Hasta La Creative!

You can turn a microwave into a camera and I’ll teach you how in a minute, but before I do, let me share this news item. In a recent interview with a reporter from the Bergen Record, While House counselor Kellyanne Conway was asked about surveillance. She responded: “There are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately. There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets, any number of different ways. And microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. So we know that that is just a fact of modern life.”

On its face, her statement about “microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera” is ridiculous. It reminds me of the late Sen. Ted Stevens’ famous “Tubes” speech. I went right after “Uncle Ted” for his technofaux pas, but even then, there were bigger issues to consider. It would be exceptionally easy to jump all over Ms. Conway for her techno-faux pas. But doing so would be taking a cheap shot at an easy target while completely missing a very, very important teaching moment.

You Cannot Hide

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-DDB Group Singapore launched this spot for McDonald’s introducing the Seoul Spicy Burger (video above).

-Google president of EMEA business and operations Matt Brittin apologized to the ad industry over YouTube ad placement.

-MSLGroup claims the gender discrimination suit filed by former Greater China CEO Faith Brewitt has been resolved.

-The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) released the ad-scoring system behind its “#SeeHer” gender equality campaign, applied its Gender Equality Measure to 200 TV shows. 

-Research from executive search firm Spencer Stuart found that the average CMO tenure continues to decline, now down to 42 months.

–Beatrice Moore commissioned an anti-Trump billboard in Phoenix by artist Karen Fiorito featuring dollar signs resembling swastikas. Moore says the billboard will remain up as long as Trump is president.

-Coty selected adam&eveDDB as lead creative agency for cosmetics brand Max Factor.

-Adweek released its annual digital hot list.

In business, the dichotomy between winners and losers is growing starker each year. Fortune 500 companies in the retail and consumer packaged goods industriesonce the bedrock of the marketplaceare hemorrhaging customers and sales, unable to keep pace with the rapid changes in the way consumers shop and conduct their lives. Meanwhile, a cadre of “new” blue chipsApple, Alphabet, Facebook, Alibaba, Amazonand a host of smaller insurgents including Tesla, Uber, Lyft and Airbnb continue to grow like gangbusters. All of these companies have reimagined a business model that should remain relevant for years, thanks to their ability to consistently deliver a better customer experience.

So who will be tomorrow’s winners and losers? If past is prologue, only companies that have the foresight and the fortitude to adapt to fundamental shifts in consumer behavior will survive and thrive.

For marketers, this means committing to leveraging all available assets (e.g., data sourcing and investment) in order to understand customers better and to speak to them in more meaningful ways. Today’s customers demand not only personalized interaction but also impeccable timing from marketers; companies must reach individual customer in exactly the right moment with a genuine and resonant message. To perfect such an approach, marketers should adopt a measurement model that gets closer to the moment of truth by relying on metrics that are directly connected to sales.

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Sim, existe video game no Velho Continente! Adriano Brandão e Danilo Silvestre embarcam em um trem rumo ao estilo mais cerebral e cadenciado da história dos video games: o europeu. Existe uma escola de game design única em toda a Europa? Quais são as principais características dos jogos criados na França, na Inglaterra, na Espanha e nos países nórdicos? Quando foi […]

> LEIA MAIS: Pouco Pixel 79 – Eurotrip

In a bid to strengthen its #SeeHer gender-equality push, the Association of National Advertisers is making the ad-scoring system behind it available for any copy-testing service, meaning it could become a standard module in the software engines by which analytically inclined marketers evaluate ads.

At the same time, the ANA’s Alliance for Family Entertainment has completed testing the 200 most-watched TV shows using its Gender Equality Measure, with an eye toward providing those ratings to advertisers that want to align their gender-conscious ads with like-minded TV buys. “The reason we’re testing both advertising and media is that context matters,” said Shelley Zalis, a co-developer of #SeeHer, founder and CEO of the Girls’ Lounge and former CEO of research firm OTX.

The Gender Equality Measure scores ads or entertainment on how prominently they depict women, amid a larger industry conversation about gender equality in both ads and the business itself.

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Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Thursday, March 16:

1. Candidate Trump’s pronouncements are working against President Trump’s plans. “Two federal judges have temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s travel ban, both citing Trump’s statements about Muslims during the presidential campaign as part of their rulings,” CNN’s Laura Jarrett reports. “A ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii Wednesday resulted in a temporary restraining order nationwide, hours before it was set to go into effect. In a decision published Thursday morning, another federal judge in Maryland specifically blocked the 90-day ban on immigration for citizens of six Muslim-majority countries.”

2. “A deep fear came to pass for many artists, museums, and cultural organizations nationwide early Thursday morning when President Trump, in his first federal budget plan, proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities,” reports The New York Times’ Sopan Deb. “President Trump also proposed scrapping the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a key revenue source for PBS and National Public Radio stations, as well as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.”

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With a wealth of insight on every topic imaginable, podcasts are becoming almost as popular as music as a source for inspiration. We asked some adland decision-makers to share their top podcast picks for helping to foster creativity.

Britt Dougherty, VP-Consumer Insights and Engagement, MillerCoors

NPR’s “How I Built This.” I’m always looking for things that help me build up my energy reserves. When the earphones come off, I always feel inspired and ready to take on the world.

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In its new spring campaign “Always Open,” Dick’s Sporting Goods features potential shoppers browsing its mobile app during downtimebefore a college lecture, commuting home on the bus and in a locker room before a sports event.

The new campaign is meant to highlight Dick’s digital prowess and ecommerce capabilitiesonline orders in the fourth quarter of last year, at $440 million, represented nearly a fifth of net sales. Yet the marketing tagline could also be “Still Open,” as Dick’s, unlike the majority of its competitors who have shuttered, declared bankruptcy and disappeared, remains one of the last men standing in the sporting goods retail arena.

Yet even though it has capitalized on the demise of retailers like Sports Authority, which went under last year, and gained market share, Coraopolis, Penn.-based Dick’s, a chain with 675 locations, is not immune to the malaise affecting many retailers. Its fourth quarter earnings missed analyst expectations and sent investors into a selling spiral earlier this month. But those expectations may have been too highDick’s reported positives, with same-store sales increasing 5%, net income of $90.2 million, and a 10.9% rise in net sales to $2.5 billion.

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The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity just named Burger King its Creative Marketer of the Year. For decades the brand has consistently delivered ideas that have carved out new pathways for the industry on a spectrum of platforms, including PR, activations, digital, branded content and even product. Here’s a look at some of the best.

King Games

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