The long-anticipated move protects the media company’s founder from the $115 million legal judgment awarded to Hulk Hogan, who won an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker.
Harley-Davidson has hired a newly created Interpublic Group unit named Team Ignite to handle creative, media and digital on a global and regional basis, following a competitive review.
For the review, which was supported by Accenture, Harley only invited holding company teams to pitch for the business, said Shelley Paxton, VP-global marketing and brand at Harley-Davidson. “We were not looking at the key disciplines in silos,” she said. “Creative, digital and media, in my view, absolutely has to be a single strategy to live together in this day in age.”
Ms. Paxton added that the company wanted a holding company team because it wanted a group of agencies that are willing to work together in an integrated fashion under the same P&L.
In ESPN’s two most recent ad campaigns that we saw, Big Papi talked retirement and the network reminded us that live sports, unlike movies, cannot wait.
The latest spot from Wieden + Kennedy keeps things more narrowly focused on fantasy football, because all true fantasy fans watch ESPN — not for its airing of the games themselves but for all the guys who sit back in their chairs and earn millions via their own incisive commentary.
You, know, people like Matthew Berry!
We don’t really know him at all. Can you tell we rarely watch football?
There’s a product on offer here, though, and it’s ESPN’s fantasy football app.
The next spot in the series will air on Monday, August 8 — the day after the pre-season officially begins as the Colts and the Packers play each other in the Pro Football Hall of Fame game.
Can we just skip ahead to the Super Bowl? We only watch sports for the ads.
CLIENT: ESPN
PROJECT NAME: FFL 2016
W+K NEW YORK
Executive Creative Director: Karl Lieberman
Creative Directors: Brandon Henderson, Erwin Federizo
Art Director: Mark Potoka
Copywriter: Laddie Peterson
Producer: Alexey Novikov
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Executive Producer: Temma Shoaf
Account Team: Mike Welch, Matt Angrisani
Project Manager: Kristin Daly
PRODUCTION
Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Director: Adam & Dave
Producer: Pat Harris
Executive Producer: Mal Ward
Director of Photography: Benn Martenson
EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Cosmo Street
Editor: Tom Scherma
Post Executive Producer: Luiza Naritomi
VFX
VFX Company: Switch FX
Lead Flame Artist/Creative Director: Jon Magel
MIX
Mix Company: Sonic Union
Mixer: Steve Rosen
Mixer: David Papa
In the wake of its tenth anniversary this year, Dallas agency greenlight promoted co-founder and client services director Olivia Cole to the position of chief operating officer. In the new role, Cole will offer client service support across greenlight’s full client roster, which includes Gold’s Gym, La Quinta Inns & Suites, La Cantera Resort & Spa and Plum Yoga, while also managing direction on creative, production, media planning, agency profitability and human resources while continuing to report to CEO Erik Herskind.
“From day one, Olivia has been instrumental to greenlight’s success,” Herskind said in a statement. “I’ve never worked with an agency professional that gains client trust as genuinely and effectively as Olivia. She has the gift of understanding what they want from their agency and then inspires the greenlight team to deliver it.”
Cole co-founded greenlight and has served as client services director since March of 2006, helping to build new business and existing relationships including the recent brand launch for BBQ pitmaster Will Fleischman and expanding roles with Gold’s Gym and La Quinta. She also led greenlight’s 2015 full agency repositioning initiative. Before greenlight she spent five and a half years with MD&A Advertising, rising to vice president, client services before leaving to co-found greenlight in March of 2006. While with MD&A Advertising she worked with clients including General Growth Properties, RED Development, Destination Hotels & Resorts and Galleria Dallas.
“Having been part of greenlight since its founding, my heart and soul are woven into the fabric of this agency; I’m honored to be considered such an essential part of leading greenlight into the next 10 years,” Cole said. “As COO, I realize that success means balancing the needs of the agency and in the end have a motivated staff, happy clients and a profitable company. My continued goal in 2016 is to uncork the culture of our agency, as I believe this is truly what matters in bringing great creative work to life.”
Four African-American creative leaders — Keith Cartwright, Geoff Edwards, Jayanta Jenkins and Jimmy Smith — have come together to create a coalition aimed at promoting peace and societal change around racial inequality.
