(TrendHunter.com) This summer in New York City, keep an eye out for the anti-ice cream truck encouraging kids to make healthy choices this summer.
Research performed by Ohio State University in conjunction with…
John Billett, the founder of Billetts International, has taken a minority stake in the marketing consultancy business ID Comms, as it seeks to develop a new way to measure media performance.
ZenithOptimedia has elevated Nicole Pruesse, its chairman of VivaKi DACH, to the new role of chief executive of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.
Today, Lexus joins Kanye West on the interactive music video bandwagon. To promote the 2014 Lexus IS sport sedan, ATTIK and Blueyed Pictures created “Amazing Mix,” a surprisingly cool interactive adscape with Cirque du Soleil characters, red birds, and kaleidoscopic effects. Site visitors can type any key (or combination thereof — try “LEXUS” for a special show) to make a mix of these effects, then submit the result for a chance to win tickets to the 2014 Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival, hotel stay at the event and $2,000, or a $500 cash prize.
Like with their Instagram film campaign, this is a step in the right direction for the automaker, though they didn’t get every aspect right. The music that backs Amazing Mix is a weird, blank James Bond knockoff, while the site that surrounds the scene is remarkably 2006. If Lexus wanted an immersive, individualized experience, they should have placed the mix on its own, minimalist page. Also, who are they targeting here? Middle-aged foodies who find Internet oddities amusing? That seems the only logical conclusion when the related prize is tix to the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival. If they’re going for young car owners (which they should be, with the tech and art angle), then that destination isn’t exactly enticing. Make the message more cohesive, and get us to XOXO, or Electric Zoo.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Online-only retailers including Ocado and Shop Direct are writing to George Osborne, blasting proposals for an online sales tax proposed by Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Topshop.
(TrendHunter.com) The Alexis Mabille couture 2013 Fall collection was an amazing runway with a mix of structure, color and references to the past. Mabille has been a revered designer for some time now, always…
Sources familiar with the matter confirm that Christopher Reardon, the U.K. native who’s spent nearly four years at TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, has turned in his resignation at the agency as of last week. No word yet on when his last day is or where he’s headed, but Reardon has most recently served as executive director of brand experience at TBWA\C\D NY. His departure comes on the heels of Chiat NY’s executive director of operations Jonathan Stern quietly leaving for the director of digital strategy on IBM post at OgilvyOne and head of production Robert Valdes quietly splitting for Droga5. Yes, quietly.
Anyhow, prior to his four-year stint at TBWA\C\D NY, Reardon worked on the UX side at the likes of Schematic and NBC. We’re hearing some sort of announce at Chiat NY might be in the works today, but no confirmation as of yet. We’ll keep you updated.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
As a guy living on a cramped, overpopulated island — Manhattan — that lacks most American big-box retail chains, I used to have something of a Walmart fetish. In fact, whenever I'd go to visit my mom in suburban Rhode Island, I'd always sort of hope she'd want to bring me to the land of "Always Low Prices."
My mom, you see, usually has errands she wants me to help her run when I visit — things like shopping for heavy stuff that she'd rather not manage on her own. (She'll say things like "You're so strong" — exactly the sort of thing a deskbound writer likes to hear — as I grab giant sacks of kitty litter off a store shelf and heave them into a shopping cart. I love my mom.) Out of all the stores we might visit, Walmart was, for a long time, the most alluring to me.
For good reasons: The spacious aisles, wider than my apartment! The ridiculously low prices! And, of course, the overall Walmart mythology — the most successful chain store in history, with sales that add up to more than 2% of the U.S. GDP.
Instagram video has only been live for a month, but brands are finding ways to use it to distribute existing 15-second ads.
Carnival Cruises is among the latest to tap into fast-growing Instagram video, posting nine clips featuring archetypal sun-filled holiday scenes of passengers tanning and a smiling bartender mixing fruity drinks. And then sometime last week, all of them disappeared.
The holidays will soon be here — and that spells trouble for JC Penney if it can’t quickly beef up its decimated marketing ranks.
