Hasta La Creative!

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has launched its first ever ad campaign targeting international fans.

And now, some quick people news to break things up a bit. It looks like Goodby alums Hunter Hindman and Rick Condos have been ramping up the creative department at their fellow San Francisco-based operation, Argonaut, as of late. Just weeks after welcoming former Deutsch LA EVP/group digital CD David Kim aboard, Argonaut has brought on CP+B alum Chean Wei Law as their newest creative director. Wei Law, aka undoboy, spent the last three-plus years at CP+B, serving as interactive design director and working on notable projects including the nifty outdoor Jell-O Mood Meter while also helping lead design departments for other agency clients including Domino’s, Coke Zero and Old Navy.  Prior to CP+B, Wei Law spent a few years as an art director at both W+K Portland and JWT New York.

Now at Argonaut, the CD will  work directly with head of creative technology and production Robbie Whiting while reporting to Hindman and Condos.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Se você acompanha o noticiário internacional, deve perceber uma certa frequência em notícias sobre estupros na Índia. E, por incrível que pareça, a mulher continua levando a pior, já que não basta ser vítima deste crime, mas de acordo com alguns setores indianos, elas também são as responsáveis. O absurdo é tão grande que virou piada pelas mãos do coletivo de humor All India Bakchod (AIB 365), que trata o assunto com sarcasmo e humor em It’s Your Fault.

Já tem algumas semanas que o vídeo criado por Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba, Rohan Joshi e Ashish Shakya tem rodado a internet. Com uma pegada de televenda, elas transformaram os comentários infelizes de lideranças do país em uma espécie de cartilha de prevenção à violência contra a mulher. Detalhe: ao mesmo tempo em que apresentam as sugestões dos conservadores, elas explicam porque as mesmas não vão funcionar.

O roteiro é muito bem amarrado, com argumentos ora inteligentes, ora tão absurdos quanto os comentários que os originaram:

“Estudos científicos sugerem que mulheres que usam saias são a principal causa de estupro. Você sabe por quê? Porque homens têm olhos.”

O vídeo também mostra alguns exemplos de roupas provocativas que poderiam resultar em algum crime de violência sexual.

Em outro momento, a apresentadora ensina que, se ao chamar os estupradores de Bhaya (irmão), eles cessarão imediatamente com a violência. Este trecho é uma referência direta ao guru indiano Asaram Bapu, que destacou que uma estudante estuprada e morta por cinco homens em um ônibus no ano passado também foi culpada pelo crime, uma vez que ela não deveria ter resistido, mas sim rezado para Deus e pedido que os homens que a atacaram a deixassem em paz, referindo-se a eles como Bhaya.

A lista de “razões” para que as os estupros ocorram também é surreal: comida, filmes, celulares… Sem esquecer, é claro, os horários em que as mulheres estão na rua, trabalhando – afinal, para que ser independente se você pode ter um marido para te sustentar… “Fato divertido: se é o seu marido, não é estupro”.

A mensagem final é clara e séria: parem de culpar a vítima. Vale para a Índia e para qualquer lugar do mundo.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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ZenithOptimedia has launched FMCG Republic to boost the agency’s positioning in the competitive FMCG sector.

M&C Saatchi gained the attention of passing pedestrians in Milan by creating an installation that looks like a submarine emerging in Milan’s Piazza Mercanti, crashing into a nearby motorist.

The surreal stunt was created for insurance companies Genertel IT and Europ Assistance IT as part of their “Protect Your Life” campaign. It featured a rescue team, a group of stunned sailors, and one irate Smart Car driver. To make sure the point (Which is what exactly? It’s really hard to extract from this confusing scene) was not lost on pedestrian witnesses, “a man in scuba diving gear was on hand to speak to people about the importance of safeguarding their possessions.” Because anytime people need something explained to them: bam, a man in scuba gear.

I’m a fan of good old-fashioned Italian surrealism, so I can appreciate this from that point of view. But I can’t really make much sense of it from a marketing standpoint. Protect your possessions because you never know when a submarine will emerge out of nowhere? If you can make some sense of this, let us know in the comments section.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Beer has had a brutal year: Sales of big brands are down, more young adults are drinking wine and spirits, and new competitive threats loom, including the legalization of pot in some states.

Yet there was plenty of optimism in the air as nearly 4,000 distributors and suppliers gathered in Las Vegas last week for the National Beer Wholesalers Association annual meeting. While volumes are down, the industry remains hugely profitable.

Almost everyone agreed beer won’t return to full health until it regains volume, which has been held down by the sluggish trends of bellwethers like Miller Lite and Bud Light.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) Collaboration between footwear icon Diemme and Caliroots comes the C Store Diemme ‘Root Beer’ Bonito. This project offers a change up of the popularized chukka boot ‘Bonito’ in a new colorway….

While many news outlets identified what they said was the leading suspect in the 1996 Olympics bombing, the executive editor held The Times back.

Coca-Cola Co. is one of the few giants tracked by IRI and Boston Consulting Group that gained U.S. share in 2012. It did so in part with contributions from small brands like Fuze, Nos, Zico and Honest Tea. According to IRI, Honest Tea had sales of $76 million, while Zico reported sales of $36 million for the year ended Sept. 8. They’re part of the company’s Venturing and Emerging Brands group. Part investor, part incubator, the group is charged with identifying and developing the next billion-dollar brand.

None of those brands has gotten there yet, and only 3% of the more than 3,000 beverage brands worldwide ever reach the $20 million in sales Coca-Cola refers to as “proof of concept.” Still, the group, formed in 2007 several years after acquisitions of small brands Planet Java and Mad River fizzled, does appear to be helping Coca-Cola gain share as big peers mostly aren’t.

Similarly, L’Oral, which also gained share in the U.S. last year, has battled incursions by smaller players in part by acquiring and successfully expanding them — or by mimicking their approach.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Craig Dubitsky may represent big packaged-goods companies’ worst nightmare, but there’s a good chance they may not have even noticed him. He’s a small part of a big movement — an insurgent group of digitally enabled entrepreneurs gnawing away at the dominance of multibillion-dollar brands and their giant marketing budgets.

The former commodity trader has been nosing around their turf for over a decade. Mr. Dubitsky, age 47, became a board member and adviser to Method, maker of green cleaning products, when its founders were still working out of their apartment in 2001. Later he co-founded lip-balm marketer Eos (Evolution of Smooth); joined the board of alternative over-the-counter drug marketer Help Remedies; served as chief marketer of snack startup Popcorn Indiana; and most recently founded Hello oral-care products.

Individually, none of those brands pose an existential threat to the behemoths of packaged goods. Collectively, they and many more like them are having a big impact. Small and midsize firms took 1.6 share points, or nearly $10 billion in sales, from the packaged-goods behemoths over three post-recession years from 2009 to 2012, according to a report from IRI and Boston Consulting Group. The smaller the players, the bigger the impact: Companies with sales of less than $100 million gained the most and the share shift accelerated over time (see chart).

Continue reading at AdAge.com