Hasta La Creative!

Expedia's "Find Yours" campaign from 180LA, which has produced some pretty forward-thinking and powerful spots in the recent past, is now encouraging you to "Find Your Spontaneity" by entering to win one of the travel service's daily free trips. The ad for the app-based promotion is a bit of an odd hybrid, though, with the first part devoted to Expedia reps explaining their smartphone app to random passers-by and the rest of the spot focused on a supposedly random guy who agreed to hop on a flight to China that evening. Expedia was going for some of the magic Heineken found with its Departure Roulette stunt, but they tried a little too hard, and the resulting ad feels jarringly artificial. Between the beautifully crafted travel shots and the sheer luck of catching a willing guy with a suitcase walking through a park, everything here just feels more staged than empowering. ("How did he get a visa so fast?" wonders one skeptical YouTube commenter.) But hey, a few theatrics are allowable if it means not having to watch an entire ad about how to use a mobile app. 

Absolut has revamped the branding of its range of flavoured vodkas, in a move described by brand owner Pernod Ricard (PR) as “our biggest and most transformative design project ever”.

Puma has launched a virtual football community that allows fans to engage with football stars including Thierry Henry, Cesc Fàbregas and Sergio Agüero.

For Kraft Foods Group, J-E-L-L-O has spelled disappointment of late. The brand — once known for fun advertising starring the likes of Jack Benny and Bill Cosby — has struggled to find its identity in recent years, while marketing reductions have been met with sales declines.

Kraft hopes to reverse the slide starting Monday with a new campaign the marketer says will return the brand’s focus to families and fun, ending the recent adult-targeted approach.

The goal is to reestablish Jell-O’s “core purpose” of “food for fun,” said Dan O’Leary, Kraft’s senior director of marketing for desserts. Marketing spending on Jell-O will double as part of the new effort, which includes TV, print and digital, he said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Jessica Butcher, co-founder of mobile augmented reality tech business Blippar, talked recently about how smartphones can now hear for us, see for us, and interpret the world for us, and are therefore becoming an extension of our physical senses.

Finally, with help from WPP-owned 171 Partners, HTC is getting creative. For their new “Here’s to Change” global campaign to promote  the HTC One smartphone, the brand has enlisted Robert Downey Jr. as both the star and purveyor of creative input. Engadget suggests that this is new CMO Ben Ho making good on his promise to make HTC’s voice louder.

So far, we’ve got RDJ as mysterious, self-important “Subversive Thinking,” a man with Terry Richardson glasses and a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He flies in a helicopter and enjoys high-fives. He wears a puce-colored tie. We meet him in HTC’s first teasers: “Big Things Ahead,” “Prelude to Change,” and “The Arrival.” The entire “Change” campaign should run 24 to 36 months, with the first 2-minute spot debuting Thursday. And with any luck, our main man will be quirkily cooing to that cat.

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Tesco and Next have scrambled to respond to a leaked speech by shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant criticising them for employing foreign workers to save money.

After Leesa Eichberger took the chief marketing job for Jenny Craig a few months ago, she got a similar response from people when sharing the news: “Oh, I love Jennifer Hudson.”

There was one problem. Ms. Hudson stars for Weight Watchers, not Jenny Craig. For Ms. Eichberger, the confusion symbolized the problem plaguing weight-management advertising. “The category just has a sea of same,” she said, marked by celebrity-filled spots and before-and-after pictures.

That is why for its next campaign debuting Monday, Jenny Craig is ditching the celebs. No more Valerie Bertinelli, Mariah Carey or Jason Alexander, who have all appeared in Jenny ads in recent years. Rather, the Nestle-owned marketer is taking a simpler approach with animated ads that plug its portion-controlled food and one-on-one support.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

We first inquired about this two weeks ago when the tips came in and have yet to hear back, but there seem to have been some notable defections in recent times from West Studios. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, West is the San Francisco-based shop that was launched two years ago by former Apple global marketing communications head, Allison Johnson, and was initially co-funded by Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey (we’re being told that Dorsey has since distanced himself from the company). During its initial launch, West was headed up by Johnson, former Martin Agency GCD Keith Cartwright and Katalyst digital head, Sarah Ross.

Well, as tipsters have pointed out, the latter two are no longer at West and in fact Cartwright doesn’t even acknowledge his time at the operation on their LinkedIn profiles. Of course, these aren’t the only notable departures from the SF shop in recent months. Travis Britton, former Cutwater principal/ECD who joined West as chief experience officer last year, has parted ways as has COO, Amanda Kelso (former W+K ECD Todd Waterbury was also in the mix but is now of course serving in the same role at Target). And today, we’re hearing that a major client is on the outs with the shop. We’re putting in more inquiries to the rather secretive West Studios, and will try to clarify what the state of the union is as soon as we hear more.

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(TrendHunter.com) Many girls don’t mind a little scruff on men’s faces, however, when it gets out of control, giving them the Obtineo Shave Set will solve the problem quickly.

This set has been designed for…