Hasta La Creative!

The worldwide recorded music industry’s revenue dropped 3.9% last year, even as more fans listened to music on internet streaming and subscription services such as Spotify and Pandora.

Global revenue for the industry, whose best-selling album in 2013 was One Direction’s “Midnight Memories,” totaled $15 billion, a group representing music labels said in a statement today. Digital revenue increased 4.3.%.

At the same time, revenue from internet subscription services soared 51%, passing the $1 billion mark for the first time, according to the report, from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which says U.S. members include Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Interscope/Geffen/A&M and Capitol Records.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

It's a wonder that cat-related brands don't already rule the Internet.

Cat-food brand and renowned jingle lover Meow Mix makes a move in that direction with an amusing and even potentially useful parody of Kickstarter—called Catstarter—envisioned as a way to crowdsource cool new cat-related inventions. Ad agency EVB conceived the site as a playful, feline-focused version of the well-known crowdfunding platform. But instead of actually backing Catstarter projects financially, you can just click on the ones you like, and Meow Mix will produce the most popular ones.

The site launches with three products; the top vote getter will go into production this spring. (The heated companion keyboard is an inspired one that I'll back right now.) It's also an R&D lab of sorts, as the brand also wants people to suggest ideas for making kitty lives better—something we can all get behind, yes?

Full credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Meow Mix
Campaign: Meow Mix Catstarter
Agency: EVB 
Executive Creative Director: Steve Babcock
Creative Directors: Patrick Maravilla (Copy), David Byrd (Art)
Art Director: Tom Zukoski
Copywriter: Nate Gagnon
Designer: Markandeya Sendan
Illustrator: Natalia Martinez
Motion Graphics Designer: Kevin Brown
Sound Designer: J. Michael Neal
Director of Technology: Ken Goldfarb
Lead Interactive Developer: Josh Kanner
Interactive Developer: Ken Crosby
Senior Producer: Kevin Turner
Vice President, Director of Account Management: Kathleen Foutz
Strategist: Neeti Newaskar
Producer: Kevin Turner

A 4 percent global decline is fueled by a steep dive in Japan, where digital has barely taken hold.

Ilulissat Water Taxi, a company offering chartered tours of Greenland via, you guessed it, water taxi, released this tongue-in-cheek trailer parody.

Set up as a parody of the typical Hollywood trailer (complete with “In a world…”) beginning the ad for Ilulissat combines humor with footage of Greenland, while also introducing viewers to Ice Force One, the custom-built Targa 25.1/Tarfish boat built specifically for Ilulissat in 2013. The 2:15 spot has an unusual way of showing off the best features of Ilulissat while maintaining a humorous tone — such as remarking about whales, “These giants of the sea are so gracious that you will feel them connect with your soul.” The narrators take on Hollywood trailer voiceovers is also pretty spot-on, although the spot makes the leap from tongue-in-cheek to cheesy towards the end. Watch the highly unusual spot for yourself above, and head on over to Ilulissat Water Taxi’s website if you want to go see glaciers and whales and stuff.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Os pais dos pequerruchos vão amar a notícia: especula-se que o Google estaria desenvolvendo uma versão infantil do YouTube, focada em crianças menores de 10 anos. A impressão inicial é de que seria um grande reino da Galinha Pintadinha, que diga-se de passagem alcançou 1 bilhão de visualizações no YouTube, mas se essa aposta do Google for real, ela tem bastante potencial, ao menos se formos acreditar nas pesquisas recentes – 75% dos adolescentes norte-americanos alegam frequentar o YouTube, contra 60% que dizem o mesmo sobre o Facebook.

O objetivo, de acordo com relatos das fontes do The Information, seria oferecer uma versão do YouTube na qual os pais pudessem confiar e que ocultasse tanto vídeos quanto comentários de teor adulto. Um aplicativo especial abrigaria o conteúdo infantil, permitindo inclusive a exibição em dispositivos móveis ou TVs. Produtores de vídeo teriam sido sondados sobre a criação de conteúdos infantis, que seriam disponibilizados com exclusividade nessa versão especial do site.

Esse YouTube Kids ainda estaria longe de ser lançado para o público, por isso os detalhes do seu funcionamento não são muito claros. De todo modo, caso a iniciativa venha a se concretizar, aposto que teria muito pai e mãe compilando extensas playlists de vídeos para os pequenos.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Teo Park, artista digital de Seoul, criou uma instalação interativa usando um Kinect hackeado e integrando-o a um tanque de água. Dessa forma, os visitantes podem controlar o movimento da água com os gestos das mãos.

Ao usar a força gravitacional – determinada pela posição da mão do visitante – os dados captados pelo Kinect são transferidos para os motores. Com isso, geram energia e, de forma mecânica, movimentam a água do tanque. O nome “May The Force Be With You” vem daí.

Misturando-se à superfície do tanque, uma imagem carregada de luz e tons de azul é projetada no espaço. Funcionando como uma textura, a projeção torna visível o movimento da água.

Dessa forma, os visitantes são engajados a interagir, testar “sua força” e observar as mudanças que seus gestos causam em tempo real e de forma totalmente imersiva, como se estivessem dentro d’água.

Todo o projeto e a integração do Kinect aos sistemas interativos foram realizados utilizando programas open source como Processing e Arduino.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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British Airways has handed its entire advertising and customer loyalty account to Bartle Bogle Hegarty, adopting a new agency approach which it claims is a “first for the marketing industry”.

L’artiste japonais Daisy Balloon (dont le vrai nom est Rie Hosokai), fait des tenues créatives sous forme de ballons, depuis 2008. Des robes de toutes les couleurs, des cols bouffants, des tenues de scènes comme celle de Björk à un de ses concerts : des photos de ses créations originales sont à découvrir dans la suite.