Hasta La Creative!

Labour’s Chris Bryant won the vote of delegates at the Advertising Association’s media showdown at the Lead summit by a landslide

Sixty-three percent of marketers plan to increase budgets earmarked for native advertising in 2015, according to a survey of 127 marketers by the Association of National Advertisers, or ANA, in the fourth quarter of last year.

Native advertising is a tactic in which digital ads mimic the editorial content surrounding them, whether that’s an article, video or photo collage.

The ANA’s findings, which also showed that 55% of respondents had increased their native ad budgets in 2014, supports earlier studies indicating marketers plan to spend more on the tactic. An eMarketer forecast, for instance, says that spending on native ads will reach $4.3 billion in 2015, a 34% increase over last year.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

A couple of days ago, we reported that industry vet Steve Orenstein, formerly of Y&R, McCann, 72andSunny and others, had taken on two new jobs: COO at L.A. agency Mistress and CFO at WONGDOODY.

Since Orenstein simultaneously held both the COO and CFO positions at 72andSunny for several years before getting new gigs, the question followed: who replaced him?

The answer is twofold: former Brand Director/Partner Evin Shutt assumed COO responsibilities in mid-2014, but on the financial front 72andSunny has hired former Organic CEO Marita Scarfi.

Scarfi held a number of positions within the Organic organization over the course of more than a decade, serving as EVP, CFO, COO and, eventually, chief executive officer (a position she earned in April 2010).

Just over two years later, we heard that Scarfi would no longer lead the Omnicom agency — and the shop confirmed that rumor by naming former Wunderman President David Shulman as its top executive — a position he still holds. (This shift occurred just after CCO Conor Brady left the agency for HUGE; he’s now with Critical Mass.)

After leaving Organic, Scarfi worked as an advisor to various businesses in the San Francisco Bay area with a focus on startup companies.

She will now oversee financial matters on all 72andSunny accounts.

If you’re a parent trying to make sense of this social-media-soaked world, you might feel a little bit lost and intimidated—not quite clear on how you can turn your child into an Internet phenom.

Well, according to this video promoting a (fictional) service called The Social Influence, that won’t be a problem. “With the help of trained professionals, parents can help their children build a social ecosystem that will effect millions and maybe billions of people—and hopefully make millions and maybe someday billions of dollars,” it explains.

Ever wonder how Bradley Cooper was able to fit all those celebrities in the legendary Oscars selfie from last year? His parents saw a doctor to have his arm extended by 20 percent.

“This adds a cinematic advantage over their short-armed competition—more heads equals more shares,” the video says.

Viacom’s in-house in marketing and content agency made this snark-filled gem of an video that skewers the state of social media—and the parents of the device-obsessed generation. 

“Make a plan and stick to it,” is the video’s advice. “And for God’s sake, keep posting or you’ll be forgotten faster than a one-off viral.”

Here are a couple of the best scenes edited into smaller clips:

Viacom, the owner of the MTV and Comedy Central cable TV networks, posted first-quarter revenue that trailed analysts’ estimates as domestic advertising slowed.

Revenue increased 4.6% to $3.34 billion in the period ended Dec. 31, Viacom said Thursday in a statement. Analysts had projected $3.4 billion, the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Viacom generates most of its sales and profit from TV networks, which get paid by advertisers. In the current TV season, audiences at MTV and Comedy Central have declined more than 10% in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, according to Nielsen data. The company said Thursday it will offer Nickelodeon kids network online for a fee, joining HBO in targeting the growing number of consumers who watch TV on smartphones and other devices.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The subscription service to be offered by the children’s programming group joins a growing number of similar offerings from other television groups.

Deutsch LA is taking Mophie to the Super Bowl with an apocalyptic 60-second ad that is also the brand’s broadcast debut.

The spot, entitled “All Powerless” depicts all kinds of doomsday events, from gravity ceasing to function properly, to flying penguins, natural disasters and, for some reason, dogs walking their owners. Drawing in viewers with its visual imagination and mysterious premise, the ad finally brings everything together in its final seconds with the reveal that the preceding events were God’s cell phone losing power.

“All Powerless” was built around the insight that cellphone users feel powerless when their phone dies, which can have all kind of disastrous effects on their day. Deutsch LA places the dilemma on an epic scale by imagining what it would be like for a higher being.

“When your phone loses power, you lose power,” Pete Favat, chief creative officer, Deutsch LA, told Adweek.  “We’ve all had that feeling of vulnerability…For us, that might mean missing important meetings, getting lost while traveling or being unable to make that one important phone call. For the most powerful being in the universe, losing power truly means losing power.”

Favat went on to explain the strategy behind the fledgling brand’s costly broadcast debut, telling Adweek, “We’re trying to establish a new market with this ad. There’s 10 percent category awareness, 9 percent brand awareness for us. There’s no better opportunity than the Super Bowl to get attention for your brand.”

Mophie will support the broadcast spot with a promotional sweepstakes, giving away one million dollars worth of prizes should the game go into overtime (currently a 16:1 shot), and $10,000 in prizes if it does not.

The Super Bowl is known as much for its groundbreaking ads as it is for football. The brands that choose to take the plunge and spend over $100,000 per second of advertising often push the creative limits to make those valuable marketing dollars count. While the Super Bowl ad season is dominated by consumer brands, b-to-b marketers should pay close attention to their b-to-c colleagues’ strategies and tactics and apply the following principles to their own campaigns this year.

1.Take risks. Consumer brands seem much more willing to take risks and have the courage to fail, while b-to-b marketers tend to play it safe. Be bold; while consumer brands are risking a lot with edgy commercials during something as significant as the Super Bowl, the potential rewards can be worth it. Look at the Volvo Trucks Van Damme ad from last year that attracted attention for many reasons, one of which was how unique it was, especially for a b-to-b ad. Volvo reportedly spent $3 million on the ad, and it generated $175 million in revenue.

2. Don’t blow your budget. Last year, Newcastle Brown Ale created a highly successful and clever YouTube video campaign that went viral, without spending the millions that many brands did on the Super Bowl. In fact, the lack of ad spend is what helped the campaign be so memorable. The right message targeted at the right audience can be as effective, if not more so, than a costly TV spot.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Unilever CMO Keith Weed said that digital ads are failing to reach up to half of their target and has said the industry needs to boost the hit rate to 100%.