Hasta La Creative!

DDB Chicago is taking a break from reviving old Saturday Night Live characters to remind viewers that State Farm offers financial services, life and home insurance.

Two weeks ago, DDB Chicago launched the campaign with the sentimental spot “Never” (featured after the jump), depicting a man who says he’ll never get married getting married, having kids, moving to the suburbs and buying a minivan. Now, the agency has unleashed the next ad in the campaign, the similarly-minded “At Last.” The spot continues aiming for the heart, depicting a second marriage between a man and a woman who each have children. “Sometimes at last doesn’t happen at first,” says a voiceover as the couple tie the know. “Your dad just kissed my mom,” says the daughter and hugs her new brother as the voiceover ties the scene to State Farm: “Turning two worlds into one takes love, helping protect that world takes State Farm.” The spot debuted yesterday on ABC.

“It’s important for us to shift the way people think about us instead of just reinforcing what they already think,” Patty Morris, director-marketing and brand content at State Farm, explained to AdAge. “It’s all about the balance.”

The campaign will continue to roll out over the next 6-8 weeks, with at least two additional ads planned. According to AdAge these include a spot about a young man leaving home and a woman retiring early thanks to savvy financial planning. “They show things working out, but not how you planned,” said John Maxham, chief creative officer at DDB. “Theres a great human truth to that. And State Farm is there with you to handle these twists and turns.” (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The New York Times is looking at native advertising, sponsorships and video to wring more money from readers coming to the Times on their mobile phones, according to Mark Thompson, president and CEO of The New York Times Co.

Just 10% of the Times’ digital advertising revenue was from mobile ads in the third quarter, but more than half its digital traffic came through mobile devices. Although mobile ad revenue is “growing rapidly,” this gap represents a “significant delta,” Mr. Thompson said at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York on Tuesday.

“It’s a challenge to overcome, but we will overcome it,” he said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Social media transformed classic PR and is offering startups and growing brands endless new possibilities to drive traffic to their digital and physical storefronts. It sounds like the best of all worlds; blending new media with old media, right? Any startup has the ability to set up a Twitter account or Facebook page, yet you still must follow traditional public relations rules on these channels.

Issues may come up as businesses rely too heavily on social media at the expense of proven public relations strategies. All too often, we have seen first-hand during the dawn of social media the horrific (and hilarious) errors which were made as clients jumped in too fast.

Murray Newlands, along with Drew Hendricks, has authored a new book, How to get PR for your Startup: Traction which includes 5 guidelines for avoiding typical pitfalls.

1. Build up personal relationships. Absolutely, it is vital to follow journalists on Twitter to keep updated on their work. However, “follows” on social media do not necessarily produce press coverage. One-on-one relationships with the media still bring the ideal results.

If you are prepared to go to a trade show (or a digital media panel), inquire of the event organizers if they possess a list of attending media, and reach out to the suitable bloggers and journalists with a thoughtful e-mail that requests a meeting.

Follow the exact same approach with business press in your area. You will be surprised with the results. Media almost always pay more attention to the leaders and businesses they have met. The perfect time to reach out is on Friday. The worst time is the afternoon, as traditional media are on a deadline.

2. You should always ‘sell’ to the media’s hot buttons. Journalists possess designated “beats.” In public relations, it is your responsibility to know these subjects and cater to exact coverage needs.

Keep in mind: The blogger’s or journalist’s main objective includes creating content which attracts the most eyes, delivers on the most plaudits and excitement, and therefore advances his/her career. All approaches made to this “customer” ought to be driven by the motive, “How may I assist the journalist in reaching his/her goal?”

3. Make all contacts worthwhile. Company feeds on Twitter which jumble together blog links and job openings are a waste of time for media. And worse yet, the practice of utilizing Twitter to pitch a story en mass to the world.

These types of tweets receive the same welcoming as spam does. If you desire media attention, make every contact golden. Journalists’ favorite words include “advance” and “exclusive.” If you approach journalists with a story that’s theirs alone, in many cases, they will love it.

An advance exclusive almost never fails to win the reporter’s instant attention and long-range appreciation. Just be certain to specify that your story you are advancing is embargoed from additional press outlets until the announcement’s time and date.

4. Make videos, not “hideos.” In the age of YouTube, video has become an increasingly powerful and popular medium for distributing business information and news. However, before you jump in the director’s chair, bear in mind that there is a reason why Ben Affleck, Steven Spielberg, and Angelina Jolie make the big bucks: They all know how to script, act, produce, and direct films commanding an audience’s attention.

