(TrendHunter.com) Created to help users ditch the cutting board, the Clever Cutter Two-in-One food choppers work by incorporating the design of a knife and a cutting board into a scissor-inspired utensil. Great for…
Having been raised in a socially connected, digital world, Generation Z and younger millennials have different behavior patterns than age groups before them, causing fear among marketers trying to determine how to engage this demographic. But “The Truth About Youth,” a worldwide study by McCann Truth Central, McCann Worldgroup’s global intelligence unit, shows three fundamental truths about being young that transcend generations.
The study, which included 33,000 interviews among people of all ages across 18 countries, revealed that young people today just like the generations before them are focused on finding themselves, finding their people and finding their place in the world.
“There can be a lot of panic when it comes to connecting with the next generation, particularly with Gen Z, and the truth is the tech landscape is changing very rapidly, but what we wanted to do was say to marketers, ‘You don’t have to be completely terrified and overwhelmed when it comes to this generation because there are a lot of things that are as true today as when you were a teenager,'” said Laura Simpson, executive-VP and global director of McCann Truth Central.
On Thursday, Malcolm Gladwell launched a podcast called “Revisionist History.” The podcast, which Mr. Gladwell says he made in lieu of writing a book, re-examines past events that Mr. Gladwell thinks were misinterpreted the first time around. Even before anyone could listen to it, the 10-episode show was a hit. On Wednesday night, it was the top podcast series in iTunes, even though it consisted of nothing more than a three-minute introductory clip.
Last week, Mr. Gladwell visited the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to give a preview of the show’s first episode, which examines the stories of 19th-century painter Elizabeth Thompson and Julia Gillard, the first female prime minister of Australia. They were victims of misogyny, Mr. Gladwell said. Before the reading, Mr. Gladwell sat in an armchair onstage, wearing a striped blazer, beltless jeans and European sneakers with aqua highlights. Jacob Weisberg, an old friend, former roommate, and chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, the company behind the podcast, warmed up the crowd.
Mr. Weisberg started by asking the 800 or so attendees a question. “Who here — and don’t be ashamed– has never listened to a podcast?” he asked. A few sheepish hands went up. Mr. Weisberg suspected that there were many others who were being too shy to cop to their lack of experience. He had already distributed instructions of how to download a podcast, in the form of a handout placed on each seat in the auditorium: “Find the purple Podcasts app. It comes pre-installed, so you don’t need to download it from the App Store.”
Sumner Redstone removed five members of the Viacom board Thursday, including CEO Philippe Dauman, as the nonagenarian billionaire reasserts control of the media company and moves closer to eliminating Dauman as CEO.
The other ousted Viacom directors are George Abrams, Blythe McGarvie, Frederic Salerno and William Schwartz, according to a statement Thursday from Mr. Redstone’s National Amusements Inc. holding company.
Five new directors were elected in accordance with Viacom bylaws, the company said. They are Kenneth Lerer, chairman of BuzzFeed; Thomas May, chairman of Eversource Energy; Judith McHale, former CEO of Discovery Communications Inc., Ronald Nelson, former co-chief operating officer of DreamWorks SKG, and Nicole Seligman, former president of Sony Entertainment.
Electrolux North America announced today that it will conduct a marketing and agency review to better engage consumers and to help it become a major innovator in the appliance industry.
“As a company, Electrolux strives to be at the forefront of innovation and design,” John Weinstock, senior vice president of marketing for Electrolux North America, said in a statement. “We intend for our full marketing approach to reflect our company’s vision, products and commitment to serving our consumers.”
The review includes brand advertising, digital, media, public relations, CRM and in-store marketing for both its Electrolux and Frigidaire brands.
Ms. Snider, a longtime film executive at Fox, Universal and DreamWorks, will succeed James Gianopulos in June 2017.
(TrendHunter.com) These days, there are a number of creativity-boosting tools to help employees overcome everything from writers block to a lack of design inspiration. From high-tech services to low-tech products,…
The curious case of Bill Grizack came to an end today as North Carolina Superior Court Judge John O. Craig sentenced the now-former executive strategist and agency partner to serve 57 to 81 months in state prison for defrauding McKinney and The Variable (formerly known as Pave Advertising).
As readers who have followed this story will know, in March Grizack pled guilty to three class C felonies related to charges of obtaining money/property by false pretenses and attempting to do so.