The retailer plans to hire a marketing leader shortly, according to two executives close to the company. The top candidate: Debra Berman, VP-marketing and engagement at Kraft Foods Group.
Until Deanie Elsner was promoted to chief marketing officer in January, Ms. Berman served as de facto CMO for the newly formed Kraft Foods, overseeing media and marketing strategy for brands that spend in excess of $500 million globally on advertising. Ms. Berman is an Ad Age Media Maven and has been with Kraft since 2009, when she joined as senior director-global planning and strategy. In that role, she brought more brand work and planning in-house, taking some responsibility away from creative agencies. Prior to joining Kraft, she worked at DDB, and spent time at Y&R, Lintas and Saatchi & Saatchi.
(TrendHunter.com) This stunning and sparkly beauty series for Heren Magazine features glittery makeup and gorgeous tropical scenery. Photographer Jeon Seung is the mastermind behind this eye-catching editorial. Many…
Publicis Chemistry has boosted its planning department with two senior hires, Sharon Curr and Toby Richards.
Franchise est un projet mené par Animography réunissant un typographe et 110 animateurs recrutés partout dans le monde : chacun d’eux a choisi et animé un glyphe de la police de caractère créée pour l’occasion, utilisant uniquement 4 couleurs dans Adobe After Effects. Un glyphe, un style pour une animation très réussie.
When was the last time you saw a stadium full of people festooned unironically in stars-and-stripes face paint and singing together? If your answer is “never,” you haven’t been watching the U.S. men’s national soccer team work its way through World Cup qualifiers the past few months.
Even though the World Cup finals in Brazil don’t begin until next summer, qualification is well underway. Like the Olympics, the World Cup comes once every four years, but qualifying matches begin more than a year before that to determine which of the world’s 203 national teams make it into the final 32.
For lesser soccer countries (say, Canada or China) the World Cup is already over. Even some legendary powers such as England, France and Mexico have fights on their hands to make it to the finals in 2014.
Volvo, ThinkPad, AMC Theaters and, possibly soon, Smithfield Foods. All household names in the U.S., all with Chinese owners. And if the world’s two largest economies can strike an investment treaty — as is being discussed — many more could join them.
For years, China’s corporate investors seeking opportunities abroad stuck to oil fields and copper mines. But now they’re delving into areas like entertainment, luxury and travel, and sending a new message: Chinese companies have big bucks, and they want your brands.
“You’re seeing a maturation of Chinese outward investment. They still care about resources but they’ve added other kinds of purchases to these buys,” said Derek Scissors, senior research fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. “They’re interested in sectors where brands matter.”
Ad Age’s 10th-annual Hispanic Fact Pack, distributed with the July 22 issue of the magazine, shows a very different U.S. Hispanic market than the one we examined a decade ago. This year’s 44-page guide includes the latest rankings of the top 50 Hispanic advertisers, the 50 largest Hispanic agencies and all agencies with media-services revenue above $3 million. Check out data about marketers, 2012 ad spending and demographic trends as well as rankings of top properties in TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, online media and social networking.
The digital edition of the Hispanic Fact Pack will be available free to view here through Aug. 21, 2013, and will be available for $29 after that.
In our inaugural Hispanic Fact Pack, we reported that 2003 U.S. Hispanic media spending totaled $2.8 billion. That nearly tripled to $7.9 billion in 2012. And Hispanic internet display spending, now at $431 million, wasn’t even measured a decade ago.
On the soccer field, the Confederations Cup had to be considered a success, as host Brazil trounced defending World Cup champion Spain, 3-0, in the final late last month.
Halfords has created a special press ad showing a crown with bike helmet straps to celebrate Chris Froome’s victory in the Tour de France yesterday.
Apple has admitted a hacker may have accessed account details of its community of 275,000 developers, as it becomes the latest tech firm to fall victim to a high-profile hack.
Interpublic Group, the owner of the McCann Worldwide and UM networks, has reported pre-tax profits of $147.9 million (£96.8 million), down 4.6 per cent year on year despite revenue increasing by 2.4 per cent.
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