Hasta La Creative!

Carnival Corp. is backing three new television shows about travel that will air Saturday mornings on the ABC, NBC and CW networks — a first for the cruise industry.

The shows, which begin Oct. 1, are part of a broader strategy by Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald to change perceptions about cruising and generate new customers for the Miami-based company, the world’s largest cruise line operator. Carnival ran its first Super Bowl commercial last year and asked the general public to pick which ads they think the company should air.

The new programs begin just before the “wave season,” the first three months of the year, in which cruise customers typically book trips.

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As broadcasters and their big-tent hits continue to get elbowed out of a shot at Emmys glory by niche offerings from the cable networks and streaming services, ratings for TV’s annual celebration of itself are showing no signs of recovery.

According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, ABC’s Sunday night presentation of the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards marked an all-time nadir for the ceremony, averaging 11.3 million viewers and a 2.8 rating among adults 18-49. While this marked a mere 5% decline versus the 11.9 million viewers Fox drew a year ago, the drop in the advertiser-coveted demo was much more steep — down 22% compared with a 3.6.

The 2.8 rating translates to 3.59 million viewers, which means that people in the target demo accounted for a little less than one-third, or 32%, of the total Emmys audience. Last year, adults 18-49 comprised 38% of Fox’s Emmys deliveries.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

WPP-owned Taxi made several changes atop the creative departments in its New York and Toronto offices. Reid Miller has been promoted to chief creative officer while founder, acting chairman and CCO Paul Lavoie will become chairman emeritus as of January 2017.

Taxi Canada also promoted ECDs Jeff MacEachern and Jordan Doucette to serve as co-CCOs of its Toronto headquarters.

We haven’t heard much from Taxi lately, but the New York office did make a group of hires earlier this summer across its production, creative, and accounts teams.

Lavoie launched Taxi in Montreal in 1992 along with partner Jane Hope, selling the network to WPP in 2010. TBWA and David&Goliath veteran Frazer Jelleyman later became the network’s global chief creative officer before leaving to launch his own UNIT agency, “delivering bespoke growth hacking solutions for clients.”

Before joining Taxi in 2013, Miller spent four years at IPG’s Gotham, where he was a group creative director and managing partner and worked on the award-winning “Always Open” campaign for Denny’s. He also led his own unit and held art director and creative director roles at Lowe, BBDO, Y&R and Hill Holliday.

MacEachern has been with Taxi since 2007 and Doucette worked in its creative department for more than a decade excepting year-plus she spent as an ECD at Edelman Toronto.

Translation’s new spot for the Apple Music streaming service sees James Corden pitching all kinds of (mostly awful) ideas to Apple Music execs, who remained unimpressed with the comedian’s over-the-top suggestions.

His first suggestion, “What if I’m giving birth to Justin Bieber, who’s giving birth to Anthony Kiedis, who’s giving birth to a phone?” is immediately rejected. While Corden would like to dress up as David Bowie and the Spice Girls, they just want to let people know about Apple Music’s hand-picked playlists, offline functionality and 40 million songs.

As Adweek points out, this kind of meta approach is hardly new and we’re sure our readers can point to at least a half dozen examples of similar ideas. That said, actually seeing Corden act out some of the ridiculous ideas and do his best Bowie and Spice Girls impressions is fairly entertaining. And the obvious benefit in the format is getting both the over-the-top comedy from Corden and the straightforward explanations of what Apple Music has to offer. So while there it may not be the most original idea, there’s certainly a method to the madness.

Basketball jerseys might seem like an odd medium for honoring historical figures or making political statements, but maybe the post-Kaepernick sports era is more woke than the one before it. It’s certainly made for better designs, if these images of the Memphis Grizzlies team jerseys are any indication.

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