Hasta La Creative!

Univision Holdings has sued Charter Communications and accused the cable company of attempting to shortchange it on programming fees after acquiring Time Warner Cable, in a case that highlights the tension between programmers and distributors as pay-TV subscribers decline.

Charter is claiming it’s entitled to pay lower programming rates under a long-term contract between Time Warner Cable and Univision that runs through June 2022, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in New York state court Friday.

One reason that Charter bought Time Warner Cable in May was because it could save on programming costs by paying Time Warner Cable’s rates. The combined company has millions more subscribers now, giving it more leverage when negotiating fees with programmers to carry their channels.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

In case you weren’t already aware, Wieden + Kennedy has been receiving a fair amount of attention over the past 20-plus hours for turning its website into a note on the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the events of the past week (excluding the horrific shooting spree that killed 5 police officers last night in Dallas).

Around the end of the work day yesterday, W+K’s homepage went down to be replaced by this:

It’s a fairly self-explanatory note in some ways, but the backstory helps put it in the proper perspective.

No one at W+K has spoken directly to us or other publications about the site, and an agency representative declined to comment today.

But sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell us that the change started with an internal email written by a black W+K employee that consisted of the same message seen above. It went out on Wednesday, the morning after the death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Again, this was all before the death of Philando Castile and the shooting in Dallas last night.)

We obviously can’t assign any motivations to the person who wrote that email, but it reads like an attempt to convey his/her emotional state to co-workers.

Over the next day, agency leaders discussed this note and decided collectively to place it on the agency’s homepage; at the moment, viewers cannot access any other pages via wk.com. As we understand it, the decision stemmed from a desire to show support for W+K employees internally while also demonstrating to at least a few outsiders that the movement is much more than a hashtag and that it stems from a very real and very raw emotional response to events that feel like they are beyond any given individual’s control.

Some former employees seem to appreciate the gesture.

appreciate this statement from the most diverse, welcoming place i’ve ever worked at. by far. https://t.co/PWbSLeEFym

— yung content ? (@lukashmayyn) July 8, 2016

Of course we have no idea how effective the site will be in that respect, but we see it as a summary of the agency’s own current status. In that way, W+K is so far unique in the ad industry.

Gap Inc., the biggest U.S. apparel-focused retailer, posted June sales that topped analysts’ estimates, a sign the company’s long-promised turnaround could be taking hold.

Total same-store sales, a key benchmark, rose 2% in June, the San Francisco-based retailer said in a statement Thursday. Analysts had predicted a 3.6% decline, according to estimates compiled by Retail Metrics. The company’s off-price Old Navy brand led the results, with comparable sales increasing 5% last month, topping the 3.3% drop analysts expected.

Chief Executive Officer Art Peck’s effort to deliver a turnaround has been slower than expected. But the June results could signal that the improvement he predicted would arrive in the spring is beginning to materialize. Traffic was bolstered by the Memorial Day holiday, which fell in fiscal June, the company said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Cabine itinerante faz seus problemas sumirem em um passe de mágica

> LEIA MAIS: AACD apresenta a incrível Máquina Resolvedora de Problemas

Post originalmente publicado no B9
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As digital advertising methods proliferate and morph, companies funnel more money into television advertising to reach viewers who spend 22-36 hours watching TV every week

Despite what the advertising industry rumblings might lead us to believe over the past few years citing the decline of television as we know it, television advertising is instead alive, well, and producing solid results. In a recent MarketShare study that analyzed advertising performance across industry and media outlets like television, online display, paid search, print and radio advertising, MarketShare found that TV has the highest efficiency at achieving key performance indicators, or KPIs, like sales and new accounts. When comparing performance at similar spending levels, TV averaged four times the sales lift of digital.

In fact, 2016 could wind up being one of the most profitable years ever for TV advertising, thanks in part to Super Bowl 50–which set the stage with its $4.8 million, 30-second commercials. According to Advertising Age, total ad spending on commercials in the Super Bowl from 1967 through 2016 (and adjusted for inflation) was $5.9 billion.

