Hasta La Creative!

AKQA has appointed Josh Combs to the role of creative director at the agency’s Portland office. Combs has more than 11 years of experience with digital-focused products and services for brands. He’s been a creative director at several other agencies.

New England-based integrated marketing agency GYK Antler has added Michael Gatti as creative director and Dan Dunn as director of photography to its expanding creative team.

Gatti has a background in developing interactive and traditional campaigns for Volkswagen, Adobe, Bank of America, and PBS. He has worked at Digitas, The Barbarian Group and Arnold.

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Every brand story contains an element of myth.

In the case of Jack Daniel’s, legend has it that the brand’s founder, Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel, had a mysterious safe that led to his death. 

One day, after forgetting the combination, he kicked it so hard that he gave himself gangrene. An infection passed from his sore toe to his whole foot, then to his leg, which was amputated. This didn’t stop the gangrene from traveling, however, and Daniel ultimately died in 1911, at age 61, of progressive gangrene complications. 

Since then, the safe has never left his office, which is part of a living museum in Lynchburg, Tenn. In terms of brand lore, this is Jack Daniel’s Heart of the Ocean—a weird talisman that’s traveled, untouched, through time. Maybe it’s even cursed. 

But for the first time ever, it’s hitting the road. From now until Saturday, you can see the safe that cost the brand its founder at a pop-up experience called Jack Daniel’s Lynchburg General Store, located at 155 5th Ave. in New York City. 

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Salesforce is adding the smarts of artificial intelligence to the very human art of closing deals and marketing to customers.

The company, which sells software for sales, marketing and other areas, is rolling out Salesforce Einstein, which aims to use AI tools to improve the company’s broad portfolio of products, said John Ball, general manager of the service. The updates, announced Sunday, come after the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on startups with capabilities in the field, along with its own development efforts.

“There is an absolute revolution occurring in artificial intelligence,” Mr. Ball said in a briefing, noting the team has more than 175 data scientists. “This is democratizing AI so that every company can benefit from these techniques.”

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The country star’s new album “They Don’t Know” isn’t available on any streaming services yet.

EBay Chief Executive Officer Devin Wenig took the stage in a Las Vegas convention center with arms raised like a prize fighter after winning a stunning upset. This was the first time in eight years that eBay had gathered such a large group of sellers in one place to give them a chance to eat, drink, mingle and get the lowdown from the CEO.

Mr. Wenig, in the job for about a year, knew he had some cheerleading to do. EBay has struggled to make headway against Amazon, and many of these product-peddling merchants — long the lifeblood of eBay’s online bazaar — have been putting their wares on the Seattle giant’s site to boost their sales.

For Mr. Wenig, like his predecessor John Donahoe, eBay’s perennial challenge remains confronting the Amazon threat while keeping investors, merchants and shoppers happy. But rather than beat Amazon at its own game — selling virtually everything to anyone and delivering it lickety-split — Mr. Wenig wants eBay to be the anti-Amazon, excelling in areas where Amazon lags. He’s emboldened by forecasts showing that e-commerce remains in its infancy, meaning there’s plenty of room for lots of players to grow and prosper. “The world doesn’t have to choose between Amazon or eBay,” he said in an interview in Las Vegas. “The world can comfortably have Amazon and eBay — and it will.”

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Deutsch launched a strange new ad for Taco Bell called “Feast,” promoting the chain’s $1 All Day offerings.

The 30-second spot centers around a collection of people indulging in a Taco Bell feast. For some reason, the individuals all seem to be decked out in Victorian garb, or rather a mix of Vicotrian dress and modern day clothing. One woman is even rocking what appears to be some sort of fork hat/crown. Over this odd scene the voiceover lists some of the value menu offerings, such as the bacon-grilled breakfast burrito and shredded chicken mini quesadilla.

The emphasis on the value menu makes sense at a time when that seems to be helping drive sales for fast food chains. We’re not sure what the Victorian garb and fork-centric head attire is about, but the approach does allow Deutsch to schowcase a full spread of the value menu offerings.

The weirdness, we suppose, could also help the chain stand out. And Taco Bell is all about that.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is on a new anti-Trump tear, releasing multiple attack ads in quick sucession via social media on Friday and through the weekend.

The most powerful of the bunch stars Joel Sollender, a 91-year-old World War II veteran and POW, who is shown watching footage of Donald Trump’s notorious slam of Sen. John McCain: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, OK, I hate to tell ya.” After describing his experience as a prisoner of the Nazis, Sollender criticizes Trump (“He insulted all of our military”) and, in the most emotionally wrenching moment of the ad, says “My war is 70 years ago, and yesterday,” barely able to complete the sentence as his eyes brim with tears. He then continues, regarding Trump: “He’s everything I would not want to be, or emulate, and I would hope we would not adulate a man like him.”

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