… but he hasn’t shied away from feuding with his industy peers, including Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure on Twitter in January:
(Background via Geekwire: “T-Mobile CEO scolds Sprint CEO for laughing at Chelsea Handler’s Twitter joke about car crashing into T-Mobile store.”)
Who stands to lose if this deal goes through?
Airbnb Inc. is expanding into restaurant reservations, part of the startup’s plan to become a full-service travel-booking company like Priceline Group Inc. and Expedia Inc.
Through Airbnb’s website and smartphone app, users can book tables at about 650 restaurants across the U.S., the company said on Wednesday. Diners could previously only use Airbnb to make reservations in a small test in San Francisco.
The new service makes Airbnb more like Priceline, which owns OpenTable, the leading U.S. restaurant reservation website and app. Airbnb declined to disclose its method for making money from the new booking tool. However, it’s designed in part to get users to engage with Airbnb more regularly. When people book a place to stay on the company’s main home-sharing service, they may also arrange dinner out during their trip.
Every weekday, we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new TV commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention and conversion analytics from millions of smart TVs. The ads here ran on national TV for the first time yesterday.
A few highlights: Ted Danson reveals that Smirnoff makes its vodka in America (surprise!) and that he (gasp!) was never named Sexiest Man Alive. Subaru promotes its “Maintain the Love” two-year maintenance plan to give its customers “peace of mind on the long road ahead.” And Campbell’s hypes the fact that its Chunky Maxx line of soups contain 40 percent more meat”for 40 percent more hustle.”
Magna expects U.S. ad revenue to reach an all-time high this year, growing by 3.6 percent to reach $185 billion.
That’s roughly even with the IPG Mediabrands agency’s June forecast of 3.4 percent growth this year, excluding the impact of cyclical events such as political campaigns and the Olympics.
Despite the new high on the horizon, the market is actually seeing smaller growth than last year, according to Magna’s new report Wednesday. After ad spending contracted by 20 percent from 2007 to 2009, it didn’t completely rebound to 2007 levels until 2015 and didn’t surpass them until 2016.
Does this look OK?
In time for London Fashion Week, Tommy Hilfiger launched its first fashion bot to dole out style advice via Facebook Messenger. The designer unveiled the artificial intelligence offering at its Tuesday show. Many brands and retailers are taking advantage of chatbots to better connect with consumers.
Ragu wins sauce scuffle
Microsoft has joined the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry association trying to improve online marketing before frustration drives more consumers to block digital ads themselves.
The move suggests that Microsoft’s Edge browser could eventually unilaterally block ads that coalition research has deemed annoying.
Google, another coalition member, has already confirmed that its Chrome browser will start “filtering” annoying ads early next year. (The term “blocking” carries a lot of baggage.)
(TrendHunter.com) Vincent Callebaut Architectures, an architectural firm based in France, has carved out a reputation for itself as one of the world leaders in sustainable architecture, and few of its creations…
One of her rules of journalism was, “Do not call attention to yourself.” Yet she did just that in a memoir about her long affair with her celebrated editor.
Snapchat has added 14 new creative partners that are aimed at helping advertisers drive ROI once users swipe up.
Triumph is not the cheering of the crowd, but the silence of the doubters. That’s what the MINI John Cooper Works learned, when it won the Rallye Monte Carlo back in 1964. People made jokes about the car’s first appearance in this legendary race. They even called it a tin can – until the tin car proved them wrong. For this film original locations of the race were dressed like 1964 again and while we see the car racing, we hear all the doubters in a massive sound cloud – until he crosses the finish line.
The Bronx Zoo has appointed DiMassimo Goldstein as its agency of record, tasking the New York-based independent agency with driving attendance and spreading the brand message for the largest metropolitan zoo in the country.
The assignment follows an extensive review which pitted DiMassimo Goldstein against five other agencies.
When Deutsch took over for Young & Rubicam as agency of record back in 2007, Adweek reported that Bronx Zoo parent organization Wildlife Conservation Society spent under $500,000 on measured media in each of the previous two years.
“Working with The Bronx Zoo is not only the dream of a lifetime,” said DiMassimo Goldstein founder and CEO Mark DiMassimo, “but it also represents an opportunity to inspire people to enjoy extraordinary experiences that bring them closer to the wonders of the natural world. Win Win!”
Why would anyone in their right mind put Charles Manson on a billboard? Good question. First, some context. WFMU 91.1 FM holds a special place in the hearts of rabid music fans in the greater New York City area. Since 1958, the station in East Orange, N.J., has been broadcasting sound waves from the farthest…
This entertaining new Audi ad from DDB Spain reintroduces us to the Invisible Man and his Sunset Boulevard-esque relationship with his own fame. Over a gravelly voiceover explaining his career, we see (or rather, don’t see) him drinking whiskey by his pool and walking the red carpet, as well as movie posters and other ephemera….
RPA’s “The Proof Is in the Poop” campaign for Halo dog food adds Poopsie the poop coil to America’s stable of anthropomorphic poop characters, right alongside Mr. Hankie and Nutty the Friendly Dump. What a time to be alive. In the two spots they’ve made so far, Halo explains that Poopsie comes from dogs and…
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