Hasta La Creative!

Nobody had spotted Ms. Kelly outside the Fox compound in Philadelphia all week. Then she made a midnight stop at the invitation-only CNN Grill.

Amazon.com projected revenue for the third quarter that may beat analysts’ estimates, boosted by record sales of Fire TV sticks and Echo devices on Prime Day and a strong start to its expansion in India.

Revenue in the current quarter will be $31 billion to $33.5 billion, the company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts estimated $31.6 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales gained 31% to $30.4 billion in the second quarter compared with analysts’ projections of $29.6 billion. Amazon Web Services revenue increased 58% to $2.89 billion from a year earlier. Shares gained as much as 4.7% in extended trading after the earnings were released. Earlier, the stock rose 2.2% to close at $752.61 in New York.

Amazon dominates e-commerce in the U.S. with its $99 Amazon Prime annual subscription, which includes delivery discounts, music and video streaming and photo storage that keep shoppers engaged with the company.

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Ratings for the third night of the Democratic National Convention experienced some moderate erosion compared to Tuesday night’s numbers, but overall the Hillary huddle continues to draw a bigger crowd than last week’s GOP event.

According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, President Bill Clinton’s Tuesday night speech edged President Barack Obama’s address by some 1.1 million viewers, although the POTUS still managed to out-deliver the corresponding night of the Republican National Convention by a margin of 930,000 viewers.

Through the first three days of coverage, the DNC is averaging 24.8 million viewers per night across ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, giving the event a healthy 3.2 million-viewer lead over the GOP assembly. Moreover, having posted an average 6.8 rating in the core news demo, the Democrats have established an advantage of some 1.58 million adults 25-54.

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DDB has a new creative lead for its San Francisco office after promoting former Chicago ECD Kevin Drew Davis to chief creative officer on the West Coast.

Davis moved to the Bay Area to begin his new gig at the beginning of this month, and while he is still collaborating on some of the Windy City accounts, he will be completely dedicated to the San Francisco team by the end of the year.

“We’re thrilled to have Kevin joining our west coast operation,” said S.F. CEO Todd Grantham in a statement. “He’s a proven creative leader that is as fluent in digital and social marketing as traditional media.”

We spoke to Davis and Grantham today about his new position. The CEO said: “The San Francisco market is dominated by tech startups and companies that need brands built for them. The creative leaders I’m looking for have to get both sides: They need to understand tech innovation but also know how to establish brands. Kevin is a perfect solution for us in terms of where we’re going next.”

Davis began specializing in digital while serving as “creative technologies director” at his native Austin’s GSD&M waaaaay back in the halcyon days of the early ’90s. He later held similar roles at Wieden + Kennedy, Publicis Seattle, FCB Chicago and Digitas before DDB recruited him to lead its Canadian operations in 2013.

Prior to moving west, Davis spent nearly two years as ECD at DDB Chicago, where he was one of the top creatives on the McDonald’s account and helped lead successful pitches for FIATChrysler’s Jeep and Alfa Romeo brands. His most high-profile project was the 2015 McDonald’s Twitter campaign “Lovin’ the Super Bowl,” which saw the Golden Arches praising all the other brands’ Big Game ads. Here’s the case study:

In comparing his work in Chicago and San Francisco, Davis said: “Chicago is big, Middle America brands being able to talk to the masses. In San Francisco, our opportunities are going to be on the sharper end of the stick with more disruptive companies. Taking those niche disruptors to the masses across America is a nice fit with what we can do.”

His promotion follows a round of downsizing that occurred in late June. This move followed Clorox’s decision to split its business between FCB and mcgarrybowen after 20 years with DDB.

DDB San Francisco’s largest current accounts are Qualcomm and ConAgra, but we hear that the team has been involved in several recent pitches and that there may be updates to come on the new business front.

Does Davis’s departure tell us anything about the never-ending McDonald’s creative review in Chicago?? Not really … why do you ask?

