Hasta La Creative!

You’ve probably seen the dystopian Halo Top ice cream commercial by now–the one directed by Mike Diva, the popular YouTuber with the twisted sense of humor. We wrote about it last week, and it’s also been playing in front of the movie It at cinemas. For a brand on the rise, it’s a subversive commercial…

Zefr, an ad tech company that helps marketers purchase spots in specific videos on YouTube, is tapping TV ad vet Toby Byrne to serve as president.

Byrne previously led ad sales for Fox Networks Group before departing in September 2016 and setting off an eight-month search for his replacement.

Zefr gained some relevance this year amid YouTube brand safety concerns. The company can essentially serve as a watchdog for marketers and only deliver them videos that are deemed brand-safe.

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Yahoo Style, an Oath brand, has kicked off its year long partnership with the British Fashion Council with a mission to provide an alternative front row experience to their users through live streaming and events.

The Primetime Emmy Awards is suffering from the same malaise that for years has been plaguing its glitzier, more glamorous cousin, the Academy Awards, as its celebration of offbeat, less populist programming has come at the expense of the event’s national TV ratings.

According to Nielsen time zone-adjusted data, CBS’s broadcast of the 69th installment of TV’s annual valentine to itself averaged 11.4 million viewers, and while that marked a very slight improvement compared to ABC’s year-ago delivery (11.3 million), there was a decline in the number of viewers that advertisers want most. Whereas the 2016 broadcast drew a 2.8 rating, or approximately 3.59 million adults 18 to 49, this year’s edition averaged a record low 2.5 in the demo. That translates to 3.22 million adults 18 to 49, a drop of 10 percent.

The demo delivery for last year’s Emmys marked a 22 percent drop compared to the 2015 show on Fox.

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ISBA claims advertisers are using its new, tougher framework contract to review £6.1bn of adspend with media agencies.

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital-related news. What people are talking about today: Uber has reportedly sued Dentsu-owned Fetch Media, accusing the mobile agency of running “a wild west of online advertising fraud.” Uber says Fetch improperly billed it “for ‘fake’ online ads and took credit for app downloads it had nothing to do with,” as Bloomberg reports, adding that Uber plans to ask for at least $40 million in damages. Fetch has yet to respond to Uber’s allegations. But the claims put ad fraud in the spotlight, again.

The digital advertising ecosystem has been dogged by questions over fraud and transparency, and despite various efforts to clean things up, observers say billions of dollars are lost to ad fraud every year. The stakes are getting higher, since spending on digital channels surpassed television spending in the U.S. last year for the first time, according to eMarketer. Marketers and agencies will be watching the Uber case. Closely.

Toys R Us and the retailpocalypse

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Ikea has created a “Wonderful everyday” tour in Sheffield ahead of a new store launch with an array of artwork, food, community makeovers and family events taking over the city.

Lynton Crosby, Theresa May’s former spin doctor, has teamed up with former Barack Obama strategist Jim Messina to advise brands on how to market themselves across an increasingly complex digital landscape.

Uber filed a lawsuit against Fetch Media in San Francisco yesterday, suing the agency for a host of allegations including breach of contract, fraud and negligence.

In the ad-blocking era, marketers are going to great lengths to get their brands in front of skeptical consumers. For Volkswagen, that means sending people on a scavenger hunt through an imaginary city on Instagram that is devoid of paid advertising.

The social media sweepstakes is part of a new campaign for the redesigned 2018 Tiguan crossover that began last month with a TV ad called “The New King.” The spot, by Deutsch L.A., shows an inflatable King Kong chasing down a woman driving a red Tiguan through the city. The vehicle, not the gorilla, is the new “king of the concrete jungle,” declares the spot. The campaign pitches the Tiguan to urban single people, an increasingly important audience for marketers of SUVs and crossovers.

VW on Friday made the TV ad come to life on Instagram via a 21-day scavenger hunt in which viewers are fed daily clues and asked to find hidden Tiguans in a cityscape spread across multiple tiles. There is a catch, of course: To enter a sweepstakes for daily prizes, viewers must take a screenshot of the Tiguan and send a direct message to a VW-run account. The grand prize is a 10-day trip to San Francisco, Miami and New York. This video shows how it works:

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