(TrendHunter.com) ‘Girlfriends’ is a photography exhibit, currently on display at the NY Art Book Fair at MoMa PS1, that explores the female gaze.
The project is a collaboration between fashion and art…
72andSunny has a suggestive new ad for Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s to promote the chain’s new Mile High Bacon Thickburger.
The Paris Hilton-free spot, entitled “Propositioning,” begins with Israeli model and actress Bar Paly asking her boyfriend if he wants to join the “mile high club.” When he replies, “Not right now, babe,” she turns to the guy across the aisle, who happily accepts. Then proceeds to hand him a Mile High Bacon Thickburger and they both chow down, accompanied by a voiceover effectively saying “see what we did there?”
The brand has such a history of demanding overtly-sexual advertising that it would be silly to expect them to “grow up” overnight. Still, given the controversial 2012 Kate Upton spot, “Propositioning” feels relatively tame. (more…)
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
TV’s big broadcast networks kicked off their fall season in earnest this week, and while the trend from broadcasters has been to de-emphasize overnight ratings in favor of counting audiences that accumulate over a week, there’s still something to be said about the shows that are attracting live viewership. While more viewers are certainly watching programming on a delayed basis, about 50 million people still tuned in to one of the Big Four broadcasters last Monday night at 8 p.m., according to Nielsen.
CBS: The network started its season with a “Bang,” averaging nearly 18 million viewers for the one-hour premiere of “The Big Bang Theory” in a temporary Monday-night timeslot. The show also pulled a 5.4 rating among the all-important 18-to-49 demographic. (One ratings point is equivalent to 1% of TV households.) That gave a nice lead-in to the new drama “Scorpion,” which bowed to 14 million viewers and a 3.3 rating. The strong showing has already prompted CBS to change its schedule. It will continue to air an hour of “Big Bang” on Mondayone episode followed by a repeatand delay the premiere of “Mom” to October. “The Millers” will now air on Monday when it begins next month instead of Thursday as planned, while “Mom” runs on Thursday instead of Monday.
Elsewhere, the newest installment of the “NCIS” franchise, this time set in New Orleans, averaged 17.1 million viewers and a 2.5 rating among 18-to-49-year-olds. The original “NCIS” returned to 18 million viewers, and “Madam Secretary” debuted to 14.8 million viewers and a 2.0 rating.
One week ago, Digiday posted a story asking “why are agency people so unhappy?”
It’s been very popular for good reason. Here’s a relevant quote from Dan LaCivita of Firstborn:
“The people writing racist, sexist and awful comments on websites are the bottom of the barrel, and they’re employed, which means they’re making a whole bunch of other people miserable too.”
We have no idea which websites he might be referencing, but we wanted to learn more — so we decided to wade through the Digiday comments to more effectively gauge the agency world’s response to the piece.
In summary, the reasons readers gave for their own misery were:
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Do you like the modern sensibility of a standing desk but wish it also served as a constant reminder of your work life’s soul-crushing drudgery? Well then I’ve got good news.
This 80-inch-diameter Hamster Wheel Standing Desk, invented by two guys (artist Robb Godshaw and developer Will Doenlen) at 3D software company Autodesk, is questionably necessary in a world where we already have treadmill desks. But it’s also pretty awesome.
The whole project is clearly tongue-in-cheek, as you can tell from the description on Instructables.com, where you’ll also find all the directions to make one yourself.
“Rise up, sedentary sentients, and unleash that untapped potential within by marching endlessly towards a brilliant future of focused work. Step forward into a world of infinite potential, bounded only by the smooth arcs of a wheel. Step forward into the Hamster Wheel Standing Desk that will usher in a new era of unprecedented productivity.”
The official video seems a bit languid for my tastes, but as you can see in the time-lapse below, this productivity wheel can handle some serious speed.
Via PC Magazine.
Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis has sent an email to staff reassuring them that “nothing takes away from the huge amount of passion and expertise” that exists at the retailer and pledging to change the business culture.
