Hasta La Creative!

Graham Appleby, the director of commercial partnerships at Sky Media, has left the media company this summer under the radar after 16 years.

(TrendHunter.com) Graphic artist Mike V has turned classic Disney princesses into tough 16-bit style fighter girls for Capcom! Ever wondered what Snow White would look like as a Street Fighter character? Or if…

Chris Locke, the trading director at Starcom MediaVest Group, talks us through some of the highlights of commercial television in the last decade.

Sur demande du Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, le photographe Joseph Ford marie ses vues aériennes prises au Maroc, en Sicile, à l’Ile Maurice avec les textures et couleurs de vêtements et accessoires signés Missoni, Boss, Kenzo, APC, Herno, Woolrich et Swatch, sélectionnés avec la styliste Almut Vogel.

The rise of social media has forced marketers and agencies to re-evaluate how they structure teams to better handle this new layer of marketing communication. It got us thinking.

How are agencies reconfiguring their teams to better function in the digital and social marketing era? How have agencies benefited from working not just with traditional creatives but how have they cast a wider net to include developers, freelance specialists and other partners? How do they then guard against “too many chefs in the kitchen”?

We queried several agencies and asked them what they are doing and what they have changed to improve how they work in an increasingly interconnected but complex industry. Some have retooled their org charts. Other have formed close partnerships. And still others have formed teams of people with seemingly unrelated skill sets.

More…

Following Google’s announcement Tuesday that the upcoming 4.4 version of Android will be named after its new partner Kit Kat, Nestle and JWT have launched a new advertisement on YouTube for the Kit Kat 4.4, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

The ad pokes fun at Apple’s self-serious style of advertisement, with “Chief Breaks Officer” Chris Catlin doing a pretty spot-on imitation of Apple designer Jony Ive’s accent and dramatic speaking style, while bragging of the Kit Kat 4.4’s features. These include “adjustable orientation,” “global coverage,” and compatibility “with all liquid accessories.” The tagline? A rhyming riff on Apple: “There’s a Kit Kat for that.”

Kit Kat’s website and social media sites have also been revamped to make the Kit Kat appear like a smartphone. The site is broken into categories including, “Hardware,” “Features,” “Accessories” and “Tech Spec” where you can read about Kit Kat’s “praline software, crisp waferware, and …unique chocolate unibody.”

Mmm…unique chocolate unibody. Confectionary perfectionary indeed.

JWT also designed the packaging on over 50 million specially branded Kit Kat bars in 19 international markets, including the UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany and Japan. The packs will lead consumers to android.com/kitkat, where they have the chance to win Google Nexus 7 tablets, credits to spend in Google Play, and other prizes. JWT has also created local campaigns across TV, outdoor, ambient, retail activation and experiential to run in these 19 international markets. The Kit Kat branding marks the first time Android’s operating system has launched under a brand name.  continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

[UPDATE: And here is the new logo!]

Yahoo is just hours away from that terrifying moment for any brand: the unveiling of a new logo. But the company has approached this rebranding a little differently.

A month ago, it launched "30 Days of Change," a project in which it unveiled a new logo each day—displaying each one on its homepage and throughout its network in the U.S. "It's our way of having some fun while honoring the legacy of our present logo," Yahoo said.

The project has now featured 29 logos. The 30th, set to be introduced tonight at midnight ET/9 p.m. PT, will be the company's official new logo. Yahoo has not said whether No. 30 will be one of the previous 29, or a completely new mark. (If it's one of the earlier ones, then this whole thing appears to have been an elaborate focus-group test—wise, perhaps, given the vitriol that greets many new corporate logos.) This much we do know: "We'll be keeping the color purple, our iconic exclamation point and of course the famous yodel," says the company. "After all, some things never go out of style."

Whatever the case, it's worth looking at the 29 and asking if any of them is an improvement on the original. (Apologies for leading the witness, but we should mention that the Day 10 logo has fared best among the public, according to polling site Polar.) In fact, we have a 30th option to consider, too—as 99designs held its own unofficial contest to develop a new Yahoo logo, and has picked a winner.

So, below, check out Yahoo's 29 options from the past month, plus the 99designs victor. And tell us: Should any of them actually be the new Yahoo logo?

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99designs winner

An Australian group called GetUp (“an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation which aims to build a more progressive Australia”) is making a big stink about Australia’s three leading TV networks refusing to air its anti-Murdoch/anti-News Corp. ad. Scroll down below for more context.

GetUp claims on its website that,

This election campaign, News Corp has used the front pages of its tabloids to launch aggressive political campaigns against one side of politics, while failing to scrutinise the other. That’s why we created this ad. We want to call News Corp’s campaign out for what it it: biased crap. We want to show there is a movement of Australians who aren’t going to stand idly by while one man tries to tell an entire nation how to vote.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Apple is on a hiring binge as it scales its iAd team in anticipation of its Sep. 10., release of iTunes radio, its ad-supported streaming music service.

Apple had posted five iAd-related jobs to its own job board and another 35 to LinkedIn just in the month of August as of Friday. The openings are for a variety of jobs including account coordinators, ad design managers, project managers and engineers who will create new rich media ads for iAd.

In addition, Apple appears to be hiring ad execs with creative experience to help brands and agencies create better ads for its expanding iAd advertising network. When Apple launched its iAd mobile ad network in 2010 it exerted tight control over the creative to ensure that the content of the ads matched the look and feel of Apple products. With iTunes Radio and the introduction of audio and video ads to iAd, Apple is scaling up its iAd to accommodate the new ad formats.

Continue reading at AdAge.com