Hasta La Creative!

Nearly two years after forming a relationship with BMO, Y&R has now added more responsibilities for the financial institution as it’s now serving as lead agency for its client. What does this entail? Well, the agency’s teams in New York, Chicago and Toronto will oversee all brand and integrated retail banking marketing across traditional and digital media platforms, effective immediately. BMO CMO/head of strategy Joanna Rotenberg says in a statement, “Throughout the review process and in our experience working with them in the past, Y&R has consistently demonstrated superior strategic thinking, presenting thoughtful insights which have been closely aligned to BMO’s vision, brand and strategy. We look forward to deepening our partnership with their integrated North American practice to develop breakthrough, business-building creative.”

We’ve been told that there was a review in Canada for the BMO biz, which was previously handled by Cossette up north. The agency, though, declined to participate in the review. Y&R Canada’s first work as lead agency of brand and retail marketing is slated to be unveiled in the first quarter of 2014.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

L’agence londonienne MAP Project Office a collaboré avec Kano Computing pour imaginer ce « Do It Yourself Computer Kit » utilisant un Raspberry Pi, que toute personnes peut assembler et monter en 20 minutes. Un projet passionnant proposé sur kickstarter à découvrir dans une série d’images dans la suite.

To help you craft powerful social marketing campaigns that drive awesome results, we brought together a team of five leading brand strategists to answer five pressing social questions.

• What are the factors your company considers before launching a social campaign?
• How has social integration evolved within your organization?
• How do you think social will influence your campaigns in the future?
• Why is it important to involve your audience with your company?
• What advice would you share with someone who is developing a social campaign?

Download the Mass Relevance report now to learn how brands like TaylorMade, Finish Line and Lexus think about social.

This is just silly enough and timely enough to get a good run at going viral. Dallas-based ad agency Firehouse is out with a video entitled Happy Twerky Day that, as the name indicates, involves turkeys and twerking. And it’s a bit infectious.

Maybe it’s just us but the video’s choreography and music are mildly reminiscent of the Harlem Shake meme from earlier this year. Which, is to say, not a bad thing. We love Harlem Shake.

The video is set to the tune “DJ Turn It Up” by Yellow Claw.

In a reminder that brand chatter doesn’t just happen on Facebook and Twitter, one data middleman is bundling together the conversation stream from four of the web’s most pervasive blog and commenting platforms.

Gnip — the conduit to the so-called Twitter firehose is getting into what you might call the packaged-data goods business. The firm already provides access to several digital data streams used by social analytics firms and marketers, but today will start offering a combined data set with content from Tumblr, WordPress and commenting platforms Disqus and IntenseDebate.

The four companies are already partners of Gnip (pronounced guh’nip), and their data feeds will still be available la carte. But firms that want a combined view of what people are saying on blogs and in story comments will have access to a much larger pool of social data.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The third Cannes Chimera global communications challenge, answering to the competitive creative brief “Help Lead the Fight Against Extreme Poverty,” has received a total of 900 entries from 79 different countries, more than half of which are from advertising and brand communication agencies.

The brief, set by Cannes Lions and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was launched during the 60th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June this year, with a bid for new communication concepts that will incite the public to support an emerging international agenda to ensure that poverty is virtually eliminated by 2030.

Of the response, Cannes Lions CEO Philip Thomas said, “This is an outstanding response from our industry. I’m delighted to see such engagement for this latest Cannes Chimera challenge, showing how passionate people in our industry are to use their skills for the greater good. This is a chance to use the power of communicating creatively to change people’s behavior that will have compelling consequences for humankind.”

Chimera members from 2011, 2012 and 2013 are now judging the first round of the 900 submissions. This will be followed by a second round of judging by 2013 Cannes Chimera members, made up of winners of all the Cannes Lions 2013 Grand Prix awards, who will make the final selection of up to ten winners to each receive up to $100,000 to take their concept to the next level.

The winning ideas will be announced early next year and those behind the ideas will go on to take part in a two-day workshop in March at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation campus in Seattle during which they will be mentored by the Cannes Chimera. Each winner will have the opportunity to apply for up to $1Million to implement its idea in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its global partners.

Last month, the second Cannes Chimera two-day workshop took place in Seattle with the 2012 Chimera members working with the nine winners of the second “Aid is Working. Tell the World” communications challenge submitted in the four specific categories of Mobile, Data, Young Audiences and The Progress of Development, to brainstorm and perfect their ideas.

The Cannes Chimera Initiative was launched by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in an effort to generate communications ideas that motivate global audiences to support change and take actions that address critical development issues. The initiative issues a competitive brief to the creative community each year, at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving and the holidays, McKinney has launched Names for Change, a new campaign for Urban Ministries of Durham that asks and important question; if brands are willing to pay millions of dollars for the naming rights to a sports stadium, what can a shelter in Durham raise when it sells naming rights to all of the items in the building?

Visitors to namesforchange.org can claim the naming rights to an item and customize a certificate in their own name or in honor of someone else. From toilets to teddy bears to tomato sauce, it’s all to help more people get from homelessness into homes of their own.

Kids still say the darndest things. AT&T and BBDO New York keep up their rich tradition of child-centric, ad-lib style spots (they are lightly scripted but most quickly become improvised) with this Thanksgiving gem.

Even granting the it's-so-easy-kids-can-get-it premise, Beck Bennett's opening question this time—"What's better: better or not better?"—is a little too obvious (or maybe just dumb) to elicit much more than an annoyed twitch. But what follows—the idea of bringing a pet turkey to T-Day dinner—is plenty entertaining, if arguably low-hanging fruit as well.

Regardless, the kid is right: A live turkey would be a way less boring Thanksgiving guest than a dead one. Nobody really likes to eat the bird anyway.

(TrendHunter.com) Most of us have that friend—you know, the one that orders an entire bottle of pinot at dinner just for themselves—which is why gift ideas for wine-lovers can be really helpful this holiday season….

We designed a practical Personal Extinction Prevention Book as a giveaway to all Land Rover owners. We researched every dangerous creature and the effects of different natural oils, scents, and everyday ingredients on them. The book not only gives tips to survive against some of the animals someone might encounter in the wild, but it actively protects its owner. Each page is a resealable packet that contains wet wipes coated with natural oils or an everyday ingredient that will repel or neutralize dangerous creatures.

Advertising Agency: Y&R, Dubai, UAE
Chief Creative Officer: Shair Zag
Creative Director: Shahir Zag, Joseph Bihag
Copywriter: Shahir Zag, Guillaume Calmelet
Art Director: Joseph Bihag, Khaled Said
Photographer: Jeevan Nambiar
Head of Production: Amin Soltani
Agency Producer: Leng Panganiban, Binnu Cherian
Producer: Khaled Said
Account Supervisor: Zaakesh Mulla
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Jean Atik
Account Manager: Pierre Farra