Apesar do seu imenso e incontestável sucesso, arrebanhando mais de 1,32 bilhão de usuários ativos mensais, o Facebook ainda causa alguns incômodos. Um dos mais recentes é a regra de que é preciso usar seu nome real, igualzinho ao do documento, nos perfis da rede, política que incomodou especialmente pessoas que são conhecidas há anos por seus pseudônimos, como é o caso muitos artistas, drag queens e transgêneros.
Curiosa ou oportunamente, é nesse momento que acontece o boom da Ello, uma rede social que promete ser completamente livre de propaganda. Em um manifesto publicado no site, a Ello deixa claro o seu comprometimento de não fazer do usuário um produto.
“Quase todas as outras redes sociais funcionam com propaganda. Você é o produto que está sendo comprado e vendido”, provoca o manifesto da Ello. “Coletar e vender seus dados pessoais e mapear as suas conexões sociais visando o lucro é tanto assustador quanto antiético. Ao usar um serviço ‘grátis’, os usuários pagam o elevado preso de uma propaganda invasiva e da falta de privacidade”, completa o texto, instaurando um código de ética para a rede que garante ao usuário que ele estará livre de publicidade dentro da plataforma.
A rede também não faz exigências quanto à identidade dos usuários e se posiciona como uma ‘amiga da pornografia’. “Não temos nenhum problema com pornografia, mas com certeza não vamos autorizar bestialidades ou conteúdo pornográfico que incentive as pessoas a machucarem umas às outras, ou qualquer coisa que envolva crianças”, esclareceu Paul Budnitz, fundador da Ello, em entrevista ao BetaBeat.
Em um manifesto publicado no site, a Ello deixa claro o seu comprometimento de não fazer do usuário um produto.
Por enquanto, só quem tem um convite pode se cadastrar na Ello, o que tem causado um desespero pelo tal código que permite o acesso, a ponto deles estarem à venda no eBay. Ainda não tive a oportunidade de obter um convite para testar a ferramenta, mas o Rodrigo Ghedin, do Manual do Usuário, descreveu a rede como uma mistura entre Twitter e Tumblr, com interface bem simples e pouca semelhança com o Facebook.
Criada por um pequeno grupo de artistas e designers que se propõem a fugir dos modelos atuais baseados em propaganda, a Ello terá que apelar para novos formatos – a princípio, a intenção será cobrar de alguns usuários pela liberação de funcionalidades extra, que ainda estão para ser definidas.
Possivelmente alavancado pelo êxodo LGBT do Facebook e catalizado por um tuíte da famosa drag queen Ru Paul, o buzz sobre a Ello só cresce. No entanto, acredito ser um exagero, ao menos nesse momento, enxerga-la como o ‘novo Facebook’.
Boom, honey. @TOMofLA pic.twitter.com/jo3eS2SlED
— RuPaul (@RuPaul) September 24, 2014
Existem ainda muitas ‘pontas soltas’ na rede, como a ausência de controles de privacidade (as postagens são sempre públicas) e um sistema de marcação de conteúdo impróprio, mas ela tem sido recebida com alegria por parte do público, possivelmente como um bom refúgio para quem não se enquadra nas restritivas políticas do Facebook.
Com sua base de usuários dobrando a cada 3 ou 4 dias, a Ello não pode reclamar sobre a velocidade de adesão. Interessada especialmente em designers, artistas e criadores, a Ello promete para breve a chegada de aplicativos da rede, o que pode fomentar uma adoção ainda maior por parte dos usuários.
É cedo para tirar qualquer conclusão, mas é bom ficar de olho na Ello. Seria no mínimo irônico se uma rede que não exibe propaganda e não tem problemas com conteúdo explícito fosse capaz de desbancar gigantes como o Facebook e Twitter.
Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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mono teamed up with New York-based Hornet Studios to introduce Honeywell’s new Lyric thermostat with a new animated campaign.
In a 30-second spot, mono introduces the new smart thermostat’s geo-fencing capabilities, showing how the Lyric can use the location of your phone to determine when you’re away and go into power saving mode, and then sense when you’re coming home and return your home to your preferred temperature. To accomplish this, the animated spot presents the scenario of a man whose layover “turns into a stayover” as he’s forced to book a hotel room. This provides viewers with a good example of when Lyric’s smart features might come in handy. A 15-second spot (also animated) takes a similar approach, telling the story of a family who decide to go camping.
