Hasta La Creative!

ICYMI, former Microsoft executive, WPP guy and political pollster Mark Penn has been not-so-quietly building a lineup of agencies across disciplines.

Last week, his marketing-focused investment firm Stagwell Group continued its two-year attempt to offer every service a client could possibly need by acquiring a minority stake in MMI, an independent Dallas-based company that describes itself as “a data-driven conversation agency” specializing in shopper marketing and activations.

This marks the 11th agency Stagwell has acquired over the past two years, according to its own press release. They include Code and Theory, Atlanta’s Scout, PR firm Finn Partners and its first big purchase, the politically connected communications firm SKDKnickerbocker. (That one earned Penn another NYT writeup.)

Penn launched Stagwell back in 2015 with a plan to “seek out investments in the exploding digital marketing arena,” adding this gem:

“From finding soccer moms to uncovering Microtrends. I have always believed that data and creativity have to go together and that creative talent needs to be nurtured. We will be looking for investments that understand those principles.”

Speaking of trends, has anyone used Bing lately??

Here is what tipsters claim to be an internal memo from MMI CEO Benjamin Spiegel. Apologies if you’d expected something a bit more exciting.

Hello xxx,

I hope all is well and I am looking forward to our meeting later this month. I wanted to quickly share some MMI updates with you. As you might recall from our last meeting, part of our plan is to bring the best ideas, technologies, talent and ultimately success to our partners – with P&G an important part of that strategy. To support our growth and continue to bring maximum value to our clients, we decided to join an agency network. After careful evaluation of our options and vetting of interested parties, we decided to take a minority investment from a network called The Stagwell Group http://www.stagwellgroup.com/.

Best,

Benjamin Spiegel
Chief Executive Officer – MMI Agency
mmiagency.com | @mmiagency

-Xfinity turned to The Muppets‘ Statler and Waldorf to promote the Billboard Music Awards (video above).

-Independent filmmakers Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass are teaming up with engagement director Nigel Lopez-McBean and creative director Charlie Leahy to launch Los Angeles-based creative agency Donut.

–Cindy Gallop shares three of her favorite ads.

-Ad Contrarian asks the most important questions, like, who’s more full of shit: agencies or marketers?

–Advertising tax breaks for smaller companies: a good idea or the first step toward communism?

-Chevy shares the secrets behind Commonwealth//McCann’s “Real People” campaign, which apparently won’t be ending any time soon.

-Facebook promotes New York Times vet Alex Hardiman to lead its fake news purge efforts. Have they not searched for #fakenews recently?

Moves by big advertisers to pause spending on Google, audit media buying and demand greater accountability will at least dent the rise of digital ad spending and hasten what Forrester is calling “The End of Advertising As We Know It” in a report to be released today.

Google’s recent street-beating revenue results, despite those spending pauses that began in mid-March, may make digital ad spending growth look inevitable. But Forrester isn’t buying it, projecting big advertisers will pull around $2.9 billion out of digital advertising over the next year.

“Display advertising never worked like we pretended,” Forrester’s report says. “CMOs know this already, but nobody wants to talk about it.” Forrester cites the familiar problems of poor-quality ad placements, barely existent clickthrough rates, non-viewable impressions and rising ad blocking.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

In “Women Who Work,” Ivanka Trump offers advice to inspire you and “your team.”

Outdoor, Print
Opel

Advertising Agency:Y&R, Rome, Italy
Executive Creative Director:Vicky Gitto
Creative Director:Mariano Lombardi
Art Director:Carmen Matarrese, Andrea Giovannone
Copywriter:Filippo Testa
Illustrator:Studio Oliva

Despite their falling circulations and tarnished reputations, tabloids maintain a striking grip on power as Britain prepares to cut ties with the European Union.

(TrendHunter.com) Discussions around sports car tend to center around their more extreme aspects — horsepower, 0 to 60 times, handling, etc. — but Poltrona Frau’s new office chair takes direct inspiration…

For the first time in what seems like a long time Twitter answered its own question: “What’s happening?”

“Saucy is happening,” a Twitter-made marketing montage flashed across the screen at the platform’s NewFronts event on Monday. Also happening, according to Twitter: “Gorgeous,” “oops,” “slam” and “creation.”

Twitter has been using the phrase “it’s what’s happening” in its marketing to attract fresh attention to itself as a cultural touchstone. As a business, though, the question of what’s happening hasn’t always had a clear answer.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

About.com — the 20-year-old general interest site with hundreds of thousands of articles about everything from “The right way to handwash clothes” to “What to do if you hate your in-laws” — has a new mandate, and a new name to to go with it.

The New York-based, IAC-owned company, which actually began as MiningCo.com, is now “Dotdash,” a nod to the company’s history of having a “dot” in its previous names and logos, and a “dash” meant to represent what comes next, said CEO Neil Vogel. The dot and dash also represent the letter “A” in Morse code.

“We wanted to have a nod to our history and acknowledge that we’re a brand new company that’s nothing like we used to be,” Vogel said.

Continue reading at AdAge.com