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, the “Coneheads” crew is back for another State Farm spot, and this time, Laraine Newman reprises her role as Laarta. “Commence the jingle!” she shouts as the group sings the State Farm melody with “French” accents — totally not monotone alien voices. And Neil Patrick Harris suits up to say Heineken Light is the best tasting beer.

Meanwhile, in a PetSmart spot, Jane Lynch threatens fleas who dare to mess with her dog, William, or cat, Monty.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Target launched a new in-house campaign in celebration of Pride Month, entitled “Take Pride.”

The 80-second spot communicates the message, “We’re not born with pride. We take pride. Pride in celebrating who we were born to be.” That sentiment is shown to apply both to individuals and society, as the ad highlights steps taken toward equality over the years, from the 1978 Gay Freedom Day parade in San Francisco to modern footage of gay marriage and gay couples with children. While McGann Zhang took a personal approach to highlight the importance of Pride Month, Target does the opposite, offering a broad view celebrating progress made over the years. Target’s effort comes across as genuine and inspiring, avoiding any explicit branding until the logo appears at the end of the spot. As Adweek points out, the campaign follows Target coming out publicly in favor of gay marriage last August.

“Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do—from our volunteer efforts to our long-standing partnerships with groups like Family Equality Council and Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, to the very products we carry in our stores and online,” Laysha Ward, Target’s social responsibility officer said in a blog post yesterday.

Inspiring though it may be, the message is not entirely altruistic, as Target will be selling various Pride Month items. Still, “Take Pride” avoids seeming opportunistic or shallow-minded and further cements the brand’s dedication to equality.

McDonald’s has named former Bacardi executive Silvia Lagnado as its new global chief marketing officer.

The move follows former Global Brand Officer Steve Easterbrook’s elevation to McDonald’s CEO effective March 1. It also comes as McDonald’s is working to reverse a prolonged sales decline not just in the U.S., but globally.

McDonald’s has not had a global chief marketing officer since Mary Dillon, who left the company in 2010, although a spokeswoman for the chain said many of its global marketing responsibilities were fulfilled by Dean Barrett. The senior VP-global marketing recently announced his retirement after more than 40 years at McDonald’s.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

In the wake of keynote presentations and exaltation from the likes of Drake, Interscope/Beats man Jimmy Iovine and Trent Reznor (who provides VO on this product demo video) at its Worldwide Developers Conference this week, Apple unveiled this spot to further hype its newest product: a streaming music service.

Created by longtime agency partner TBWA/Media Arts Lab, the :60 film aptly titled “History of Sound” takes us on a 127-year journey beginning with the days of the gramophone and veering into the era of turntables, 8-track tapes and ultimately digital downloading. Thankfully, the Apple Music branding is merely an afterthought in this spot, which is buoyed by hypnotic percussion as it leads viewers through various moments in pop music history including everyone from hippies to punk-rockers to beatheads.

The “History of Sound” sound spot seems to echo earlier WWDC proclamations that Apple Music is something revolutionary, though critics were quick to bring up Spotify and even Tidal comparisons after the announcement. Regardless, Apple Music is launching on June 30 and it will run $9.99/month (or $14.99 for the family pack). You can get the full rundown of the service here or pretty much anywhere else on the internet.

“We’re not born with pride. We take pride. Pride in celebrating who we were born to be.”

That’s the message of Target’s #TakePride campaign for Pride Month, shared across the retailer’s social channels this week, and led by an 80-second spot that mixes animation, live action and documentary footage to create a message about awareness and equality.

“We’re not born knowing where our life will lead, the obstacles we’ll face, the joy we’ll find,” the voiceover says. “We’re not born knowing that these milestones are also stepping stones in helping us find our footing in what we stand for, and who we’ll stand by.”

The spot speaks to an evolving understanding of one’s true self and respect for one’s place in the world. And it does so in forthright fashion, noting that “heartbreaks” and adversity shape human experience and character. Its imagery acknowledges the long, complex, often rough road to enlightenment, mixing shots of San Francisco’s 1978 Gay Freedom Day parade with contemporary footage of two dads and their new baby.

So, the ad’s about a journey of discovery—for those in the LGBT community and, ultimately, for all of us.

In a way, that theme reflects Target’s—and in a broader sense, society’s—history with such issues. (Though it has positively portrayed LGBT people in ads for several years, some had questioned Target’s stance on progressive issues before its very public move last September in support of gay marriage.)

In a blog post on Monday, Laysha Ward, Target’s social responsibility officer, unequivocally stated the chain’s position: “Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do—from our volunteer efforts to our long-standing partnerships with groups like Family Equality Council and Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, to the very products we carry in our stores and online.”

A gallery of rainbow- and “Love Is Love”-themed T-shirts, bow-ties, shorts, flip-flops and assorted paraphernalia follows.

Target is, after all, a for-profit venture seeking to sell stuff to as many consumer segments as possible. Yet its LGBT pitch is in step with the times, and in some ways transcendent, rather than opportunistic or cynical.

Just a decade ago, many mainstream marketers would have shunned such an appeal, fearing a backlash and boycotts from the right. Now, these pitches are becoming commonplace, part of the increasingly rich and inclusive lingua franca of modern life.

That’s a shift we can all be proud of.

(TrendHunter.com) In partnership with supermarket chain COOP Italia, design firm Carlo Ratti Associati imagines that the future of supermarkets will look like its ‘Future Food District concept.

While self-…