conar e com a já célebre consideração de que “Os Trapalhões” e suas piadas sobre gays, negros, mulheres e nordestinos, nunca seriam produzidos hoje, quanto mais veiculados no domingo às 7 da noite.

Não sei se vocês já estão por dentro, mas tem um lance aí chamado internet, que parece que veio pra ficar. Com ela, a rede mundial de computadores, vieram e estão ficando os fóruns de discussão, as caixas de comentários e as páginas das empresas no Facebook, que usualmente recebem uma enxurrada de postagens quando alguma mensagem publicitária ou decisão mercadológica desagrada um determinado grupo ou ajuntamento de pessoas.

Se há algo que podemos aprender sobre o que vivemos nos últimos dez, quinze anos, a primeiríssima infância da internet, é que gente que não tinha voz agora tem. E antes que você pergunte: não, eu não freqüento o Fórum Social Mundial.

Sim, dói muito quando ouvimos que o babaca da vez somos nós

Continuando. Existe uma montanha de gente que acha patético uma mulher se matando de fazer regime no comercial só para aparecer gostosa para os homens. Existe uma porrada de gente, que acha uma babaquice, pra utilizar o mesmo termo, esse lance de fazer Kinder Ovo azul pra menino e Kinder Ovo rosa para menina. Um daqueles meus amigos ou colegas de profissão diria que isso é a ditadura do politicamente correto.

Kinder Ovo

Bem, se você acha que mil reclamações sobre um comercial na página de uma empresa no Facebook é uma ditadura, do que você classificaria um comercial empurrando conceitos goela abaixo de 120, 130 milhões de brasileiros todo santo dia? Ou um programa de tevê em rede nacional reproduzindo a velha cartilha sexista de que meninos tem que brincar de carrinho e meninas tem que brincar de casinha? Ou uma multinacional torrando milhões de dólares para informar a você, que tem pelo no peito, que você é nojento?

O que nos leva a uma dedução simples: não é que o mundo embabacou. Agora as pessoas, todas elas, é que podem dizer quem ou o quê elas acham babaca. E, sim, dói muito quando ouvimos que o babaca da vez somos nós

“Então o que você está querendo dizer, seu filho da puta…”

Filho da puta, não! Babaca.

Marcas e empresas se preocuparão ainda mais em não errar, o que é diametralmente oposto à vontade de acertar

“Então o que você está falando, seu babaca, é que nós publicitários, não estamos preparados para receber críticas ao nosso trabalho; ainda não nos acostumamos com opiniões contrárias, um comportamento infantil que foi reforçado por décadas de ‘diálogo de mão única’ em que falávamos o que queríamos, sem dar ouvidos a ninguém; e que geralmente recorremos a desqualificação do outro para nos sentirmos confortáveis com nossos próprios conceitos e preconceitos?”

É…, é mais ou menos isso.

“Então vai tomar no meio do seu cu, seu escroto!”

Calma, cara…

“Calma é o caralho, porra!”

Pô, vamo conversar!

“Que conversar o quê, seu babaquinha de merda!”

Acho que fui claro no meu ponto, não fui? Mas se por um lado não sabemos lidar com a opinião alheia – o que é ruim -, estamos sendo forçados a aprender a lidar – o que é muitissimamente bom. E em fase de aprendizado, os erros e equívocos são freqüentes. Nem todas as decisões do Conar são acertadas (na minha opinião, bem entendido), nem todos posts de reclamação no Facebook estão corretos (na minha opinião…).

Estamos aprendendo empiricamente, na base da porrada, do erro-e-acerto – mais erro do que acerto. E, sim, departamentos de marketing, que já não são sinônimo de coragem, criatividade e eficiência, se encapsularão ainda mais na covardia, no conservadorismo e na ineficiência.

Marcas e empresas se preocuparão ainda mais em não errar, o que é diametralmente oposto à se preocupar em acertar. Mas isso é uma charada que nós, redatores, diretores de arte, profissionais de mídia e planejamento, é que temos que resolver. O que há de claro e cristalino nessa bagunça toda é que, se existe algo errado, meus amigos e colegas, não é a opinião dos outros.

Brainstorm9Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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End of an Era: Omnicom’s Arnell Group to Close


For all the brand reinventions that Arnell Group has done in its nearly three decades in business, the one it couldn’t stage was the return of itself. The once popular branding shop named after its founder, Peter Arnell, is closing its doors.

The closure comes nearly two years after one of the oddest succession moves that Madison Avenue has ever seen: in 2011 Sara Arnell took over as CEO, somewhat reluctantly, as her now-ex-husband, Peter, left amidst a lawsuit with Omnicom.