In addition to the broadcast spots, the campaign also includes digital, social, print and OOH properties. Like the broadcast spot, these components align “with moments when Lyric’s technology will be most useful, encouraging people to rethink the possibilities of a smart, money-saving thermostat that offers people the versatility to live their lives spontaneously.” (more…)
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
A couple of days ago, Radiohead front man Thom Yorke tweeted the above photo as well as posted to his tumblr site. Then made the announcement that his new album will be made available for pay, via BitTorrent. BitTorrent, the site known for their sharing-is-caring philosophy is now trying to go legit. Thom Yorke will of course be helping in this process, thanks to all the publicity he’ll be giving to it.
Here’s the official release from him and Nigel Godrich
Afin de réaliser ces magnifiques sculptures, l’artiste new-yorkais Paul Louise-Julie s’est inspiré de ses voyages en Afrique de l’Ouest et de l’art des civilisations africaines. Par la suite, il a créé des peintures en 3D avec un mélange d’influences très subtiles : origamis, masques sorciers et jeux de couleurs, pour une collection très contemporaine. À découvrir.
A Gatorade ad featuring New York Yankee star, Derek Jeter, two Samsung ads and a Budweiser spot all feature in this week’s Campaign Viral Chart.
KitKat’s popular tactical ad on Twitter mocking Apple’s iPhone 6 bendiness has overtaken Oreo’s popular Superbowl tweet.
Fotografias de bastidores de filmes costumam ser registros de momentos em que a história do cinema estava, literalmente, sendo feita. É o caso das imagens que mostramos por aqui no ano passado, e também da incrível coleção reunida pelo usuário do Reddit Join_You_In_The_Sun, que revela o que rolou por trás das câmeras durante a produção da trilogia O Cavaleiro das Trevas, de Christopher Nolan.
Abaixo, selecionamos algumas entre as 120 fotos que fazem parte da coleção. Para conferir todas as imagens, basta clicar aqui.
Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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The advertising revolution took another step forward this month when Samsung announced virtual reality capabilities for its new Galaxy Note smartphone. The Gear VR headset provides panoramic, immersive, three-dimensional technology that interacts with the movements of your eyes and head. Gaming will be a key application, but it’s already being used to immerse users in music concerts and travel experiences. Soon, this unprecedented technology will fundamentally change the way that brands interact with their audiences.
The technology is powered by Oculus Rift, which was created in 2011. When Facebook purchased it in 2013 for $2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg announced, “Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world, or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.” Chris Dixon, an investor at Andreessen Horowitz, said in a Wired.com interview, “I think I’ve seen five or six computer demos in my life that made me think the world was about to change: Apple 2, Netscape, Google, iPhone then Oculus.”
You might have questions about Oculus and whether it’s a viable technology. The original version is big and clumsy. The new Samsung version looks a bit goofy. While reports cite that it works extremely well, it makes some people nauseous. It’s expensive and, outside of the early-early adopters, very few people will line up for the new Gear VR headset. However, the first generation of technology is always big, clumsy and expensive. The second and third generations come in a blink of an eye.
Durham-based agency Baldwin&, Burt’s Bees’ agency of record, is bringing the brand to television for the first time in its 30-year history with a new campaign promoting its line of flavored lip balms.
The campaign is built around one 30-second and two 15-second ads utilizing whimsical animation to illustrate the variety of flavored lip balms from the brand. In the the 30-second spot, bees drop a tube of the brand’s original mint-flavored lip balm and a mint parachute opens. We then see grapefruit butterflies representing Burt’s pink grapefruit variety, chased by a honeycomb net on top a tube of honey-flavor. The scene unfolds to represent all of the brand’s flavored varieties, followed by the new “Uncap flavor” tagline.
“Lip balm is becoming something more like a gum product that brightens up consumers’ day,” Tad Kittredge, associate director of marketing at Burt’s Bees, explained to The New York Times. So while lip balm has traditionally been marketed to treat conditions like chapped lips,”…recently you’re starting to see a lot more of what I would call personality-driven and lifestyle-focused advertising, and we’re focused on the flavors as a way to reinforce the fun aspect of the brand,” Kittredge said.
