(TrendHunter.com) The most relevant 2014 life trends indicate emerging patterns in aspects of daily life, including friends, careers and the lifestyles of others.
This year in particular saw in interest in niche…
Last month we broke the news of an executive reshuffling at R/GA San Francisco. That move saw the departure of an MD and an ECD, and today we learned that the agency has tapped two Brazilian vets to replace them.
Paola Colombo, VP/MD, and Paulo Melchiori, VP/ECD, founded the shop’s Sao Paulo office in 2010, and they will hold the same positions in San Francisco moving forward. Fabiano Coura, another Sao Paulo co-founder, will step into Colombo’s role, with Technology Director Edson Sueyoshi moving up to VP.
Departed SF ECD Rob Smiley has gone the freelance route, and there’s no word on any new creative hires in Sao Paulo.
The change will be complete by March 2015, and all four executives will report directly to agency founder/CEO Bob Greenberg, who writes:
“I’m very excited to have Paola and Paulo return to the San Francisco market after successfully launching our award-winning São Paulo office, which after five years continues to grow exponentially.”
In other San Francisco agency news, Mullen/GS&P/DDB alum Stephen Goldblatt is now officially ECD at West, according to his LinkedIn page — so stop sending us tips about it!
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
FCB Inferno has just launched its first campaign for BMW UK with a 60-second spot promoting the hybrid i8, entitled “Curiosity.”
The spot is based off an idea “first presented in June 2013, when FCB Inferno pitched to win the BMW UK creative account,” according to The Drum. “Curiosity” shows an early human in the year 4000 BC as he becomes curious about a herd of horses. “Interesting thing curiosity: we can learn from it, we can die from it,” intones the voiceover. Although the man is frightened, he manages to mount one of the horses, taking an important step forward for civilization as the voiceover sums up the situation: “…sometimes it can lead us to places we never imagined we would reach.” The ad then pans to the BMW i8, introducing the vehicle as an important innovation for the company. A bit hyperbolic perhaps, but this isn’t a brand known for its modesty.
“In essence, driving a BMW is about exhilaration. The emotion behind the ultimate driving machine is very primal in some respects. The first man ever to have the breakthrough idea of riding a wild horse seemed a fitting parallel for the breakthrough idea that is the i8,” Al Young, FCB chief creative officer, explained to The Drum.
The ad is slated to premiere during the final ad break of the X Factor, and will then be broken up into smaller segments to air on broadcast and online.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
In news that somehow managed to slip through the cracks, Ferrero U.S.A handed over creative duties on Tic Tac to The Martin Agency following a six month review.
Back in July we reported that the review was down to three finalists, with incumbent agency Merkley + Partners defending against two unidentified agencies. Merkley + Partners had handled creative duties for Tic Tac since 2004. Martin Stoewahse, vice president of marketing for Ferrero, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the company chose to hand the account over to The Martin Agency “because they showed us an exciting brand platform that will help reinvigorate our brand … a fully integrated campaign that will make consumers take a fresh look at our iconic brand.”
According to The Martin Agency CEO Matt Williams, the agency aims to ““take a brand that everyone knows and loves and inject it with new energy.”
The agency expects to debut its first work for the brand in the first quarter of 2015, at which time we’ll find out if it will bear any resemblance to that of UK’s Aesop Agency (featured above).
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Pereira & O’Dell continues to produce intriguing work for Skype, with their latest, “Turning the tide” marking a shift in approach.
Last year, the agency focused on the emotion of the personal connections it helped foster, through its “Stay Together” campaign and its highlight, “The Born Friends Family Portrait.” With “Turning the tide,” Pereira & O’Dell focuses instead on how the service helps a pair of journalists tell the story of Kiribati, the island nation that is in danger of being wiped off the map by 2040, thanks to rising oceans caused by climate change. Indeed, the people of Kiribati are already becoming the “world’s first climate change refugees” as the rising ocean levels have contaminated their food and water.