In contrast, many company forays behind a camera result in a “hideo” — talking heads that are interspersed with PowerPoint slides. If you are intent on making a video, go for it! However, employ an expert videographer. These professionals may develop eye-popping video at competitive costs and quickly.

5. You should never make social media a crisis response bureau. Occasionally, bad things occur to reputable businesses. Sites crash. C-level execs are indicted. Centers flood or burn down. As crises arise, you require a public relations response staff in place to take control and directly handle media, offering up-to-the-minute support reassuring customers and the public.

A handful of the worst crisis public relations in recent years happened as businesses defaulted to Twitter to deal with press inquiries. Media exploded and wrote about their irritation in attempting to locate a live person to answer questions. Annoyed customers utilized organizations’ own tweets against them — and retweeted the posts with added “boos.”

Utilized as a portion of an integrated approach to communications, channels such as Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, may amplify the impact of public relations to build a brand, develop a loyal follower community, as well as attract interested press members.

How funny does “dogs playing with dildos” sound to you? Your answer will help predict how much you enjoy this latest, most elaborate campaign from UK health-focused agency Langland.

This long spot was created to promote “home STI (sexually transmitted infection) kit” producer Randox, which is pretty much all you need to know:

That took a while, but we get it.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Anheuser-Busch InBev will strengthen it ties to the Big Apple by moving its U.S. sales and marketing execs from to New York City from St. Louis.

The move includes the formation of a new “U.S. commercial strategy office” in New York that will serve as a hub for sales and marketing operations, A-B InBev said in an internal memo shared with Ad Age. The office, to be staffed primarily by sales and marketing personnel, will be led by U.S. Marketing VP Jorn Socquet and U.S. VP-Sales David Almeida. The office is expected to eventually house roughly 250 people, including new hires.

“A New York office will provide us with unique opportunities to continue building our brands and developing our people in a new environment,” A-B InBev said in the memo. “It will afford us greater exposure to developing trends in a diverse, urban center; proximity to marketing partners, including sports leagues, the music and entertainment industries and advertising agencies; and close ties with the AnheuserBusch InBev global functional office in New York.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Apple has launched a new campaign promoting the iPad Air 2, entitled “Change.”

In the 60-second broadcast spot, billed (in DesignTAXI, at least) as a follow-up to the brand’s “Your Verse” campaign (and thus, presumably, like that campaign, created in-house), Apple shows all the different ways various types of people use the iPad Air 2. That strategy is very much a continuation of previous efforts, and while there’s not really anything new here, the spot is well-produced and stylish (no surprises there). Some of the more clever/unusual ways the tablet is used include a motorcyclist inserting it into his center console, a carpenter who blows stray wood chips off the tablet while utilizing it in his studio, a woman making a stop-motion animation video. One interesting stylistic choice in the spot is that it starts full-screen and becomes thinner and thinner to show off the iPad Air 2?s thinness, eventually culled down to representative width and rotating across the screen over a white background. The spot ends with the footage turning into the iPad Air 2 itself, followed by the tagline, “Change is in the Air” a clever attempt to talk up the tablet’s capabilities.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

« Somewear » est une série d’auto-portraits réalisée par la photographe Lucia Fainzilber. Une série de portraits où l’artiste se photographie habillée de tenues concordant avec les motifs et les couleurs du fond, un peu à la manière de Romina Ressia. Un travail esthétique et recherché à découvrir en images.

It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman was elected the first African-American woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives this November. What was a surprise was that Ms. Watson Coleman took 61% of the vote, far more than the 50-something percent party insiders worried she might garner. Campaign operatives chalk up the dominant win to sophisticated data analysis that helped home in on the most important voter groups for turnout and persuasion efforts.

The campaign was at the forefront of a trend that gained steam among local and statewide candidates on the right and left this midterm season, indicating that the data-centric approaches taken by President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential race could be applied on a smaller scale.

In the case of the Watson Coleman campaign, to merely eek out a win wouldn’t do for Democrats who were concerned the district in contention — New Jersey’s 12th could become a hot potato during the presidential election two years away.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Expedia has launched a Europe-wide social media campaign, asking customers to share their festive snaps from home or abroad.

Comme les années précédentes, les artistes de la ville de Kaunas, en Lituanie, se sont concertés pour édifier un sapin de Noël hors du commun. Une tradition créative qui perdure, notamment avec ce nouvel arbre luminescent en forme de nuage magique et orné d’une douzaine de sculptures d’anges revisités. Un arbre féérique digne des fêtes de Noël, à découvrir.