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, Dr Pepper used Monday night’s College Football championship to trout out its heart-string tugger, the Mop Dog. H&R Block is banging away at tax season messaging with its bow-tied tax professional. And Jaguar is rolling with a heartthrob — tapping Nicholas Hoult as its British debonair ambassador.

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

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(TrendHunter.com) Moving beyond smartwatches that track only your fitness or sleep levels, some of the most impressive wearable tech at CES 2015 included smart thermometer patches for infants, virtual reality…

Cramer-Krasselt’s Chicago office has named Ken Erke to lead its creative department.

The new position marks a return home of sorts for Chicago native Erke, who served as group creative director at Cramer-Krasselt in 2006 before leaving for an ECD position at Y&R Chicago, where he eventually advanced to the chief creative officer role.

At Y&R, Erke helped win various pitches including Double Tree and Hotels.com while working on award-winning campaigns for Sears, The National Parks, and more. He moved to R/GA in October 2010 after spending more than three years with the Y&R organization; the agency hired him, along with fellow ECD Matt Marcus, to help build out a Windy City office that had just over a dozen employees at the time.

Erke replaces former SVP/ECD Derek Green, who left the agency in December and returned to his native Australia; he now serves as ECD at Ogilvy’s Sydney office. He will report to Vice Chairman/CCO Marshall Ross.

Accounts led by Erke will include Corona. In case you missed it, Cramer-Krasselt survived the October pruning in which the beer-maker’s parent company parted ways with GS&P and Constellation.

There’s just something about Japanese ads. The right amount of goofy. The right amount of innocent fun. The the right amount — read: complete lack of — political correctness. These elements combine to make truly light-hearted, fun advertising.

Now you’re going to have to stow away your Facebook-style outrage to enjoy this one but try. Really try.

To illustrate the amazing non-stick qualities of Flavorstone cookware, 100 maids — dressed, appropriately, in maid attire — slide a pancake from one frying pan to another. As the pancake cooks, it’s also making it’s way to an old guy’s breakfast table.

There’s gymnastics, acrobatic pancake tossing, cutesy music and a sort of mass synchronicity akin to the Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. What’s not to love?

Like it or not, you still can’t escape Justin Bieber — at least on the Viral Video Chart. The new face of Calvin Klein was unveiled last week as he stripped down for the brand’s newest campaign, “Calvin Klein Jeans Spring 2015.” In the last week, the campaign was viewed more than 20 million times.

Other newcomers to the chart this week include Pepsi MAX’s latest stunt-themed spot featuring a chain reaction using thousands of ping pong balls and mousetraps. Beats by Dre came in at no. 3 with its “Hear What You Want” campaign featuring NFL players Dez Bryant, Von Miller and Richard Sherman as they prepared for this past weekend’s Divisional Round matches.

McDonald’s made an appearance on the chart at no. 6 with its new “Archenemies” campaign, where famous rivals including Spongebob and Plankton put away their differences to enjoy a McDonald’s meal together. Ben & Jerry’s “Pint Sized Answers,” which gives insight into concerns such as where the brand gets their milk, landed at no. 7.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Maitrisant à la perfection Photoshop, le serbe ABVH a eu l’excellente idée de reprendre quelques-unes des œuvres de Banksy et de les transformer en GIFs animés. Les oeuvres prennent alors un tout autre visage et sont sublimées, devenant ainsi totalement hypnotisantes.

Amazon has enlisted Woody Allen to create his first TV series, which will premiere on its video-streaming service and bolster the online retailer’s emerging role as a force in Hollywood.

Mr. Allen will write and direct the untitled half-hour series that has been ordered up for one full season, Amazon said in a statement. The series, along with all of the e-commerce company’s original programs, will be available for online streaming to subscribers to Amazon’s Prime service, which costs $99 per year.

The investment in Mr. Allen’s series aligns with Amazon’s recent strategy producing original shows and competing with Netflix and HBO, which have also attracted viewers with exclusive content. Amazon picked up two Golden Globe Awards this week for its original series “Transparent,” which beat out programs from HBO, the CW Network and Netflix to win best TV series, musical or comedy, as well as best actor for Jeffrey Tambor, who plays the main character.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Production house Somethin’ Else has been appointed to redesign the website and create a video and the social content for the Brit Awards in February and in the run-up to it.

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As many people take the vast…