“I was surprised — like a lot of people in the industry were — that [Omnicom] asked me to do it,” Ms. Arnell recalled this week in an interview. “But in a funny way, who else would take it over? I thought about it a lot before I said yes … I did it for me and the people who wanted to do it with me, the people who I worked with that wanted to see what we could do.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Chicago Lights Photography

Le photographe japonais Satoki Nagata a récemment publié une série de clichés magnifiques en noir & blanc réalisée en se baladant dans la ville de Chicago où il réside. Des images splendides dans une série « Chicago Lights Photography » à découvrir sur son portfolio et dans la suite de l’article.

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Canadian PSA Takes Aim at the Noxious Epidemic of Social Farting

"Just because I fart at parties now and then, it doesn't make me a farter." That's how I plan to begin my memoirs, and it's also a key line in the Ontario Ministry of Health's "Quit the Denial" campaign from BBDO Toronto, directed by the Perlorian Brothers. We meet a gassy lass who lets fly when partying with friends, dancing or chatting up guys. She asks one dude coquettishly, "Do you want to go outside for a fart?" (Where's this noxious angel been all my life?) She is, of course, in denial, just like people who claim to be "social smokers" and insist they're not addicts. (A companion spot features "social nibblers" who mooch food from other people's plates. But there's no farting in that one, so who cares?) It's a splendidly sophomoric approach and definitely diverting, though I wonder if it's ultimately too light and insubstantial, lacking substance—like, oh I don't know, a passing wind, perhaps? Besides, if there were no more smokers, who's going to add some spark to these farty parties by lighting a match?

Media Decoder Blog: The Breakfast Meeting: Bribery Inquiry at The Journal, and Taking Aim at Cable TV

The Justice Department investigates claims of bribery at The Wall Street Journal, Barry Diller’s Aereo could change the game in television, and the case of Matthew Keys highlights problems with hacking laws.

Chartbeat Aims to Show Publishers If Their Ads Work


Many a news operation has fallen in love with Chartbeat, the web-analytics software that gives reporters and editors a real-time look into which parts of their websites readers are visiting. Now Chartbeat has begun mining that same publisher data to help digital-media salespeople sell ads on parts of their websites historically dismissed as advertising wastelands.

In December, Chartbeat began offering a handful of publisher sales teams a beta version of a new dashboard that displays the amount of engaged time website visitors are spending in front of certain ad-unit placements and certain sections of the site. By arming sales teams with this information, Chartbeat believes it can help them make a case to brand advertisers that certain parts of webpages are more valuable than originally assumed. (Direct-response advertisers already use audience buying to find the best impressions to buy, often no matter page placement.)

“The lesson is that the place where readers are spending their time is not where we traditionally assumed,” said Alex Carusillo, a product manager at Chartbeat.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Huge Analytics Director Calls it Quits, Citing ‘Moral Objections’

Well, this is one of the more interesting items to start of the work week. Over the weekend, we received a letter that Huge analytics director Yosaif Cohain sent to his colleagues at the agency in which he announced his resignation. Why, well, read on verbatim and we’ll continue after.

“Friends –

Because of moral objections that I have with Huge working with Al Jazeera, I have resigned from my position at Huge, effective immediately. I simply cannot work for a company that works with them. Today is my last day.

I know some might think my decision is rash or extreme. You should know that I have thought about this at length for the past two weeks and am very confident in my decision. I won’t attempt to convince anyone about my opinions or beliefs – I will just hope that even if you disagree with them, you can respect my decision and my need to stay true to who I am and what I believe in. I’m leaving with a lot of sadness and disappointment in Huge, but also with my head held high.

I’m not sure what my next steps will be – I’m going to take a step back to evaluate a few things and will be updating my resume. If you have leads for me, I’d appreciate them.

Thank you all for your ongoing friendship and support – I will miss you guys. To those of you that have offered words of support and encouragement about my decision, I thank you in particular – this has not been easy for me.

All my best –

Yosaif”

Yes, Cohain has indeed resigned, but interestingly enough, sources tell us that at the time he quit, Huge was not actually working with the aforementioned broadcaster. We’re hearing that the agency’s D.C. office specifically was just one of  several digital shops that Al Jazeera has recently been talking to as it transitions following its acquisition of Al Gore‘s Current TV, which perhaps was divisive enough to begin with. So, maybe there were other reasons at play for Cohain’s departure from Huge NY, who knows, but we’re staying neutral on his decision.

When pressed, Huge had “no comment” on the matter.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Media Decoder: Advertising Research Foundation Gets Its First Female Leader

Gayle Fuguitt, a longtime research executive at General Mills, is to be introduced to the Advertising Research Foundation’s members on Monday.

Audi to provide all new cars with digital radio

All new Audi models in the UK will have digital radio fitted as standard from next month, the car manufacturer has announced today, in what promises to be a boost for digital radio stations.

Self-Proclaimed ‘Ideas Man’ Back with Self-Proclaimed ‘World’s Fastest Agency’

Floyd Hayes, former ECD at guerrilla-marketing agency Cunning is back with yet another attention-grabbing stunt that will (perhaps) net him upward of $1000 per day.

