Hasta La Creative!

We’ve been hearing about it all afternoon on the Spy line, and though it took a while, we’ve finally received the memo that Jeff Goodby sent to staff about an hour ago regarding a shakeup at San Francisco-based Goodby Silverstein & Partners this week. This is the second notable round of cuts to hit Goodby this year following one mainly due to “financial reasons” back in May. No numbers have been disclosed in terms of staff affected, by the “restructuring,” but anyhow, read on….

“We spoke about this at our agency meeting today, but for those of you who were unable to attend, here’s what we shared.

As many of you know, the nature of our business is changing quickly. Client relationships are splintering from large accounts into many smaller ones. Functions that were not only appropriate but also crucial a few years ago are now shrinking and even disappearing.

To that end, we are making some changes in our agency this week.

The changes are motivated by shifts in our financial position, sure. But they are also the result of a careful study of how our time is spent and what part of that time our clients most value.

In some ways, this is a course correction so that we all hew more closely to our mission: making stuff people care about. Our goal is to have everyone touching great work, facilitating great work and selling great work.

What parts of the company will change as a result of this?

First, we are simplifying our structure at all levels. A simple structure leads to better work and happier people.

We’re folding project management back into account management. And we’re scaling back the size of in-house production on eLevel.

That will mean going outside for some of the things that we have gotten used to doing internally. Outside eyes for film, digital design, editing, music and production will help keep our work fresh.

That doesn’t mean we won’t still make things like Christmas videos, the AV Club, meeting films and other unexpected things. We will not change things that are dear to  the unique and stupid culture of this place.

The result of all of this will be departments that are smaller and more nimble, with everyone working in more tightly knit teams on client-facing projects. Some people are leaving; some departments will change significantly. It is something that will take patience from all of us. But it will put people closer to the work, and we think that is something that should make everyone feel more fulfilled in the end.

None of this makes it any easier to part ways with staff members. The people here are the core and centerpiece of this company. We will do everything we can to find them a next chapter, in which they can have the remarkable impact they’ve had here.

There is nothing like this place, and never will be. We want to continue stoking the things that make us unique.

Jeff”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Back in August 2008, I wrote a column about Virgin America, in which I called it “my new favorite airline.” The company was less than a year old then, and my enthusiasm came with a few caveats — e.g., “certain elements of Virgin America’s aesthetics are a bit too over-the-top hipster-y for my taste,” like “the moody purple and pink accent lighting in the cabin and annoying techno-lite music piped into the lavatories.” But I mostly lavished praise on VA for its use of in-cabin digital media — specifically, a state-of-the-art LCD seat-back touch-screen system with a smartly designed interface that not only offered the expected entertainment options, but allowed for on-demand beverage and food service. (Virgin America also went on to earn a spot on Ad Age’s Digital A-List in 2011.)

One thing I didn’t mention was the airline’s quirky, animated safety video, which added a bit of charm and entertainment value to an otherwise perfunctory part of the boarding process. It became such a point of pride for the company that last month, when The New York Times’ Matt Richtel wrote an in-depth piece about Virgin America, he quoted Luanne Calvert, Virgin’s VP-marketing and communications, as saying that creating a sequel was “a key initiative for the year.” Further details — including Calvert’s “I never expected to lose so much sleep over a safety video” line — made me fear the Virgin America gang was overthinking things a bit.

Today, the airline has released its new safety video on YouTube and, well, watch it, then scroll down for more thoughts and context.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Pinterest está trabalhando para arrumar um dos seus problemas mais persistentes: a dificuldade de rastrear as fontes das fotos pinadas.

A empresa anunciou uma parceira com Getty Images que dá acesso a uma coleção substancial de metadados, permitindo que façam uma buscam reversa, puxando os fotógrafos e responsáveis pelas imagens, datas, localizações e qualquer texto descritivo.

“Quanto mais sabemos sobre um pin, mais valor ele ganha.” – Michael Yamartino, Gerente de Produto, no blog do Pinterest

Essa busca por dados visa ajudar a rede a fazer melhores recomendações, tornar os pins mais úteis e até oferecer notificações quando preços caírem.

Em exemplo abaixo divulgado, a empresa conta que, a partir da parceira, será possível saber qual prato de comida se refere à imagem, e também sugerir receitas relacionadas e até oferecer a fonte original da foto.

Além de manter o usuário mais informado e num contexto mais personalizado, quem sai ganhando com essa também são os donos das imagens (artistas, fotógrafos, designers, etc) e os anunciantes, que podem colher mais dados sobre interesses e interações de seus usuários.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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(TrendHunter.com) Comic Book artist Francesco Francavilla has created some gorgeous Breaking Bad posters for every episode of season 1, 2 and the final half of season 5. While these Breaking Bad posters may be…

W+K Shanghai’s new spot for the 2014 Jeep Cherokee “Built Free” doesn’t tell you much about what you can expect from the vehicle. In fact, you don’t even see the new Cherokee until around the 20 second spot — and don’t get a real good picture of what it looks like until almost 50 seconds in. Instead, W+K opts to sell viewers on a concept of the Jeep vehicle as a tool for freedom, as the “Built Free” tag exemplifies.

The spot makes good use of the Bob Dylan obscurity “Motherless Children,” and is well-directed, with the footage doing a good job of advancing the story the narrative tells of youthful curiosity losing out to the pressures of adult life. “People told you things: where to go, what to do, what not to do,” says the narrator, before implying that the Cherokee is the tool you need to “throw yourself at the world head first again.” It’s not the most innovative of strategies, selling a lifestyle associated with a vehicle, even if the sparsity of said vehicle (and no mention whatsoever of its features) in the spot is a little jarring. It’s easy to like the spot’s sentiment, but a lot harder to understand why the vehicle it’s supposed to be selling is largely absent.

Head of marketing for the Jeep brand Kim Adams-House told Autoblog that future ads for the Cherokee ”will speak to more” of the vehicle’s features. Still, you have to wonder about the strategy of selling a vehicle without telling viewers much about it — and hardly featuring the vehicle in the ad, for that matter. It might as well be a spot for base jumping, since that activity is given about as much screen time as the 2014 Jeep Cherokee. We’ll have to see where W+K takes the Cherokee’s “Built Free” campaign in the future, but a new strategy might be in order.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We have no idea what this is all about but it’s Halloween-themed and it’s almost Halloween and it’s called Merger Part 3 and so that intrigues us and because it’s called Part 3, it makes us wonder what happened to Part 1 and Part 2 and it promises to be almost two minutes long so we think we’ll have no problem fitting it into our day.

And…we’re done.

OK so here’s a commercial that lays on the sexual double entendre like a steady stream of verbal diarrhea spewing from the mouth of a sexually frustrated copywriter who hasn’t been laid in a month.

I take it slow but I like it fast. The game is hard but I take it easy. Lights are fascinating but I’m having more fun in the dark. Soft is good but rough is even better.

It’s like Axe for Greeks. Oh wait. That’s exactly what it is! OK, well, sort of.