Hasta La Creative!

Unilever’s Dove today breaks the latest video in its Campaign for Real Beauty in 70 countries — showing the results when women are given the choice to walk through doors marked “beautiful” or “average.”

Of course, in what should by now be a predictable result, and despite more than a decade of persuasion by Dove to the contrary, most of the women choose “average.” In a 3:47 mini-documentary from WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago, and director Paul Dektor — shot in San Francisco, Delhi, Shanghai, London and Sao Paulo they disicuss why.

“Beautiful to me, it’s way too far out of reach,” says one of the Chinese women. But in London, a mom pulls her daughter reluctantly through the “beautiful” door. The Delhi portals look a bit like airline security checkpoints — suggesting that were the experiment in an actual airport, choosing beautiful might speed screening significantly.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Twitter and YouTube were temporarily blocked after they failed to respond to an order to remove content showing a hostage taker pointing a gun at Mehmet Selim Kiraz.

Le studio canadien NminusOne a répondu aux attentes d’un snowboarder souhaitant installer son lieu de vie sur le bord d’une montagne. Sa nouvelle maison baptisée « Khyber Ridger » se trouve ainsi nichée dans le flanc d’une falaise de roche bâtie tout autour de la route et entourée par une forêt dense.

Bacardi appointed Mauricio Vergara as global category VP-rums. In this role, Mr. Vergara will be responsible for the Bacardi portfolio of rums including the Bacardi rum brand and the super-premium rums within the portfolio of the Facundo Rum Collection. He most recently served as VP-global commercial for Bacardi. Prior to joining Bacardi, Mr. Vergara held a variety of global and regional marketing roles at Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, SAB Miller and Brown-Forman.

Assembly announced the appointment of Alan Smith as chief digital officer. In this role, Mr. Smith will be responsible for leading the agency’s digital media practice and managing teams across display, programmatic, search, video, social and mobile on behalf of clients. Prior to joining Assembly, Mr. Smith was head of media investment and programmatic for North America at Essence, where he led major accounts including Google and eBay. Mr. Smith has also been the recipient of an Effie and Marketing Week award through his campaign work.

Former City of Birmingham Chief of Staff Erskine “Chuck” Faush, Jr. has been named senior VP-SummitMedia LLC and president of SummitMedia Entertainment. Mr. Faush served five years as Chief of Staff for Birmingham Mayor William A. Bell, Sr. to assist the city’s effort to bring major hospitality, sports and mixed-use development. Prior to serving as chief of staff, Faush served as host and producers at various media, including Fox Sports, Simmons Lathan Media Group and ESPN.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Time does a number on all of us, but perhaps no one gets chewed up by the temporal gears and cogs quite like the professional athlete. Swagger gives way to a certain shuffling reserve; a “good walk spoiled” devolves into a languid excursion in a golf cart.

To that end, sponsors looking to align themselves with the vigor of the world-class jock are locking the sports world’s more bankable stars into long-term deals. In January, Under Armour reupped with squeaky-clean 21-year-old golfer Jordan Spieth in a 10-year pact that will keep the affable Texan clad in its apparel through what promises to be the most productive (and therefore visible) portion of his career. Mr. Spieth made a near-immediate return on the investment, securing his second PGA Tour win last month at the Valspar Championship in Florida.

Mr. Spieth is most everything a sponsor could want in a walking billboard. Like a supporting character in a CW show about a group of polite, but dedicated, teen detectives, Mr. Spieth is all shiny and fresh off the shelf. He’s also lethally competitive — in December, he beat Tiger Woods at his own charity tournament by a margin of 26 strokes — and many duffers expect him to make another run at the green jacket during this weekend’s 79th Masters Tournament.

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How much do you love your car? In the Hispanic community, there’s a tendency for automobile owners to value their wheels so much they see them as members of the family — an insight that’s led to arguably one of Toyota’s most personal marketing moves to date.

Last fall, to celebrate its tenth year as the most-loved auto brand among the Hispanic community, the brand launched the “Ms Que un Auto” (or “More Than a Car”) campaign, created by its Hispanic agency Conill. The heart of the effort was not a TV spot or print ad but a small, symbolic badge that Toyota owners could place on their cars bearing the unique names of their automobiles.

“For Latinos, getting to buy a car is historically something that involves a lot of struggle,” explained Conill Chief Creative Office Javier Campopiano. “Once you get to the U.S., it’s different because it’s easy to buy a car here, but we have that background in our DNA. So we love our cars in a special way — we feel they are part of the family. It sounds a little bit strange and funny, but it’s the truth for us.”

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David Yarrow est un photographe écossais de 48 ans dont le travail est principalement tourné vers la photographie d’animaux, en noir et blanc. Voici une sélection de quelques uns de ses meilleurs portraits, tout droit sorti de la faune la plus sauvage.

L’artiste Rogan Brown, connu pour ses sculptures de papier faites au laser, revient avec une nouvelle création : « Cut Microbe ». Il lui a fallu quatre mois pour concevoir cette oeuvre qui s’inspire de la forme des bactéries salmonella et ecoli bacteria dans une version des millions de fois plus grande.

Cette oeuvre sera présentée lors du Eden Project, en Angleterre, en mai.

Pour le shop d’OTOTO, la designer Jenny Pokryvailo a imaginé un concept de serviettes de cuisine amusant. Elle a pensé à représenter les différents ingrédients des sushis avec des notices pour donner l’impression d’avoir un sushi et des california rolls géants une fois la serviette enroulée.