The movement, named Saturday Morning, has a number of goals, such as “raising money for a foundation, helping pass legislation, bringing awareness to a cause or creating a peace-based technology in service of ending the cycle of violence and fear caused by racial bias and injustice,” according to Mr. Cartwright, exec creative director of Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, in a statement.
Mr. Cartwright, along with Geoff Edwards, creative executive at Creative Artists Agency; Jayanta Jenkins, global creative director at Apple/Beats by Dre; and Jimmy Smith, chairman, CEO and chief creative officer of Amusement Park, will continue serving in their respective roles while working on Saturday Morning. The coalition is currently working on an undisclosed project that it will announce in early Fall.
It’s rare for a packaged food commercial to come with a NSFW warning, but the spots for The Kraft Heinz Company’s newest frozen meals brand, Devour, come close to warranting one.
In one spot for Devour, which is aimed at men aged 25-35 and has a marketing campaign rolling out Monday, a boss finds his employee having an intimate moment with his lunch, which the excited man gives a sexy slap with his fork. The brand’s suggestive tagline and campaign name is “Food You Want to Fork.”
It’s fitting for a brand that counts “spicy” as a category, with others being creamy, crispy and cheesy. The single-serve entrees come in 12 varieties and include Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese, Chicken Enchiladas Suiza, Chicken and Waffles, and Deep Dish Honey BBQ Chicken Pizza, and are being rolled out to 45 nationwide supermarket chains, including Stop&Shop, Harris Teeter, Safeway and Food Lion.
Grey New York launched a new campaign for DirecTV called “Peyton on Sunday Mornings.” As you might expect, the Peyton in question is (unfortunately) Peyton Manning.
What you might not expect is Lionel Ritchie retooling his 1977 hit with the Commodores, “Easy,” changing the lyrics from “easy like Sunday morning” to “Peyton on Sunday Mornings.” Each spot opens with Ritchie sitting at a piano playing the revamped song, followed by Manning pitching DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket offering in a scenario that makes playful use of Manning’s retirement.
In the spot “In a Park Watching NFL Sunday Ticket,” for example, a robe-clad Manning meanders his way onto a park bench. While watching a game on his phone, he tells the man next to him about NFL Sunday Ticket letting him watch any game. The man tells him that he’s retired but misses work and that Peyton should “Work as long as you can.”
In “Phone Call,” Peyton invites his little brother Eli Manning over to watch some games, but he’s a little busy quarterbacking the New York Giants. “Groceries” let’s us know that Manning now has time to clip coupons for groceries (as if he’d need them with all that Papa John’s money). The 30-second broadcast spots will be supported by print and social components.
Would it be too much of us to suggest that at a time when advertising’s gender equality issues and sexual harassment scandals are making headlines, perhaps hiring a retired NFL quarterback who is an alleged perpetrator of sexual assault might come across as a little tone deaf? Is there even an upside here?
The riff on “Easy” comes across as a bit too, well, you know. But Manning is undoubtedly a big name, even if he presumably comes with a price tag to match.
More than a million people in Moscow are playing Pokmon Go, the mobile game that’s dominating download charts in three dozen countries. The number is especially impressive because the game isn’t supposed to be available in Russia.
Despite attempts by app developer Niantic to manage global demand, fans in Russia and elsewhere have taken special steps to track down and install Pokmon Go before it’s released officially, a process that sometimes involves tricking their phones into thinking they live in another country. Russian carrier Mobile TeleSystems PJSC estimates that 1.37 million people are playing Pokmon Go on major wireless networks in Moscow, a more than seven-fold increase from a week ago.
Corporate giants in Russia are trying to capture some of the excitement and drive people into their stores. VimpelCom, the country’s third-biggest mobile carrier, said retail staff will teach customers how to get around region blocks to download the game. Sberbank PJSC, the country’s largest financial lender, has purchased items in the app to lure the game’s creatures to locations near 29 branches in large cities, boosting traffic of younger clients looking to catch ’em all.
