(TrendHunter.com) The Taurus 2×2 is a spectacularly solid and brutally aggressive motorcycle, designed in Russia, that is designed to make it easier for people working in agricultural environments to easily navigate…
When the company started offering ads, brands were wary of high prices and vanishing content. Then it let football fans drench themselves in virtual Gatorade.
The owner of The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, previously known as Tribune Publishing, did not mention Gannett’s takeover attempt.
(TrendHunter.com) The Bangkok-based design firm Wide & Narrow recently developed chic and sustainable packaging for a Thai swimwear company called Sand & Salt. While the packaging is certainly minimalist, the…
(TrendHunter.com) This guest home looks like a cross between a fairy tale cottage and a modern tiny house.
The guest home was designed by ‘Avava Systems’ and despite the fact that it features all the…
(TrendHunter.com) From Brazil to Japan, international fast food brands have been coming up with innovative ways to satisfy regional taste preferences and dietary restrictions. Whether it is tweaking existing dishes…
The Lowdown is Ad Age’s weekly look at news nuggets from across the world of marketing, including trends, campaign tidbits, executive comings and goings and more.
Bud Light is coming back with its NFL team themed cans. The limited-edition packaging will be part of Bud Light’s “Beer With Your Team On It” campaign, which “will celebrate NFL fandom and passion for Bud Light throughout the season,” according to Anheuser-Busch InBev. Check out all the cans here.
Credit: Anheuser-Busch
21st Century Fox Inc. posted fiscal fourth-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates on the strength of its broadcast TV business, registering gains that overshadowed stalled cable earnings and a drop in film.
Profit excluding some items rose to 45 cents a share, New York-based Fox said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts were projecting 37 cents, the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue grew 7.1% to $6.65 billion in the period ended June 30, missing analysts’ projections of $6.68 billion.
Fox is benefiting from rising ad sales and affiliate fees at both of its TV businesses — broadcast and cable. Profit from cable was held back by rising program costs, for sports and political coverage during the U.S. president election. The division has also been rattled by the ouster of news chief Roger Ailes, who was sued for sexual harassment by former anchor Gretchen Carlson.
Kaboom Productions has welcomed Alden Wallace to the company’s roster. Wallace began his career as a still photographer, shooting campaigns and magazine editorial for clients including Tory Burch, Miller Genuine Draft, Nike, Google, Universal Studios, and Post Cereal, among others. He has produced multiple shoots for Mercedes, Oakley and Motorola.
Director Norry Niven has joined Lucky 21. Niven’s projects include campaigns for Gatorade, McDonald’s, Ford, Lincoln, Showtime, Nintendo, Nestle and Visa. He has worked in commercial, music and film with a variety of artists and actors including Don Cheadle, Claire Danes, William H. Macy, Queen Latifah, Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, and Jon Voight, and also directed celebrity athletes. Niven started his directing career at Hollywood-based The End,and launched his own commercial production companies Stonecore Film in 1990 and Three (One) O in 2008.
Rory Kelleher has joined Chromista. Kelleher has been directing commercials for 10 years and has created spots for clients including Coors Light, Verizon, Axa, Behr, Crocs and Guinness. He worked at Touchstone Pictures in design and began focusing his career on advertising. His projects include Pixar’s Buzz Lightyear mini adventures as well as zombies and evil clowns for Knott’s Berry Farm.
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, Mini USA praises American Olympians, including Claressa Shields, Carlos Balderas, Ibtihaj Muhammad and Serena Williams for “defying labels”; kids woefully say goodbye to summer and go back to school with their Walmart gear; child athletes in Toyota’s new spot all play different sports but have something in common: families who are always willing to give them rides to practice; and what starts as a slice of Land O’Lakes butter becomes a hearty soup that feeds soup kitchen patrons.
Finally, Olympic soccer star Alex Morgan tells her fans to ignore the naysayers as part of Chobani’s #NoBadStuff campaign.
The Ad Age Women to Watch 2016 event today happened to coincide with the resignation of Saatchi & Saatchi Chairman Kevin Roberts, who in an incendiary interview with Business Insider last week said, among other things, that “fucking debate is all over” when asked about gender diversity in the ad industry. Over the weekend, holding company Publicis Groupe asked Mr. Roberts to take leave and today he resigned, saying in a statement that he “failed exceptionally fast.”
With the topic so much in the spotlight — the issue was brought up by Advertising Women of New York Executive Director Lynn Branigan during her opening remarks at today’s luncheon — we decided to ask our honorees about their thoughts on gender diversity issues in the industry.
Below are views shared by some of Ad Age’s 2016 Women to Watch:
(TrendHunter.com) Known for creating artwork with fractured pieces, artist Micaela Lattanzio has unveiled a new installation showcasing fragmented portraits that she created.
Designed for the ‘Royal Caribbean&#…
Ms. Madden created the magazine’s wordplay competition, which attracted an average of 1,500 readers every week. She retired in 2000.
Instagram’s new Stories feature, ripped right from the Snapchat experience, already is a brand favorite. That’s partly because Instagram is more welcoming to brands, and partly because it’s just bigger.
Nike, for example, generated 800,000 views in 24 hours for an Instagram Story that it posted on Tuesday, the first day the feature was available. On Snapchat, Nike’s best video got 66,000 views, according to Nike and its social media agency Laundry Service.
“Instagram is really brand friendly, so that’s a huge opportunity,” said Nick Sheingold, associate director of strategy at Laundry Service. “Those numbers are staggering.”
