(TrendHunter.com) Canadian artist and unabashed comic book lover Darren Rawlings is back with a series of Marvel vs DC drawings. Each illustration features a Marvel superhero alongside their DC equivalent.
If you&#…
(TrendHunter.com) Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie and Harry Potter star Emma Watson are just some of the a-list celebs featured in these live-action Disney film artworks by graphic designer Thomas Kurniawan….
Ad Age: What inspired you to start the web series?
Mr. Ruffin: This show is a direct response to Matthew Weiner’s comment, that “there [were] no black people in advertising.” Mr. Weiner may be misinformed or he may be ignorant but either way he is wrong. There were more than a handful of African Americans working in all sorts of capacities on Madison Avenue during that era. As a designer I wanted to be a fan of “Mad Men” like all of my colleagues, but I couldn’t get past its representation of blacks during the first season so I just left it alone. That is Matthews Weiner’s artistic expression and I’m cool with that. Artists should have the right to paint whatever picture they want. However, once I saw him being confronted on the lack of blacks with meaning on his show, and he gave that cop-out of an answer, I just wanted to offer up some “counter” art. So I resurrected an old sketch idea I wrote in 2011 for a grad school application and made a show that paid homage to some of those hard working Black ad executives and copywriters of the ’60s. The point of our show is just to poke a little fun at the situation but try to keep the mainstream a little more honest.
Ad Age: How did you get backing from Dailymotion?
The most controversial issue in marketing is “line extension.” In our speeches, that’s usually the first question that comes up. When can I line-extend my brand?
Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer-products company, seems relentless in their search for new categories its brands can move into. The latest example being Old Spice, a men’s fragrance brand currently moving into hair care.
In the last six years, P&G spent $28.6 billion on advertising in America, which is considerably more than the annual gross domestic product of Nicaragua, a country of more than five million people.
This week Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who famously advised women last year to “lean in,” has launched a campaign that’s become ubiquitous in social media. She wants people to stop applying the word “bossy” to little girls because it’s never applied to little boys.
I don’t know whether the “Ban Bossy” campaign, as it is called, will be effective in any way, but I do know that imagery, storytelling and portrayals of women in advertising and the popular culture are probably far more impactful on how society views women and girls.
In the 1970s, “The Mary Tyler Moore” show featured Mary Richards, a career woman over 30, unmarried and perfectly happy. In fact, her marital status had nothing to do with any theme or story line of the show, yet that aspect of the sitcom was considered revolutionary but only in retrospect.
I asked Bob whether consumers understand the tradeoff. “I think they do. I think they understand that they are a part of — at Nike, let’s say a running club — and that their information is shared and is combined in a way that is useful to them. So it’s also utility. If they get back some interesting utility, they feel it’s a fair trade.”
Bob has always been good at anticipating what lies ahead, and he attributes that skill to his dyslexia. “As you overcome aspects of dyslexia, you get a benefit to sort of pre-visualize things. That’s why so many of the people who have it are in business in things like architecture” — which is also an avid interest of Bob’s.
Big changes
Ford ad agency Team Detroit is having a little fun with Cadillac, according to the Detroit Free Press. Using the founder of sustainability consultancy and advocacy group Detroit Dirt — who also happens to be an African-American woman — the shop has created a spot that parodies the GM nameplate’s “Poolside” ad released earlier this year.
Remember that Cadillac spot? The one that broke during the Olympics? That bit of “brand provocation” from agency Rogue featured actor Neal McDonough playing a rich white guy in a huge house spouting off about the American work ethic, taking digs at other countries and touting the Cadillac ELR as a reward for the hardworking man.
Some saw it as a fun mix of American pride and, yes, jingoism, that was perfect for the target audience. Others saw it as celebrating the worst of American egotism. It was so provocative, in fact, that Cadillac ad director Craig Bierley tried to clear up misconceptions. And CMO Uwe Ellinghaus, who took the job after the ad was already almost done, admitted to Automotive News that the company inserted the electric hybrid at the last minute to make the spot more “socially palatable” (or, put another way, less jerky).
Beats Music has tapped Bozoma Saint John as its first marketing chief as competition in the music-streaming business heats up.
Ms. Saint John, who goes by “Boz,” had been the head of the Music and Entertainment Marketing Group for Pepsi-Cola North America. She will officially begin her role as senior VP, head of global marketing, on April 14, reporting to Beats Music CEO Ian Rogers.
