Hasta La Creative!

Well, the holiday items keep pouring in today. This one is a “Christmas miracle” from our neighbors to the north.

Canadian airline WestJet and studio m collaborated to give visitors to Toronto and Hamilton International Airports a Christmas miracle. They discovered what more than 250 Calgary-bound passengers had on their wish lists, with help from a tech-savvy Santa. Then 175 Westjet employees acted as elves, taking notes on passenger’s Christmas wishes, shopping, wrapping the gifts and delivering them to the Calgary airport ahead of the gifts’ recipients. When the passengers arrived at baggage claim in Calgary, they were met with a Christmas miracle — the gifts they had wished for were there waiting for them — addressed from Santa, of course. As the wrapped presents went around the carousel, Santa himself showed up to wish everyone a merry Christmas.

Making baggage claim fun is truly a miracle, and WestJet clearly jumped through hoops to pull this stunt off. It made a lot of peoples’ days, and the kids who got presents from Santa that day will probably remember it forever. Not a bad way to engender brand loyalty, but intentions aside, WestJet staged a really heartwarming event. The genuineness of the gesture and its perfect execution more than make up for any excess cheesiness in the video, which plays on the classic poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (better known by its first line, “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”). Stick around for “Santa’s Bloopers” after the jump, but beware, the cheesiness increases exponentially.  continued…

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New York Times CEO Mark Thompson intends to restore growth to the company’s digital advertising revenue next year after recent declines, he told a meeting of investors Tuesday.

To spur growth, the Times is introducing branded content solutions for advertisers, according to Mr. Thompson, who spoke at UBS’s media and communications conference taking place in New York City.

“There’s no in principle reason why giving advertisers an opportunity to get long and sophisticated messages to users can’t happen in the context of The New York Times,” he said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The Declassification Engine é um projeto ambicioso que visa ajudar os cidadãos a descobrir e procurar por um tipo muito particular de informação: os segredos do governo dos EUA.

Desenvolvido na Columbia University e lançado há um ano, o projeto usa métodos avançados de ciência da computação, big data e processamento de linguagem para dimensionar o que alguns estudiosos tem se esforçado para fazer à mão por décadas: documentar o surgimento do sigilo governamental, aprender mais sobre o que o governo não está liberando e descobrir novos padrões de milhões de documentos que são desclassificados porém contem informações de peso.

As ferramentas que o The Declassification Engine criou, até agora, oferecem um vislumbre dentro do excesso de sigilo que fere a democracia.

Visando a liberdade de informação, historiadores, estatísticos, engenheiros da computação e advogados da universidade envolveram-se no projeto por temerem que o passado se torne um grande segredo. Hoje, por exemplo, para revisar todos os documentos confidenciais americanos criados todo ano, demandaria um trabalho em tempo integral de cada funcionário federal e estadual nos EUA. É muita informação secreta, o que diminuem a realidade e a história dos fatos.

O National Declassification Center atualmente possui um backlog de 370 milhões de páginas de documentos. E, enquanto o governo gasta $10 bilhões protegendo seus segredos, apenas $50 milhões são alocados para esta seção de documentos.

A primeira missão foi coletar a maior quantidade possível de documentos confidenciais e passá-los para o banco de dados. Algumas das fontes foram: National Archives, empresas privadas como ProQuest e Gale Cengage Learning, arquivos já coletados pelo Internet Archive. A partir deste trabalho, programadores e cientistas criaram aplicativos e ferramentas de visualização de dados para ajudar nas análises e buscas.

Muitas vezes, por exemplo, o governo revelou documentos em lugares e momentos diferentes – o que significa que as tarjas pretas adicionadas para manter a conficialidade podem ser diferentes também. Daí surgiu a ferramenta Redaction Archive, que combina documentos editados e não-editados lado a lado, analisando as tarjas e descobrindo o que está por trás delas.

