Hasta La Creative!

Amazon.com Inc. narrowed the field of cities for its proposed new headquarters to 20, with New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami and Austin, Texas, among the contenders.

Seattle-based Amazon solicited proposals in September for its second corporate seat, a project that’s expected to cost more than $5 billion and create 50,000 high-paying jobs over the next 10 to 15 years. Politicians across the U.S. and Canada eagerly expressed interest, and the company received proposals from 238 locations, including from smaller markets like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Memphis, Tennessee. The company plans to make a decision this year and will continue discussions with the finalists, it said in a statement Thursday.

The list reveals little in terms of geographic preferences, with finalists on both coasts and the heartland. Amazon found it difficult to engage with so many applicants and had to whittle the list to enter the next phase of evaluation.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

President Trump’s much-hyped Fake News Awards came so late in the day on Wednesdaysee Angela Doland’s take on them in today’s Ad Age Wake-Up Callthat he missed getting them included on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (which is taped before a live studio audience, but doesn’t actually air live). But that didn’t stop Kimmel from bringing on CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer via satellite to accept a “Dishonest & Corrupt Media Award”a trophy topped by a child’s fist with a raised middle finger (which was blurred out on air). Sadly, the truth is that not only was the trophy fake, but Blitzer was fake. Jimmy Kimmel quickly outed him as his dad, James Kimmel.

Added bonus: When Rachel Maddow joined Fake Wolf Blitzer on the (fake) satellite feed, Jimmy Kimmel outed her too. “That’s not Rachel Maddow, that’s my mother!” (Joan Iacono Kimmel) “That’s mom!”

“Not tonight it isn’t,” James Kimmel responded. “Come on, Rachel, let’s go home and howl at the wolves.”

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Twenty years after starting its Priceless campaign, Mastercard is switching it up and asking consumers to take action. On Thursday morning, the Purchase, New York-based company is debuting its “Start Something Priceless” campaign that pushes people around the globe to do something to improve the world, either on their own, or through a Mastercard donation program.

“What we are trying to do, unlike before, is trying to take a more active role in generating a movement around Priceless,” says Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer at Mastercard. He notes that this is the third iteration of the campaign, developed with McCann; the first 16-year-old phase was around celebrating priceless moments in life, and the recent four years were spent enabling the campaign through various partnerships.

Comedian Ellen DeGeneres will kick off the new effort with a tweet and mention on her show on Thursday. Mastercard intends to premier a music video, in which a group of artists sing about the biases they’ve overcome, on Monday ahead of a week-long effort preceding the Grammy Awards on Jan. 28. Mastercard will air the film during the awards, which will be in New York. It will also host a Mastercard House in Manhattan for the week where Mastercard users can attend concerts and experiences.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) A new Dunkin’ Donuts concept store has been introduced in Quincy, Massachusetts, featuring signage that features just the “Dunkin’” part of the brand name. Last year, Dunkin&#…

Industry leaders from Wavemaker, Hearts & Science, Accenture Interactive, Bloomberg and Brainlabs are among the judges for the revamped 2018 Campaign Media Awards.

Pertemps has awarded media strategy and creative duties to Craft Media and George & Dragon in a double appointment for its £2m account.

Tesco angered customers this week by slashing the value of some Clubcard rewards without notice. It was a response that might have been avoided had the scheme built a deeper level of engagement, writes the chairman of Lida.

The site was an early example of amateur journalism online, but it will dissolve its self-publishing platform in an attempt to minimize unverified stories.

After a year as editor of Women’s Health, Claire Sanderson takes Campaign to the gym to talk about her vision for the Hearst-owned magazine.