Billionaire Barry Diller, the backer of Aereo, said the streaming-TV service may eventually get as much as 35% of U.S. households to subscribe … if it overcomes legal challenges from broadcasters.
People in their mid- to late-20s aren’t willing to pay $100 a month for cable-TV packages, making Aereo’s $8 service increasingly attractive, Mr. Diller said at The Year Ahead: 2014, a two-day conference hosted by Bloomberg in Chicago. Aereo is “on the side of the angels,” he said.
Broadcast networks such as CBS and NBC would differ. Aereo offers their signals to subscribers over the internet in nine U.S. cities without the broadcaster’s agreement. Aereo says it doesn’t need to get permission, much less pay anyone, because it gets the signals fairly using antennas.
L’artiste coréen Do Ho Suh a récemment présenté au National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art de Seoul, Home Within Home. Une installation géante qui représente 2 anciennes résidences de l’artiste imbriquée l’une dans l’autre. Une création surprenante à découvrir jusqu’au 11 mai en Corée du Sud.
ReTweet.ly is based on a pretty simple idea; in its creators’ words: “We all want to promote our projects, our latest blog post or just ourselves on social media. ReTweet.ly helps people to help each other to achieve that, by simply retweeting each other’s tweets.” In other words, it’s a retweet exchange program. The more you retweet others, the more likely it is that your tweet will get retweeted. You can decide for yourself which tweets you do and don’t want to retweet and you’re not mandated to follow those you retweet. The big benefit, according to Pita, is “people that retweet you on retweet.ly are most likely people outside of your own follower base and with that brand new exposure you would not get otherwise.” So if you’re feeling like you’re in a bit of a Twitter rut, you may want to give ReTweet.ly a try.
So how does it work? Just go to the ReTweet.ly site, sign in with Twitter, choose a tweet that you would like retweeted and a category that you tweet about the most. Then choose a tweet you like, and get retweeted in exchange. Suggested tweets will pop up with the options “Retweet” or “Not this one.” You can retweet as many of these as you’d like, the idea being that the more you retweet, the more likely you are to be retweeted.
ReTweet.ly is one in a series of projects from Do Something Good, which its creators are referring to as an “incubation collective.” Give it a go, and tell us what you think about the service in the comments section.
Publicis Groupe, awaiting approval for a merger with Omnicom Group, isn’t slowing its fast-paced acquisitions drive. The company confirmed today that it is on the verge of buying of a majority stake in London-based Walker Media, which is 75% owned by M&C Saatchi.
The proposed deal, thought to be worth $55 million, values Walker Media at $75 million. It would indirectly link M&C Saatchi with Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi once again, 18 years after Maurice and Charles Saatchi broke away acrimoniously from the agency the brothers founded in 1970. M&C Saatchi will retain a significant stake in Walker Media, alongside Publicis Groupe’s majority stake.
Walker Media, founded in 1998 and run by chairman and co-founder Phil Georgiadis with CEO Simon Davis, has a strong pedigree in the U.K., but has few clients in common with M&C Saatchi. Its clients include Fox, KFC, Taco Bell, Sony Entertainment, Mandarin Oriental, Marks & Spencer, and the National Geographic Channel.
One of the most inspiring things you can do as a creative person is to craft a pro-bono campaign. It’s an opportunity to change the world for the better, discover new talents, build a new team to solve a new challenge and expand your comfort zone.
As money will be tight, chances are you will take on many different roles. On various jobs, I have found myself being the account planner, the creative director and the writer — as well as the lunch maker, the van driver, the camera rig builder, the talent recruiter, the motorboat driver and the guy who picks up the trash at the end of the day. You are going to get your hands dirty.
While you’re at it, you might take on one more job that can make an even bigger difference. Become a member of the board for the cause you are inspired to serve. You’ll have to attend one meeting a month and give more of your time, but speaking from experience, I know you will get more out of it than you put in.
