Hasta La Creative!

Well, with this item, we are certain that Ric Peralta and ATTIK have indeed parted ways. According to the parties involved, ATTIK-co founder/executive creative director Simon Needham and managing director Margie Kane are now leading the Dentsu-owned, San Francisco/Hermosa Beach, CA-based agency’s day-to-day operations. Peralta joined ATTIK, perhaps best known for the Scion work over the years, a decade  ago as global CEO of the agency. A year later, he was promoted to partner and eventually remained on as CEO following Dentsu’s acquisition of ATTIK in 2007. During his career, Peralta’s also worked as VP of brand at frog design and managing director of fuseproject.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Coming off the latest (not so surprising) revelations of the misuse of NSA data, Happiness Brussels has launched “Spy on the NSA,” a site which gives the the NSA a taste of its own medicine in support of www.thedaywefightback.org, “a massive digital protest against mass surveillance taking place across the internet today.” Among those participating today as well are Reddit, Amnesty International, Tumblr, Upworthy and Greenpeace.

The “Spy on the NSA” site turns the camera on the National Security Agency’s Maryland headquarters. Happiness Brussels describes it as its “own statement against the mass surveillance and privacy issues that are occurring right now.” They also wonder “how long they can keep the site online, before it gets shut down.” The site gives visitors the opportunity to record a selection of Happiness Brussels’ surveillance to share on social media. Check out the site here (while you still can), and, if you haven’t already, head on over to www.thedaywefightback.org to take a stand against the NSA’s abhorrent abuse of your constitutional rights.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Well this one might slap you upside the head. After this ad eases you in with its soft lighting, somber tone and soothing voiceover, you’re all relaxed and ready for some sort of innocuous, heartfelt message to be delivered.

But no. What you get is an ad for Gun Oil personal lubricant. Yup, the stuff that makes it easier to slide in and out when you, well, want to slide in and out.

It’s Gun Oil’s first-ever TV ad and it will air on Bravo and E! in seven markets on February 13 and February 14, Valentine’s Day.

Don’t get us wrong, the ad and its message are beautiful. It’s just a bit of a jolt to go so quickly from the soft celebration of love to such a hard sell.

In America, bigger is always better, right? We’ve never been to the Mall of America big we hear it’s big. Really, really big. So it is without surprise it’s not got a 5-story Pinterest board, courtesy of Caribou Coffee, which is promoting its new Real Inspiration Blend.

The board, created by Colle + McVoy, is live and passersby (or anyone) can get their images on the board by hastagging their photos on Instagram and Twitter with #CaribouInspires.

Back in 2012, I mentioned the curious case of VirtualBagel in one of my columns. The supposed London bagel shop was set up on Facebook as fake business by BBC correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, who then bought proper Facebook ads asking people to “like” it. He racked up more than 1,600 likes within 24 hours, but curiously, most of them were coming from places like Indonesia, India, Egypt and the Philippines.

The video below, posted yesterday on the YouTube channel of Veritasium, a popular science video blog run by Sydney-based TV presenter Derek Muller, starts out with the story of VirtualBagel (which still, remarkably, exists on Facebook). But then it gets really interesting as Muller calmly, clearly, accessibly — in the manner of your best high school science teacher — explains his own more recent discouraging experience with advertising on Facebook to gain Facebook fans. Anybody who questions the value of Facebook likes — and the wisdom of spending money to grow fan “communities” on Facebook — will want to watch this video.

It’s bad news for Facebook — especially since the video has quickly gone viral, with more than 600,000 views as of this writing and momentum that should push it past the million mark later today.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) The recently opened exhibit titled Play by Stuart Haygarth, a photographer-turned-designer based in London, showcases his stunning chandeliers. Making waves on the Internet more than five years ago,…

The latest from the “Behind The Cubes” series showcases Y&R New York executive creative director Marc Sobier and his work for Land Rover.

Sobier discusses working with a group of parkour experts in the “Roam Free” campaign, which takes the practice out of its urban environment and into a natural setting. “Roam Free” was designed to promote Land Rover’s “Terrain Response 2″ which “seamlessly adapts to nature.” So Sobier and crew brought on some of the world’s best parkour experts to do their own stunts and exemplify Land Rover’s new feature in as exciting a way as possible. Sobier marvels at the possibilities of advertising, asking, “In what other business do you get to randomly work with a bunch of cool, free running stunt men?”

Behind The Cubes also showcases Sobier’s “Race The Sun” campaign — also for Land Rover. “Race The Sun,” an “interactive suspense film” that mixed in gaming elements. When filming “Race The Sun” Sobier and crew ran into a rather large problem, the sun, thanks to smoke from nearby forest fires, was nowhere to be seen. Instead of giving up, though, the crew kept filming, and they were rewarded with an especially awe-inspiring sunset perfectly suited for the spot.

You can check out “Behind The Cubes: Roam Free” above and stick around for “Behind The Cubes: Race The Sun” after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We’ve received confirmation that Steve Nesle‘s time at Blast Radius has come to an end. No word yet on what lies ahead for the creative or if anyone’s replacing him, but Nesle has served as ECD/East for the WPP/Wunderman agency since late 2012. Prior to Blast, Nesle, you may recall, served in a similar role for two years at Deutsch New York and also held senior creative roles at what was then Tribal DDB as well as MRM Worldwide during his career.

Update: Wait, what? After getting direct confirmation from those in the know that “yes he is departing” a half hour later we get word from the same party involved that whoops, Nesle “continues to support Blast Radius accounts out of New York and Toronto.” Perhaps his  position has just changed within the network but this is quite the quick and confusing about-face. We’ll try to sort out this little mess as soon as we can and will update when we hear.

Update 2: Finally, we’ve received confirmation that Nesle’s tenure with Blast Radius is indeed up towards the end of this month.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Besieged by questions about why they sold Miami-based La Comunidad to SapientNitro and for how much, Jose and Joaquin Molla created a two-minute video explaining the deal, and their future, along with hashtag #whywesold.

The reasons are sensible, such as “our commitment to digital and emerging technologies,” but their new lifestyle is hilarious. We won’t spoil the video, but sadly it’s not true the brothers now own an NFL team.

Continue reading at AdAge.com