“This is a case about lies and deception that fueled an upper class lifestyle,” said state prosecutor W. Scott Harkey in a Forsyth County court today, and Judge Craig seemed impressed by Grizack’s work, stating, “There are certain politicians in this country who could probably take notes from this man.”
The story began in 2010 when Pave Advertising of Winston-Salem hired Grizack as a consultant. The shop eventually made him a full-time employee, and he developed a data-based software product that he called Brand Forensics. Pave later renamed itself The Variable and used this software as a key selling point for potential clients.
Today in court, Grizack’s defense attorney Bernard Desrosiers said:
“He created a software program that, from the victim’s own mouth, was ‘revolutionary.’ He started getting legitimate contracts from clients, but the two he wanted most he couldn’t get.”
Grizack wanted to be a partner, but in order to avoid paying a six-figure fee the agency partners required him to provide $500,000 in new revenue. The Variable president and partner Keith Vest read a statement in court explaining what happened next via “fake contacts, fake email addresses, fake phone numbers, and fake documents” by which the defendant “impersonated officers at these companies.”
“Grizack was not out to please anybody. He is a con man … addicted to lying.
He did not just spontaneously lie; he schemed. He caused our company to suffer extended financial losses and McKinney to do the same. [He caused] unimaginable emotional turmoil at work and at home … he almost destroyed a company. He strategically used acts of kindness to build our trust, and like any con man his tactics were just tactics.”
As part of his plea agreement, Grizack agreed to pay $135,000 to The Variable and $100,000 to McKinney Ventures as restitution for his crimes. But Vest acknowledged in his statement that neither agency is likely to ever see any of that money, adding, “All of this happened to us 3 years ago. We have recovered and thrived without his cancer within our walls.”
Harkey claimed in court today that the total losses for the two agencies amounted to approximately $4 million; he was also the party who suggested that the Coca-Cola and Brown-Forman contracts that Grizack faked would have been worth $269 million, according to an earlier report in The Winston-Salem Journal.
After firing Grizack in 2013, The Variable partnered with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to gradually build its case against him. Their reasons for doing so, according to Vest’s statement:
“We don’t want to see Grizack do this to other companies. He conned the company he worked for before us; he conned us and McKinney; the company he moved to after ours was able to uncover his deceit before it went too far.”
In his opening statement, Harkey said, “Right after his scheme was discovered by executives at Pave and McKinney, he went to [Colorado’s Egg Strategy] and did the exact same thing” before an unnamed party contacted that shop and let them know that Grizack’s $14 million McDonald’s contract was fake. A spokesperson for Egg Strategy declined to comment for this story, stating that the agency does not discuss current or former employees.
As we documented in the past, Grizack continued to get hired by top agencies even after he was fired by all three of the shops mentioned above. In 2014, he moved to California to work at Dailey Advertising as chief strategy officer for almost a year, and at the time of his guilty plea in March he was simultaneously employed or contracted by Interbrand, Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Venables Bell & Partners in San Francisco.
We’ve received quite a bit of information regarding this story over the past three and a half months. One anecdote that sticks out to us is the claim that the very name Grizack has become a verb of sorts in the agency world.
In explaining the reasoning behind the sentence, Judge Craig said that the fact that Grizack’s fraud led dozens of people to lose their jobs was first and foremost in his mind. He also cited an unnamed “rare genetic disorder that could be fatal and most likely will greatly shorten his lifespan” as a reason not to give the defendant a longer sentence, adding, “When he gets out, he will always have that hanging over his head in the event that he is able to get employment.”
He then added:
“Mr. Grizack, I don’t know what to say to you, sir. It was a very ingenious scheme and I was amazed at its complexity and its criminal ingenuity. It was a con game that was highly complex and highly believable. I have to say that in so many instances involving schemes such as this, the defendant is able to play on his ability to convince people.”
Craig also implied that the agencies in question may bare a bit of the blame in this case: “There is often a greed factor on the part of the victims … If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” he said, comparing the story to that of the goose that laid the golden eggs and adding, “I hope you will take this as a hard-earned lesson.”
Grizack took his opportunity to apologize to the court, his former employers and his wife and children while shaking his head profusely. “From my heart, I am truly, truly sorry,” he said before officers of the court placed him in handcuffs and led him away.
Desrosier summed up Grizack’s crimes as such: “He thought he could get away with it. He didn’t.”
