Hasta La Creative!

LA-based agency Ignited created one of the best agency holiday cards of the year by turning to  holiday card guru (and sloth enthusiast) Guy Holiday. Holiday lays down some agency holiday card rules that we hope agencies everywhere will take to heart, while also managing to make us laugh and share his love for sloths.

Ignited describes Guy Holiday as “if BuzzFeed had a baby with Ron Burgundy and then that baby was raised by, well, Agency Spy.” We’re not entirely sure how to take that description, but we think Holiday is a funny character with some good advice regarding agency holiday cards. Guy’s first rule is to “always include a cute animal” because “animals are like mother nature’s stuffed animals.”

This seems like some pretty solid advice. Everybody likes animals, and including one makes your card more memorable. This should be a new requirement for submitting holiday cards: if you don’t have an animal in your video, don’t bother. Preferred animals include foxes, cats and sloths. In denouement, Guy says, “The holidays are about reflection.” Have one sloth? You can use reflection to make it look like there are two sloths. We’re glad Guy brought this up: we have not seen enough reflection in holiday cards this year, so please take his advice and throw a bunch of mirrors into your holiday card next year. Or a bunch of sloths, either way.

Ignited will donate five cents to the American Red Cross for every view, up to $2,500. So, share this video with your friends and co-workers, and help Ignited raise some money for a good cause. It’s funny and it’s only about three minutes long, so you don’t really have any excuses. And please consult Guy’s handful of rules before making any holiday cards.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Target, the second-largest U.S. discount chain, said data for about 40 million debit and credit cards may have been wrongfully accessed in recent weeks and that law enforcement is investigating the matter.

The data was breached between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, the Minneapolis-based company said in statement. Target said it alerted authorities and financial institutions immediately and has now identified and resolved the issue. The U.S. Secret Service said yesterday that it was probing the incident.

Target, which has 1,797 stores in the U.S. and 124 in Canada, had its data compromised during the crucial year-end shopping period for the retail sector. U.S. retail sales rose 2% for the week ended Dec. 14 as seasonal shopping accelerated, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.Target said it’s working closely with law enforcement to bring those responsible to justice.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Apple is taking orders today for the new Mac Pro personal computer, which is being built in Texas with components made domestically as part of Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s $100 million Made-in-the-USA push.

“We have begun manufacturing the Mac Pro in Austin,” Cook wrote in a posting yesterday on Twitter. “It’s the most powerful Mac ever.”

The cylindrical machine, which runs on Intel Corp.’s latest Xeon chip, will be available to order today at a starting price of $2,999, Apple said. While companies such as Google and Lenovo are doing some final assembly in the U.S. of parts made overseas, Cook said in an interview in October that Apple is manufacturing — not just putting together — the Mac Pro’s metal parts in the U.S.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Every time an online user registers for a site or service, votes on an issue, or comments on a story he is demonstrating that he has understood something, not just seen it. This is the concept of cognition, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.”

In the pecking order of metrics, cognition sits well above mere viewability, which does not guarantee that an ad is understood. But when an ad runs in most media, we can’t know whether cognition occurred. We can know this only if a user takes a measurable action.

Marketers have been patient with us as an industry for way too long, as we have championed mindless “engagements” that will never move brand key performance indicators or satisfy lift goals. Instead, we should strive for “verified engagements,” where a certified human audience comprehends a specific marketing message.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Newer deals, such as those between Silver Lake and William Morris Endeavor and IMG, show that investors are set on remaking the talent business industry, while expanding its size and scope.

For a high-tech product, Motorola has relied heavily on print to promote the Moto X. Now Motorola is putting the high-tech into print with an ad that changes colors in the January issue of Wired Magazine.

The ad will show a Moto X phone that changes colors when people press tabs lined up at the bottom of the page. It’s made using polycarbonate paper that covers LED light pipes, which are illuminated via circuitry running to the color swatches.

Since introducing the Moto X in August, Motorola has backed the phone with a straightforward campaign including national TV commercials, print ads, online display units and stunts like getting it in the hands of models on Fashion Week runways in New York.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Interpublic Group-owned DraftFCB has acquired the independent creative agency Inferno in a takeover deal that could value the agency as much as £20 million.

It’s fun to see what pops up on Craigslist in terms of silly ads. Some people go to great lengths to sell old stuff. One such ad — an unabashed parody of overly-bombastic car commercials — for a 1996 Nissan Maxima, created by filmmaker Luke Aker, was good enough to get Nissan itself to by the car from Aker.

Of course, Nissan is just going to take the car and have it placed in one of those giant car crushers because, let’s be honest, they don’t really want the car. They just want the publicity surrounding the stunt.

Still, Aker got his old clunker sold and, to boot, got Nissan to donate $1,000 to Wounded Warrior Project so the transaction isn’t all without merit.

Hey @IkonikFilms: SOLD! Had us at "land-yacht" & this hilarious '96 Maxima ad: http://t.co/0XpfoBtGQE – We want to make you an offer. DM us!

— Nissan (@NissanUSA) December 16, 2013

@IkonikFilms Sorry you had to part with your Maxima, but glad we found it a good home! 🙂

— Nissan (@NissanUSA) December 17, 2013

Yahoo’s stocking may feel a bit light this Christmas, particularly compared to Google, Facebook and even Microsoft.

Having long been the country’s second-largest ad seller, Yahoo will cede share of net U.S. digital ad revenues to Facebook and Microsoft this year and fall to fourth, according to the latest estimates from eMarketer.

Yahoo will take home 5.8% of the $42.6 billion to be spent on U.S. digital advertising this year, the research firm forecasted on Thursday. By comparison Facebook and Microsoft will bank 7.4% and 5.9%, respectively. Google retains the lion’s share of net U.S. digital ad revenues at 39.9% of the pie.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

BlackBerry, the ailing mobile phone company, has made two senior appointments to drive the company’s strategy, marketing and operations, as the company attempts to return to its business “roots”.