Hasta La Creative!

Fallon London created a beautiful holiday-themed ad for Cadbury Dairy Milk in which an entire neighborhood is neatly clad in wrapping paper. On Christmas morning, all the kids come out and go crazy unwrapping the neighborhood. After tossing paper all over the place, they finally tackle a snowman figure which is wrapped and filled with Cadbury bars.

Awesome. But we sure wouldn’t want to clean up after this mess. Or after that Sony Bravia Balls ad. Or any Sony Bravia ad for that matter. Maybe we should dub this not-so-new form of advertising wastevertising?

Publicis Groupe digital shop Rosetta has tapped creative vet Lars Bastholm for the newly created role of global chief creative officer.

Mr. Bastholm will oversee the work of creative staffers and help lead Rosetta’s global expansion as the shop attempts to grow its presence abroad.

“We are increasingly being asked to lead global pursuits on behalf of Publicis, and Lars has the experience with global brands and campaigns to ensure we’re always top of mind with the world’s leading brands,” said Rosetta CEO Tom Adamski.

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Twitter pulled off its debut on the New York Stock Exchange without a hitch, but if it’s going to keep impressing Wall Street, it needs to figure out how to demystify itself to the masses.

And that means its own form of consumer marketing to make Twitter less about shorthand for the initiated — hashtags, subtweets and the like — and make it a little more “You’ve got mail.”

In the wake of Twitter’s 73% stock pop, CEO Dick Costolo described the challenge: Twitter needs to get better at the process of “onboarding” new users who sign up for an account to see what all the fuss is about.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Another month, another clever This is Sportscenter spot from W+K New York. “Keeping Up with Fashion” shows Sportscenter anchors dealing with the residual effects of a new uniform reveal, considering the new uniforms are skin-tight catsuits that come in sizes meant for babies. The uniform farce is actually a spoof of the recent redesign trend in football, whether it be for college, the NFL, or the Pro Bowl. Nike keeps shrinking the unis that aren’t made for everyone (cough, offensive linemen). In a way, ESPN, which is a huge brand itself, is actually mocking the increased branding that comes from Nike, Under Armour, etc. Glass houses and all that, but this spot actually has layers to unpack in addition to the requisite punchlines. I’ve always said that ESPN anchors could act, as they do here, but the topic and writing in this ad digs deeper than we’re used to when it comes to ESPN. A lot to think about in 30 seconds.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Radio Times, the 90 year old TV and radio listings magazine, has launched its first iPad app, containing all of the week’s television, radio and on-demand programmes, as well as exclusive interviews.

Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is raiding the video service once again for talent.

This time he’s bringing Hulu’s VP-product Lonn Lee aboard his secretive startup The Fremont Project. Mr. Kilar founded the startup with former Hulu CTO Richard Tom, who confirmed Mr. Lee’s move in an email Thursday night. Last month the company hired Hulu’s recently departed ad chief Jean-Paul Colaco to be its senior VP of advertising and business development.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Lee left Hulu this month — weeks after former 21st Century Fox exec Mike Hopkins was appointed Hulu’s CEO — and is working on product management at the San Francisco-based startup. Mr. Lee had joined Hulu in February 2011 as a member of its mobile product team.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

A dancing gingerbread man sings to Morrisons ambassadors Ant and Dec in the supermarket’s Christmas ad, airing tonight during ITV’s ‘Coronation Street’.

News Corp’s move to eliminate third party ad networks is understandable, but other publishers can extract more value by simply reducing the number of ads that run on their sites, says Guy Cookson, co-founder of native ad provider Respond.

Verizon has a location-data tracker and sponsorship-measurement tool in the pockets of millions of consumers: Verizon Wireless-enabled phones. So far it has used them to help measure the impact of its own marketing efforts, such as its sponsorship of IndyCar.

Now Verizon’s Precision Marketing Insights division, which it created last year, aims to offer the service to sports clubs and venues. The idea is to help teams and arenas learn more about event attendees, connecting the dots between sponsor messages at the game and visits to sponsor locations afterwards.

The National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns tested the service last season, and the Portland Trail Blazers are considering a partnership with the telecom’s insights business.

Continue reading at AdAge.com