Hasta La Creative!

Forget the Apple Watch and iPhone 6. Apple Pay is Apple’s next biggest innovation and this is why: Touch ID has the potential to finally push mobile over the hump in the U.S.

Yes, Apple has spent a good deal of time discussing the near-field-communication technology and how it is working with retail, credit card and bank partners. It was quick to point out that there are merchants ready to accept Apple Pay as a very secure payment method. But that isn’t the news. Go into any Starbucks on any day and you will see plenty of mobile transactions.

The far more intriguing topic, which was hardly discussed during last week’s launch, is Touch ID. Touch ID enables “one-touch checkout” for online shopping apps. Say goodbye to the hassle of entering your credit card information on the small screen. See something you like, touch it, and it’s yours!

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Starting from an engineering background, Liz Hamren began her career on the product side at Microsoft. But when she moved into product management for the startup handheld computer maker OQO, she found that no one was taking charge of marketing. “We didn’t have a brand or a website; we needed a whole marketing strategy,” she says. “So I learned how to do it.”

Today, following successful stints at Aliph/Jawbone and Plantronics, she serves as VP-marketing for Dropcam, a cloud-based video monitoring service that was recently acquired by Google’s Nest Labs. Dropcam combines communications and security: After setting up a Wi-Fi Dropcam camera at home, customers can access secure streaming video, activity alerts or two-way talk on their mobile phonesenabling them to keep an eye on kids, older relatives or pets, or to examine an empty home while traveling.

Ms. Hamren is a Digital Trailblazer for her success in bringing new consumer productsand product categoriesto market with sophisticated digital advertising strategies.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) This elegant and minimalist packaging is designed for March Pantry. Embracing simplicity, the collection features bottles and jars along with paper boxes that are understated in their design…

Note Design Studio, basé à Stockholm, s’est inspiré des photographies de Jordan Sullivan prises dans la Vallée de la Mort pour imaginer l’intérieur du café Finefood. Ses différents palettes de couleurs et nuances vont du turquoise au saumon, en passant par l’émeraude et un vert-menthe. Des teintes tantôt tranchées tantôt pastel dans un cadre moderne faisant écho au style scandinave.

(TrendHunter.com) Christmas is coming up and that means coming up with present ideas that will be appreciate by specific people; enter this collection of gifts for alcohol lovers. Whether loved ones and colleagues…

(TrendHunter.com) People are said to adopt dogs that look like themselves and this photo series of human-cat hybrids appear to make an argument for their feline counterparts. Of course, the combinations are much more…

If watching Drew Brees talk to a hyper-awkward robot for six minutes is your kind of thing, then Old Spice has an ad for you.

The New Orleans Saints quarterback keeps his cool during “4th and Touchdown,” a fictional sports news show hosted by Old Spice’s new mascot, who in the recent past has been doing well with human women, despite his total lack of social skills.

Absent that context, the moral now seems to be that viewers should act like Drew Brees, not like a hyper-awkward robot, which is pretty sound advice regardless. Even if the robot claims to have great hair thanks to Old Spice, he’s not the most reliable narrator.

The pair’s antics range from fairly grating to pretty amusing, with some sharp writing and and a lot of waiting between the high points (see: roughly 4:15, Brees pretending to be a brass instrument). In a way, the finale rewards your patience, though may not be quite enough to compensate (perhaps a shorter edit would be in order?).

Anyway, the whole thing deserves credit for trying to send up the tradition of senseless televised sports coverage, even if the pass doesn’t quite connect. That robot does a solid impression of a smug anchor.

And if you do like it, stay tuned for more. The brand is promising appearances from Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green and Seattle Seahawks defensive back Earl Thomas.