In addition to the brand’s first television spots, which break Monday, the campaign also includes a print component, which uses similar imagery to promote the brand’s variety of flavors in full-page print ads. (more…)
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Some people think animated GIFs are stupid. Some find them charming. Possibly because of this rift, Twitter seems caught in a pictorial purgatory that makes everyone unhappy.
Like it or not, animated GIFs have become a massively popular form of communication, quickly evolving from passive-aggressive zingers to earnestly useful bites of video that are convenient to watch on just about any platform.
While Tumblr and newer sites like Ello have readily embraced them, Twitter and Facebook have most certainly not. Aside from last year’s quasi-hoax from Giphy, Facebook’s been pretty consistent about not wanting animated GIFs in news feeds. (I originally took this as a stance on user experience, but now that all Facebook videos autoplay silently, I realize I was a chump.)
And then there’s Twitter.
Its love-hate relationship goes back a few years. Here’s a quick recap:
September 2012: Twitter bans animated user avatars but existing ones are grandfathered in (that’s why you still see them from time to time). In fact, other than nudity and profanity, this is just about Twitter’s only restriction on avatars.
November 2013: Animated GIF service Giphy announces it’s been integrated into Twitter’s Media Cards, meaning you can (kind of) post an animated GIF in a tweet. But they were more like attachments you had to expand and didn’t show up in most Twitter streams. And you were restricted to using Giphy images instead of any animated pic you liked.
June 2014: Twitter Support announces you can “share and view animated GIFs on Twitter.com, Android and iPhone.” But that’s not entirely true, since what you’re sharing is a GIF that’s been converted into a looping MP4 video file, meaning you have to click to watch it.
September 2014: Popular GIF service Twitpic announces it is shutting down due to the high cost of a trademark battle with Twitter. This is especially bad news for animated GIF lovers who rely on the third-party service to share animations on Twitter. However, Twitpic announces a few days later that it has been acquired and will stay alive after all.
Where things stand now
We did test runs on the three most common options for posting an animated GIF to Twitter. We tried out Twitter’s built-in media upload feature, the popular Giphy database and the scrappy third-party Twitpic. We tested each on the Web, in TweetDeck and in the official Twitter mobile app. The result are below.
Spoiler alert: Each is flawed, cumbersome and questionably worth the effort.
Excited? Great! Here we go!
1. Posting an animated GIF directly to Twitter or TweetDeck.
This is definitely the easiest route, but it has the huge setback of not actually appearing as an animated GIF in people’s streams, and on TweetDeck it looks like total garbage.
How it looks on Twitter:
Testing something w/ animated gifs. Please ignore. http://t.co/v9a3McVKRl
— David Griner (@griner) September 25, 2014
How it looks on TweetDeck:
How it looks on Twitter’s mobile app (Android):
(Clicking the thumbnail would play the GIF, which is actually converted into an MP4.)
Conclusion: It doesn’t autoplay, it’s not really a GIF, and it doesn’t work on TweetDeck, even though the desktop and Web app was acquired by Twitter way back in 2011. So I wouldn’t call this a great platform for sharing GIFs. Because it doesn’t.
2. Posting an animated GIF via Giphy:
I got a “forbidden” error when I tried uploading my test GIF to Giphy, but I was able to find a similar one already in the site’s database. I then clicked to share via Twitter, which automatically populates your tweet with a Giphy URL and lets you edit the tweet before posting. As you’ll see, the end result is mixed.
How it looks on Twitter:
Another animated gif test, this time via giphy. http://t.co/bKqjK8HO7C
— David Griner (@griner) September 25, 2014
(While Giphy was the only one of the three options that actually autoplays the GIF in a Web tweet, this only works if you embed the tweet like I’ve done here. In a user’s Twitter stream, it’ll just look like text and a link unless the follower clicks to expand the tweet. In other words, it’s likely to get overlooked by Web users on Twitter.com but would look good if dropped into a blog post.)
How it looks on TweetDeck:
How it looks on Twitter’s mobile app (Android):
(Clicking the link expands it to a video thumbnail, which you have to click again to watch on Giphy.com. Bleh.)