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, DHL delivers autographed jerseys from FC Bayern Mnchen to all corners of the world; Victoria’s Secret announces a free carry-on bag with purchase; WeatherTech highlights the safety features on its new pickup truck; and PetSmart is having a weekend sale on dog toys and training pads.

Finally in a Nike spot, Rory McIlroy is grateful for his parents’ sacrifices during his childhood so he could achieve his dreams of becoming a champion golfer.

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In news we missed yesterday, IPG Mediabrands appointed Mat Baxter as global CEO, Initiative.

Jim Elms, who previously served in the position, was named chairman of Initiative while taking on additional responsibilities as managing director, Interpublic. In the role, Elms will be tasked with driving increased collaboration between IPG Mediabrands and the broader Interpublic network. He will continue reporting to IPG Medibrands global CEO Henry Tajer, while also reporting to Philippe Krakowsky, chief strategy and talent officer of IPG and chairman of IPG Mediabrands. 

“Today marks an exciting new chapter for Initiative,” Tajer said in a statement. “Anyone who knows Mat will tell you that his energy, exceptional strategic skills and commitment to the business will instantly be felt around the Initiative network. Mat will enhance Jim’s long-term vision and client focus, and together, they will propel the network to new heights and reaffirm Initiative’s position as unexpected and daring. The best is yet to come.”

“Jim will be an important asset as we continue to increase the level of collaboration across the IPG network with our media offerings,” Krakowsky added. “Media increasingly serves as the connective tissue for the full range of marketing activities we deliver on clients’ behalf. In his new role at IPG, Jim will further enhance our ability to access resources from across the group so as to deliver on the promise of integration.”

Baxter was appointed as global chief strategy and creative officer IPG Mediabrands last August. Before that he spent over four and a half years serving as CEO for UM Worldwide, beginning in December of 2010. That followed a year and a half as chief strategy officer for MediaCom, following nearly five years as CEO, Asia Pacific for Naked Communications, where he was a founding partner.

“The opportunity to take an agency like Initiative and reshape it to best serve our clients and our people is a dream come true for me,” Baxter said. “Initiative is ideally positioned for growth and innovation – it has the all the capabilities and resources of a large full-service agency, but is nimble enough to allow for flexibility in how we service our clients.”

Los Angeles agency Phenomenon launched a new campaign for Wilson featuring Swiss tennis player Roger Federer promoting the Pro Staff RF 97 racket he co-designed. 

The black-and-white spot features fans reading letters from Federer (thus the title) while using the new racket. In what has become a somewhat tired device, one fan continues where the last left off. “If you look at me not as someone to emulate, but someone to oneday eclipse,” conclude a pair of fans, before Federer himself chimes in with “then I designed this racket for you.”

Fans of Federer will probably be pretty stoked to pick up a racket co-designed by the superstar himself. More casual fans may be less swayed by the spot’s hero worship.

The campaign includes the long-form version of the ad above, as well as a 30-second broadcast version.

Supporting the spot are digital and social media elements, including surprise engagements from Federer himself. There will also be on-the-ground activations at the U.S. Open tournament on August 27, where the rackets will be exclusively available until their retail rollout at the beginning of September.

NBC, which paid about $1.2 billion to broadcast the Olympics, is so keen to maximize the audience for Rio 2016’s opening ceremony that it lobbied unsuccessfully to change the spectacle’s official running order.

In the traditional Parade of Nations, teams enter the arena in alphabetical order. A spokesman for Rio 2016 said organizers had considered a request to change the language of the ceremony from Portuguese to English, which would have put the United States’s 555 athletes near the back, giving American audiences a reason to watch the full broadcast. As it is, the team will enter somewhere in the middle, because in Portuguese, the delegation is known as “Estados Unidos.”