The “modern mobile news team” of Anna Therese Day and Gianluca Panella are telling the island’s story, and utilize Skype as an important. “…Skype is second nature to us,” Anna says, “Being able to instantly share information, images, files…it means you can get to the heart of the story quickly.”While this inserts Skype into the conversation, it doesn’t do a whole lot to differentiate the brand from its competitors. Still, Pereira & O’Dell crafted an affecting spot, allowing Skype to tell an important story that many viewers might be unfamiliar with (although the story has been covered by a few major news outlets, including CNN). The agency seems to have made a choice to value storytelling and allying Skype with an important cause over overt branding. How effective you view the spot as will largely depend on which of these factors you place the most value on. (more…)
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Here’s a new and timely campaign from Saatchi & Saatchi’s New York office. The client is Brotherhood/Sister Sol or “Bro/Sis,” a Harlem-based youth development organization that has played an active role in the movement to reform the NYPD’s controversial “stop and frisk” policy, which disproportionately targets young men of color.
Here’s the spot, which debuted on the group’s YouTube page yesterday:
It’s a bleak portrait of the difference between the police department’s approach to serving disparate communities, and its purpose is to raise awareness of conversations like those depicted above. Talk about the talk, a site set up as part of the campaign (which also includes social media elements) lays out the campaign’s theme:
“It’s time to acknowledge that the conversations about the police that happen in black homes are often very different than they are in white ones.”
The piece was written and directed by Saatchi NY ECD Peter Moore Smith; full credits when we get them.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Arguably the most judgy of the Christmas characters, Elf on a Shelf sits on high and gauges the naughtiness and niceness of everyone who passes—then sends his intel off to Santa.
Agency Plan B put together this entertaining (and somewhat terrifying) video where clients can have their very own (human-sized) holiday spy peer into their agency and report back about all the inefficient business infractions. He comments on client briefs, monitors web browsing habits and even gives unwarranted life advice. But watch out—he’ll even hit on you, too.
There’s also a pretty great gag site called Chimn-Ebay where you can shop for gifts like a “Santa’s Twerkshop” workout DVD and Snowy SleighStation 4 gaming console.
Take a look below at the hijinks that ensue when our hero hops of the shelf and shows a little too much jingle in his mingling. And definitely check out some of the extended scenes that follow.
And here are some of the best outtakes:
We haven’t heard much from Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves, in years. But no, they haven’t gone out of business. Quite the opposite. They’ve been working on some stunning new designs and even cozier fabrics—and they’re making a big, comfy marketing push this holiday.
Looking for a blanket that looks like a tuxedo or an evening gown? You’re in luck! Are you an elderly person who wants to see people’s faces when you dress up in a board-shorts or bikini blanket? You jokester—they’ve got that, too!
With a new belt and fitted cuffs, the Snuggie has never been better. And the ads are as campy as ever—though they may never do anything as wretched as these old holiday spots.
Nowhere is the world more carefree than inside stock photographs. The sense of normalcy they communicate is so pervasive, it’s become cliché. Which is why it’s such a stroke of genius that Isobar Poland is developing a stock-photo bank using only models who are cancer patients or survivors.
Life for them, of course, has been anything but carefree. Thus, their involvement in the “Photos for Life” project is joyfully defiant on a few levels. It shows cancer isn’t a death sentence—indeed, that patients and survivors are just as capable of the most stereotypical happiness possible. And it lifts the gloom from the disease and bathes it in ridiculously perfect lighting.
Prices start at $75 for use on the web and in magazine, or as little as $8 for personal use. All profits go to the Rak’n’Roll Win Your Life! foundation to finance therapy for cancer patients. More images below.
CREDITS
Agency: Isobar, Poland
Managing Creative Director: Maciej Nowicki
Senior Copywriter: Jan Cie?lar
Senior Art Director: Rafa? Ry?
