Hasta La Creative!

For Michael Clinton, this harsh winter was a stroke of luck. While most New Yorkers huddled inside, the president-marketing and publishing director of Hearst Magazines went on 20-mile runs during storms.

Why would he do such a thing? To prepare for a marathon — in Antarctica. “It was a good winter for training purposes,” he said March 4 from Buenos Aires, where he was preparing to continue his journey south. Mr. Clinton completed the 26.2-mile race in Antarctica four days later, fulfilling the goal he set five years ago to run a marathon on all seven continents.

Colleagues know the many miles he logs on his running shoes. “I solve a lot of business problems and make a lot of decisions,” he said of his long runs. “It’s become my therapy of choice.”

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Steve Henry, the founder and former creative director of ad agency HCCL and a co-founder of Decoded, has said that adland has lost the creativity that allows people to take risks and make mistakes.

Earth Hour—a worldwide event where people turn off their lights to raise awareness of energy consumption—will be March 29 from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. in your local time zone, which Durex says is a great time to use its product.

The condom brand's newest ad is remarkably sweet, which seems to be a trend for the category these days thanks to Trojan's surprisingly subtle creative and Gun Oil's tear-jerkingly romantic lube ad. It features several couples engrossed in technology—tapping on iPads, talking on phones, playing video games—and then shutting it all down for a little old-fashioned adult activity time, without the need for lights or even any live tweeting.

It's a clever way for Durex to capitalize on an Earth-conscious event and the popular lament that our society is a little too digitally connected.

We are, however, a little concerned for the couple on the carousel. 

Nike running: So easy, a caveman can do it?

Wieden + Kennedy made quite the discovery earlier this month. The agency says it's "pretty damn pumped" to have finally found the first ads it ever made—which happen to be the first national broadcast ads Nike ever aired. The three spots ran during the New York City Marathon in October 1982. Two of the three had been lost for decades.

The agency writes on its blog:

For all you ad geeks out there, we're pretty damn pumped to share something very special with you. We've uncovered the first-ever ads made by Messrs. Wieden and Kennedy, Nike's first-ever nationally broadcast work. Until today, two of these were considered lost and never vaulted. Our digital librarian Phoebe Owens has spent the entire time she's been with W+K searching for them, alongside Nike historian Scott Reames, with the help of David Kennedy. Today, some old, poorly-labeled tapes proved to have what we've been searching for.

These aired during the NYC marathon. They were shot and cut within a couple of weeks, with a skeleton crew. They were a tiny team and they made it happen, and the rest is history.

See the ads below.

Peter Frølund, the HTC managing director for UK and Nordics, said marketing for the new HTC One will carry a single message around “design”, after admitting that last year the company got “carried away” focusing on innovation.

Taco Bell and DigitasLBi San Francisco (their digital AOR) are launching their new breakfast menu (the proper response: “Gross”) with a different kind of social campaign.

DigitasLBi and Taco Bell are sending out 1,000 burner phones across the country as part of a teaser campaign for Taco Bell’s largest menu expansion in their 50 year history this Thursday with the introduction of the new breakfast menu, offering people the opportunity to make a terrible decision on their way to work. The phones serve as “a direct line to Taco Bell Breakfast and a chance to win epic swag by challenging fans to create social content.” Preloaded text messages on the phones offer usersinstructions on how to activate the phones and accept the terms and conditions.

Then, throughout the week, “phones will be called and texted at various times throughout the day, prompting participants to complete missions” using the hashtag #wakeuplivemas, for a chance to win prizes (like a waffle taco hoodie). Tumblr will act as the hub for all the created content, while winners will be notified via their phone and Twitter. Mobile marketing firm Hipcricket was responsible for powering the voice and text messages on the phone. The idea is to create a “retro guerilla social network that generates excitement to create compelling social chatter and content.” We’ll give DigitasLBi and Taco Bell this: the breakfast menu launch is certainly unusual. You can follow along with this campaign on Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter, and if you feel like being sick by lunch, head to Taco Bell for breakfast this Thursday.

Oh god, is he pouring maple syrup on….eeew

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Jami Dewolf is experiencing a role-reversal. After years in multiple marketing and business roles for well-known consumer brands like Oreo and Victoria’s Secret, Ms. Dewolf now heads marketing for Alliance Data, a firm she worked closely with while on the client side.

Over the past 20 years she’s handled enterprise strategy and integration, new-business development, operations and customer marketing at Nabisco, PepsiCo and Victoria’s Secret and L Brands. Most recently at Victoria’s Secret for a 15-year stint, she got a crash course in digital data as the catalog brand moved online. Much of her time there was spent determining how to measure customer engagement, how to communicate with customers across channels, and how to foster consumer loyalty. And it just so happened that she was the point person at Victoria’s Secret in its relationship with Alliance.

Now working out of the data management and consultancy’s Columbus, Ohio office, it’s her job to help over 130 clients decipher which are the most appropriate ways to connect with their brands’ customers. Sometimes that means helping them say “no” to trendy communication channels and platforms.

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