Hasta La Creative!

This morning we can confirm that Grey New York notified “under 30? staffers that their employment with the agency will end in January.

The cause of the reduction is client Eli Lilly, which recently decided to consolidate work for one of its many pharmaceutical products under an alternate agency on its roster.

Grey has worked with Lilly for nearly 20 years and won a greater share of the business from G2 back in 2012; its Grey Healthy People unit, launched in 2011 to handle a growing roster of related brands from Lilly, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and others, continues to operate (though the name itself has been retired).

Despite reductions that seem to have touched all departments, the agency’s relationship with the client will, for the most part, continue unaffected. The move concerns the diabetes drug Humalog, and Grey will retain other Eli Lilly brands including its best-known product, Cialis.

In a statement, Grey says that it chose to give employees advance notice in order to help them find new positions as soon as possible, noting that its New York office is currently “over 1,000 people strong” and that it has hired 75 new staffers in 2014.

At the moment, we do not know which agency will handle the diabetes work moving forward. Updates as they come in.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

WestJet does the holidays right. Last year, the Canadian airline surprised its passengers with gifts at the baggage carousel; a lovely spot and a tearjerker for sure. Now WestJet has me sniffling yet again, this time with surprises for residents of a village in the Dominican Republic.

Families sit in a blue sleigh, talking to Santa via video chat, telling him what they want for Christmas. WestJet employees then race to buy gifts (locally!), and present them at a party on the beach (with snow). This time, the gifts aren’t just flat-screen TVs and cameras; they also include practical and much-needed items like a washing machine, a motorcycle engine and a horse—enabling locals in the community of Nuevo Renacer to provide for their families. WestJet even built a small playground for the local children to use long after the visit was over.

It’s lovely and endearing, and for those who will say this is simply a calculated marketing tactic, shhh shhhhh, just enjoy it and let the brand have its moment. Pluses to note, I think, are that this “stunt” happened in a country where WestJet isn’t readily available (unlike Canada), and that their local purchases helped support the area’s economy.

Ahh, WestJet, I love you. Now send me tissues.

At least 85 New York Times employees applied for voluntary buyouts by yesterday’s deadline, falling short of the number the newspaper publisher said was needed to avoid firings, according to a union representative.

Grant Glickson, the chairman of the New York Times unit of the Newspaper Guild of New York, said in a phone interview yesterday that 62 guild members and at least 23 non-union employees that he knows of had applied by yesterday’s deadline, which was 5 p.m. New York time. At least 31 guild members have been approved for the buyouts so far, he said.

New York Times Co. has said there will be forced cuts if about 100 jobs can’t be eliminated through buyouts, as digital businesses have struggled to make up for declines in print. Glickson said the number of job cuts could fluctuate based on the salaries of those who applied for buyouts. He estimated that 15 to 25 people may be fired based on the projected shortfall, the likelihood of the company denying some buyout requests and the probability that some employees will rescind their applications.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Time Inc., the nation’s the largest magazine publisher, is losing one of its top business-side execs to The Washington Post. The executive, Jed Hartman, who is group publisher of news and business at Time Inc., is joining the Post as its chief revenue officer.

The departure costs Time Inc. an executive with more than a decade of experience at the company. And Mr. Hartman — who oversees advertising, marketing and event sales for Time, Fortune and Money magazines and their websites — has recently been a fulcrum of change at a company bent on radically reinventing itself as more than just a print publisher. This year, for instance, Mr. Hartman helped lead Fortune and Money magazine’s separation from CNNMoney.com. He also helped steer the redesign of Time.com.

Earlier this year, Mr. Hartman was in the running for the role of executive VP of advertising sales at Time Inc., a company wide role similar to chief revenue officer. But he was passed over for Mark Ford, who led the company’s sports group, including Sports Illustrated.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

With the holidays around the corner, it is the season of awkward conversations with relatives and family friends you’d rather forget. Picking up on this, adam&eveDDB explores a conversation a young man has with one particularly tactless guest, who makes a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.

The woman tells the young man of the holiday she took with her husband in Greece. He initially appears bored, but soon the conversation veers from the mundane to the uncomfortable as the woman talks about the “very secluded balconies” in the hotel room and the opportunities they afforded. We’ll avoid giving away too much as the cringe comedy involved is fairly dependent on some level of shock value, but let’s just say things degenerate from there. It’s easily one of the funniest holiday ads we’ve seen. The comedy it manages to pull off is no easy feet either, as this kind of thing easily derails from awkward funny to just awkward. But the perfectly paced writing and stellar performances from the actors hold everything together with just the right amount of cringe. At the end of the spot, the camera cuts to a jar of Maille mustard, with the tagline “Be a memorable guest for the right reason” explaining the scene preceding it. The spot itself is more than memorable, and should get its fair share of attention leading up to those awkward holiday parties. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Luxury retailer Harvey Nichols practically swept the 2014 Cannes Lions with its last holiday campaign, which won a staggering four Grand Prix. Now the brand has returned with its highly anticipated follow-up.

Last year’s effort, “Sorry, I Spent It on Myself,” celebrated Christmas as a time to focus on the most important person in your life—yourself—while giving your loved ones some absolute rubbish gifts like gravel or office supplies. The campaign definitely had its critics, including the audience at the Cannes awards show, where it was the only ad booed by attendees.

So in the year since, has the retailer, like Ebenezer Scrooge before it, learned the true lessons of Christmas?

The new spot “Could I Be Any Clearer?”, again from agency Adam&eveDDB, features a doting niece signing a Christmas card for her dear Auntie Val, a woman who obviously loves her but unfortunately misses the mark when it comes to gift giving. (The camera pans to a puppy throw pillow, an iron and a djembe.)

She delivers the card to Auntie Val, who is thrilled by the visit and the gesture. But, of course, there’s more to it than that.

If for some reason you can’t watch the clip above and don’t mind some spoilers, here’s how it goes down: She opens the envelope to discover a Harvey Nichols greeting card, letting her know in no uncertain terms what her niece wants for Christmas (Charlotte Olympia silver Octavia sandals with a 6-inch heel, size 4 1/2—or 5, if that’s all they’ve got).

As with last year’s “Sorry, I Spent It on Myself” cheap gift collection, the brand’s self-centered holiday cards are real and available in store or customizable online. You can browse the site to find an item you want, design your card, and share it.

It’s the absolutely perfect way of letting your loved ones know just how horrible you are. But chances are, they probably already know.

Advertiser patience is wearing thin trying to figure out if those billions of digital impressions are all that valuable.

Today, digital marketing is dominated by conversations around “scale,” giving one the sense of falling into a wonderland of ad networks, exchanges, trading desks, mobile and video platforms, all swirling in a cloud of big data. From afar things look normal, but on closer examination, everything is askew.

Impressions are arbitraged in a tangle of tech platforms and middlemen that defies attribution. We chase technical metrics instead of human ones. We talk about “brand-safe” ad placements instead of “brand-relevant” ads. And we play whack-a-mole with fraud, worrying about bots instead of aiming for real engagement with real audiences.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Times Newspapers, home of The Times and Sunday Times, has reported a profit of £1.7 million in its last financial year, its first in 13 years.

Nous vous en avions déjà parlé auparavant, l’artiste américain Brock Davis publie sur son compte instragram des compositions photographiques pleines de couleurs et réalisées avec des objets du quotidiens. D’ingénieuses créations à découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.

(TrendHunter.com) These raver gift ideas range from vibrant knitwear fashions to illuminated lingerie accessories that will get you noticed while you’re dancing the night away.

Standouts from this list of…