Photographers: Pawe? Fabja?ski, ?ukasz Zi?tek, Jacek Poremba, Karol Grygoruk
Production Company: ShootMe
Production Company Producer: Micha? Majewski
Graphic Designers: Adam Zawiasi?ski, Bart?omiej Bednarski
Programmer: Piotr Budek
Account Manager: Aleksandra Matuszewska
Integrated Director: Ewa Rzewuska-Wolska
In this world of hybrid-multitasking-pivot-disruption, it’s becoming crazy difficult to explain the work we do—not only to ourselves, but to others. Now, on the heels of the Hipster Business Name Generator, viral marketing agency Thinkmodo has just the answer to the “I-can’t-think-of-what-to-call-me” holiday blues.
Check out the Badass Advertising Job Titles name generator. Just enter your name, or the name of your favorite person, and let ‘er rip.
Thinkmodo co-founder Michael Krivicka tells us: “We noticed that when we meet with executives on the agency side and the brand side, the titles on everyone’s business cards are getting longer and more complicated, and often make us wonder what they really mean.”
Connor Skye Riley, a web developer at LinkedIn, created the project for Thinkmodo. She also created the Hipster Business Name Generator.
The word “badass” is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but the results can be pretty hilarious. Try it for yourself, and check out a few for your convoluted pleasure below.
Sony Corp. will release its PlayStation 4 console in China next month, following Microsoft Corp. into the world’s biggest game market after the government eased restrictions.
Sales will start Jan. 11 with a price of 2,899 yuan ($469), Tokyo-based Sony said in a statement yesterday. The handheld PlayStation Vita will also begin sales at the same time at 1,299 yuan.
Console makers and game developers are pouring into China after the end of a government ban imposed in 2000, trying to win over a generation of players who shifted to computers and mobile devices. Gaming is one of the few bright spots for Sony, which has sold more than 16 million units of the PS4 according to industry data, as the company heads for another annual loss and has been embarrassed by a computer hack in Hollywood.
Baidu is buying a minority stake in Uber, giving the car-booking company a boost as it expands in China, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Uber will receive cash and non-cash assets, including Baidu’s online resources as owner of China’s biggest internet search engine, the person said. The investment may be worth as much as $600 million, China National Radio reported earlier.
Baidu’s investment gives the search company a slice of the market in China that has been dominated by startups backed by Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, the nation’s biggest internet companies. Uber is expanding in China and hiring in 14 cities, according to a July 1 LinkedIn post.
Earlier this year, Chris Garbutt left the “City of Light,” where he had been chief creative officer at Ogilvy Paris, for the one that never sleeps, to become chief creative officer of Ogilvy East, in New York.
It was only the latest big move for the native South African, who started his career at Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg with a degree in graphic design. He went on to work at TBWA Hunt Lascaris in Johannesburg and TBWA Paris before returning to Ogilvy. His portfolio includes work for Tiffany & Co., Google, Perrier, Ford, Nissan and some Coca-Cola Company brands.
Ad Age reached out to Mr. Garbutt to learn about his life outside adland for this week’s edition of “Six Things You Didn’t Know.”
1. The Sunday Times, Rich List
Grey London drafted in the renowned animal photographer Tim Flach and digitally retouched his photographs to turn Sir Richard Branson, Sir Elton John and Simon Cowell into “fat cats” to promote The Sunday Times Rich List. Props include spectacles and an earring for John, Cowell s trademark hairstyle and a collar with an aeroplane pendant for Branson. The Virgin founder liked the campaign so much that he started a competition on his Twitter feed asking followers to write a caption for it. Agency: Grey London Creatives: Jo Sissons, Kate Allsop, Miguel Gonzalez
2. The Royal British Legion, every man remembered
A poignant campaign that contemporises the centenary of the outbreak of World War I by using the names of celebrities whose real-life namesakes were among more than a million men and women who died during the conflict. The ads invite people to look at what happened in a fresh way by evoking the deaths of young soldiers including those named Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson, Tom Jones, Andy Murray and Harry Styles and to remember those with nobody left to remember them. Agency: Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y R Creatives: Freddie Wood, Psembi Kinstan
3. Bulmers, live colourful