Hayes latest project, World’s Fastest Agency, serves as a pleasant reminder to all marketers that, yes, you can make any unsubstantiated claim you want, so long as no one else has made the claim before you. Hayes’ business model works thusly:

  1. Send him $999 via PayPal.
  2. Direct message your short creative brief to @fastestagency on Twitter
  3. Receive a creative pitch within 24 hours via Twitter direct message
  4. Consider whether or not steps 1-3 were a wise use of your time and money

On the website for his new agency, which he also proclaims to be “the world’s first 100% Twitter based ad agency,”  Hayes has already a glowing review from Neil Davies (pitch judge and former partner at Naked Communications) who says, “Very fast, very good.” I mean, what else do you need to know?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

WPP invests in dance music company SFX

WPP has taken a minority share in SFX Entertainment, the digital media company and dance-music event specialist owned by billionaire investor Robert Sillerman.

W+K, Oreo Relationship Concludes with ‘Super Important Test’

In case you were wondering, the domain name www.superimportanttest.com is no longer available, thanks to W+K and Oreo, who bring us, yes, a “Super Important Test,” which as we imagine was the intention is hardly a test. You have two options (cookie or cream) and you’re correct either way. Get it?

Super Important Test” marks not only the conclusion of W+K’s Oreo’s “Cookie vs. Creme” campaign that began with the buzzed-about “Whisper Fight” spot from the Super Bowl and the subsequent “Separator Machine” clips, but the relationship between W+K and the Mondelez brand itself. As you may know, Draftfcb and now the Martin Agency work primarily on the Oreo account.

Anyhow, W+K curated quite a bit of content for the website–more than 30 different videos may play after you click cookie or creme–but this type of limited platform really begs the question: What’s the point? How does this sort of advertising advance the OREO brand in any meaningful way? I’m asking a serious question, not just trying to be glib, so if there is an answer, please post a comment.

Virality for the sake of virality is turning into a common approach for most creatives, and a website full of 30 unrelated internet videos that may or may not be funny seems like a great way to waste an advertising budget. Oreo was never going to choose cookie over cream or vice versa, but it didn’t have to choose. This is a case of a clever idea that simply ran out of ingredients.

Stills and credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Circa Film

Voici le travail de l’animateur de talent James Chiny (aussi connu sous le pseudonyme d’Hypoly) qui a réalisé cette magnifique vidéo appelée « Circa ». Une création en immersion dotée d’une direction artistique très réussie, aidée par un sound-design signé Echoic. Le film est à découvrir en vidéo dans la suite de l’article.

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Auto Trader begins biggest ever marketing investment

Auto Trader, the online car retailer, is launching a new TV ad today to promote the breadth, scale and usability of its service as part of its largest marketing investment to date.

New York Times apresenta redesign de seu website

Para a maioria dos sites que buscam se atualizar, há um debate interminável entre estética e experiência do usuário. Já para o New York Times, seu redesign tenta principalmente repensar como cada história é consumida, o que a liga estritamente ao seu significado e até mesmo a sua veracidade.

De cara nova, as histórias ganham scroll infinito e todos os elementos de interação – fotos, vídeos, infográficos – não se escondem mais em miniaturas no canto da página. Agora, todas as mídias são embedadas diretamente no corpo do texto.

As páginas ganham respiro e bastante espaço em branco, sumindo com muitos dos links que ficavam ao redor. Antes, era regra para os grandes portais darem ao leitor o número máximo de links em uma página, para clicarmos infinitamente. Hoje, os usuários estão acostumados às experiências mais suaves, limpas e intuitivas, principalmente depois da ascensão do mobile.

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Uma das maiores mudanças, além da simplicidade, está nos comentários. Antes sempre posicionados ao final de cada artigo, agora  estão mais próximos do autor, ocupando o mesmo peso e espaço. Assim, a voz dos usuários ganha importância de discurso e a conversa ao redor dos artigos dão continuidade ao tema.

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Já a divisão do conteúdo em categorias continua sendo aplicada, mesmo com algoritmos podendo propiciar uma navegação mais personalizada e natural, como temos visto acontecer quando falamos startups de conteúdo.

Essa opção de busca e seções tradicionais mantém certa tradição do jornal, que prega por transparência e abertura a todos os fatos. A interação e personalização acontece na marcação de favoritos e na barra de navegação das categorias, tornando-a mais próxima do usuário, sem a necessidade de usar algoritmos para prever o interesse de cada um.

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As mudanças indicam a necessidade do NYT de mudar para preservar sua perspectiva editorial confiável em um mundo que muda a todo instante.

Para o jornal, tendo você um iPhone, um Adroid, um laptop ou web app, o importante é que a publicação seja a mesma, confiável e que propicie uma experiência que permita engajar os leitores. Aqui, o layout não é mais uma discussão sobre uma página na tela, e sim sobre a informação.

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Por enquanto, o redesign do NYT é um protótipo em beta aberto a alguns usuários que pedirem acesso através deste site.

Brainstorm9Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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