Jul
26
Production Company Guilty in Harrison Ford’s ‘Star Wars’ Injury
Posted in: UncategorizedTwo years after Mr. Ford’s leg was broken and ankle dislocated, a Disney subsidiary has accepted responsibility for workplace safety breaches.
Jul
26
McDonald's 'Playing The Long Game' As Growth Pace Slows
Posted in: Uncategorized
For the McDonald’s of a couple of years ago, actually growing sales slightly in a tough environment would have been a success. But now, more than a year into its turnaround effort, weak sales gains were enough to send the stock down and add to concerns that the broader U.S. restaurant industry is in trouble.
CEO Steve Easterbrook tried to ease some concerns during the company’s conference call Tuesday, stressing how McDonald’s is reinvigorated and that it is taking market share. He also said the company is not managing itself quarter by quarter, as Wall Street monitors the company.
“We are playing the long game here,” Mr. Easterbrook said.
Jul
26
Rosapark Takes a Dip for the Tribord Easybreath
Posted in: UncategorizedFrench agency Rosapark launched a visually striking 60-second spot for the Tribord Easybreath, an innovate new full-face snorkeling mask.
The spot plays on images of sea and sky as a pair of snorkelers take in both during a jaunt. Images of the mask’s sleek design blend seamlessly with sky and sea imagery during the spot, which finds no need for dialogue or voiceover. Towards the end of the spot the camera flips, in a neat trick, reversing sea and sky as the message “Breathe underwater as you do in land” appears onscreen. It’s a succinct and effective way to drive home the point the rest of the spot expresses so beautifully.
“Easybreath is a real innovation in the world of diving—gone is the need for a separate mask and snorkel, and the difficulties some people [have] using them,” Rosapark creative director Jamie Standen told Adweek. “Our brief was to get across the scale of this invention.”
“For Easybreath, the product is already so innovative. All we had to do was find a simple idea to showcase it, then stand back and let the product itself do the work,” added fellow creative director Jamie-Edward Standen. “What we aimed to convey in the TV spot, visually, is that there’s a new way to be in the water, to see the water. I hope people who can’t be bothered with snorkels will try diving with the Easybreath. Diving is pretty cool!”
The broadcast spot is now running in 15-, 30- and 60-second versions throughout France.
Credits:
Brand: Tribord
Brand Management : Espen Heier
Directeur de la communication : David Martinelly
Agency: Rosapark
Co-founder: Jean-Patrick Chiquiar
Co-founders in charge of creative: Gilles Fichteberg and Jean-Francois Sacco
Creative Directors: Mark Forgan and Jamie-Edward Standen
Copywriter: Nicolas Gadesaude
Art Director: Julien Saurin
Account Management: Rozenn Traineau
TV Production: Lauriane Dula
Production: Insurrection
Directors: Fleur & Manu
Production Directors: Matias Boucard
Producers: Hélène Daubert and Mounia Mebarki
Coordinator: Marie Mezeray
Post-production: Home DP
Film Editing: Nicolas Larouquère and Alyson Gordon
Colorists: Bertrand Duval and Laurent Ripoll
Post-producer: Bianca Benloukil
Special effects: Mathematic
Post-production: Julie Lagadec
Flame artist: Fred Brandon
Music: Grabuge
Title: « Emmersion »
Music management: Jérôme Hatchuel
Composer: Laurent Perez Del Mar
Jul
26
Off the Menu: Floyd Cardoz Returns to Indian Cooking at Paowalla
Posted in: UncategorizedA new home for the former Tabla chef, a spot for Korean small plates, and other restaurant news.
Jul
26
Grey San Francisco Expands Its Executive Team with 6 New Hires
Posted in: UncategorizedThe Bay Area office of Grey Group marked an expansion this week with several executive-level additions to its team, chiefly on the strategy and media sides of its business.
Lenny Karpel will be director of brand strategy and Brian Lombardo will be VP, director of quantitative strategy, effective immediately. They join from Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, respectively. The two will serve as co-leads of Grey’s new Insights & Investments group, which aims to consolidate the office’s digital strategy, media and measurement teams into one.
“Lenny and Brian bring a wealth of experience driving integrated strategy for world class brands,” said Grey S.F. president Milan Martin. “Most importantly, they don’t play by the old rules of advertising. They’re both driven to push beyond the traditional definitions to create work that adds value to people’s lives.”
Beyond those two hires, Grey also hired George Joost, former VP/director of finance at twofifteenmccann, to serve as its chief financial officer and named Daniel Tuggle, who had been head of production at Cutwater, as director of integrated production.
“They both are outstanding additions to our team,” said Martin, adding, “Daniel is instantly ‘one of us’ producing work in smart, efficient and beautiful ways. And I couldn’t ask for a better finance partner than George to help the management team continue to grow Grey and responsibly manage our clients’ money.”
On the media side, Taylor Wynne and Abe Snyder joined Grey San Francisco as group media directors; they were formerly VP, media director at Havas Media S.F. and marketing consultant at area photo production startup Blink, Inc.
Regarding the new media hires, SVP Ryan Miller said, “They understand that the old mentality of simply buying reach/frequency is no longer a fruitful path to fame or fortune. There’s simply too much noise, distraction and fragmentation. Both think like creative media strategists and have a proven track record of leading highly collaborative, cross-discipline teams to deliver breakthrough campaigns for world class brands.”
We hear that the hires came about because the San Francisco team simply needed more talent to handle its various responsibilities. The office has won a few new accounts over the past year-plus including UCHealth, Lending Tree, Pernod-Ricard’s Graffigna wine and Sun Edison.