AdAge reports that Anheuser-Busch InBev is in talks with agencies about creative for its faux-craft Shock Top brand. The brand clarifies that it is not launching a creative review, as it has not had an agency of record in recent years, and is looking to continue to work outside the AOR model.
According to Kantar Media, A-B InBev spent around $21.6 million in measured media on the brand in the first six months of 2016, a sharp increase from the $2.5 million it spent during all of last year.
“What we’re doing right now is simply having a few conversations with leading creative agencies,” Schock Top vice president Jake Kirsch told AdAge in a statement today. “This isn’t a review, as we haven’t had a creative AOR for some time. As we plan for 2017, and beyond, we’re having these conversations as part of our normal course of business. Shock Top is always open to new ideas and discussions with the best and brightest creative minds in the industry.”
Most recently, Anomaly Toronto had handled creative for the brand. Notably, the agency created the brand’s first Super Bowl spot, starring T.J. Miller and Martin Montana, as part of its “Live Life Unfiltered” campaign. Shock Top has previously worked with 72andSunny and independent St. Louis agency Group 360.
Neither Anomaly or Anheuser-Busch InBev have responded to our requests for comment on this development.
Way back in March — before all those REI Cannes awards — Venables Bell & Partners launched its first campaign for what was then its newest client, MillerCoors’ “craft” beer Blue Moon.
The theme of the campaign was “Something’s Brewing,” and the debut ad was a well-animated ode to creativity and artisanship. (Is that even a word?)
Yesterday the agency launched a new campaign offering a very different spin on the same basic idea. In this case, the brewing is really about cooking. The spot stars Roy Choi, the celebrity chef who allegedly started the food truck movement and inspired the John Favreau movie titled, appropriately, Chef.
Get ready for some more Valencia oranges, fast food and … telekinesis?
Whoa there, Jean Grey!
Here’s a behind the scenes video in which Choi explains how he was inspired by his L.A. homies to move away from a planned career as a doctor or lawyer and go into making the world’s most delicious tacos.
The press release tells us that Blue Moon just turned 21, so it can finally drink itself. It can also buy beers at concerts featuring the band Family of the Year, which collaborated with head brewmaster Keith Villa on the campaign.
Villa said: “I have always pulled inspiration for the beers I create from my travels and the creative people I’ve met along the way. I’m thrilled to team up with Roy and Family of the Year to pair our art forms and see how each of our creative processes influences the others.”
The video series also includes some Choi recipes that include Blue Moon as an ingredient along with chicken thighs, etc.
Here’s a behind the scenes short featuring the band, which does not include any VB&P employees.
With time and practice, they might just come up with that perfect song. But first, more beer.
Credits
Spot titles: “Brewer”, “Food” and “Musician”
Client: Blue Moon Brewing Co.
Agency: Venables, Bell & Partners / San Francisco
Founder, Chairman: Paul Venables
ECD: Will McGinness
Creative Director: Lee Einhorn
Senior Art Director: Kyle Jones
Copywriter: Chris Bull
Producer: Melissa Nagy
Producer: Sasha White
Director of Integrated Production: Craig Allen
Brand Director: Justin Pitcher
Brand Supervisor: Nicole Miesfeld
Brand Manager: Zoe Isaacs
Strategy Director: Tyler Wilson
Strategist: Dylan Phillips
Business Affairs/Talent Manager: Quynh-An Phan
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Dante Ariola
Director of Photography: Philippe Le Sourd
Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Producer/UPM: Natalie Hill
Production Designer: Floyd Albee
Editorial: Arcade Edit
Editor: Kim Bica
Assistant Editor: Glen Montgomery
Executive Producer: Crissy DeSimone
Post Producer: Rebecca Jameson
VFX & Design: The Mill
Executive Producer: Enca Kaul
Senior Producer: Erin Hicke
Production Coordinator: Chris Lewis
Shoot Supervisors: Chris Knight / John Leonti
Creative Director: Chris Knight
2D Lead Artist: Chris Knight
3D Lead Artist: Simon Brown
2D Artists: Jason Bergman, Lisa Ryan, Jeff Langlois, Tim Robbins
3D Artists: Nobu Sasagawa, Jason Jansky, Ahmed Elmatarawi, Luis Nieves, Anthony Thomas, Terry Zeigelman, Patrick Warner, Ed Boldero, Rick Fuentealba, Itai Muller, Steven Olson, Michael Lori, Monique Espinoza
Telecine: CO3
Senior Colorist: Stefan Sonnenfeld
Audio Mix: One Union Recording
Audio Engineer: Joaby Deal, Andy Greenberg
Music Supervision: Songs For Film & T.V.
Composer: Silas Hite
Following a review launched in April and led by Joanne Davis Consulting, Cotton Council International (CCI), the overseas export promotion arm of the National Cotton Council of America, has selected Cramer-Krasselt as its lead global marketing and communications agency.
“It’s an important time in our organization’s history to add an expert agency partner to help us communicate the benefits of U.S. cotton to our audiences from a center out approach,” said CCI executive director Bruce Atherley. “Our decision was based on our confidence in the quality of the team, business orientation, strategic insights and creativity. We look forward to our new partnership with C-K to help CCI with our mission to support the export marketing of U.S. cotton.”
“This is an exciting, highly competitive global category and U.S. cotton is outstanding in its quality,” added Cramer-Krasselt president and COO Karen Seamen. “We are proud to embark on this partnership to develop and deploy a strategic global plan that will continue to elevate its position around the world.”
For Cramer-Krasselt, the new appointment follows the agency winning creative duties on BIC’s Soleil women’s razor account this past February and stealing Nikon away from McCann last October.
[Image via Cotton USA]
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