Conclusion: You still don’t get your animated GIF into the stream on TweetDeck, and on mobile it’s barely noticeable. It does look good on the Web when expanded or embedded, but not too many active Twitter users see tweets that way. I’m not altogether condemning Giphy as a service, but I would say its role as a tool for sharing animated GIFs on Twitter has likely been overstated.
3. Posting an animated GIF via TwitPic:
At AdFreak, we’ve been using TwitPic for a while now as our animated GIF tweeting service of choice. It autoplays GIFs in TweetDeck, which a lot of our readers seem to use. So you can see why we, like many others, were disturbed to hear the service was being shuttered and then relieved to hear about its stay of execution.
How it looks on Twitter:
Another animated gif test, this time with TwitPic. http://t.co/Rw3Z0wNvJc
— David Griner (@griner) September 25, 2014
How it looks on TweetDeck:
(Hey hey, it worked! Twitpic was the only one of these three options that actually played a GIF in stream on TweetDeck.)
How it looks on Twitter’s mobile app (Android):
(Clicking to expand the tweet only shows it as a still image. You have to click the link to view it as an animation on Twitpic.com.)
Conclusion: Twitpic is great for TweetDeck but looks pretty bad on mobile and Web. But with no TweetDeck support for animated GIFs from Twitter itself, playing in stream is a pretty good selling point for Twitpic.
It’s worth noting that my Twitpic posts were the only ones to get a positive reaction from followers, likely because many of my friends are TweetDeck junkies:
@griner FYI, I saw the twitpic one in my stream on TweetDeck, but just a link for the pic.twittter one…
— Jeremy A Williams (@jeremyawilliams) September 25, 2014
@griner Ironically enough. I would have expected the exact opposite
— Jeremy A Williams (@jeremyawilliams) September 25, 2014
@griner I can see this one in Tweetdeck. The others are links. I’m not good at ignoring Madagascar.
— Andrea Updyke (@AndreaUpdyke) September 25, 2014
In Summary
Tweeting animated GIFs, for now, is still like trying get to the grocery store by riding a tricycle made of wet cardboard and rusted coffee cans. You’ll eventually get there, but you’ll look and feel like an idiot most of the way.
Which service you should use really depends on your audience. If most of your followers are mobile-savvy millennials on the go, Twitter’s native upload feature is probably best, though it’s still disappointing and (again) doesn’t actually use animated GIFs.
If your audience is more likely to be Twitter power users savvy with TweetDeck, I’d stick with Twitpic (while it exists).
Hopefully Twitter will get past its conflicted feelings on GIFs soon and decide to either support them 100 percent or block them outright by forcing them into click-to-play MP4 videos. I wouldn’t bet on seeing autoplaying GIFs in all your streams anytime soon, though. And with Twitpic being an outlier that’s already in the crosshairs of Twitter’s legal team, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with that being a long-term option, either.
Everything’s crappy and nothing works like it should. Welcome to the future, everybody.
Colin Jeffery joined David & Goliath in 2006 and was promoted to chief creative officer this year. A native of Cape Town, South Africa, his career has spanned three continents — Africa, Asia and North America — over the last 15 years and his portfolio includes work for Volkswagen, ESPN, Hewlett Packard, Toyota, Burger King, BMW and Land Rover. Mr. Jeffery is especially familiar with that last brand. He grew up in an outdoorsy family and spent much of his childhood either in a Land Rover Defender exploring the bush or out at sea. His stories are amazing, and he shares them in this week’s edition “Six Things.”
1. He has his fair share of “this one time, in the wilderness” tales. Like when he was caught in the crossfire between elephant poachers and game rangers on the banks of the Zambezi River. “Or the time we saved a British couple from a pride of lions in Zimbabwe. Or the night we decided to hunt crocs with our bare hands in the Okavango Swamps,” he said. There were also mishaps — he was stung by a scorpion once. And there was the time he and friend capsized a boat off of Cape Point, breaking the mast and leaving him with a bloody hand in icy, shark-infested waters. “I miss those days,” he said.
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.