In January, Beats Music debuted as a $10/month subscription music service. Like its eponymous headphone sibling founded by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, the music service seeks to set itself apart from its competition with music experts. In this case, experts who — along with sophisticated algorithms for preferences — curate playlists and suggestions meant to deliver what consumers will want to listen to next.
After 11 years with American Express and helping to foster the growth of its popular Open Forum, Scott Roen has taken a job as Managing Director and Head of Digital Marketing at financial services giant BlackRock.
Mr. Roen, who recently made Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 list, will officially join BlackRock on April 7 as a part of its Global Marketing & Communications Group. He was VP-digital marketing and innovation at American Express.
Mr. Roen will now report directly to the Chief Marketing Officer Anne Ackerley and help coordinate the teams driving BlackRock’s digital advertising, web and social media strategies.
Coca-Cola’s multilingual “America the Beautiful” spot is courageous beyond belief. And the recent AdAge feature story, “Ad Campaigns Are Finally Reflecting Diversity of U.S.” demonstrates a general trend of progress in creative work. But unfortunately, when we hold up the cultural messages of the Coke spot and the AdAge story as mirrors against the agency landscape, the results still aren’t pretty.
This is an overwhelmingly white industry in an America that’s increasingly multi-racial. The census tells us there are now 116 million non-white Americans — about the same number of people as the combined populations of France and Spain. So let me ask a question that’s bound to make some uncomfortable: How many non-white executives are on your agency’s leadership team? How many have there ever been, in the history of your agency? If you’re at an agency with more than 100 people and the answer is zero, I have a follow-up question: Seriously?
The problem here isn’t intent. For years, we’ve created committees, launched HR initiatives, held panel discussions — all intended to make agencies less racially stratified. But most of this activity seems to have had little effect. As Ken Wheaton wrote in an Ad Age piece in 2012 (citing survey data from Tangerine-Watson), 74% of minorities in the industry feel “My experience as an employee from a multicultural background is different from my colleagues.” This suggests that minorities at agencies feel isolated, feel they have less access and connection to senior agency leadership, and suffer through a sense of silent uneasiness.
If political races have become data wars, conventional wisdom has it, the Democrats clearly have the advantage in 2014 and 2016. After all, the stockpiles of data from President Barack Obama’s two campaigns have been deposited in the party’s armory alongside the software to put it to good use.
But it’s not so simple. While the party as a whole navigates a newly treacherous political landscape — none other than Nate Silver predicted the Democrats could actually lose control of the Senate — individual campaigns across the country may struggle to use something as big and complex as Obama’s data trove, which was built for a nationwide campaign. Think of taking a fire hose to your flower garden, or asking the local marina’s security guy to dock a submarine.
The fact is, even if the political topics had stayed the same, most state legislative or U.S. House candidates can’t possibly use all the data that’s been given to the party. And, just as important, a single candidate simply doesn’t have the resources to hire more than one internal data handler, much less replicate the 50-plus crew that steered the Obama analytics ship.
If one of the country’s big brands unveils an online-only campaign mocking a competitor using said competitor’s name and no one pays attention, does it make a sound?
Yes. A tiny one. A little squeal of frustration that would sound like, “What about me?” But no one’s paying attention to that, either.
Not when one of the country’s other massive brands did much the same thing, but dropped a few metric tons of cash to run its campaign on fusty old TV and — how old school is this? — some extra change on a PR effort.
“Mad Men” viewers in the Chicago area saw a local TV spot Sunday night for an actual ad agency, Evanston, Ill.-based Ungar Group.
The spot, which will run again during future episodes of “Mad Men,” actually seems a bit like a crossover between AMC’s adland show and the network’s breakout zombie hit “The Walking Dead.” It shows a man in a suit walking through an elegant space and taking out a cigar as the voiceover begins, “If you’re looking for an advertising agency and don’t meet with the Ungar Group …”
Cut to the man’s face, revealing him as a zombie, who finishes the sentence: ” … You will regret it the rest of your lives.”
Perhaps most importantly, our status as Small Agency of the Year allowed us to add even more really talented, nice people. But, here’s the thing: nearly everyone who has joined our team in the last eight months found us. They figured we must be doing something right to earn that kind of recognition, and, we’ve helped prove them right.