A McKinney spokesperson declined to comment on the case after the sentencing. Before leaving the court today, Vest promised to provide an official statement to both Adweek and The Winston-Salem Journal.
Ed. note: I am currently working on an Adweek feature story on Grizack. If you worked with him, participated in any of his agency projects, or have more information about his case, please contact me at patrick.coffee@adweek.com or call me at 917-258-0966. Any subsequent conversations may occur on condition of anonymity, though on the record statement would be ideal.
MRM//McCann Detroit has parted ways with vice president, group creative director Murray Grondin.
An agency spokesperson confirmed that Grondin is no longer with the agency but has so far not specified whether MRM//McCann is seeking a replacement. It’s also unclear where Grondin will end up following his departure.
Grondin joined the agency in July of 2013, following six years as vice president, creative director with Team Detroit. Prior to that he spent around seven and a half years serving as a senior art director with Y&R Detroit, leading a creative team on the agency’s Ford Credit account. That followed a year as a senior graphic designer with Y&R Toronto, leading design on Ford, Sears and AT&T Canada.
Before joining Y&R he spent six years as a senior graphic designer with Saatchi & Saatchi Toronto, working with clients including P&G, Toyota, Hewlett-Packard and Rothmans Benson & Hedges.
MRM//McCann has made several executive-level changes in its New York and Detroit offices in recent months. In April the Motor City shop named Jeff Cruz as its new EVP/chief creative officer, and in May CEO Michael McLaren and others departed in Manhattan after client Verizon decided to consolidate the digital portion of its FiOS business with Rauxa.
Há algumas semanas o braço americano da Visa anunciou que atletas dos EUA testariam no Brasil um novo gadget da empresa, um anel de cerâmica com NFC para pagamentos. Para não ficar de fora, o braço brasileiro da Visa, em parceria com o banco Bradesco, decidiu trazer algo parecido ao país também para as Olimpíadas […]
> LEIA MAIS: Bradesco e Visa mostram pulseira de pagamentos no Brasil; Nós testamos
Post originalmente publicado no B9
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Lam Wing-kee, whose bookstore sold gossipy books about China’s leadership, says he was detained at the border by captors who wanted customers’ details.
A screen version of the Broadway musical “Wicked” has finally been scheduled for release by Universal Pictures.
Having been raised in a socially connected, digital world, Generation Z and younger millennials have different behavior patterns than age groups before them, causing fear among marketers trying to determine how to engage this demographic. But “The Truth About Youth,” a worldwide study by McCann Truth Central, McCann Worldgroup’s global intelligence unit, shows three fundamental truths about being young that transcend generations.
The study, which included 33,000 interviews among people of all ages across 18 countries, revealed that young people today just like the generations before them are focused on finding themselves, finding their people and finding their place in the world.
“There can be a lot of panic when it comes to connecting with the next generation, particularly with Gen Z, and the truth is the tech landscape is changing very rapidly, but what we wanted to do was say to marketers, ‘You don’t have to be completely terrified and overwhelmed when it comes to this generation because there are a lot of things that are as true today as when you were a teenager,'” said Laura Simpson, executive-VP and global director of McCann Truth Central.
Se o setor de criadores de conteúdo na internet fosse uma empresa, ela estaria contratando pessoas mais rápido do que qualquer companhia do vale do silício. Essa é uma das justificativas de Hank Green, YouTuber e co-criador da VidCon, para a criação da ICG, a Internet Creators Guild. A organização, recém-lançada, tem como objetivo ser […]
> LEIA MAIS: Hank Green lança comunidade voltada a criadores de conteúdo no YouTube
Post originalmente publicado no B9
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Facebook ads, like those on many platforms, started out relatively simple. But as Facebook has rolled out ad products at a growing clip, some of the products have changed the way brands and agencies need to approach creative, especially in mobile.
To help marketers keep ads coming, not to mention make the shift to mobile advertising, the company is now introducing Creative Hub, an online platform for agencies, brands and anyone involved in the creation of ads on Facebook, really, to share, review, test and create ads on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram. Facebook is billing it as an online space meant to foster collaboration.
The move is an effort to help creatives build ads more easily, said Mark D’Arcy, chief creative officer at Facebook’s Creative Shop. “Before this, we didn’t have a great interactive workspace,” he said. “But building, experimenting and playing with form in mobile is really important. It’s important for us as an industry to figure it out.”
Google has changed the color of its ad tag icon from yellow to green.
