Hasta La Creative!

According to Adweek, Space150 attached Nike’s new Vapormax to a weather balloon and sent it high into the stratosphere. The shoe looks nice up there, I must admit. But why is this shoe 117,500 feet above the California desert? Is Nike just doing it because they can? Is this what “Just Do It” means today? […]

The post Vapormax To The Stratosphere appeared first on AdPulp.

Well, here’s a funny package: “Morning Briefings,” a new content series starring Kevin Hart for premium underwear brand Tommy John. “The idea to create short, fun, social content came from Kevin,” says Rob Baird, creative chief at ad agency Preacher, which helped develop the spots. “He’s obviously had great success promoting his films and comedy…

Every weekday, we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new and trending TV commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention analytics from 10 million smart TVs. The New Releases here ran on TV for the first time yesterday. The Most Engaging ads are ranked by digital activity (including online views and social shares) over the past week.

Among the new releases, Walmart wants you to “Easter like you mean it” — and uses a Blondie song to drive home the point — while an old-timey sheriff attempts to intimidate some outlaws in a Geico commercial. And Ving Rhames and Bonnie Tyler duet (sort of) in a stupid-funny Arby’s ad titled “Need a Gyro” that might just have you involuntarily singing along.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Jim Elliott will soon be leaving the Arnold organization after serving as global chief creative officer for just over two years.

Parent company Havas does not plan to name a replacement, and Elliott did not issue a statement or any information regarding another position. The news would appear to be the latest development in the holding company’s ongoing plans to consolidate its global network by region.

From an Arnold spokesperson:

“Jim Elliott is stepping down as Global Chief Creative Officer of Arnold Worldwide. During his two years at the agency, Jim made a tremendous impact to the agency in many ways, especially in the top talent he attracted and the great work that he helped deliver across our clients. We truly appreciate his contributions and partnership.

We’re fortunate to have an extremely talented group of Executive Creative Directors who drive our creative product and serve as an important partner to clients on all of our accounts. They will continue to play the role of creative steward across our client portfolio. We wish Jim all the best for the future.”

Those ECDs include managing partner Wade Devers, Translation vets Mathew Jerrett and Tim Flood (who joined the agency in fall of 2016 on Hershey), and James Bray, who recently moved East from M&C Saatchi L.A. to run the Carnival account. All had been reporting to Elliott.

The move also comes just a couple of weeks after Havas announced that former Chicago CCO Jason Peterson would effectively lead all of its North American creative teams, with Windy City chief executive Paul Marobella managing Arnold global CEO Pam Hamlin and Havas New York CEO Laura Maness.

Multiple parties tell us that Elliott chose to leave of his own accord due to this restructuring and that the move had been coming for some time. For the moment, Arnold will go without a CCO, global or otherwise.

A number of longtime Arnold veterans have left the agency in recent months, among them managing partner Don Lane (who went to DraftKings), managing partner/executive director Barbara Reilly and SVP, marketing director and head of new business Michael Shonkoff (who joined Lane at the fantasy sports company). All three had been with Arnold for more than 20 years.

With President Trump’s focus on the border, the union’s weekly podcast has become an influential, unfiltered and entirely one-sided megaphone.

There’s surely an effort being made by Discovery Communications to be perceived as a more innovative, and perhaps cooler brand, during the upfronts. To this end, it will be parading Group Nine Media, the digital media venture it invested $100 million in late last year, out to agency executives and marketers over the coming weeks.

“We are looking to pivot from a company of channels to a company of IP,” said Discovery CEO David Zaslav during a press event outlining the company’s upfront initiatives on Tuesday morning.

Discovery has been working to change the culture of the company, and the investment in Group Nine — which combines Thrillist, a food, drink and travel brand; animal video site The Dodo; NowThis, a video news creator; and Seeker, a compilation of its own digital content — was a step in doing this, Mr. Zaslav said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials are the nation’s largest living generation. They are a age bracket that lack a long attention span; they crave experiences, activism, and constant connection. They are an age group that doesn’t settle, which means your marketing initiatives have to be a bit more creative in order to attract the right attention.

If you’re a business that wants to attract millennials, but haven’t figured out how, these are some of the best tactics you can use to create a relevant relationship between your brand and Generation Y.

Know what you’re after. If you’re confused about your business goals, your customers are just as confused. The millennial generation wants to associate with brands that are just as confident and deep-rooted in its values as they are. Developing an understanding of your industry and knowing what your product can do for the millennial consumer is half the battle.

