Hasta La Creative!

-Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard joins the “The Order of Cholula” in a new spot for the hot sauce brand (video above).

-Alexis Berger, mobile advertising company Kargo’s former senior vice president of sales for the Midwest and West Coast, was awarded more than $40 million over sexual discrimination and wrongful termination in a third-party arbitration ruling.

-McCann New York hired Pierre Lipton, formerly CCO at 360i, as global executive creative director.

-AnalogFolk hired Kunal Muzumdar as managing director for the U.S. 

-Hill Holliday CCO Lance Jensen explains what it takes to be a great creative.

-LBB talks with 72andSunny Amsterdam creatives Georgi Gregori and Jorgen Sibbern.

-Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor parent company Hudson’s Bay Co. plans to eliminate around 2,000 jobs in response to a tough quarter.

Saatchi & Saatchi L.A. launched a new series of short films for Toyota playing with the concept of time.

The sci-fi themed efforts include a woman who appears to age based on the speed of her Prius and a man trapped in a curious loop while driving his Camry around a roundabout. Directed by Vania Heymann, each of the spots takes a different sci-fi influenced concept, toying with time in surreal ways while utilizing Toyota vehicles as the setting for the stories.

Saatchi & Saatchi L.A. creative director Daniel Barak explained that the branded content was designed specifically for the cinema, telling The Drum, “We wanted to transport the audience in ways that aren’t possible in a traditional TV spot, and also respect the moment that our audience is in. I personally don’t like seeing regular ads when I’m in cinema mode, just because someone had an extra media buy.”

“The films stand alone, but feel cohesive with the surreal ‘time travel’ theme. We wanted to draw our viewers in,” he added. “The goal was to get audiences emotionally invested in our characters and stories, which capture the spirit of ‘Let’s Go Places’ in unexpected and thought-provoking ways.”

The spots will also run online, albeit without any paid media push.

Barak cited Charlie Booker‘s Black Mirror series, Back to the Future, Groundhog Day, Benjamin Button and Argentinian director Damián Szifron‘s 2014 anthology film Wild Tales as influences.

“From the very beginning of the project, the creative process was a full collaboration between director Vania Heymann and myself. We came up with the concept for the series, and then wrote the stories,” he added.

Credits:
Created by: Vania Heymann & Daniel Barak
Produced by: Natan Schottenfels
Editor: Gal Muggia, Amir Winkler
Composer: Assa Raviv
Director of Photography: Michael Ragen

Advertising is meant to be emotional. We’re supposed to feel the journey of that older woman struggling with arthritis when all she wants is to go outside and play wiffle ball with her grandson. We’re supposed to invest deeply in the story of the man who struggles to find just the right kind of paint…

Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of June 7:

Yesterday’s accidental theme, dear reader, was friendship. Today’s equally accidental theme is rejection — of certain Twitterers by President Trump (see No. 1, below), of Trump by James Comey and vice versa (No. 2), and especially of Kesha by Jerry Seinfeld (Nos. 3 and 4). Anyway, let’s get started …

1. Or maybe he could just block everyone? “The Knight First Amendment Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group based at Columbia University, threatened to take legal action against President Trump if he does not unblock critics on Twitter,” per Benjamin Mullin of the Poynter Institute. “The demand, made in a letter to President Trump, was sent on behalf of Holly O’Reilly and Joseph M. Papp, two Twitter users who were blocked by the president’s account after criticizing him on the social media network.” Knight argues that Trump’s Twitter is something called a “designated public forum” and that the president has no legal right to just banish his critics in such a forum.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Friday, June 9:

The (entirely accidental) themes of your media scan this week have included friendship and rejection. Today’s theme is simply foreigners — as in voting Brits (see No. 1, below) and cunning Russians (Nos. 2, 5) and horny Brits (No. 6) and singing Brits (No. 7). Anyway, let’s get started …

1. So what the hell just happened in the U.K.? Let’s turn to the Beeb (the BBC): “Hung Parliament: Q&A guide to what happens when no-one wins the election.” (Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering, here’s what the Biebs is up to.)

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The closure of popular blogs devoted to the fashion and foibles of the famous points to heightened sensitivities ahead of a major Communist Party meeting.

(TrendHunter.com) Being under stress can affect your decision making capabilities and even be quite harmful to your health, so the ‘TouchPoints’ wearables are intended to provide users with a way to…