Super Bowl 50’s estimated share of 2016 U.S. broadcast network TV ad spending was a record 2.4%, double the level in 2010 (1.2%), four times the level in 1995 (0.6%), and six times the level in 1990 (0.4%). The big game followed in the footsteps of a very strong fourth quarter for TV ad spending, which, according to Standard Media Index, saw overall TV spending increase by 9 percent at the end of 2015. October 2015 was broadcast’s best advertising month since January 2014–yet one more indicator of TV advertising’s continued and growing prowess.

There is however, no denying that instead of the decline of TV, the conversation should be reframed that we are instead experiencing the continuous evolution of TV and viewership – as is the nature of life. Even with the many different screens and delivery options at their avail, viewers still enjoy television viewing–and the ads that accompany with it. According to The Wall Street Journal’s If You Think TV Is Dead, Maybe You’re Measuring Wrong, adults of all ages spend more time with TV than with any other platform. Citing Nielsen measurements, the article points out that adults spend about 36 hours per week watching TV, while they spend about seven hours on their smartphones. For 18-34 year-olds, almost 22 hours is spent viewing TV while about 10 hours is spent on smartphones.

When combined, these numbers and realities paint the picture of a TV advertising environment that’s vibrant, effective, and clearly profitable. And while the medium has long been bashed for being “expensive”–a claim that grew as cheaper digital options entered the picture–we’ve seen a strong resurgence of interest in TV across many different types of advertisers. So while banner and display ads may be less expensive to initially create and publish, the average click-through rate of such ads across all formats and placements is still a very low 0.06 percent. Also, 54 percent of users don’t click banner ads because they don’t trust them, and 18- to 34-year-olds are far more likely to ignore online ads, such as banners and those on social media and search engines, compared to traditional TV, radio, and newspaper ads.

As Rich Lehrfeld, senior VP-global brand marketing and communications at American Express stated, “TV as a traditional medium is still important. When we run a heavy TV schedule, we see a lift in sales and product awareness. We need to run two weeks of digital to get the reach of one day of broadcast.”

Now, even though TV advertising is doing a great job of holding its own, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t play well with other, more “hip” and modern advertising methods and you truly need an omni-channel campaign to be fully effective across all platforms. So while it’s still the go-to player for companies across many different business segments, TV integrates well and lifts the advertising efforts for all other channels such as online video, programmatic ads, social, mobile, and so forth.

As a device-agnostic platform, for example, TV gives advertisers the opportunity to leverage over the top content (i.e., OTT refers to delivery of audio, video, and other media over the Internet without the involvement of a multiple-system operator in the control or distribution of the content) and other opportunities to reach their audiences across dozens of different platforms (e.g., cable, network, and independents like Netflix and Hulu).

The current presidential campaign is a testament to the power of television as a message and content delivery mechanism. According to Nielsen, voting adults spend an average of 447 minutes per day watching TV, 162 minutes listening to the radio, and just 14 minutes and 25 minutes viewing video on their phones and tablets (respectively).

According to the New York Times’ Derek Willis, nothing will displace television as the centerpiece of presidential campaign media strategy in 2016. “Television-watching adults spent an average of 7.5 hours a day in front of the set during the first three months of [2015]…far more time than people spend on their personal computers, smartphones, and tablets. And older Americans — among the most dependable voters — watch more television than their younger counterparts,” writes Willis in Why Television Is Still King for Campaign Spending.

There’s no denying that TV is still the best advertising investment out there but you still need to integrate a campaign across other platforms (web, social, mobile, etc.)– namely because response isn’t always generated directly from TV anymore–but by using solid analytics you can easily detect the “halo effect” that television has on the entire campaign. So while devices proliferate and the media environment becomes increasingly cluttered, those 36 hours that adults spend watching TV per week (and 22 hours for millennials), don’t lie- and neither does the return on investment that advertisers continue to reap from their investments in media and creative.

