Hasta La Creative!

Arby’s Chief Marketing Officer Russ Klein has left the company.

In addition to Mr. Klein, senior VP-brand marketing and advertising Bob Kraut also exited the chain.

A spokesman from Arby’s said Mr. Klein is "leaving the company to pursue other opportunities." Said the company in a statement: “During his tenure at the company, Russ’s leadership supported significant accomplishments in the areas of brand positioning, advertising strategy and new product development.”

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AXE deodorant advertising around the world is based on the bold (but tongue-in-cheek) proposition that use of AXE is irresistible to the opposite sex – “The AXE effect”. This activation offers help for the man who has been snubbed by his female friend – “break the glass in case she said no”. These units were placed in public toilets in popular nightspots where singles meet, and quickly became a talking point around town.

Advertising Agency: TBWA East Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
Executive Creative Director: Jimmy Geeraerts
Art Director: Yash Deb
Copywriter: Mark Kovalevsky

Finally, a more moving use for augmented reality. JWT China teamed up with missing children listings site Baby Back Home to help turn China’s 1.4 billion citizens into search volunteers. The problem: in China, 20,000 children go missing each year, kidnapped and sold into child prostitution, slave labor or turned out on the street as beggars.

In a country the size of China, finding them is near impossible. To alleviate the issue, the agency put augmented reality statues in major cities in the country — when viewed via an app, the story of a missing child, and his or her parents’ pleas to help them could be heard. Even better, the app let people take photos of kids they might think were kidnapped.

The app then used face recognition tech to compare it to the listings on the Baby Back Home site to identify a match. According to the agency, two families were united in a week after launch. The app has been downloaded 20,000 times.

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Das coisas que a internet permitiu que fossem criadas, a Wikipedia pode ser considerada ao mesmo tempo uma das melhores e piores. Porque , da mesma forma que permite que a gente encontre informações que não estariam em outros lugares, ao mesmo tempo a gente acaba desconfiando se aquilo está correto ou se é verdade. Afinal,  esta liberdade, que é o mais legal – todo mundo pode colaborar e compartilhar o seu conhecimento – também permite que o conteúdo não seja tão acurado, às vezes nem mesmo checado.

Ambivalências à parte, eu sempre tive uma certa curiosidade para saber como seria uma imagem da Wikipedia sendo construída – ou costurada, que seja, como uma enorme colcha de retalhos. Foi mais ou menos isso o que encontrei no Wikipedia Recent Changes Map, um site que mostra uma localização aproximada de usuários não-cadastrados e quais são os artigos que estão sendo editados.

E olha que não é pouca coisa: em 12 anos foram mais de 22 milhões de artigos publicados em 285 línguas e 77 mil colaboradores ativos (segundo a própria Wikipedia em sua página Sobre). A primeira coisa ruim é que apenas alguns idiomas constam neste projeto, entre eles inglês, alemão, russo, japonês, espanhol, francês, holandês, italiano, sueco, árabe e indonésio. Ou seja, quando alguém estiver editando a Wikipedia em português, a gente não vai conseguir visualizar. Pelo menos não neste site.

Um dado interessante é que os colaboradores da Wikepedia que não são registrados respondem por 15% do total de edições. Neste mapa, eles são localizados por seus IPs, que são traduzidos para uma localização aproximada. No caso dos editores registrados, o IP não aparece, o que faz com que este mapa seja uma representação reduzida deste universo.

Para fazer este mapeamento, os idealizadores do projeto Stephen LaPorte e Mahmoud Hashemi contam que usaram serviços e fontes que incluem o D3, DataMaps e freegeoip.net, além de usar dados transmitidos pelo Wikimon. A inspiração veio do WikipediaVision, que também oferece uma visualização quase que em tempo real, mas talvez não hipnotizante quanto esta. Você fica prestando atenção para ver qual será a próxima mudança e de onde ela virá… Sem contar a curiosidade para saber no que foi que a pessoa mexeu…

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Now this is interesting. You may have heard about that JCPenney billboard ion Culver City that sparked debate because the visual of a tea kettle looked like Hitler. Now, it seems, even more Hitler has been found on the board. A copywriter who publishes the VerdantMug Tumblr noticed that within the billboard’s copy, Hitler’s name — in order — is spelled out.

Is this like that sick joke where some art director placed some phallic symbol on the cover of a Disney video? Or is it just an odd coincidence? We may never know.

Prior to this latest discovery and following the news the image looked like Hitler, JCPEnney pulled the billboard and has said any resemblance is “unintentional.” The retailer has also remove the teapot from its online store.

Of course, some think the kerfuffle is just that; an over blowen reaction to an innocuous teapot. On JCPenney’s Facebook page, a woman named Leigh Anne posted, “People are so stupid! That teapot doesn’t look like Hitler anymore than I do.”

In pere-internet days, this would probably have blown over unnoticed. Now, of course, all it takes is a few people to publicly post their thoughts which results in the lemming-like behavior of everyone else, including the the media, to jump on the bandwagon.

Though we have to admit, discovering the word Hitler within the copy does call into question whether or not the billboard’s creators had any clandestine thoughts when they concepted the board.

PepsiCo has tapped Kristin Patrick as its senior VP-global CMO for the Pepsi trademark, following a ten month search.

In keeping with PepsiCo's new global model, Ms. Patrick will be responsible for brand management and architecture across the Pepsi trademark globally. She will lead all communication, including the continued roll out and evolution of the "Live For Now" platform. Additionally, she will lead the global beverage group innovation team and define priorities and expansion opportunities for Pepsi.

Ms. Patrick, who starts on June 3, will report to Brad Jakeman, president-global beverages group, and work hand-in-hand with Simon Lowden, CMO at Pepsi Beverages North America.

Continue reading at AdAge.com