Hasta La Creative!

House of Fraser has appointed Wickes marketer Tony Holdway to the newly created role of director of brand.

Facebook’s user base could approach 1.8 billion in 2017, fueled by new users in populous emerging markets.

While Facebook’s user growth is tailing off in the U.S., U.K., Canada and western Europe, there’s plenty of room to grow in population centers such as Brazil, Russia and India, according to new estimates by eMarketer.

The Facebook user base in North America is expected to grow by only 3.6% this year, compared to 34.4% in the Asia-Pacific region, 29.5% in Latin America, 31.8% in the Middle East and Africa and 29.3% in central and eastern Europe. The explosive growth in places like Brazil, which is expected to grow its 69 million users this year to 103.9 million in 2017, explains why Facebook has been accelerating its business development efforts there.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Blondes may or may not have more fun, but at least in the case of Beyonce, blonde makes for a more popular ad.

Last week H&M rolled out two ads [below] featuring the pop star. In one, her hair is blond and she’s wearing a swimsuit, in the other it’s brunette and she’s wearing a revealing dress. Both ads feature the same song and similar dance routines.

The ad featuring Beyonce as a blonde scored significantly better with consumers, and 16% of consumers mentioned the singer by name, according to research from AceMetrix. In contrast, in the ad featuring Beyonce as a brunette, attention scores were lower and only 7% of consumers referenced the singer by name. Of course, it could be that the Beyonce in a bikini outperforms Beyonce in a wet, clinging dress.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) If you’ve ever wondered what famous people from the past would look like if they were alive now, UK’s history channel has got you covered with these modern historical figure portraits….

The company is building on those commercials by offering consumers the chance to send personalized video cards.

Advertising Agency: Loud&Clear, Australia
Director: Jordan Prosser
Creative Director: keith Walsh
Copywriter: Tait Ischia
Producer: Steven Jablonski
Executive Producer: Joel Beath
DoP: Mark Morris

This unique web app gives visitors the opportunity to receive a blessing with just two glides. Suggestive of the popular iPhone interface by Apple, the initiative aims to draw attention on the Annual Collection of the Catholic Church of Montreal.

Advertising Agency: DentsuBos, Montreal, Canada
Creative Directors: Simon Beaudry, Roger Gariépy, Hugo Léger
Art Directors: Simon Beaudry, Sébastien Deland
Copywriters: Cédric Audet, Xavier Blais
Account Director: Sylvie Marsan
Account Executives: Vanessa Labrecque, Stéphanie Harton
Digital Strategy: Jean-François Deschamps

Performance-based incentives for U.S. agencies continue to gain popularity among marketers, according to a new survey, despite mixed reviews from agency executives on how much difference they really make.

The study was released by the Association of National Advertisers and consulting firm R3:JLB at the ANA Financial Management Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Compensation plans that place a value on agency work separate from the labor or media spending involved have essentially disappeared despite being talked about with much fanfare several years ago by Coca-Cola Co. Even media commissions, the old industry standard that ‘s largely disappeared, are now in 5% of agency agreements, vs. no value-based plans reported among the 100 ANA member respondents in this year’s survey, said David Beals, CEO of R3:JLB. He blamed the lack of readily available objective data for determining the value.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) Oyster Magazine’s ‘Blossom Boxer’ editorial is full of sunshine, flowers and bizarre, flirty poses. The model seen in these funky photographs is artist Langley Fox Hemingway (as in Ernest…

(TrendHunter.com) Alex Prager, a photographer living and working in Los Angeles, California, has a knack for the dramatic. It helps that his environment not only condones these tendencies, but encourages it. Having…