Barton F. Graf’s executive creative director breaks it down for you in under a minute in this video from the sidelines of Ad Age’s annual Small Agency Conference, taking place this year in Nashville.
Southwest Airlines is conducting a media agency review after working with Dallas-based Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media for more than 30 years.
“As our business grows and adapts to an ever-changing media landscape, Southwest Airlines is exploring options in the marketplace to ensure we have the right paid media capabilities in place at the right costs,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Southwest Airlines said it is working with Select Resources International to conduct the search. The company plans to make a selection by late September.
Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Tuesday, July 18:
Have you released an attack video against your least-favorite media outlet yet? (See No. 3, below.) No? What’s taking you? Don’t you know that hyper-specific media-bashing videos are all the rage (and I do mean rage) these days? Anyway, let’s get started …
1. So with last night’s collapse of the GOP’s latest attempt at healthcare reform/Obamacare repeal — a cornerstone of President Trump’s agenda — let’s check in with POTUS to see how he’s spinning this.
Isis videos may be in the rearview mirror for some advertisers, but what about Peppa Pig?
Brand safety worries have subsided for marketers who’ve moved back to YouTube despite the lack of ironclad guarantees that their ads will never again appear with terrorist or hate videos. But the controversy has exposed a relevance problem that might be even harder to address — with ads showing up on children’s videos, for example, when kids aren’t brands’ target.
A spring of discontent
Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service has been partially blocked in China, following a censorship crackdown by the government.
Multiple WhatsApp users in China reported experiencing intermittent outages from Monday night Beijing time. By Tuesday morning, users had taken to social networks such as Twitter to report that photos as well as audio clips — a favored format in the country — were not being delivered.
WhatsApp is not responsible for the blockage, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company declined to comment.
Discovery Communications and Viacom, two cable network owners hurt by the rise of Netflix and YouTube, have held separate talks to combine with Scripps Networks Interactive, owner of HGTV and the Food Network, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Discovery Communications owns networks including its namesake Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and TLC. Viacom’s portfolio includes Nickelodeon, BET and MTV.
Traditional media companies that built billion-dollar businesses from cable are feeling pressure to grow via acquisition after losing viewers to online video services and social networks. Consumers are spending more time on the web and advertisers are following. By combining, Scripps and Discovery or Viacom could also strengthen their hand in negotiations with pay-TV companies like Comcast Corp.
Anybody eagerly awaiting their back-to-school catalog from LLBean this year may be disappointed.
The 105-year-old brand is focusing less on paper and more on broadcast in an effort to attract consumers on a national stage. This week, LLBean is rolling out a new website and digital push centered around its new “Be an Outsider” campaign. Three TV spots will follow starting July 24.
“The campaign is one piece of a bigger strategy to shift us from a heritage brand, in catalogs, to a product company,” said Brad Matson, who joined Freeport, Maine-based LLBean five years ago as senior VP-creative.
Years ago, Google built a social network separate from its prized asset, web search. The effort failed. Now the company is trying again — only this time, it’s turning its search engine into something that looks a lot like the news feed of a social network.
The Alphabet Inc. unit is introducing a tailored feed of news, entertainment and myriad web content based on users’ searches, YouTube video views and other personal information. It’s an expansion of an older mobile service called Google Now. Yet some new bells and whistles — information from local trends and an ability to “follow” public figures, for instance — give Google’s search feed a similar feel to the algorithmic stream of Facebook’s News Feed. That feature has helped Facebook capture online attention like few other companies.
“We want people to understand they’re consuming information from Google,” Sashi Thakur, a Google engineering VP, told reporters. “It will just be without a query.”
BBH has named Ian Heartfield and Anthony Austin executive creative directors at its London headquarters. ECD Nick Gill hands over the leadership reins to his former deputies, but he’ll continue to direct creative on the agency’s Tesco and Barclays accounts, as well as write work himself.
“Making this decision has been very easy, because I have such affection and admiration for my two worthy successors,” Gill said in a statement. “Ant and Ian are very different people, they bring very different skills to the table. But they are totally aligned in their ambition for BBH, and they complement each other brilliantly.”
Heartfield joined the agency in 2010 and has led accounts including Absolut, Uber, Audi and St. John Ambulance. His past work includes the Cannes Gold-Lion winning “Birth” spot for Audi as well as Guinness’ Cannes Grand Prix-winning “noitulovE,” created while he was at AMV BBDO.
Chipotle is hoping a musical and visual online experience can help the company bounce past yet another PR hit.
The chain called on the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA to help create and introduce Savor.Wavs, a microsite that assembles music and visuals based on visitors’ picks from the Chipotle menu.
That includes the meat and dairy, even though RZA is a vegan.
Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Wednesday, July 19:
First off, I just want to publicly disclose that I have not been having any private, undisclosed conversations with anybody that I shouldn’t be privately, um, undisclosedly conversing with. Any suggestion to the contrary is fake. That said, if any private, undisclosed conversations are later revealed — and confirmed by my staff — then those meetings will technically become publicly disclosed conversations — thus confirming my total transparency. Got that? Anyway, let’s get started …
1. In a Recode post headlined “NBC has 30 employees working on a daily news show exclusively for Snapchat,” Kurt Wagner writes,
Barton F. Graf’s executive creative director breaks it down for you in under a minute in this video from the sidelines of Ad Age’s annual Small Agency Conference, taking place this year in Nashville.
And the English one:
McCormick heads to Europe to add some spice to its lineup
Southwest Airlines is conducting a media agency review after working with Dallas-based Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media for more than 30 years.
“As our business grows and adapts to an ever-changing media landscape, Southwest Airlines is exploring options in the marketplace to ensure we have the right paid media capabilities in place at the right costs,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Southwest Airlines said it’s working with Select Resources International to conduct the search. The company plans to make a selection by late September.
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The popularity of the Unicorn Frappuccino has…
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(TrendHunter.com) The Kendall + Kylie Swimwear line, sold exclusively through online retailer ‘Revolve,’ is a capsule collection with nostalgic 80s inspired designs.
The collection ranges from…
(TrendHunter.com) These youth-focused loyalty innovations range from connected concert wearables to mobile fast food games that are designed to unlock meal promotions and exclusive coupons. While examples like Pouch…
Sometimes the president’s tweets program his go-to cable morning show. And sometimes the show programs him.
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