Redaction Archive

Redaction Archive

Sphere of Influence, outra ferramenta, é uma visualização  interativa de telegramas e mensagens eletrônicas do Departamento de Estado entre 1973 e 1976 que mapeia padrões de coomunicação pelo mundo, ajudando a levantar dados e anomalias na história.

Sphere of Influence nos EUA

Sphere of Influence no Brasil

Com relação à privacidade, a equipe conta que tem tomado todo o cuidado para que seu processamento de big data não vá tão longe a ponto de espalhar informações que possam prejudicar qualquer um.

O projeto The Declassification Engine está apenas começando. Com o objetivo de ajudar cidadãos, pesquisadores e jornalistas, também espera contribuir para que o próprio governo americano passe a priorizar a liberdade de informação e a decupação de um passado mais real.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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The press release for this wonderfully created and produced work, by McCann and Psyop, for Toshiba tells us “it will leave you asking for an encore.” Well, perhaps, but not necessarily for the Toshiba Encore which the work promotes.

After watching this “experience” — in which fractal zoom is employed to place viewers in the the middle of the action using using 3D cameras, symbolic elements and matte painting environments that add depth and dimension to the shots — you are left with the feeling that technology has let you down. Because, really, does any device give you the glorious experience depicted in this work?

Sadly, here, the formula is backwards. Instead of under promising and over delivering, the work over promises on something that can’t possibly deliver on the promise. Yea, yea, yea. We get that the whole thing is a metaphor. But metaphors affect emotion and emotion most certainly comes into play when making a purchase.

And if we can’t have this McCann/Psyop-created experience when we use out tablet then we don’t want a tablet at all. Then again, that’s just us.

One of the opening frames in Leo Burnett’s “Fat Talk” spot for Special K tells the viewer that 93% of women engage in fat talk, a form of passive-aggressive self-shaming. Because of Facebook and Twitter, I’m surprised that number isn’t seven percentage points higher.

But during the two-minute spot, women in a nondescript clothing store are forced to confront their own insecurities. Placards of fat talk tweets are posted around the store, and the women realize the self-degradation is bad and start hugging each other. This ad is not a comedy. Instead, it comes off as an incredibly preachy after-school special for adult women. Tackling fat talk is a compelling psychological start for a commercial, but as with a lot of good ideas, the execution winds up muddled into something so safe and vanilla that it’s hard to remember what brand is advertising in the first place. Credits after the jump.

continued…

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Yogurt giant Danone Groupe has selected Carat as its new media agency in North America as part of an ongoing global media-agency evaluation in more than 20 global markets.

A spokesman for the U.S. division, known as Dannon, confirmed Carat as the winner, but declined further comment. The Dentsu-owned shop beat incumbent Havas and a team from WPP’s Group M, which were also believed to be involved in the pitch, which began in April. The U.S. division includes the namesake yogurt brand, Activia, Stonyfield and Evian water. Dannon spent $86.2 million in measured media across its portfolio from January through Sept. 30, according to Kantar Media.

Dannon in 2009 held its last global review, in which it retained Havas Media, then known as MPG, in North America. Carat had supported Dannon’s account in Canada before Havas took over all of North America in 2007.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Danielle Crook, the Starbucks vice-president of marketing, category and brand integration, EMEA, is leaving the company to relocate to the United States.

After spending the last three years at TBWA\London, where he currently serves as executive creative director and global CD for McDonald’s, Andre Laurentino is heading to Ogilvy to assume the global ECD post on Unilever, effective February 2014. The Brazilian native will remain based in London when he joins O&M, whose U.K. office serves as the global hub for Unilever brands including Dove and Hellman’s. Laurentino (pictured alongside his new boss, O&M worldwide CCO Tham Khai Meng) succeeds Gerry Human, who has now been bumped up to CCO at Ogilvy London.  During his career, the new Ogilvy global ECD worked for several years at the likes of AlmapBBDO and Lew’Lara\TBWA, picking up Cannes Lions, D&AD and One Show Pencils along the way.

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