Hasta La Creative!

Chicago-based artist, designer, photographer and NoPattern Studio founder Chuck Anderson has joined Havas Worldwide Chicago as creative director of design. He will be responsible for setting the overall design vision for the agency, “infusing a sense of craft into client work,” and mentoring young talent.

Anderson founded NoPattern Studio when he was just 18 and, despite no formal training and the decision to forego college, he has worked with clients such as ESPN, Nike, Absolut, Burton, McDonald’s Google and Microsoft. He was also named a Design Icon by Computer Arts Magazine in 2010. Andserson will continue heading NoPattern Studio in addition to his role at Havas.

“Individual creativity is not only allowed, but encouraged here at Havas. We are a better agency because of the unique talent and perspectives people bring to the table,” said Jason Peterson, chief creative officer, Chicago and North America, in a statement. “Chuck isn’t a ‘cookie-cutter’ creative—he brings a strong vision along with incredible experience honing his craft while running his own design studio. He embodies the perfect mix of talent and passion for design, and I think he’ll raise the bar and inspire all of us at the agency to do amazing work, whether for clients or our own individual passion projects.”

“I have been fiercely independent for 11 years doing my own thing, but feel ready to take the leap into a team role,” Anderson added. “…my approach to creativity has always been about adding excitement in new places. I feel that same sense of creative energy at Havas. It’s like the stars have aligned and I’m really excited to collaborate with the teams and mentor young designers who are just learning the ropes.”

Anderson also seems quite taken with the Havas office and has already begun promoting the agency’s lifestyle to his Twitter followers.

It’s no secret that McDonald’s is in the midst of a protracted sales decline. The chain hasn’t seen positive quarterly same-store sales in the U.S. since the third quarter of 2013. But while McDonald’s has been more vocal about its struggles recently, it has not offered much detail or insight into why the decline happened in the first place.

Until today, when during his first earnings call as CEO, Steve Easterbrook shed some light on where he thinks the chain faltered. An analyst asked Mr. Easterbrook: “Steven, as you have seen all of the research that McDonald’s has had, [were] there maybe one or two big things that consumers were telling you about three or four years ago that you needed to change, and you could have prevented the decline in the sales?”

Mr. Easterbrook’s candid response was that although there were a number of initiatives executed a few years back, including the long-term project of reimaging the restaurants and the overhaul of the chain’s coffee program, one initiative the company didn’t take seriously enough or forsee was “to create that future pipeline of growth platforms.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

When a brand decides it wants to properly attack its marketing, it seeks out experts to help them do so. Sure, they may have a marketing manager in-house to oversee the marketing process but when they need heavy lifting in the form of an integrated advertising strategy that plays out across multiple media in multiple markets, they turn to an advertising agency.

It’s no different when a brand decides to enter the affiliate marketing channel.
Many merchants entering the affiliate channel believe a workable solution is to delegate all affiliate marketing responsibilities to an in-house affiliate manager and/or hook up with an affiliate network’s managed services offering. But an affiliate manager is just one person and an affiliate network is just a platform, a technology provider and not a marketing expert. Much in the same way Google Search is a platform for search engine marketing and does not offer search marketing expertise.

Neither solution is the best solution for a merchant who truly wants to maximize returns through the affiliate channel. Let’s take a look at several reasons why a merchant should consider an affiliate marketing agency for its affiliate marketing program.

Turnover – An affiliate marketing agency is stable in the sense that it is a corporation that consists of many people who work as a team to accomplish effective affiliate channel management for merchants. Yes, people come and people go but the team stays in place. While a great affiliate manager aims to do the same great things as an agency, they are just one person, not a team. And when they leave, and they will, the merchant, effectively, has to go back to square one.

On average, affiliate managers — like any one in any marketing professions — last about 14 months before they move on to their next gig. And when they do, most of the processes, procedures, practices and amassed knowledge disappear with the exiting affiliate manager.

Continuity — Akin to the aforementioned turnover, continuity, as it relates to merchant revenue, can be lost. When an affiliate manager leaves a merchant, it’s a dramatic revenue disruption. Processes, procedures, practices and knowledge leave when the affiliate manager leaves and a new affiliate manager must get up to speed of be trained.
While that is happening, the merchant’s affiliate program is not running at 100% and that can lead to a disruption in revenue. Existing relationships with affiliate networks that have been built up over time with the in-house affiliate manager walk out the door along with the exiting affiliate manager and the merchant has to build those relationships all over again.

Expertise — With an affiliate manager, you get a warm body in a chair who is lucky if they can keep up with anything more than the very mechanical aspects of managing a merchant’s affiliate channel. This is not meant as a disrespectful jab, simply an observation that an affiliate manager is one person, not a team. An agency gives you a team of experts who are adept at optimizing campaigns, customizing creative, building and maintaining relationships with affiliates and networks.

Clout — If an affiliate can have a phone call with an agency and bang out a program with 200 retailers at the same time versus have a phone call with one affiliate manager at one retailer, who do you think that affiliate is most likely to answer the call from. This is a serious stumbling block with the in-house affiliate manager model.

