Hasta La Creative!

Amazon Prime Day may become an annual event after it broke the retailer’s own records for sales and Prime member gains in a single day, the company announced today.

“Going into this, we weren’t sure whether Prime Day would be a one-time thing or if it would become an annual event,” said Greg Greeley, VP-Amazon Prime, in a statement. “After yesterday’s results, we’ll definitely be doing this again.”

The sales event sparked criticism from customers on social media who weren’t impressed with the deals, but Amazon still came out ahead.

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A year after TBWAMedia Arts Lab walked away with the 2014 Emmy Award for Best Commercial (for the Apple spot “Misunderstood”), TBWAChiatDay has placed two spots among the 2015 nominees for the awards.

The Los Angeles agency’s “Made In NY” ad for Gatorade and “With Dad” ad for Nissan are among the six nominees this year. The Gatorade spot is undeniably magnificent, having already won the Grand Clio Sports Award as well as a gold Lion in Cannes. We were less enamored of the Nissan spot—in fact, it was among our least favorite ads of the Super Bowl.

The other four nominees: Snickers’ “Brady Bunch” by BBDO New York; Adobe’s “Dream On” by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; Always “Like a Girl” by Leo Burnett; and Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” by Anomaly.

Notably absent from the list is Wieden + Kennedy, which had a stranglehold on Emmy Awards until recently. W+K had Nike spots nominated in each of the past two years (“Jogger” and “Possibilities”). And before that, it won four Emmys in a row—for Procter & Gamble’s “Best Job” (2012), Chrysler’s “Born of Fire” (2011), Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” (2010) and Coca-Cola’s “Heist” (2009). In fact, the last time W+K didn’t place a spot among Emmy nominees was 2006.

See all the 2015 nominees below.

 
Snickers “Brady Bunch”
BBDO New York

 
Adobe “Dream On”
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco

 
Always “Like a Girl”
Leo Burnett, Toronto, Chicago and London

 
Budweiser “Lost Dog”
Anomaly, New York

 
Gatorade “Made In NY”
TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles

 
Nissan “With Dad”
TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles

The ESPYs more than tripled preliminary TV ratings from a year earlier, moving to ABC from ESPN as awards given to Caitlyn Jenner and pediatric cancer survivor Leah Still highlighted the show.

The annual sports award show was seen Wednesday in an average of 6% of homes in 56 of the top U.S. TV markets, Walt Disney Co.’s ABC said in a statement. The show aired on Disney’s ESPN in previous years.

With Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game held Tuesday, the days after are the only ones each year in which none of the four major U.S. team sports are in action, helping bring attention to the ESPYs.

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If you ever wanted to see a musical set in a McDonald’s, your ship has come in.

McDonald’s lead Hispanic agency, Alma in Miami, on Friday will roll out “A Little Lovin’,” a three-minute bachata musical starring the 20-year-old Dominican American singer Leslie Grace. At the beginning, she is seen sitting in McDonald’s with a case of writer’s block, but a McDonald’s employee (played by Daniel “Cloud” Campos, who also was the director and choreographer) soon inspires her to find “A Little Lovin’ ” all around.

As musicals do, it gets wildly and ridiculously energetic from there.

Alma repurposed Grace’s “Solita Me Voy” song for the spot. “About a year ago, Leslie was warming up for an interview and reminiscing about her happy childhood and going to McDonald’s with her dad, which was down the street from her mom’s salon,” said Luis Miguel Messianu, president and chief creative officer at Alma DDB. “She didn’t know she was being recorded, but my friend from Sony shared the sound byte with me and we’ve been working on an idea for her to partner with McDonald’s ever since.”

CREDITS
Talent
Leslie Grace: As Herself
Danny: Daniel Cloud
Dad: Cris Judd
Daughter: Tatiana McQuay

Film Crew
Director: Daniel Cloud
Executive Producer: Danielle Hinde
Producer: Courtney Davies
Production Supervisor: Rose Krane
Assistant Production Supervisor: Josh Reed

McDonald’s Marketing Team
VP Brand & Marketing Content: Joel Yashinksy
Director of Hispanic Consumer Marketing: Patricia Diaz
Manager of Social Engagement- US: Jenina Nunez

Alma Agency
President/Chief Creative Officer: Luis Miguel Messianu
VP Executive Creative Director: Alvar Sunol
Creative Director: Iu La Lueta
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Beatriz Torres-Marin
Senior Art Director: Luis Aguilera
Art Director: Andres Schiling
Director of Production: Adrian Castagna
Producer: Diana De La Parra
Account Director: Karen Udler
Account Supervisor: Cristina Lage
Senior Strategic Planner: Tamara Sotelo

Sony Music Entertainment US Latin
Senior Director of Business Development: Melissa Exposito
Business Development Analyst: Isabelle Duran
Manager: Jose Behar
Management: Lorena Fusilier
Management: Larissa Leal
Road Manager: Francisco Martinez

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, Airbnb asks “Is man kind?” following Caitlyn Jenner’s acceptance of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at last night’s ESPY Awards on ABC (read more about that here). And Sprite continues its campaign featuring huge names in music with “Corner Store,” featuring the story of Vince Staples.

Meanwhile, MTV’s “Look Different” campaign against racial, gender and anti-LGBT bias debuted a satirical commercial for the White Squad — almost like a Geek Squad, but to help people of color enjoy the same advantages as whites. White Squad can help in landing an apartment, getting a cab or even navigating a court proceeding, the ad says. With a simple dial of 1-800-WHT-SQAD, you can be sitting down with a “carefully selected white representative” in no time.

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Fox’s “Empire” had been pegged by some as broadcast networks’ best bet to end the recent drought of Emmy nods for drama. But not even Lee Daniels’ blockbuster sudsy drama could help the Big Four regain their relevance in the category when nominations were released on Thursday.

Once again the drama category was dominated by cable hits including HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” Showtimes’s “Homeland,” AMC’s “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” prequel “Better Call Saul,” and PBS’s “Downton Abbey,” as well as Netflix’s “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black.” Due to a rule change that requires hour-long shows to be considered dramas and half-hour shows as comedies, “Orange is the New Black” is appearing in the drama category after being nominated as a comedy last year.

“Empire” star Taraji P. Henson, who plays Cookie Lyon in the series, did receive a nomination for outstanding lead actress in a drama category, however, along with Viola Davis for her work on ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder.”

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