Hasta La Creative!

Incoming NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is about to become the most popular man in sports TV.

The NBA’s national media deals with ESPN/ABC and Turner Sports’ TNT – which pay a combined $930 million per year – expire after the 2015/2016 season. But the NBA will start discussions with TV networks this summer and could make a decision by 2014, according to people familiar with the matter.

Outside of the Big Ten Conference’s $1 billion annual deal with ESPN that runs through 2017, the NBA is the only big-time brand coming up for bid in the next few years. With new national sports cable networks such as Fox Sports 1 and NBC Sports Network thirsting for live game programming, the NBA could boost its annual rights fees by 50% to 100%, if not more, said Ed Desser of Desser Sports Media.

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When you ask a CMO what it takes to build a successful brand, you’ll likely hear it goes far beyond frontline commitment. When asked in a recent Forrester survey what parts of the organization are critical to brand-building success, marketing leaders agreed unanimously that it’s “a companywide effort that requires employees in all departments to be brand ambassadors.”  Nearly all, 96%, believe that executive team commitment to brand-building is critical to success.

Yet while marketing leaders see the importance of enterprise-wide support in brand building efforts, the reality doesn’t reflect this belief.  For instance, while 88% of these marketing leaders consider it important to have a clearly defined brand promise to guide the organization, only 55% rate their organizations as consistently doing so. Just a third of respondents said that employees can articulate the brand promise or are empowered to deliver a great brand experience.   

The September 2012 Global Marketing Leadership Online Survey included 67 marketing leaders: 61% from the United States, 24% from Europe, 12% from Asia Pacific, 1.5% from Russia, and 1.5% from Africa/Middle East. 

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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For the past year, country singer Jana Kramer has sung the catchy “Nationwide is on your side” jingle. Wednesday night, during the CMT Music Awards, she’ll receive a promotion of sorts when she takes center stage in the brand’s new commercial.

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Now that women are the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of American households, it's a great time for Swiffer to co-opt the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter—who urged women to roll up their sleeves and join the workforce during World War II—and use her to get women back in the kitchen where they belong! Funny thing, though, a lot of women objected to that, and now Procter & Gamble, in one of those smart moves where companies actually listen to their consumers, is working to remove the image everywhere it's being used. Satisfied consumers are chanting Rosie's slogan of "We can do it!" relatively pleased that Swiffer heard them.

Our core value is to make cleaning easier, no matter who's behind the handle. We apologize and are working hard to remove the image.

— Swiffer (@Swiffer) June 4, 2013

If you didn't know the history, the ad would seem boring at best. It has a woman in Rosie's trademark red polkadot hairkerchief and rugged denim button-down holding a Swiffer steam mop with an arched eyebrow and a no-nonsense look on her face. She's about to get her deep clean on with steam clean. If wardrobe had put that woman in nearly any other outfit, we wouldn't have thought twice about it. But now bloggers are not only upset over the soon-to-be-destroyed Swiffer ad, they're scrutinizing the entire cleaning category, which has been overpopulated for far too long with the sort of sexist bullshit that demeans both sexes, reducing men to bumbling children and elevating women to powerful princesses of cleanliness. Which is ridiculous.

I recommend they take some tips from Tide. Look, gender doesn't matter in cleaning. Women, men, even children and probably a few intelligent dogs can mop a floor. And that will be true until we ditch our Swiffers and start mopping the floor with our genitalia.

“Join the fight against cough.”

Advertising Agency: DLBGROUP, Caracas, Venezuela
Creative Executive Director: Okarina Castaño
Creative Director: Okarina Castaño, José Luis Montilla
Art Director: José Luis Montilla
Copywriter: Okarina Castaño
Photographer: Gustavo Dao

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Argentina
ECD: Javier Mentasti, Maximiliano Maddalena
Art Director: Daniel Correa
Copywriter: Lucas Antunes / Belen Galiotti
Head of audiovisual production: Valeria Pinto
Agency producers: Gastón Sueiro / Alejandro Travaglini
Production Company: Rebolucion
Director: Nicolas Nubile
Photography Director: Marcos Hastrup / Mariano Benchimol / Max Ruggieri
Executive producer: Patricio Alvarez Casado
Producer: Mariano Fernandez
Editor: Martin Olemberg /Ricardo Levaggi
Head of Production: Adrian Matoso
Costumes: Manuela Marti
Director’s Assistant: Julieta Casalla / Matias Gutierrez
Band Production and Music: Grupo TEDx / Rucatampam – Santiago Inglese
Responsible for the client: Juan Martín Lutteral / Agustina García Estrada

Ever stood slack-jawed on a street corner with a friend trying to figure out where to go to throw back a beer? Or debated whether it'd be better to hop on that approaching bus or descend into the subway to catch a train? The latest nifty gadget from the hardware and software engineers at Breakfast offers a slick solution to those problems, and others. Called "Points," it's a rotating digital street sign built to display a flexible range of data, from which favorably reviewed restaurants are within walking distance to nearby tweets. And it comes with an at-hand, interactive menu of options that can be programmed to change based on the time of day (are you hungry for breakfast or dinner?) or the needs of a particular setting (sports scores at a stadium).

Feats of technology and design aside, at least some of the info is already accessible to people with smartphones in their pockets. It's easy, though, to imagine the value of aggregating and conveniently serving up certain cues in the context of their environments—especially at big, often chaotic events like music festivals, where signs could literally and dynamically direct attendees toward the overlapping acts going up on different stages. Unlike some of Breakfast's other projects, "Points" wasn't created for a particular brand client, but the agency sees myriad ways to customize the interface for marketers, including, naturally, at sponsored events and locations. That not to mention the obvious public-service and tourism applications for municipal governments. So, what say all you brand jockeys out there—on point, or pointless?