Thinking back to our moment on the podium accepting our award at the Small Agency Awards in Portland, we realize that values we built our agency upon were recognized by the industry, and that was gratifying. Indeed, great ideas can come from anywhere, even Nebraska.
So our advice to peers in the small agency community: it’s not the award that will lead to your success. It’s all those gut-wrenching, terrifying, substantial changes you’ve been meaning to make. The ones you haven’t gotten around to and have been purposefully avoiding. The changes your largest client hasn’t demanded — yet. Dust off that to-do list. Trust us, it’s worth it.
When is a new Hispanic marketing program not really a Hispanic marketing program? When it’s intended for the general market, but with a distinctly Latina orientation on the theory that programs for the general market should start with the fastest-growing population segment.
That’s the strategy behind Celebrate Family Unity (Celebrate FUN for short), which Kimberly-Clark Corp. sees as its most important effort for the Hispanic community ever, while also appealing to the general market. The program links five of K-C’s most important consumer brands under one banner, including Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kleenex, Scott and U by Kotex.
Because one in four Hispanic families has at least three generations in the same household, the company went with an “infancy to maturity approach,” said Lizette Williams, senior brand manager.
Universal insights, ranging from the current obsession with selfies to the way big news events are covered by helicopters overhead, fueled the ideas that were named the five best of the year at the third annual U.S.H. Idea Awards.
The awards are organized by the Circulo Creativo of U.S. Hispanic creatives and were presented Tuesday night during the Hispanic agency group AHAA’s annual conference in Miami. Here are the five best ideas from U.S. Hispanic agencies:
1. In “Mutt Bombing,” Omnicom’s Hispanic agency Dieste took up the cause of Dallas Pets Alive after Executive Creative Director Ciro Sarmiento happened upon an adoption event in a local park, and was drawn into the challenge of finding foster familiesand eventually permanent homesfor abandoned animals before their days ran out at the pet shelter. In February, Dieste selected selfies on Instagram of well-known or influential users, photoshopped an adoptable dog into each one, and reposted them with the adoption message and the hashtag #muttbombing.
Web video is a critical business for AOL, which is betting its future on it along with premium content and ad technology. And Monday night, the most critical night of the year for its video business, AOL put its sales muscle on display at its NewFronts presentation in Brooklyn.
McDonald’s executives are used to other marketers asking them for tips on how to do multicultural marketing better.
Alma; Adam Salgado, McDonald’s; Luis Miguel Messianu, Alma; Priscila Aviles Jamison, and Patricia Diaz from McDonald’s.” class=”medium” credit=”” image=”http://%%img_server%%/images/bin/image/medium/mcdonalds_marketeroftheyear_ahaaconference2014.jpg” url=”” />
The company’s role as the gold standard for marketing to ethnic consumers was recognized this week when the fast-feeder was named Marketer of the Year at the annual conference in Miami of AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing. (The first winner, last year, was Walmart).
In 2011, Prudential and agency Droga5 took a slightly different approach to advertising about retirement services. No straight, boring talk of financial planning. But also no shots of youthful-looking retirees galloping across the globe or swing dancing or playing golf or snorting crushed up Viagra at seniors-only raves (that’s probably not an actual thing, but it really should be).
Rather, “Day One,” as it was called, asked real people to document their first day of retirement. The resulting short films and commercials captured the excitement of being free — and the fear of stepping into a world of unknowns. How many years of work-free bliss will you have? What will you do with all that time? And, of course, have you put aside enough money so that you don’t have to collect cans on the side of the road? As Creativity Editor Ann-Christine Diaz noted, “It was a little bit unsettling.”
Which also made it effective. Planting a seed of fear can be good marketing, especially if it’s fertilized with a bit of inspiration. Of course, there was some inspiration in “Day One.” Viewers weren’t left with the impression that Day One-ers were in dire straits.
Next week, members of the media industry will converge at various New York midtown venues to view program schedule pitches by the major national broadcasters. It signals the seventh anniversary of Nielsen Media Research’s move to C3 ratings — providing standardized ratings for commercials during live broadcasts of programs, plus three days of playback.
The deal was groundbreaking at the time. Advertisers and their agencies wanted to pay for the audience that actually saw their ads. Previously, ratings measured average audiences for live programs, not specific commercials. The quid pro quo for the networks was recognition for later audiences of their programs that they hadn’t been earning credit on. They negotiated with the agencies and settled on C3.
It’s time to now move to C7 ratings, and here’s why.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
