Hasta La Creative!

The theft of two 16th-century books from a Manhattan shop illustrates how the close-knit world of antiquarian booksellers keeps its treasures safe.

Zink’s latest novel is a sexy tale about young activist squatters who are forced to leave their home and disperse across the country.

MTV and Viacom Velocity have named A$AP Rocky as creative director for MTV Labs, the creative incubator developed in partnership with the Harlem-born rapper. In this role, Rocky and his creative team, known as AWGE, will have access to the company’s cross-platform production capabilities to create original content; experiment with new formats and existing MTV IP; and develop branded content for advertisers in partnership with Viacom Velocity.

Hearts & Science, the fast-growing data-driven marketing agency started by Omnicom Media Group in the U.S. in April, hired Frances Ralston-Good to open Hearts & Science in the U.K. — the agency’s first office outside North America.

Ralston-Good was chief strategy and innovation officer for Omnicom Media Group U.K. for the last year; before that she held the same title at Omnicom media agency PHD U.K. She started at PHD in 1997, left for a couple years to be managing director at Naked Communications in London, and rejoined PHD UK in 2011 as managing director.

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In the past few years, countries across the world have experienced a rapid rise in support for political outsiders. The phenomenon includes those on the left, like Labour leader Jon Corbyn in the U.K. and former Venezualan president Hugo Chavez, and those on the right, including Donald Trump in the U.S., National Front president Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage, the former Independence Party leader in the U.K. who campaigned for Brexit, or Britain’s exit from the European Union.

And it’s not all Twitter hype and news website click-bait: The average share of the vote for populist parties in elections has more than doubled globally since the 1960s, to around 13.2% from around 5.1%.

With significant crossover between the worlds of marketing and politics — at a simplistic level, both appeal to their target audiences with what they hope to be distinctive positioning and compelling messages — this rapid growth provides plenty of learnings for marketeers. Below we outline four of the best.

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Unilever VP-Global Marketing Aline Santos explains the impetus behind the company’s newest initiative.

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What do you get when you bring together some of the top GIF makers in the world? Surprisingly, not a GIF. But you do get one hell of a video. 

Seventeen of the top contributors to the addictive subreddit HighQualityGIFs this week unveiled their creative magnum opus, a visually enhanced (and mildly vulgar) version of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” music video. 

Redditor heroOFwar says the effort was a “dumb idea I came up with that snowballed its way into a pretty awesome project.”

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Amazon will add video-game streaming features to its $99-a-year Prime membership, expanding its entertainment services while positioning itself to challenge video game console makers Sony and Microsoft.

Amazon Prime members will receive one free channel subscription on Twitch Interactive, the video-game streaming site the e-commerce giant purchased for about $1 billion in 2014. It’s free to watch people play video games on Twitch. Subscribers pay $5 a month per channel to interact with their favorite streamers in chat rooms and get access to emoticons that are a popular method of communicating on the fast-moving site.

The move to Prime is the biggest integration yet between Amazon and Twitch, highlighting Amazon’s ambitions in gaming. The company last week unveiled three new online, multiplayer games it’s developing through Amazon Game Studios, which is hiring more than 100 people at locations in Seattle and Irvine, California. Amazon sells a gaming version of its Fire TV streaming device, including a gaming controller, for $139.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

While Waze leads us to our destinations via the quickest route, our dependence on this kind of decision-support system may also be the quickest route to a monocultural society.

You’ve said the word “algorithm” a thousand times this year, and you may have even written out your algorithmic goals in English, but have you ever coded an algorithm? Do you really know how any AI model is performing? What tiny mistakes (or purposeful small changes) are being made to subtly guide our decision-making?

Humans Are Incredibly Bad Decision-Makers

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) Looking to help shed some light in a more customized, powerful way the ‘TRiLIGHT’ garage lights are designed with an efficient design aesthetic. Funding now on Kickstarter, the ‘…

Havas Chicago’s latest campaign for Sears, “Duress” focuses on the impending death of everyday appliances like stoves, dishwashers and water heaters.

In “Two Weeks Notice,” for example, the voiceover informs us that “In just a few days, Carl’s dishwasher will die.” As it turns out, Carl can also hear the voiceover, and he’s not happy to learn that his dishwasher is on its last legs, a fact confirmed by the tomato soup ring in his bowl. The transition to Sears feels is an abrupt one, with Carl going from fearsome over his dirty dishes to happily eyeing up new dishwashers at Sears, seemingly transported instantly.

Other spots take a similar approach, focusing on a stove and a water heater. In the former, the punchline is that the voiceover lets a secret slip about the chili cheese cookoff for which a couple are eager to get a new oven, while in the latter a guy is transported to Sears wearing nothing but a towel after his shower is cut short by a failing water heater.

“I think everyone can agree, when a home appliance dies, it sucks. So we ran with that truth and positioned Sears as the go-to source for relief. Sears really is the iconic American brand that’s been helping people overcome duress situations for decades—they’re the experts,” Havas Chicago CCO Jason Peterson told Adweek.

The meta approach has become a well worn (if not worn out) trope in advertising lately. Here it provides an easy way to make the jump from failing appliances to finding replacements at Sears, which is repeatedly touted as “number one in appliance service.” It also lets Havas inform viewers about warning signs that it’s time to replace that dishwasher, oven or water heater, useful information that could also drive sales to Sears ahead of that cold shower or dishwasher disaster.

Credits:

AGENCY: Havas Chicago
Chief Creative Officer, N.A:   Jason Peterson
Group Creative Director: Carlos Fernandez, Pat Hanna
Associate Creative Director(s): Eric Kripas, Scott Rench
Co-Head of Production, N.A: Dave Evans
Senior Producer:  Jorge Arana
Sr. Business Affairs Manager: Bonnie Hamilton
Business Affairs Manager: Sylvia Sanchez
Managing Director:  Amy Merchant
Group Account Director:  Jeanne Wu
Account Supervisor: Taylor DuFour
Asst. Account Executive:  Mandy Pitera
Project Manager: Kristin Oberg
Havas Media Team: Renee Crawford, Lindsey Susick, Allie Murphy

PRODUCTION COMPANY:
Production Company: Sugar Film Production
Director: Chris Smith
Producer: Tony Miglini
Line Producer: Brandon Tapp
Photographer: Afshin Shahidi

POST PRODUCTION:
Editorial Company: Cutters
Editor: Adam Parker
Assistant Editor: Dustin Kaufman
Producer: Craig Duncan
Post Producer: Heather Richardson
Colorist, company: Brian Higgins
VFX & Finish Company: Flavor
VFX Supervisor: Neal Cohen
Music Composer, Company: Another Country / APM Music