Market where the millennials are. Generation Y are consistently connected. If a portion of your marketing dollars aren’t invested in a responsive website and mobile ads, your chances of reaching your target audience are minimal. Responsive websites make sure your web page displays optimally on all platforms, ensuring they’re always user-friendly.

Speak their language. During the 50’s and 60’s, marketers spoke to the consumer’s desire to go against authorities – the need to “stick it to the man.” Today’s millennials aren’t so much about resisting authority, but instead solving the problems the authority presents. Pay attention to the causes your audience cares about, but be careful about getting too political or too opinionated. You want to entice your audience with ways that they can help, not scare them away by presenting harsh criticisms or challenging positions.

Create a friendship. Millennials don’t want to be treated like a consumer; they want to be addressed as an equal. This generation of shoppers tend to be loyal to a product or service if they can adopt everything the brand represents. Create a relatable culture for your consumer and they will come.

Be transparent. Information is all too easy to access, making it vital for companies to be as open and honest as possible. If something goes awry (with the production of a product for example), you can bet it’s going to be covered on a number of media outlets that millennials pay close attention to. This generation may dislike what’s happened, but a brand that is real with their consumer is a brand that stands a better chance of keeping that individual as a customer.

Offer an experience. Millennials love being a part of something. Brands that create experiences for their audiences succeed with the millennial market. Look at Budweiser’s campaign to find the golden beer can. They’re playing on the nostalgia of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (a movie nearly every millennial has seen) and the advent of winning a prize. Regardless, everyone’s a winner because they’re getting what they want (a case of beer) with the added bonus of possibly winning a prize.

This guest post was written by Chloe Rapp from [ 2 one 5 ] Creative, a Philadelphia web design and branding company.

Grey London will take on the name Valenstein & Fatt, in honor of Grey’s Jewish founders, Lawrence Valenstein and Arthur Fatt, for 100 days.

For the next 100 days Grey London will fully embrace the moniker, with the name appearing on the agency’s website, official signage, business cards and pencils. Receptionists will even answer the phone as employees of Valenstein & Fatt and the agency will operate that way for official reviews and pitches.

The name change is part of a self-branding campaign which it hopes will spark a wider embrace of diversity in the industry.

On its website, Grey issued the following statement on the name change:

It’s 1917. New York is booming. Two young Jewish entrepreneurs, Lawrence Valenstein and Arthur Fatt, set up a company. But anti-Semitism is rife. Their names could cost them business. So they call it Grey, after the colour of the wallpaper.

Today, Grey is one of the largest advertising networks in the world, with 10,000 employees in 96 countries, embracing every gender, race, religion and sexuality. But xenophobia is raising its ugly head once more, along with political isolationism.

In the week that the British government triggers Article 50 and begins the process of disconnecting the UK from the European Union, Grey London is showing its commitment to diversity and openness by re-establishing itself under the name of its original Jewish founders.

On March 27th, and for 100 days, Grey London will become Valenstein & Fatt.

A video on the site further explores the impetus for the decision, including footage of U.S. president Donald Trump on the campaign trail, invoking an “America first” phrase that carries historical associations with American xenophobia and anti-semitism during World War II.

The agency is backing the name change with some concrete diversity initiatives. For one, the agency is committing to transparency around the issue and publishing its diversity data. It is also launching a “cross-industry task force  to identify the barriers to recruitment and retention of talent among ethnic minorities,” with its the first meeting chaired by CEO Leo Rayman. The Valenstein & Fatt Bursary will pay a full-year’s rent “for up to two young people from ethnic minority and disadvantaged backgrounds.” It will also work “with 100 primary and secondary schools to introduce students to a career in the creative industries” and provide mentorship for its diverse talent form its executive and senior leadership.

“Recent events, from rising instances of hate crime and terror attacks in London to the triggering of Article 50, have sent shivers through our society and businesses, but it should also inspire a collective and determined attitude that our country and our companies will not change for the worse,” Rayman said in a statement.

“Diversity is complex, nuanced and gnarly.,” Valenstein & Fatt chief marketing officer Sarah Jenkins told Adweek. “We’ll fail fast and go again and tell everyone what’s gone wrong, so they don’t make the same mistake.”

“That said, we have worked hard to get our first initiatives right. We have talked to some brilliant and smart organizations like Channel 4 and the Social Mobility Foundation,” she added.

Asked how the agency will measure success, she replied:

As an agency, we will gauge success by seeing more diverse talent coming into the building. And that is any diverse talent. We would love to encourage more people from BAME backgrounds. And more people who are state-school educated. To have more diverse talent identified as future leaders. Future leaders we then keep in our agency, or at the very least we keep in the industry.