Hasta La Creative!

The glory of Grand Central Terminal got a little touch of Target this weekend when the retailer built a life-size dollhouse in the middle of the station to promote its Threshold home dcor line.

Created via agency Deutsch, Los Angeles, the 1,600-square-foot installation is made up of interlocking 4-by-8 panels that were fitted together in just 54 hours to create an open-plan house, as well as a patio and lawn area that will show off the line. There are somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 products on display in the house, everything from towels to lamps to throw pillows, and each one — other than a couch, a dining room table and a headboard — are for sale by Target.

The installation will be open to the public through Tuesday. Shawn Gensch, Target’s senior-VP marketing, said that while Threshold launched in the Fall, the full assortment of items was only made available recently. Doing a pop-up installation is a way for the retailer to show off everything in a collection in one place, an opportunity that’s not always possible at individual stores.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Nicholas Milligan, the managing director of Sky Media, has died in a speedboat accident in Padstow, Cornwall.

Recently, HubSpot published its 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report. The report is a comprehensive look at , well, the state of inbound marketing. What’s inbound marketing you ask? Inbound marketing is a data-driven strategy that attracts and converts visitors into customers through personalized, relevant information and content. It’s less about interrupting the consumer during their media consumption and all about being there with informative content when they have a particular need.

According to the study, marketers are twice as likely to experience a below average cost per lead from inbound marketing efforts as compared to outbound marketing efforts. And inbound marketing was found to deliver 54% more leads than outbound marketing. In terms of cost per lead efficiencies by medium, social media and email lead in delivering below average cost per lead. For each, 27% or marketers report achieving lower average cost per leads.

Trade shows trail the pack in terms of cost per lead efficiencies. The study also found 16% of marketers reported industry conferences as the most expensive channel through which to acquire leads.

While social media and email are tops in lead generating efficiencies, SEO and social media are tops in delivering conversions.

The study’s author, Meghan Lockwood, is quick to point out the 7% blog conversion rate may be a little misleading when compared to social media which includes multiple sources such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. The study found 43% of marketers garnered new customers from their blog.

Within social media, 52% percent of respondent report acquiring a new customer through Facebook followed by LinkedIn and blogs at 43%.

The study also found that 82% of marketers who blog daily report positive ROI from their efforts. In fact, 54% marketers who blog as infrequently as once a month still experience positive return.

Check out the full study here.

A pitch for a secret product. An account resigned in spite. A thwarted IPO. A surprise merger.

For all those put off by the feeling that “Mad Men” has in its sixth season veered into the soap operatic, last night’s episode should be a return to form. Chock full of agency-business swashbuckling and devoid of any scenes of Don Draper slipping into bed with the doctor’s wife, the episode sets up the remaining half of the season with some big questions. We’ll get to those later. First, last night’s action.

The opening shot gives us a banker who, in addition to bearing a passing resemblance to Martin Sorrell, has been vetting Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s books for a potential stock offering that would make Joan, who presumably holds the least amount of equity, a near-millionaire. She, Pete and Bert are in the room. Is it weird that Draper and Sterling aren’t? Of course it is, but, hey, this is TV.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

USA Network is calling all Mofys — its nickname for rabid “Modern Family” fans it’s banking will tune in when reruns of the sitcom premiere in the fall.

Alexandra Shapiro, exec VP-marketing and digital at USA, is promoting the launch with the kind of aggressive marketing plan usually reserved for first-run shows. The 14-week push includes a robust slate of on-air, digital and on-the-ground initiatives.

There’s a lot riding on “Modern Family,” which the network acquired in 2010 after its freshman season on ABC for a reported $1.4 million per episode. It premieres on USA Sept. 24. It will air five nights per week in prime time and serve as a platform for USA to launch its own original comedies.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The problem with this 30-second spot for Crickett's My First Rifle .22-caliber single-shot gun is that it basically markets it as a toy. We see a school-age boy wide-eyed with excitement when he gets his shiny new weapon—"My first rifle," the voiceover enthuses, "a moment you never forget!"—while his chum is glum because he has to make do with a soccer ball. Sis gets a pretty pink Crickett, and the whole happy, gun-toting clan shoot together at the range. (That kid's ear protection is bigger than his head!) The commercial plays like an anti-firearms parody forged by left-wingers … but feels cruelly ironic in the wake of the accidental fatal shooting of a 2-year-old Kentucky girl by her 5-year-old brother, who'd received a Crickett rifle as a gift the previous year. The most troubling aspect of the ad is its attempt to portray the main kid as a miniature adult, even dressing him in shooting vest and matching cap (with Crickett's logo and tagline clearly visible). Guns should be for those who are old enough to appreciate what life and death really are, and who can take responsibility for their actions, never mistaking a potentially deadly weapon for a toy. Crickett—which removed its website after the shooting—stresses learning gun safety at an early age in the spot, which is all well and good. But accidents happen, even in supervised situations. Besides, kids aren't exactly known for their impulse control, or for always following rules, and I doubt many of them, especially at the age shown here, can truly understand the awesome obligation that comes with pulling a trigger. Expecting them to do so assumes an unreasonable level of maturity and seems horribly unfair; it strips away a bit of their innocence best left intact for a few years more. Via Slate.

Algumas das ideias mais bacanas e interessantes que já vi por aí são também as mais simples. No caso da campanha Sólo para Niños, que a Grey Espanha criou para Fundación Anar, os criativos tiveram uma sacada excelente ao inserir duas mensagens distintas em um único cartaz, uma delas visível somente por crianças, utilizando uma imagem lenticular – aquela que vai ficando diferente de acordo com o ângulo de visão.

Para isso, eles levaram em conta que a média de altura entre adultos no país é de 1,75m, enquanto as crianças até 10 anos medem cerca de 1,35 – o que possibilitaria ângulos de visão diferentes. Enquanto adultos enxergavam a mensagem de conscientização, as crianças visualizavam uma mensagem oferecendo ajuda, com o número do telefone para denúncias. A informação chegava até elas de maneira discreta, mesmo na presença do abusador.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
Twitter | Facebook | Contato | Anuncie

The ads are a riff on the scene familiar to TV viewers: the company’s prize patrol knocking on the doors of winners.

Voici la nouvelle campagne de la chaîne TNT imaginée autour de 4 visuels (Wedding, Bear, Children, Dead) montrant des situations inattendues et le drame qui pourrait arriver ensuite. La campagne a été shooté par le photographe Nadav Kander, basé à Londres. A découvrir en grand format dans la suite.