In a quaint village where everyone walks around naked because, one assumes, no one has ever heard of clothing before, one man, during his morning walk in the woods, stumbles across an epic discovery; a pair of jeans.
At first, he doesn’t even understand the function of the jeans. He tries to eat them and make tea with them. Finally, he tosses them on the bed and sits next to them. He glances over and notices they are shaped like his legs.
He then dons the jeans and boldly strolls through the village surprising everyone in his path. However, the villagers don’t like what they see and cast him out as if to eternally damn his soul.
They then chase him down with pitchforks to publicly hang him for his transgression. That is until one woman…who you think is going to step in and save the man…does nothing. It doesn’t end well.
But it is an interesting way to sell jeans. And if you didn’t catch it, the brand behind the work is Colorada Jeanswear. The work, called Studies on Hysteria, was produced by Felix Ruple and edited by Bernd Faab.
There is lots of nudity in the ad. The film has been out for a bit and won severl awards
ESPN’s best-known brand is finally getting its own mobile app.
The sports media giant has renamed its ScoreCenter app after ESPN’s famed sports newscast “SportsCenter.” The rebranding coincides with a major update that aims to make the iPhone and Android app more of a full-fledged sports media destination than a source for the latest scores.
The rebrand is “signifying a tie-in to the TV show and really signifying for us a blending of adding more content and branding personality,” said Ryan Spoon, senior VP-product development at ESPN Digital Media. With more than 50 million downloads since its June 2009 launch, the mobile app “can be our largest digital property,” he said. Currently, the app is No. 2 among sports apps on iTunes to NFL Mobile.
Brooklyn-based shop Dead As We Know It was apparently so impressed with Blur Studios’ production work on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘s intro that they used the production company as not just collaborators but inspiration for their new spot for The Kraken Rum, entitled “Black Ink.”
Directed by Tim Miller, “Black Ink” is a departure from the previous 2D woodblock print style Dead As We Know It has used for their spots for Kraken, instead employing realistic 3D/CG animation to show the kraken on the rum bottle come to life and destroy a ship. The kraken in the spot is depicted in quick close-ups that jump quickly from shot to shot, implying the violence and danger of the mythical beast.
To accomplish the more realistic approach, the kraken was “designed with reference to actual octopus tentacles and eyeballs for a photo-real look to the movements and destruction.” This new approach isn’t such a drastic departure from the feel of the agency’s previous work. The shift in style is pulled off very well, and feels more like an evolution in approach than a drastic alteration of strategy. Dead As We Know It ECD Mikal Reich ridiculously describes the new spot as “dark and horrific, while at the same time luxurious and sexy.” While the spot is undeniably good eye candy, there’s nothing really sexy about it — unless you’re into tentacle porn. Credits after the jump. continued…
A l’occasion du jeu vidéo Gran Turismo 6 sortant sur Playstation 3 pour le mois décembre, voici ce nouveau concept-car du constructeur Mercedes-Benz intitulée le Vision Gran Turismo. Une création unique et exclusive pour célébrer les 15 ans de la saga du jeu. Plus d’images et la vidéo de présentation dans la suite.
Not since Kill Bill has there been a wedding this disastrous and darkly mesmerizing. As some adorable gingerbread people prepare to wed, a duck descends on the scene in savage fashion, mutilating the wedding party and attendees alike.
Obviously, it's an ad for Oatmeal Crisp.
The link between concept and product is tenuous at best, but luckily there's an angry Scotsman around to explain that as crunchy as that situation was, it can't compare to Oatmeal Crisp. Check out three more spots from the campaign after the jump. Via Adrants.
Hearst Magazines UK has dismissed rumours that its chief executive Arnuad de Puyfontaine is set to leave to take the helm of French media company Vivendi.