In a Facebook post written this morning, Cindy Gallop explains that, while she will give interviews, she’s refusing all requests to write about the Business Insider interview with Kevin Roberts.
In the interview, Roberts controversially said the gender diversity debate is “over” and that Gallop has “problems that are of her own making.” The piece, as you are almost certainly aware, subsequently led to the Saatchi chairman being asked to take a leave of absence.
Gallop’s response this morning: “I have more critical things to focus my time, effort, energy and mindspace on.”
“White men in our industry are paid millions to do the wrong thing. Nobody’s paying me anything to do the right thing,” Gallop explains.
So as long as she’s not being hired to sit on the boards of agencies and holding companies or consult with those same businesses, she will focus on her own work, including trying to get various parties to book her for speaking appearances in which she will address gender diversity issues.
Gallop has already discussed the issue at length on Twitter. And she will presumably continue to use her position as a public figure to bring greater attention to future agency hiring announcements, either because they concern women in prominent positions or because the ratio of the individuals involved still skews heavily toward the white men mentioned above.
Heading home. It’s been quite the weekend.
pic.twitter.com/9y9vhzTneA
— Cindy Gallop (@cindygallop) August 1, 2016
This was indeed an interesting weekend.
Today in UGH: celebrity creative directors. What are they about, really?
There’s the obvious earned media calculation, because no one gets more headlines than Random Famous Person, whether that coverage is justified or not. But we are truly curious on the ROI front, because we’d LOVE to know how much these celebrities get paid for their glamorous jobs … and how much the brands in question actually benefit.
We mention this because Wild Turkey named Matthew “Alright” McConaughey as its new creative director today. That announcement outweighs the more significant news: Wild Turkey has gone to JWT after a little less than three years with MDC’s Vitro.
Dude does fit the profile: he’s white, male, over 35, sometimes gets mildly creative with his facial hair and has been known to indulge in the odd recreational drug experience. He’s also into making short films like this one, which he directed.
The summary: “The only thing our great story was missing was a great storyteller. Meet Wild Turkey’s new Creative Director, Matthew McConaughey.” We will take their word for it, because we lack both the time and interest to watch a 6-minute clip about a movie star hanging out at a bourbon mill. He did at least narrate the project himself.
From the release: “A Wild Turkey fan, McConaughey first visited the lauded distillery a couple of years ago … It was there at the distillery, high above the Kentucky River, that he was introduced to Jimmy and Eddie Russell, the Bourbon Hall of Fame father and son Master Distiller team who have worked at the Wild Turkey Distillery for 97 years collectively.”
And then he agreed to be their lead creative person, right??
As you know, this Hire a Celebrity practice is not a new thing. The most recent offender was Bacardi, which named Swizz Beats as its new “creative director” with “oversight for the entire Bacardi portfolio of brands” because of course the many talented people at BBDO don’t have that one down.
Campari bought Wild Turkey in 2013 for $575 million to jump on the everyone drinking bourbon trend.
How will Mr. McConaughey work with JWT? We have no idea. The release didn’t even mention the agency’s name or the fact that Wild Turkey recently held a review — as evidenced by the fact that Eric Weisberg, who just became global CCO at Doner, listed the bourbon brand among the accounts he led at JWT. A source on this recent Vitro story told us that Wild Turkey had recently decided to transfer a greater share of its marketing budget to its international agency partners. The PR firm that pitched us this one, however, confirmed that there was a review and that JWT won.
Honestly, we feel that Matthew’s talents as a creative director might have been put to better use in helping HBO avoid the embarrassment that was True Detective Season 2.
Verizon Communications agreed to buy GPS vehicle-tracking company Fleetmatics Group in an all-cash deal valued at $2.4 billion, vaulting the telephone giant deeper into the automotive-technology market.
Verizon will pay $60 a share, a 40% premium to Fleetmatics’ closing price last week, according to a statement Monday. The company, based in Dublin, develops software that tracks commercial drivers’ vehicle location, fuel usage, speed and mileage for better fleet management. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
With its wireless business slowing, Verizon has been pursuing new sources of growth like mobile advertising, streaming video and the so-called Internet of Things. The deal is the latest in an acquisitive streak for Verizon, following its $4.83 billion purchase of Yahoo! Inc.’s web assets last week.