Jul
26
BBDO New York Channels ‘James Harden’s Inner Voice’ in New Foot Locker Spots
Posted in: UncategorizedBBDO New York launched a new campaign for Foot Locker featuring Houston Rockets star James Harden, who the agency teamed up with last September for the “Play My Tweet” effort.
The campaign features a series of spots starring Harden, centered around the spot “James Harden’s Inner Voice.” It seems that some strangeness from Periscope and Harden’s whacky work for Trolli may have seeped into the effort, as said “inner voice” sounds a lot like Colin Farrell.
When approached by two fans, Harden’s gives out a little nugget of advice: “Look fresh and always trust that little voice in your head,” to which the fan nods along…until Harden adds, “you know, that little voice that kind of sounds like Collin Farrell.” The guys look thoroughly perplexed as Harden’s inner Farrell voice tells him it’s time to get going so he can “shower and wait for the president to call.”
The other spots follow the strange formula, with Farrell providing Harden’s inner monologue for a practice session, a strange car entry method and, in both “Treadmill” and the self-referential “Greatest Pre-Roll Ever” a workout session.
Harden is a natural choice for such a strange approach, even if the scenarios in which he interacts with his inner Colin Farrell voice are a little run-of-the-mill. Harden’s presence and the sheer strangeness of the ads should be enough to at least help them stand out from the pack, however — especially at a time when other brands seem focused on the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Jul
26
IAB: Two-Thirds of Ad Block Users Are Open to Turning Off Software
Posted in: Uncategorized
People run ad blockers for obvious reasons: Autoplay videos with sound, slow loading web pages and, once again, autoplay videos with sound.
What’s not obvious, however, is that two-thirds of U.S. consumers who run ad blockers could be convinced to uninstall them should publishers take some steps to change habits deemed annoying by most online users.
That’s according to a research report released Tuesday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The comprehensive report reveals that the top methods for influencing web visitors to turn off blockers are:
Jul
26
Attend Content Marketing World to Be Rocked by Mark Hammil And Cheap Trick
Posted in: Uncategorized
Last year I went to Content Marketing World for the first time. Prior, I had been to several other content/social focused conferences and all are good in their respective niches. But Content Marketing World is really the mother of all things when it comes to content marketing.
Last year, the keynote was delivered by John Cleese which, as you can imagine, was awesome! How do you top John Cleese? It’s not easy but the folks behind CMW have done it. This year the keynote speaker will be Mark Hammil. Yes, that Mark Hammil!
If that’s not enough, Cheap Trick, yes, Cheap Trick will give a concert the evening of the conference’s first day.
So yea, awesome, right? But just like I witnessed last year, this year will also include some amazing speakers who are well versed in the area of content such as Ann Handley, Mitch Joel, Jay Baer, Rand Fiskin, Krintina Halvorson, Scott Stratten, Tim Ash, Susan Borst, Gina Dietrich, Rebecca Lieb, Brian Massey, Lee Odden and so many more.
In all, the conference will have more than 150 sessions presented by the best speakers covering strategy, integration, measurement, and more content marketing ideas you can use as you leave behind the old ways of online advertising and adopt the new.
And while, in full disclosure, I’m writing this in exchange for a press pass to the event, I can personally guarantee you will love it! (Oh God, I sound like George Zimmer from Men’s Warehouse!)
To find out more info and to register, go here.
Jul
26
Ericsson Accelerating Cost-Cutting Plan After Exit of CEO Vestberg
Posted in: Uncategorized
For Ericsson’s newly departed chief executive officer, Hans Vestberg, the future didn’t come fast enough.
While waiting for spending on so-called 5G networks to kick in, Ericsson, one of the world’s biggest makers of networking equipment, has been losing sales to competitors like Nokia Oyj, which broadened its portfolio with the purchase of Alcatel-Lucent SA, and Huawei Technologies, which is beating Ericsson on price while offering a wider array of products. After another weak earnings report last week, Standard & Poor’s warned on Monday that it could downgrade Ericsson’s debt rating.
The global telecom carriers that are Ericsson’s biggest customers are mostly done deploying the current generation of 4G networks that can handle cloud computing and streaming video. Mr. Vestberg has been a leading advocate of 5G, which will handle futuristic exploits like self-driving cars and remote surgery, but it hasn’t been deployed yet.
Jul
26
Reddit Intros New Ad Offering, 'Grows Up' and Says It Can Be as Big as Facebook
Posted in: Uncategorized
Picture this: It’s 2020 and Reddit is the third most downloaded app in Apple’s App Store, rubbing shoulders with other behemoths like Snapchat and YouTube. Procter & Gamble just told shareholders it plans to spend $300 million advertising on Reddit. And Reddit itself has more than one billion monthly active users, including your mother. She’s been lurking in r/food for months, but today musters the courage to share her secret recipe for chipteh with the community. It’s a hit.
And nobody is surprised by any of this because in this future, Reddit is as big as Facebook, both in its user base and ability to attract lucrative ad dollars from major brands.
At first thought, this future sounds ludicrously far-fetched. Today, Reddit’s self-proclaimed user base of 240 million is seven times less than Facebook’s. The company’s desktop website has aged about as well as Craigslist and its user base — aka redditors — are notorious for calling out advertisers that try to pass themseleves off as the cool, hip brand that’s mingling with today’s youth.
Jul
26
Caffeinated Nut Chocolates – The 'Coffee Nut' M&Ms is a Crowd-Selected New Peanut Flavor (GALLERY)
Posted in: Uncategorized
(TrendHunter.com) Chocolate candy brand M&Ms recently unveiled a crowdsourced campaign that allowed consumers to select the new upcoming flavors that revamp the peanut chocolate snack with novelty tastes. One of…
Jul
26
Ivory Tower: Deep Thinking About Immigration
Posted in: UncategorizedImmigration is an emotional issue. Three new books offer rational perspective.
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.