Timothy Archibald est un photographe basé à San Francisco mais aussi le papa d’Eli, un enfant diagnostiqué autiste. Afin de souligner la maladie de son fils et d’essayer de maîtriser la situation, l’artiste américain s’est lancé dans ce projet photographique « Echolilia ». Des clichés émouvants à découvrir dans la suite en images.
The Book of Silence will be available in stores November 25th, and Pereira & O’Dell teamed up with Laundry! Design & Animation to create a book trailer. (In case you weren’t aware, book trailers are now practically mandatory.) The trailer features an original track by Brazilian singer Otto, with percussionist Pupillo, and guitarist Andreas Kisser (of Sepultra); as well as narration by the legendary Gilberto Gil. The Book of Silence centers around the prophet Orunmila, who finds his divination tools have suddenly gone silent, and a young journalist in Sao Paulo. In the book “mythical kings, queens and warriors like Ogum, Shango, Oshosi and Iansan work alongside modern day mortals to rescue the 16 princes of fate in a surprising and original narrative of West African gods and goddesses worshiped in some regions of Brazil today.”
If you watched the trailer for The Book of Silence and thought, “Wow that looks like it could be a movie,” you’re not alone. A movie deal has already been negotiated “with The Alchemists’s Mauricio Motta, who bought the rights and the franchise in Brazil and the U.S.” It will be produced by Disruption Entertainment, the company behind Pacific Rim and The Bourne Trilogy.
Pereira will embark on a Brazilian book tour starting in Sao Paolo on November 25th, with dates in Brasilia and Rio on the 27th and 28th. Credits after the jump. continued…
Unilever asks a heavy question—"Why bring a child into this world?"—in a four-minute video touting Project Sunlight, its new global sustainability initiative. The consumer-goods titan created the short film in collaboration with acclaimed director Errol Morris and many of the same folks from Ogilvy's South American office who created the award-winning "Real Beauty Sketches" for Unilever's Dove brand.
Actually, this is a film within film, as real expectant parents share their hopes and fears about the world their kids will inherit. They also react as they watch a movie that mixes footage of violence and despair with hopeful messages about the future. The tone is emotional, but positive, backed by a pensive piano cover of The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?"
"Your child could have more possibilities of having a healthier heart than any living person today—and the same chance of a broken heart," the narrator says. "No one can escape that. … And by the time they find the right person, our children will have better chances of meeting their great-grandchildren than we ever did."
Nearing 2.5 million YouTube views in just two days, the clip clearly resonates with many viewers, such as this commenter on Unilever's Facebook page: "I cried at this video. … Righteous work! I hope more people see this video and are inspired."
Of course, not all viewers were won over. One YouTube commenter scoffed at the premise of a consumer brand helping save the world: "So they claim they 'save lives?' They make soap, people. Look, if they really cared they would invest all the billions of euros they make in profit into cancer research or something … Unilever is once again trying to take credit for something they have no business taking credit in by putting together some overdramatic commercial to fool people into thinking they are not in business to make those billions of euros."
The existential implications of the central question—"Why bring a child into this world?"—are so intense, I give Unilever points for having the guts to go this route in the first place.
But do we really need a big company to ask such questions? Is it Unilever's place to curate such a conversation which, no matter how well intentioned, is ultimately designed to improve the image of its brand and boost the bottom line?
Coca-Cola’s Jonathan Mildenhall on how he started a creative revolution at Coca-Cola – and why creativity is everyone’s responsibility. Mildenhall spoke last night (21st November 2013) alongside IPA president Ian Priest about creativity and creative leadership.
The promise of targeted TV advertising has remained mostly that, a promise. But experiments and small-scale rollouts abound, including efforts at DirecTV, Invidi, Comcast and AT&T.
One new product is coming from a tech name from the past: Gracenote. The Sony-owned company, founded in the late 90s as CDDB, got its start identifying audio files and matching them to data such as album art. Now it is working on targeting ads on smart TVs and plans to release a product in early 2014. Ad Age got an early look and filmed it in action:
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