Mar-tech and ad-tech advances have given marketing professionals a massive toolkit by which to gauge the relative success of any digital campaign. We now have the ability to track the actions that a user takes after seeing an ad no matter the brand marketer’s goal — purchases, site feature usage, email signup, brand lift or in-store visit.
So why are we as marketers (especially agency marketers) so stuck on the term “engagement?” Industry trends suggest that digital brand advertising — particularly on major publisher sites like YouTube — tend to favor engagement and awareness-oriented campaigns over performance-based campaigns.
If you ask 100 different marketers to define engagement, you’ll get almost as many answers. Some will talk about click-through rate (CTR), impressions served and ad viewability. If they are familiar with video, they might talk about completion rate. If they dabble in social, they might throw around platform-specific metrics such as likes, shares and comments. Each of these has its own issues.
Hertz has tapped WPP’s MEC to support its brands in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
MEC will act as lead agency across the car rental giant’s agency partners “to enable the holistic application of data, creativity, innovation for maximum business impact,” according to a statement.
“We’ve determined that MEC is the right media planning and buying partner for Hertz Global and our portfolio of brands,” said Matt Jauchius, exec VP and CMO of Hertz Global Holdings, in the statement. “We look forward to tapping their strategic planning, creativity and best-in-class analytics and insights capabilities in the digital space as we go to market in support of our Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty brands.”
FCB New York made series of senior leadership changes with the arrivals of executive creative director Stu Mair, group creative director Gabriel Schmitt and strategy and innovation director Raig Adolfo. The office also promoted Michelle Tang to CMO.
In her new role, Tang will work closely with FCB New York leadership to bolster its new business practice while expanding relationships with current and respective clients. She reports to FCB New York CEO Karyn Rockwell, who was herself promoted in February.
“I am excited to welcome Michelle, who is already a member of our FCB family, to our New York team,” Rockwell said in a statement. “She has done an excellent job of helping to grow the agency globally, and now I look forward to her working closely with me to strengthen and build our partnerships with new and existing clients. This is an idea- and people-driven business, and Michelle has proven herself to be a terrific and dynamic relationship builder.”
Tang joined FCB Global as VP and director of worldwide agency growth in November of 2012 and was promoted to SVP, worldwide agency growth — her most recent position with FCB Global — two years later. Prior to joining FCB she spent nearly two years with Wunderman serving as director and then VP of business development. She also spent time with Digitas Health, serving as manager and then associate director of business development.
Mair arrives at FCB New York following sixteen years with Grey New York. While with Grey he helped the agency bring home its first Cannes Gold Lion and Emmy Award. He worked with brands including Canon, Dairy Queen, Crown Royal and Pixma.
Schmitt joins the agency following an eight month stint at KBS New York, where he served as creative director on BMW. Prior to that he spent three years as vice president, creative director with FCB Chicago, while working with brands including Valspar Paint and Kolcraft. He joined FCB Chicago from Dentsu’s São Paulo office, where he spent over three years as a copywriter.
“Stu and Gabriel are strong, accomplished professionals who understand what it takes to help a client thrive both creatively and profitably. They understand the importance of pushing for creative excellence, and its role in helping clients to reach new heights,” said said FCB New York CCO Ari Halper. “Plus, they are both just great human beings and I am thrilled to welcome them to our team.”
Adolfo joins the agency from Redscout, where he has served as director of innovation strategy since the beginning of 2015, working with clients such as Abbott Nutrition, Marriott Hotels International, General Mills and ShopRite. Before that he spent three years with Grey New York as senior vice president, global creative strategy leader, leading strategy across GSK’s global wellness category. He joined Grey New York from Grey Group Latam in Mexico City, where he served as regional head of strategy for two years. Prior to that he spent two years as group head of strategy at Grey Group Brazil.
“Raig brings an impressive skill set to the team. Throughout his career, he has led strategy for many of the world’s top brands, across major markets spanning New York and Latin America, and, in his most recent role, he has demonstrated a keen eye for identifying and activating new opportunities for clients,” added FCB New York CSO Deb Freeman. “He brings an expert background rich in holistic, strategic and innovative thinking.”
