Hasta La Creative!

Applebee’s named Grey as its creative agency of record, following a review launched in December. The WPP network’s New York and L.A. offices will handle the account, the latter due to its proximity to parent company DineEquity’s headquarters.

Last month, we learned that the review was down to three finalists, with Grey apparently beating out BBDO and Argonaut to be named the chain’s agency of record, making it the third agency to hold that distinction in the past two years. According to an internal memo from Grey CEO Debby Reiner, 24 agencies responded to the RFP, with a group of six later reduced to the three aforementioned finalists.

Previous lead Barkley won the account after Applebee’s ended its relationship with CP+B in November of 2015. The Kansas City indie shop launched the brand’s “largest marketing initiative to date” with a campaign focused on the chain’s wood-fired steaks last summer, then went through a “staffing adjustment” that reportedly did not decrease its overall headcount.

“We couldn’t be more excited to begin working with Grey,” Applebee’s interim senior vice president of marketing and culinary Jeannine D’Addario said in a statement reported by Adweek. “In addition to their deep experience, capability and creativity, the team at Grey has a solid understanding of Applebee’s evolving consumer, the brand’s legacy and our goals to ignite change and deliver original and compelling work.”

Earlier this month, DineEquity named John Cywinski as Applebee’s new president. He previously spent five years as CMO for the chain, beginning in 2001, and will be tasked with reversing “sluggish” sales. According to Kantar Media, the chain spent around $160 million on measured media in the U.S. last year. No word on whether that total will change.

In today’s memo, Reiner wrote, “We will be responsible for creative development, market strategy and brand positioning, crafting engaging campaigns that resonate with their customers nationally. Our integrated communications effort will launch in July.”

“We’ll celebrate after the blizzard,” she added.

It was a compelling idea, even if the client wan’t convinced at the time. Fifty years ago, in the fictional world of Mad Men, Don Draper pitched a daring ad campaign to Heinz execs, for the brand’s ketchup, that proposed not showing the product at all. Instead, the ads would show close-ups of foods that…

With March Madness here, travel buddies Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Barkley and Spike Lee return for the latest additions to DDB Chicago’s “Road Trip” campaign for Capital One.

If you’re familiar with earlier “Road Trip” efforts, you already know what to expect and “Steaks” dispels any doubt that the agency is trading in the same goofy humor as in the past.

Barkley can’t contain his excitement to finally make a joke referencing a certain movie starring Jackson, when the three companions find themselves eating steaks on a flight. Other spots see the trio watching March Madness basketball as Barkley introduces them to his snacking innovation and unusual TV setup and in various travel scenarios.

As with earlier iterations, there’s a slew of different 30-seconds spots to mix things up, which will run throughout March Madness coverage. The latest efforts may take Barkley’s ridiculous antics a little too far at times, moving the campaign towards a caricature of itself. Perhaps after so many “Road Trip” spots that was somewhat inevitable.

Credits:
Client: Capital One
Agency: DDB Chicago
Chief Creative Officer: John Maxham
Group Creative Director: Travis Parr
Group Creative Director: Mike Ackerman
Associate Creative Director/CW: Carlos Rangel
Associate Creative Director/CW: Zack Carlstrom
Associate Creative Director/AD: Michael Rosenthal
Copywriter: Dan Donahue
Art Director: Sandra Jurado
Copywriter: Sean Collander
Art Director: Brittany Druker
SVP, Group Account Director: Chris Pultorak
Account Director: Suzanne Stovall
Account Executive: Rachel Dawson
Chief Production Officer: Diane Jackson
Executive Producer: Kent Smith
Producer: Allison Magill
Business Manager: Polly Poulos
Art Producer: Suzanne Koller

Production
Production Company: Pony Show Entertainment
Director: Spike Lee
Partners: Susan Kirson & Jeffrey Frankel
Executive Producer: Helga Gruber
Supervising Producer: Fern Martin
Head of Production: Gareth Wood
Line Prodution: Kevin Baird

Editorial: White House Post
Editor: Meg Kubicka
Editor: Brian Gannon
Exective Producer: Dawn Guzowski

Finishing / VFX Company: Filmworkers / Churchill Studios
Executive Producer: Robert Churchill

Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Monday, March 13:

Occasionally we’ve attempted (with limited success) Trump-free editions of this daily media scan. Today we’re aiming for an edition devoid of items about the media’s obsession of the moment: the blizzard set to bear down on the East Coast. Let’s see how it goes! (Tomorrow might be a different story.) Anyway, let’ sget started …

1. Are you in Austin for SXSW? A team of Ad Age reporters and editors is, and you can find links to their ongoing coverage here.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Energy company Phillips 66 has appointed Carmichael Lynch as its consumer marketing and advertising agency partner just days after the agency tapped Marcus Fischer as its new CEO.