Jessica Hawthorne-Castro is the CEO of Hawthorne Direct. She can be reached at (310) 248-3972 or via email at jessica.hawthorne@hawthornedirect.com.

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When Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook live-streaming in April, it was with a cheery video from the launch room in which he talked about the great things people were already doing with the service. There was a stream of baby bald eagles and a guy who went live while he got a haircut.

The mundane could become the suspenseful, Mr. Zuckerberg said, because viewers wouldn’t know what would happen next. In the months since, Facebook has celebrated go-live successes that include a watermelon exploding under rubber bands and a mom howling with laughter while wearing a Chewbacca mask.

Now the live videos commanding the most attention are far from mundane — and the social-media giant is struggling with how to handle its position in the middle of disturbing news events.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

We’ve all heard quite a bit about sexism in the ad industry, and for good reason. But we haven’t seen too many first-person testimonials that go beyond generalizations to discuss what this sort of attitude looks like in practice.

Enter Lisa Leone, a freelance creative director who has worked at Leo Burnett, JWT, BBDO, Y&R, Havas, Ogilvy … pretty much every major agency in the Chicago area.

Yesterday, Leone published a Medium essay titled “Ad Girl, Interrupted.” It’s pretty much a must-read. In case you’re ready to be skeptical, she opens with a critique of the Lean In and 3 Percent Conference movements, writing: “As far as I could tell, ‘Lean In’ was just another BS topic fueling Ted Talks and viral videos that sound swell but don’t play out in reality.”

Then, back to that reality: “I’ve spent almost the entirety of my career trying to hide the fact that I’m female.”

Leone notes that she has long declined to work on “lady projects and brands,” a sentiment mirroring our recent conversation with Jaime Robinson and Lisa Clunie of Joan. And many have called her “difficult,” a word that will sound all too familiar to plenty of women who don’t work anywhere near the ad industry.

Like so many others, she was told not to make too much noise. To “Lean In,” if you will. Here are some of the incidents she recounts:

• “My partner and I produced a very successful campaign. I was equally responsible for the success. He was promoted. I was not.”
• She once made the very reasonable request that her boss stop looking at her chest so she could ask him a question. He said, “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
• Her creative partner “confided” that he would like to sleep with her and she declined. Said partner then went to their boss to break up the team.
• A creative director once began adding “group” to the beginning of his title despite the fact that he had not been promoted. Bosses found this so amusing that they went ahead and gave him the promotion.
• While applying for a job, she was told: “Your work is amazing. But we’re just not looking for female creatives at your level.”
• A (female) GCD told Leone’s (female) creative partner that she “can be a bully.” Her (male) boss then told her to confront this individual, which she did. The resulting mess led her to resign.
• She was literally told not to talk or ask questions during a pitch.
• “On the one hand, the day rate was pretty good. On the other hand, the day rate was 30 to 100% less than my male counterparts.“
• An agency president, discussing an agency CEO: “He already has a wife. He doesn’t need another one. Stop nagging him.”

This is all completely awful. But it keeps going–and if anything, it gets worse.

• “Recruiters thought I was the best candidate for an ECD position and enthusiastically presented me to a big shot global CCO, who replied that he’d never heard of me. They hired an equally-nameless male creative instead.”
• “Was told by an agency recruiter to expect an offer letter in the morning … a former (male) boss whom I had not worked with for over 15 years casually told the (male) head of the agency that hiring me would be a mistake because I was difficult. Never heard from them again.”

Such incidents are both depressingly predictable and still kind of shocking in their absolute dickishness.

Leone’s understandable response is, essentially, “Fuck this bullshit.” She writes, “I’m a kick-ass creative who does wonders for brands and writes content that makes human beings smile, who also happens to be female.” And she’s pretty tired of acting like that’s not the case.

Leone concludes that she’s still skeptical of the “Lean In” approach, because women everywhere have been leaning for some time. She then encourages others to do what she did and speak out about their experiences.

Will this happen? A few years ago we would have said no, but our tip box is always open.