In May, FCB New York made a small round of layoffs in the interest of increased efficiency.
Jose Papa, a U.S.-educated Brazilian who currently works for another business owned by the Cannes Lions’ parent company Ascential, has been named managing director of Lions Festivals, starting Sept. 1.
Earlier this year Philip Thomas, who was CEO of Lions Festivals for almost 10 years and continued to run this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, was announced as CEO of Ascential Events. In his new role, Mr. Thomas will manage the Exhibitions & Festivals businesses, which includes the Cannes Lions festival he will continue to be involved in.
Mr. Papa moves from WGSN, Ascential’s global fashion trend forecasting service, where he has been CEO since January 2015, based in New York. He joined WGSN in 2012 and was previously regional director for Latin America.
Back in 2008, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign debuted a commercial that showed the faces of sleeping kids as an announcer intoned, “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call.” Would you choose the mature, globe-trotting, “tested” Sen. Clinton — or babyfaced newbie Sen. Barack Obama?
Now “The Simpsons,” in a short released over the weekend on the Animation on Fox YouTube channel, offers an update of the famous ad, showing us exactly what would happen if Hillary Clinton was in the White House (spoiler: Bill would pick up and then reluctantly hand the phone to Hillary) vs. if Donald Trump was in the White House (spoiler: he might be too busy tweeting).
Simon Dumenco, aka Media Guy, is an Ad Age editor-at-large. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.
After pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline sent a larger share of its business to WPP’s Grey, that shop has promoted partner Jason Kahner, who led that business, to the role of global managing director overseeing the agency’s relationship with the client.
Last month we learned that GSK had concluded a review by consolidating its business with 9 agencies across 4 holding companies. Company reps referred to the move as an “agency simplification,” but it actually complicated GSK’s roster by adding IPG in the form of McCann Health and assigning various “advertising, digital, content and PR” duties to Weber Shandwick.
Grey had already handled four of GSK’s seven most popular products or “power brands,” including Sensodyne and Poligrip — and the review sent nasal decongestant Otrivin to Grey as well. (Saatchi & Saatchi currently handles the two remaining power brands, Theraflu and Voltaren, after winning them in a 2004 review.)
In an internal memo, CEO Jim Heekin called GSK’s decision “a tremendous vote of confidence in our partnership that began in 1955,” and he followed less than two weeks later by promoting Kahner.
Here’s the full internal memo sent out this morning:
I am very pleased to announce that Jason Kahner has been promoted to Global Managing Director, overseeing Grey’s GlaxoSmithKline relationship, based in New York. He succeeds Alina Kessel whose new role, leading Team P&G for WPP, was announced last week.
Jason has worked on GSK for seven years, serving most recently as a Partner, Regional Lead for the Americas. Under his leadership, Grey’s GSK portfolio has grown steadily with significant wins and, together, we have produced exciting, innovative creative garnering Cannes recognition and marketplace success.
Since joining Grey in 2005, Jason has overseen accounts in every category including HSBC, GE, NFL, AARP, The National Parks, Allergan, Microsoft and Kmart. His energy, strategic counsel and success at team-building has won the admiration of clients and colleagues alike.
Please give him your congratulations on this well-deserved promotion and your full support as we help GSK seize the future.
Regards,
GREYgroup | Famously effective since 1917
Jim Heekin, Chairman & CEO
200 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Kahner joined Grey in 2005 after spending 6 years in accounts at FCB, where he was hired to run the Nabisco business and eventually worked on Samsung, Kraft, AT&T and Diet Coke.
He was an account director at Grey working with such clients as Kmart and Ethan Allen before pivoting to a B2B specialization and handling HSBC, GE Healthcare and Allergan in addition to GSK.
Just over a year ago, Grey New York split into five “portfolio groups” under new CEO Michael Houston, with Kahner leading the B2B-friendly Portfolio E (AARP, Bausch & Lomb, Boehringer-Ingelheim, GE, GSK, HSBC, National Parks, NFL, and Turner/TNT).
He was simultaneously promoted to partner at that time.
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