Bulmers, the Heineken-owned cider brand, serves up a feast of colour in this vibrant campaign that aims to present the drink as a catalyst for a varied and exciting night out. The executions feature the work of six artists including Thomas Burden, Duncan Edwards, Paul Knowles and Alan Murray who interpret the strapline using acrylic paints, foil and festival imagery. Agency: Adam Eve/DDB Creatives: Steve Wioland, Matt Woolner
4. Department for Transport, motorbike
More than 30 motorcycle riders die or are injured every day in accidents at road junctions, often because a driver has pulled out in front of them. The need for drivers to be alert to the dangers and to encourage them to take longer at junctions is reinforced in this poster that at first glance seems just to be a shot of a road and some trees. However, a closer look reveals a motorcyclist coming over the brow of the hill. Agency: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO Creatives: Ant Nelson, Mike Sutherland
5. Post Office, we re changing
A simple and effective “tell-it-like-it-is” campaign by Dare and not a bad farewell present to the Post Office by the agency that was not allowed to repitch for the account because it isn t on the Crown Commercial Service roster. The work, which coincided with the massive modernisation programme of the Post Office s 6,000 branches, aims to tell people how much the service has changed since privatisation. Agency: Dare Creative: Nathan White
6. AEG, The 02
Capturing the sheer range of what is on offer at The O2 is no mean feat. What was once just the Millennium Dome now boasts state-of-the-art facilities including Europe s second- biggest arena, an 11-screen cinema, bars and restaurants. This print campaign showcases the offerings in a number of striking ways that chime with The O2 s “aspirational but accessible” philosophy. Agency: VCCP Creatives: Courtney Dowe, Juliet Mclaren
7. Volkswagen, small but tough
Full marks to this creative team for such a speedy reaction to a national press story about an amorous elephant in South Africa s Pilanesburg National Park that decided to get his gratification from a Volkswagen Polo, breaking its chassis and bursting its tyres. The result was a graphic demonstration of the Polo s robust qualities and the boast of “Elephant impact protection as standard”. The Polo s occupants escaped shaken but unhurt. Shame about the car. Agency: Adam Eve/DDB Creatives: Jo Cresswell, Sian Coole
8. Sure, no white marks
It was a World Cup most of us will want to obliterate from our memories. But at least Unilever and DLKW Lowe can draw satisfaction from some neat teamwork that resulted in a clever ad linking the newly introduced referees spray that marks the distance players should stand from the ball during free-kicks with the white marks some deodorants leave on clothes. Though not, of course, Sure. Agency: DLKW Lowe Creatives: Seb Gousden, Ben McCarthy
9. Kit Kat, storm
Ever since 1958 when JWT s Donald Gillies came up with the iconic line “Have a break. Have a Kit Kat” the agency s challenge has been to keep delivering fresh advertising impetus to this simple proposition. This print execution certainly manages to do so with an attention to detail that cleverly draws you in as it juxtaposes the storm-tossed hurly-burly of modern business life with a calm desert-island existence that a Kit Kat can seemingly conjure up. Agency: JWT London Creative: Christiano Neves
10. Fiat, spring/summer collection
There is a fine line between car ads that are relevant to women and those that talk down to them and some car- makers have faced flak for crossing it. This campaign for the Fiat 500 model walks the tightrope between recognising the purchasing power of women without patronising or alienating them and manages to align the vehicle with feminine chic while pointing out its finer technical points. Getting this balance right becomes increasingly important with almost 40 per cent of cars in Britain being bought by women. Agency: Krow Creatives: Joanna Perry, Damon Troth
JCDecaux, the outdoor advertising company, has signed a 15-year global deal with Vodafone to help the telecommunications business improve network coverage.
Telefonica’s chairman, César Alierta, has reportedly flown to the UK to persuade BT to buy O2 rather than rival EE.
Age UK, the charity for older people, is encouraging people to donate the money they would spend on a secret Santa gift to the charity.
McCann Bristol has created an online recruitment campaign that offers young creatives the chance to earn £100,000 in one month.
Molson Coors, the North American brewer, is reviewing its below-the-line account across the UK, believed to be worth approximately £5 million.
FCB Inferno has released its first TV ad for BMW since snatching the account from WCRS earlier this year.
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