Perhaps that might seem like a minor change until you factor in that marketers spent $20.5 billion in search advertising in 2015, an 8% increase from the previous year, according to the IAB. Even a small increase in clickthrough rates would translate into millions for Google.
Still, a spokesman told Ad Age the color change showed “absolutely no difference” in clickthrough rates after testing it on 5% of its user base back in April. Though that could change for better or worse as the color swap is launched worldwide.
NEW YORK—It was an exhilarating night for AKA NYC at the 37th Telly Awards as the entertainment marketing agency won a total of seven awards for its campaigns for the Broadway musicals FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and AMERICAN PSYCHO.
AKA’s FIDDLER spot “Tradition” earned a Silver Award, the competition’s highest honor, in the category Entertainment. It also picked up Bronze Awards for Directing and Cinematography. The agency’s spot “Selling Out” for AMERICAN PSYCHO won four Bronze Awards for Entertainment, Directing, Editing and Graphics. Both spots were directed by AKA NYC’s directing team Jamaal+Bashan.
AKA NYC is elevating the quality of Broadway advertising through its daring and inventive concepts, and high production value. FIDDLER’s “Tradition” captured the mesmerizing energy of Hofesh Shechter’s choreography by placing a handheld camera directly in the midst of groups of dancers. The agency evoked AMERICAN PSYCHO’s blend of sex, style and homicide in an ad where the show’s protagonist, Patrick Bateman (Benjamin Walker), dancing to a Walkman, is intercut with review quotes and flashes of Manhattan, sultry women and bloody axes.
“We take people inside the mind of Patrick Bateman,” explains AKA NYC Executive Creative Director Bashan Aquart. “It’s dangerous, but it’s also raw and exciting. In Patrick’s mind, there is glass breaking, chainsaws are roaring and butcher knives are flying across the room…yet, somehow, it’s all still sexy.”
The Telly Awards are the premier competition honoring outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs, the finest video and film productions, and online commercials, video and films. Winners represent the best work of the most respected advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, cable operators, and corporate video departments in the world.
Last year, AKA NYC won five Silver Tellys for work for MATILDA THE MUSICAL, HAND TO GOD, ONCE THE MUSICAL and IT’S ONLY A PLAY.
About AKA
AKA is a global, full-service advertising agency with offices in the US, UK and Australia. The AKA Group, including Digital Media Services and the film advertising agency The Creative Partnership, delivers creative, strategic and insightful campaigns to the entertainment and culture industries worldwide.
The New York office, led by Elizabeth Furze and Scott Moore, delivers innovative solutions across media, marketing, partnerships, interactive, creative, broadcast content, insights, and campaign management, with a proven record for producing sales-driven campaigns for premium, must-see productions, venues, exhibitions and events.
For more information, visit aka.nyc
Contrary to tips we’ve received, Audi’s creative business is not in review.
Audi did, however, launch an unannounced review late last year for sports marketing and experiential work. That review concluded with Audi naming New York-based LeadDog as its experiential and sports marketing agency of record. LeadDog’s client roster also includes NASCAR, ABC, Chipotle, Intel, WWE, Amtrak and Odwalla.
Audi’s general creative account was not part of the review and VB&P remains the brand’s creative agency of record. A company spokesperson writes, “An experiential review was conducted last year and Lead Dog is our agency of record for experiential. The review did not affect VBP’s scope of work.”
VB&P’s recent work for the client includes a March “Rock and Roll” spot set to The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” and a Super Bowl effort comparing a ride in the Audi R8 V10 to a space launch, set to David Bowie‘s “Starman.”
LeadDog published a tumblr post on the new business in February, but the client never made it official. Since winning the review, LeadDog has worked on several projects for Audi, chief among them the carmaker’s partnership with Major League Soccer.
Volkswagen will seek redemption in electric cars, autonomous driving and ride-sharing after its cheating on diesel-emissions technology led to the biggest scandal in its history and hastened a corporate overhaul.
The shift will entail more than 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in investments by 2025, financed in part by cost-cutting at the namesake VW brand and bundling together its fragmented parts operations, the company said Thursday at a press briefing at its Autostadt exhibition center in Wolfsburg.
“We expect that by (2025) we will be selling about 2 to 3 million pure-electric automobiles a year,” VW Group CEO Matthias Mueller said.
When Obama commuted the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders, he chose two ex-cons to collect them on the day they were released from prison.
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