Communications director Mario Andrada told the Americans yesterday that International Olympic Committee rules require that the official language of the opening ceremony has to be that of the host country. An NBC spokesman denied that the group lobbied to change the language. He didn’t comment on whether NBC wanted to change the running order.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The picturesque Swiss mountain village of Tschlin in the Lower Engadine is so quiet, residents say, that when the phone in the center of the village rings, everyone can hear it.

To prove this, Jung von Matt/Limmat launched a promotional campaign. Anyone who could call the village-phone without getting a response from one of its 166 residents would win a vacation. The six-day campaign resulted in some 4,000 conversations, 30,000 attempted calls and 500,000 visitors to the website www.dorftelefon.ch. While the residents of Tschlin were delighted with the enthusiastic response to the campaign, they’re now happy to have their peace and quiet back. 

The promotional campaign is part of the larger “Graubünden: My Mountain Village” marketing partnership focused on marketing small locations and regions throughout Graubünden. In this case, it seems Jung von Matt/Limmat did a pretty good job calling attention to the small, quiet village — temporarily breaking that quietness with a constantly ringing phone.

Credits:
Responsible at Graubünden Tourism:
Manuela Ruinatscha-Michel (Head of Product Development)
Nicole Derungs (Project Manager)

Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat:
Samuel Christ (Executive Creative Direction)
Johannes Raggio, Marco Zimmerli (Creative Direction)
Alain Eicher (Copy)
Lukas Frischknecht, Andrea Klainguti (Art Direction)
Joelle Hauser (Graphics)
Marco Dettling, Monika Arnold, Roman Mösli, Roman Meister (Consulting)
Sarida Bossoni (Art Buying)
Ralf Brändli (Head of Technology)
Matthias Wobrock, Dominik Habermacher (Online Marketing)
Christoph Kinsperger (Public Relations)

External partners:
Luc Kämpfen (Film Production: ferrari.kämpfen)
Jingle Jungle AG (Sound)
Nicolas Henri Sieber (Tech: Kamerawerk GmbH)
Valentin Altorfer (Tech: Simple Mechanik)

Publicis-owned, New York-based full-service agency Rokkan has made some changes to the leadership team in its Los Angeles office in the wake of recent partnerships with REI, Pantone and Eyeconic by VSP. 

Brian Veasey will now lead the office as general manager and new business director. Joining him on the leadership team will be Bill Carlson and Billy Veasey, who are relocating from the New York office to lead creative. 

Brian joins the agency from SK+G, where he has served as director of business development for nearly a year and a half. That followed two and a half years as business development director for Agency Reform. Before that he spent six years as a business development director with Kastner & Partners.

“Rokkan’s ‘partner for brave change’ approach really struck with me,” said Brian. “With a background in business development, I’ve seen a lot of brands play it safe because they’re afraid of change. Rokkan finds the brands that are willing to take risks and partners with them to create work that matters. I wanted to be a part of that journey.”

Bill has been a creative director with Rokkan for just over a year and a half, working with brands including Veuve Clicquot, Tough Mudder, HSUS and Fancy Feast. Prior to joining Rokkan he spent over a year and a half with Grey New York as an associate creative director and copywriter, following two years as a copywriter with Saatchi & Saatchi New York.

Billy, who worked with Bill on the “Daring Pursuits” digital campaign for Cadillac, has also served as a creative director for the agency for just over one and a half years. In that time he’s worked with brands including Veuve Clicquot, Humane Society, Samsung, Tough Mudder, NBC and JetBlue. Before joining Rokkan he briefly served as creative lead at Amazon, following a little over a year as associate creative director with Grey New York. Prior to that he served as a senior integrated art director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York. 

“The momentum we’re seeing in Los Angeles is just the beginning of what we anticipate for Rokkan as we look ahead,” said Rokkan CEO and co-founder John Noe. “We’ve made giant strides to re-imagine what it means to be a digital agency in a digital world, and we’re thrilled to see how an LA version of our NY hub will stretch our potential.”