The Houston, Texas-based company, which previously worked with Venables Bell & Partners, issued a review for its Phillips 66, 76 and Conoco brands in December. Representatives from Venables Bell & Partners were not immediately available for comment.

Carmichael Lynch will work on brand strategy, creative, media planning and buying, cause marketing, analytics and digital services for the Phillips brands. Work will begin in mid-March, specifically on media, promotions and sports marketing, followed by new brand work for 2018.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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Farmácias São Paulo

Greatness that doesn’t fit in one day. One day isn’t enough for all greatness of those who win the world every day. Women, congratulations. Not for this day, but for what you are. And for what you do. Not just today, but always. March 8th, International Women’s Day

Advertising Agency:Meta Propaganda, Maringa, Brazil
Director:Ademir Lautenschlager
Art Director:Alisson Bertelli
Illustrator:Alisson Bertelli
Copywriters:Caio Romero, Filipe Oliveira

The 10th issue of The Funambulist, a magazine edited by Léopold Lambert to examine the politics of space and bodies, is out!

The theme of the issue is Architecture & Colonialism and it works in tandem with the previous issue, Islands, which critically documented indigenous and anticolonial struggles from various islands of the world. While the last issue was dedicated to the seminal work of Édouard Glissant, this one is influenced by the work of another Martiniquais: Frantz Fanon.

The two editorial arguments of this issue are simple: colonialism is not an era, it is a system of military/police, legal, administrative, social, and cultural system of domination; and, architecture is not (only) an aesthetic vessel, it is an apparatus organizing and hierarchizing bodies in space.

Content of The Funambulist Nº10: Architecture & Colonialism:

Kelsen Caldwell writes a guest column titled A Call to Disrupt White-Dominated Architectural and Public Policy Imaginaries; Mawena Yehouessi of Black(s) to the Future wrote one called Afrofuturist Politics: Less Power, More Commitment; while Jess Myers‘s column is titled Here There Be Dragons: Broadcasting Identity and Security in the Parisian Region.

The main essays are: Aurès, Algeria: Regroupement Camps During the Algerian War for Independence by Fabien Sacriste; Tripoli, Libya: Scale and (Im)Mobility in the Control of Colonial Territory, authored by Mia Fuller; Heliopolis: Politics of Space in Occupied Cairo, by Mahy Mourad; Amman, Jordan: The Case of Open Space, by Jawad Dukhgan; Dadaab, Kenya: Architecting the Border: The Hut and the Frontier at Work, by Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi; Esfahan, Iran: Architecture and the Making of a Gendered Working Class, by Samaneh Moafi. There is also a transcript of the podcast with Ann Laura Stoler about The Colonial Administration of Bodies and Space.

As for the photos below, they are by Bruno Fert and accompany Sophia Azeb‘s essay The “No State Solution”: Decolonizing Palestine beyond the West Bank and East Jerusalem:

Bruno Fert, Tel Aviv-Jaffa (Longitude: 32°5’16” N, latitude: 34°46’11” E. Abdel Nabi Jaffa cemetery.) From the series The Absentees

Bruno Fert, Al Bassa (Longitude: 33°04’34” N, latitude: 35°08’27” E. Date of depopulation: May, 14 1948.) From the series The Absentees

Bruno Fert, Haïfa (Longitude: 32°48’46” N, latitude: 35°00’8? E. Date of depopulation: April 1948.) From the series The Absentees

In 1948, the creation of the State of Israel caused the exodus of approximately 700,000 Palestinians to neighboring countries. The refugees were never allowed to return to their homes which were confiscated under the Israeli “Absentee Property Law“. With the help of the mapping done by Zochrot (an Israeli non-profit organization that promotes awareness of the Palestinian Nakba), photographer Bruno Fert returned to the places of some of the roughly 500 villages which were depopulated and sometimes destroyed during the first Arab-Israeli war. The resulting photo series is called The Absentees.

Photo by Kelechi Anabaraonye

Photo by Kelechi Anabaraonye

There’s also a few pages dedicated to student projects related to architecture and colonialism. One of them is a photo project by Kelechi Anabaraonye whose camera captures the colonial infrastructures left to decay in Nigeria.

You can purchase the issue in digital or print+digital form. Or you could get a subscription and get access to the magazine’s full online archives. I don’t get free Funambulist copies, neither am i paid to write about it. I just happen to think this intelligent and meaningful publication has no equal.

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