Agencies have clout. Just like any large entity in any segment of marketing or the broader business world, they can get stuff done because they have a much bigger reach and a larger command of the affiliate channel. An in-house affiliate manager simply lacks the bandwidth to do everything necessary to run a full blown affiliate program.

Cost Effectiveness — When a merchant hires an individual affiliate manager, they are taking a risk in that they don’t always know what they are getting. When an agency is hired, it’s a simple fee. With an in-house employee, there’s benefits, vacation, sick days, bonuses, training costs and other unforeseen costs.

In addition, agencies are on 24/7. Certainly an individual affiliate manager can work their ass off but, again, they are just one person, not a team like an agency.

And then there’s cost-related risks. Is the affiliate manager exceptional? Are they just OK? Or are they terrible and will need to be replaced in 6 months? With an agency the proof is in the portfolio and tenure of clients. Sure, an agency can suck too but there are more solid metrics on which to judge that agency.

Experience — A single affiliate manager has a limited set of experience. That just comes with being a single person. An agency brings to the table a stable of experience, an overlapping army of expertise spanning many years working with many different merchants, networks and affiliates. Yes, people can come and go from an agency just like affiliate managers come and go from merchants but an agency team can retain the collective knowledge much more effectively than an individual person. With an agency, a merchant gets continuity of experience.

What about Network Managed Services? — Yes, networks can bring scale to a merchant’s affiliate program but there are limitations. Chiefly, the merchant only has access to the affiliates in its network. That’s limiting if the merchant wants to explore all options.

And then there’s the question of strategy. If a network offers strategic advice to a merchant, it’s questionable at best. Why? Because any advice that network gives is going to involve pointing the merchants money right back at the network whether or not the network’s solution is best for the merchant. The network has no motivation to seek out and discover options outside its network that might be a better strategic direction for the merchant.

As a merchant, you want the best possible return for the affiliate channel. To get the best possible return, a merchant has to be able to get an unbiased, 50,000 foot view of the affiliate channel and, in addition, reliable, consistent expertise that will never walk out the door and sap affiliate channel revenue.

This guest article was written by Greg Shepard, CEO of affiliate agency AffiliateTraction.

Après la bande-annonce, focus sur les posters officiels du film « Batman V Superman : Dawn of Justice » réalisé par Zack Snyder et produit par Christopher Nolan. La Warner Bros a sorti deux portraits des superhéros montrant leurs emblèmes qui cachent leurs visages. Le film est prévu pour le 25 mars 2016, avec à l’affiche Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck et Gal Gadot.

Fox Sports and NBC Universal are rejecting Verizon Communications’ plans to offer their networks as part of smaller, cheaper pay-TV packages, claiming the service violates contract agreements.

“We reject Verizon’s view that it can pursue the new packaging scheme it announced yet still comply with our agreements,” the sports unit of 21st Century Fox said Tuesday in a statement. “That said, we prefer to keep our commercial discussions confidential, and we will continue to address our concerns directly and privately with Verizon.”

Verizon began selling smaller bundles of channels on Sunday in a break with the industry’s longstanding strategy of forcing customers to pay more than $80 monthly fees for hundreds of channels, many consumer watch.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Vic Chhun et Mohamed Fadera appartiennent à une équipe d’animateurs numériques constituée d’une quinzaine de membres. Ensemble, ils ont produit une animation haute en couleurs intitulée « Megalizer II » mettant en scène des personnages, tous produits par au moins un membre de l’équipe. Leurs apparitions s’enchaînent de manière effrénée au rythme d’une bande sonore qui l’est tout autant.

Et pour vous rafraîchir la mémoire, voici le premier petit film d’animation de la série :

Back in 1999, Advertising Age selected the top 100 advertising campaigns of the 20th century. Out of the top 100, how many do you think are still being used today? Just the 11 campaigns listed below.

Marlboro: The Marlboro cowboy.

Nike: “Just do it.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

There’s something irresistible about tiny billboards.

We’ve seen them before, of course—for example, there was this LittleBigPlanet campaign from 2008 and this Lego stunt from 2012. And now, the upcoming superhero film Ant-Man is joining the parade, with ant-size billboards popping up in several Australian cities ahead of that country’s July 16 release of the movie.

There’s even an ant-size bus shelter with an ad on the side.

Check out more images below, via Screencrush and This Is Film.

For its next stunt, the studio might want to enlist the World Wildlife Fund’s horde of leaf-cutter ants to parade the film’s tagline around.

La boutique Sonia Rykiel, située sur le boulevard Saint-Germain à Paris, vient d’être transformée en librairie géante, par l’artiste André Saraïva et le directeur artistique de la marque Thomas Lenthal. Dans le cadre d’un pop-up concept conçu par Julie de Libran, ils ont pensé à rénover l’espace sur plusieurs niveaux et avec des bibliothèques murales comprenant plus de 50 000 livres.