Hasta La Creative!

Every weekday, we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new and trending TV commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, a company that catalogs, tags and measures activity around TV ads in real time. The New Releases here ran on TV for the first time yesterday. The Most Engaging ads are showing sustained social heat, ranked by SpotShare scores reflecting the percent of digital activity associated with each one over the past week. See the methodology here.

Among the new releases, NFL star Nick Mangold camps out in a cooler at a convenience store — the “Pepsi Snap Fridge” — and alternately freaks out and charms random customers. (Why? The ad’s tagline explains that it’s “All for Football.”) And Denny’s promotes the fact that you can put a “holiday twist” (specifically, gingerbread French toast and pumpkin pancakes) on its Grand Slam breakfast, while also revealing that even children who are on Santa’s naughty list are eligible to indulge.

As always, you can find out more about the making of the best commercials on TV at Ad Age’s Creativity.

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Jon Steinberg, CEO of North America at Daily Mail, couldn’t believe what he was hearing Wednesday morning: Google’s DoubleClick, which serves ads on publishers’ websites, was down — across every site that used it, worldwide.

“The idea that it was everyone was inconceivable,” Mr. Steinberg said. “It’s like saying it’s raining everywhere.”

Support staff at MailOnline then pulled up other websites — The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Forbes, Time — to show him the extent of the DoubleClick failure. Not only had banner ads disappeared, but so had many native ads that should’ve been mixed in among editorial content. That’s because DoubleClick serves them all.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

People are doubtful about the safety of their personal information online or on cellphones. Yet it does not necessarily change their behavior, according to a new poll.

BBH London has crafted an ambitious online spot for British Airways entitled “The Welcome of Home.”

The four minute long ad tells the story of a Canadian woman named Chitra visiting her grandmother in India, and bringing along a bit of a surprise. It is an emotional journey, perhaps a bit too saccharine for some, dealing with themes of family, love, culture and the true meaning of home. “No matter how many years I’ve been away, home will always be India,” Chitra says at the spot’s conclusion, before the message, “We know how important home is appears onscreen.” There’s little overt branding in the ad until its conclusion, with BBH London instead tying British Airways to the idea of home and the emotional tone of the ad. It’s well produced and, unlike a lot of long-form ads, doesn’t feel stretched beyond its limits. Still, getting people to sit through a four minute long ad for an airline is an uphill battle, making the attempt perhaps too ambitious for its own good. (more…)

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(TrendHunter.com) This stylish 1960s house renovation brings plenty of natural light and open spaces to this home, both of which were lacking in the original, outdated design by Brown and Kaufman. Klopf Architecture…

Sainsbury’s has launched its “Christmas is for sharing” World War I ad featuring a chocolate bar the supermarket will be selling in store to raise money for the Royal British Legion.

In a story that somehow slipped through the cracks here yesterday, Nestle USA shrunk its digital agency roster to eight shops, following a lengthy review which the company launched in the spring to “streamline the agency roster and increase the impact of the company’s digital efforts,” AdAge reported.

The review covered Nestle USA brands, excluding Purina, Gerber and Nestle Waters, which are part of a separate Nestle division. Agencies left standing are 360i, Deep Focus, Huge, Grey, Resource/Ammirati, Threshold Interactive, SmithBrothers and Swift. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Read more about Mulberry #WinChristmas / Unicorn – (2014) :90 (UK)
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Google’s YouTube described its new music-streaming service today, giving the internet company another tool to compete with Apple.

YouTube’s ad-free Music Key will begin on an invite-only basis next week with a promotional subscription price of $7.99 per month — discounted from $9.99, Google said today in a blog post. YouTube also is adding a music-focused tab that includes favorites and recommended playlists.

Google is investing in mobile entertainment options as it works to drive revenue beyond its search-engine business. There’s already a crowded field: Apple agreed to pay $3 billion to buy headphones and streaming-music service Beats Electronics in May. Others include Pandora Media and Spotify.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Since the embargo has passed, we can tell you that Wix, a company calling itself “the leading web development platform,” has moved beyond sponsored Facebook posts to drop the $4 million required to buy an ad during next year’s Super Bowl.

The press release doesn’t include much beyond that: no hints regarding the coming ad’s theme or tone, though we did learn in September that the company named New York’s Silver+Partners its AOR. The release also tells us that the company has achieved “massive” growth despite lacking a sales team by “executing a wide array of online and offline marketing and advertising initiatives.”

For reference, here’s one of those initiatives, created six months ago by New York agency Special Guest:

After the jump, one of those branded “events” we keep hearing about.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.