Hasta La Creative!

Equinox gym, which is based in New York, has always had close relationships with the LGBT community. Since the company looks to provide an environment that’s “open to all,” one could say that it is “powered” by the gay members of its community just as they are powered by their own personal pride and fitness goals.

That’s the theme behind a series of murals created by the client’s AOR Wieden+Kennedy New York, which worked with L.A.-based designer David Flores on a series of murals in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, London and San Francisco.

The work launched recently to coincide with Pride Month. Equinox is promoting the project on its Instagram account with the making-of clip below:

In order to bring more attention to the Brooklyn mural, the company enlisted Laverne Cox of Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, who earned headlines and further coverage of the #PoweredByPride tag by sharing its image with her one million followers today:

The client plans to release more content throughout the month and donate $1 to the Hetrick-Martin Institute’s Harvey Milk High School in New York and the London charity Pilion trust every time the hashtag is used.

Transgender celebrity Amanda Lepore also stopped by the painting to make her presence known:

…and here’s a clearer view of the work in North Williamsburg (better known as the world’s smarmiest neighborhood).

W+K NEW YORK

Executive Creative Directors: Jaime Robinson, David Kolbusz
Managing Director: Neal Arthur
Creative Directors: Stuart Jennings
Copywriter: Mike Vitiello
Art Director: Cory Everett
Designer: Alison Joseph
Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Jacqueline Ventura, Kristen Herrington, Jasmine Cogdell
Communications Planner: Courtney Bernstein
Lead Community Manager: Matt Simpson
Media Planner: Ritesh Gupta
Director of Art Production: Deb Rosen
Art Producer: Hosanna Marshall, Pietro Clemente
Artist: David Flores
Photographer: Kristin Gladney, Julia Parris
Business Affairs: Keri Rommel, Justine Lowe

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The Wall Street Journal is restructuring its workforce, laying off dozens of staffers, shuttering overseas bureaus and reducing some of its coverage areas as part of “a further radical upgrade in our digital capabilities,” Journal Editor-in-Chief Gerry Baker said in a note to staff today.

So today I am announcing a number of closures. The burden of these reductions is shared worldwide. Overseas, we will be closing the Bahasa Indonesia website and a number of our bureaus in Europe and Asia will be reduced in size. The bureaus in Prague and Helsinki will be closed. We will reduce significantly the amount of output we do that generates relatively little traffic or subscribers. That means a sharp reduction in the number of non-core blogs we do. In New York, we will be eliminating the small business group and the NY-based economics team to consolidate our US economics coverage in Washington DC. We will be scaling back significantly our personal finance team, though we will continue to provide high quality reporting and commentary on topics of personal financial interest to our readers.

Fewer than 30 people are being laid off today, according to a report in Capital New York, with more to come. All told, fewer than 100 people will be cut, the Capital New York report said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

NBC News has found a new role for evening anchor Brian Williams following his suspension for embellishing his portrayal of his reporting in Iraq in 2003.

Mr. Williams will become MSNBC anchor of breaking news and special reports, the network said Thursday. His replacement, Lester Holt, will get the permanent anchor chair for “NBC Nightly News.”

The decision marks an end to a painful chapter for NBC News and Mr. Williams, one of the most recognizable figures in TV journalism.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

In the three months since SeaWorld went on damage control with a PR campaign in the wake of the scathing 2013 whale documentary Blackfish, the theme park’s spin has been met with backlash, derision and social media failure. Still, it’s apparently never too late to twist the knife– as this latest entry from dedicated opponent PETA proves.

The video was created by PETA’s in-house team.

This clip and the campaign site “SeaWorld of Hurt” aim to tear down everything the beleaguered brand wants to convey as it struggles to regain market share.

Who better then to be blunt about the matter than an “orca masturbator” and a “fish doctor and stuff,” who add an Onion-like touch to PETA’s cause? Regarding this effort, the advocacy org’s executive vice president Tracy Reiman says:

“Strip away the sheen, and SeaWorld’s newest attempt to prop up its failing brand crumbles to dust. PETA’s ad makes it clear that the best thing caring people can do is steer clear of SeaWorld’s cruel parks until the animals it holds captive are no longer forced to spend their lives in tiny tanks.”

If you need more info, you can go to PETA’s dedicated “SeaWorld of Hurt” site here.

Also: while FCB does work for SeaWorld and will reportedly be involved in the client’s coming TV campaign, we could not get any agency to take credit for the water park’s own “just the facts” efforts, which launched online in March.

Les créatifs du Bureau Betak ont imaginé le « Jimmy Choo Sporting Club » au Seymour Leisure Center, à Londres : un skatepark géant pour le lancement de la nouvelle collection Hommes Spring/Summer 2016 de Jimmy Choo. Les athlètes-modèles ont fait un show de BMX et skateboarding, tous habillés par le créateur. Une identité visuelle a également été travaillée pour les vestiaires et boissons à disposition.

Photos by Bureau Betak.

TBWAChiatDay New York announced three senior appointments: Josh Tavlin and Adam Wohl join the agency as group creative directors, while Natalie Puccio will serve as group planning director. Tavlin and Wohl will be responsible for leading creative on new accounts and projects, while reporting to executive creative director Matt Ian. Puccio will also work on new accounts and report to chief strategy officer Ed Castillo. LBB reports the appointments were made to staff “several new accounts including Travelers Insurance, Hearts On Fire and Pernod Ricard’s Kenwood Vineyards.”

Tavlin arrives at TBWAChiatDay following three years as a freelance writer, working with agencies including BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather and Publicis. Prior to going freelance, Tavlin served as an executive creative director with Momentum Worldwide for over a year. That followed 19 years at Ogilvy & Mather, where he served as a group creative director and worked with brands including IBM and American Express.

Wohl joins the agency from mcgarrybowen, where he has served as an executive creative director for the past two years, working with clients including Kraft/Mondelèz, United Airlines, Marriott, P&G, Chase and Verizon Wireless. While with mcgarrybowen he also worked briefly with Samsung as a creative consultant and lead on global marketing and advertising projects. Prior to mcgarrybowen, Wohl spent a little over a year as a group creative director with Chiel Worldwide. That followed a period as a freelance creative director with W+K and The Kaplan Thaler Group. Wohl was a co-founder, partner and creative director at MIR, where he spent three years and worked with clients such as General Motors, P&G, Nissan, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Unilever, Kraft and Disney.

Puccio joins TBWAChiatDay from mcgarrybowen, where she most recently served as group planning director, after initially joining in December of 2013 as a planning director, and led strategy on Verizon’s Branded Entertainment line of business. Prior to mcgarrybowen, she spent just over a year at Team One as an associate planning director, leading strategy on Lexus. Before leaving for Team One, she pent two years as a senior account planner for TBWAChiatDay, working on Pepsi and the Call of Duty franchise. She arrived at the agency following two-year stints as a brand planner for Arnold Worldwide and strategic planner for McCann Erickson.

“We’re excited to bring in this trio of talent,” CEO Rob Schwartz told LBB. “TBWAChiatDay New York is back and growing, and we’re looking to offer the best people in our industry the chance to do the best work of their careers on behalf of some of the world’s most ambitious clients.”

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NBC’s response seems to ignore the big changes in the media landscape, which have reshaped the relationship between newscasters and consumers.