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 last week. 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, designing duo Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta find space to tune out the world and get creative with the help of some Bose headphones; Hulu offers families entertainment no matter the occasion; Walmart saves a lovestruck teen some major embarrassment; and there are levels to the newest rendition of Taco Bell’s Crunchwrap.

Finally, a deep dish pizza from Little Caesars shows off its pure-bred goodness and wins best in show.

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With an imminent sale of its core business looming, Yahoo may have very well posted its final quarterly earnings on Monday.

The company reported revenue of $1.31 billion for the second quarter, up from $1.24 billion in the equivalent period a year earlier.

Revenue for what Yahoo calls its “Mavens” business, referring to products including mobile and video advertising, rose to $504 million from $401 million.

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Netflix Inc said it added fewer video streaming subscribers than expected from April through June as customers canceled the service ahead of a price increase, and the company’s shares fell 16 percent.

Netflix added nearly 1.7 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2016, falling short of its own forecasts as higher prices for some older customers spurred an increase in cancellations.

The company added 1.5 million new customers overseas, compared with an April projection of 2 million, CEO Reed Hastings said Monday in a statement posted on the company’s website. Netflix also added 160,000 in the U.S., well below its prediction of about 500,000 new domestic customers.

The company’s total reached 83.2 million, up from 65.6 million a year earlier. But the 1.7 million net additions were also well below the 3.3 million net additions a year ago.

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Industry veteran Peter Mayer died peacefully while surrounded by loved ones at the age of 86 last week, Adweek reports. His funeral service was held today, and he is is survived by his second wife, Linda Bailey Mayer, three children and eight grandchildren. 

Mayer founded the independent New Orleans agency that bears his name in 1967. His sons, Mark Mayer and Josh Mayer, currently serve as its president and CCO, respectively.

Mark, who has beenthe agency’s president for the past 30 years, shared this reminiscence about his father: “He looked forward to three things every day: where to have lunch, whom to have lunch with and what to order.”

Mayer’s family fled to New Orleans from Nazi Germany in 1935, when he was just six years old. He received a degree in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism and served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War.

After beginning a career as a reporter he transitioned to advertising with stints at Fitzgerald Advertising and Walker Saussy Advertising before launching Peter Mayer (the agency) with help from former Walker Saussy creative director Dorothea “Dot” Cahn. The agency went on to become the largest in the state and one of the largest in the region, with accounts including the New Orleans Saints, GE Capital,  CenturyLink, the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation and Zatarain’s.

In addition to his contributions to advertising, Mayer was known for being active in local organizations, such as The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Megan Abbott’s cunning new novel focuses on a teenage girl, sacrificing too much for the Olympics, and a tragic hit-and-run.

Goodby, Silverstesin & Partners welcomed Jeff Gillette as its newest creative director along with eleven other creative hires.

Gillette joins the agency from W+K Portland, where he has spent the past six years working as a creative director, co-leading the Coca-Cola account, Yoplait, Travel Portland and LAIKA. Before joining W+K in 2010, Gillette over a year and a half as creative director for Google’s Creative Lab. That followed a two-year stint at CP+B Boulder, the first year as a copywriter and the second as vice president, associate creative director. While with CP+B he worked with brands including Burger King, Volkswagen, Coke Zero and Geek Squad. 

Also joining the agency is Will Knox, a copywriter who joins the agency following two years at Heat. He worked on the Madden “GIFERATOR” campaign for EA Sports which won six Gold Lions in 2015.

Senior designer Tana Cieciora arrives from Austin-based brand studio The Butler Brothers and previously served a long stint with Publicis New York, during which time she helped develop branding for the Citi Bike project.

Senior creative/associate creative director Florian Marquardt arrives from BBDO New York, where he spent the past two years as a senior art director and recently was part of the creative team behind the Sports Illustrated “Epic Photoshop Fail” ad for Snickers. He also worked on GE and Pepsi while with the agency.

Copywriter Dan Berenson joins the agency from McCann New York, where he spent the past two years following stints with Havas and Translation. Over the course of his career he has worked with brands including Bud Light, Sprite, State Farm, Dos Equis, Volvo and Red Stripe.

Art director Ryan Tovani arrives after over nine years with Venables Bell & Partners, where he worked on Audi, Google and PlayStation, while designer Maria Vaquero joins the agency from Urban Outfitters.

Andrew Butte, a content creative and recent graduate of UCLA joins the agency along with fellow recent grads Lorenz Ortiz, a junior designer from San Jose State University; Stephen Aldridge, a content creator from BYU; Louis Xinran Li and Charles Lee, art directors from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.

Japan-based mobile social gaming company GREE International–the company behind titles such as Knights & Dragons, Modern War and League of War: Mercenaries–appointed Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as its first agency of record.

GREE International may not be a familiar name to many, and there is no estimate for the company’s ad budget, but it’s apparently a fairly large account. A representative claimed “the company’s goals are very aggressive,” and the company competes with other game makers such as Clash of Clans (which spends around $48 million on measured media annually), Mobile Strike ($55.6 million) and Game of War ($84 million) for context.

“The mobile gaming market is changing dramatically and while expertise in digital marketing remains critically important, building brand and establishing a strong franchise with consumers has become equally important. GS&P clearly excels in this area across the categories they’ve worked in including a deep history in the gaming industry with premiere companies,” said GREE International vice president of marketing Shawn Conly in a statement. “We reviewed five leading creative agencies in our selection process, and GS&P’s level of strategic thinking, truly creative problem solving, deep resources, and demonstration of partnership were key deciding factors in selecting them as our agency of record.”

“We look forward to working in the gaming space with GREE International to build the brand in innovative ways,” added GS&P partner, executive creative director Margaret Johnson.  “As a brand, GREE International offers a myriad of creative possibilities, particularly in the social space.”

The appointment follows a string of recent account wins for GS&P, including StubHub and the Golden State Warriors. The win also came before today’s announcement that the shop’s creative department had hired a dozen new members.