Happy Groundhog Day! Six more weeks of winter is in store for us, according to good old “Punxsutawney Phil” and the little mammal’s annual tradition of predicting the weather.
Before heading into this weekend and watching the Big Game on Sunday (mostly for the commercials, obviously), let’s see what’s in store in this week’s agency news roundup.
Beefing up marketing
Tanit Koch resigned after a power struggle with another of the publication’s executives, a male former war correspondent.
Carmichael Lynch took advantage of the snowy weather in Minneapolis, tasking artist Simon Beck with transforming Target Field into a snow art installation for The Great Northern, an annual 10-day winter celebration in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
While not part of the official Super Bowl Live festivities in the city (it does not have any affiliation with the Super Bowl), the effort uses the sizable audience in the city to draw attention to The Great Northern, which includes the City of Lakes Loppet Ski Festival, the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships and other events highlighting winter outdoor activities in the Twin Cities.
“We’re thrilled to host Simon Beck at Target Field to bring the beauty of winter to life in a whole new way,” Twins president and CEO Dave St. Peter said in a statement. “We’re obviously big fans of spring, summer and fall but we wouldn’t call ourselves true Minnesotans if we didn’t have an equal passion for winter, too.”
Beck created the installation using only snowshoes and manpower in ten hours over the course of two days. According to a press release, that added up to over 45,000 steps. 
Unilever squeezed around $700 million out of production costs last year by making fewer ads and doing more work in-house, according to numbers cited by executives in today’s fourth-quarter earnings report.
Those savings accounted for most of the improvement in the operating margin for the world’s second-biggest marketing spender last year. Unilever put less than half the production savings back into media and in-store marketing, while taking most to the bottom line. Couched as “production,” the squeeze largely affected work done or overseen by agencies.
Pras will use the commercial to introduce Blacture, a digital platform for black culture in America. Blacture will include content from artists and influencers and tell stories that are underreported in mass media, according a press release. The goal, it says, is to “promote black excellence and increase awareness and understanding of the tremendous influence the black artistic community has on American culture.”
“Pras is passionate about giving black culture a voice, and, given the controversy surrounding Black Lives Matter that unfolded throughout the NFL season and the conversations taking place in the American political arena, he believes that this is the time for a call to amplify the underserved voices in black culture,” the press release says.
The 30-second spot was created by Pras, who was a founding member of the Fugees, along with agency McKinney and purpose-driven shop Leijas. It was directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “Southpaw”). It’s slated to run in the third quarter of the game.
The iPhone “super cycle”a wave of upgrades and new customers that was supposed to wash over Apple this year with the introduction of its model Xwas pronounced dead on arrival.
In Apple’s first earnings report since the launch of the pricey flagship smartphone, the company reported lower-than-expected handset sales from the holiday period. Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri also forecast a decline in the average selling price of iPhones in the current quarter, suggesting the most-expensive models aren’t as popular.
The results are part of a broader malaise in the global smartphone industry. Shipments in the fourth quarter dropped 9 percent, year over year, the biggest decline in history, according to Strategy Analytics.
Pras will use the commercial to introduce Blacture, a digital platform for black culture in America. Blacture will include content from artists and influencers and tell stories that are underreported in mass media, according a press release. The goal, it says, is to “promote black excellence and increase awareness and understanding of the tremendous influence the black artistic community has on American culture.”
“Pras is passionate about giving black culture a voice, and, given the controversy surrounding Black Lives Matter that unfolded throughout the NFL season and the conversations taking place in the American political arena, he believes that this is the time for a call to amplify the underserved voices in black culture,” the press release says.
The 30-second spot was created by Pras, who was a founding member of the Fugees, along with agency McKinney and purpose-driven shop Leijas. It was directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “Southpaw”). It’s slated to run in the third quarter of the game.
O YouTube anunciou que começará a sinalizar vídeos que tenham ligação com grupos estatais ou políticos por meio de uma tarja. Pelas mudanças, empresas como a rede de televisão americana PBS passarão a ter uma tarja, afirmando que o conteúdo tem financiamento estatal. A mudança visa principalmente conter o crescimento da desinformação na era das “fake news”. O …
> LEIA MAIS: YouTube cria tarja para identificar vídeos-propaganda
Série representa a maior compra de espaço de mídia já feita pela Toyota
> LEIA MAIS: Super Bowl 2018: Toyota terá três comerciais e dois já estão no ar
Publicis Groupe made headlines last summer for announcing that it would forbid all its agencies from entering any work into ad industry awards shows for one year. The inherent implication was that none of its employees would be attending, either.
An internal Re:Sources email confirming the policy stated that all Publicis entities “will not participate in any vendor conferences, industry trade shows and/or award shows effective July 1. This is mandatory and exceptions will not be approved. … Award/trade show ban is effective for the entire Groupe.”
The idea was that Publicis would be absent from all such events until its own VivaTech conference in August 2018, at which it will debut its AI platform Marcel, created in partnership with Microsoft.
This week, however, we learned that several top Publicis Groupe executives will, in fact, be attending Cannes in 2018 … as jury presidents.
In other words, Publicis leadership will very much be present in France over the summer. This might seem like a blatant contradiction, but Publicis wants us to know that it isn’t so.
Today a holding group spokesperson clarified. “Since the beginning of our 12-month pause from industry awards, festivals and events we’ve always been very clear,” the statement read. “This decision was taken so we could invest in our platform.”
That means Marcel, which is in the works even though we haven’t seen it in action yet. Now keep in mind this paragraph from Adweek’s original story:
According to an internal memo written by CEO Frank Voris of Publicis Groupe’s financial services unit, Re:Sources, Sadoun’s company is “looking for 2.5 percent cost synergies for 2018” and hopes to achieve those savings, at least in part, by “eliminating all award/trade shows for the next year.”
The key argument, though, is that it doesn’t count as long as Publicis isn’t paying for it … which would seem to reinforce the argument that this is primarily about saving money.
“We’re very happy for our people to participate in any kind of jury or panel as long as the festival concerned covers costs and expenses,” the spokesperson continued. “We’re delighted to say that Mark, Kate and of course Nick are participating in Cannes under these conditions, and we’re looking forward to coming back to the awards circuit with a bang in September 2018.”
Glad we cleared this up. And on that note, may the best work win!
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Don’t call it a comeback, but Wix is joining the Super Bowl as a last-minute addition. The company’s 30-second spot will feature two YouTube stars, Rhett and Link, to show off what you can do with Wix. The “Good Mythical Morning” hosting duo have more than 20 million subscribers across four channels. Airing during the…
The vast majority of Super Bowl campaigns, regardless of style or format, are ultimately about brands moving merchandise. The Big Game celebrates consumerism, be it embodied by beer, chips, cars or content management systems like Squarespace. One of this year’s ads, however, will be promoting something different: a new media brand. Hip-hop star Pras–who holds…
The auto game is starting to take shape.
Fiat Chrysler said on Friday it made a large Super Bowl buy, with plans to air five spots in the game, E.J. Schultz reports. In true Chrysler fashion, the automaker didn’t reveal any other details about which of its labels it will promote. It has made big impressions in the game over the years with spots including “Born of Fire,” starring Eminem for Chrysler, and “Halftime in America,” starring Clint Eastwood, also for Chrysler.
Toyota also upped its ad buy to three spots from two as it looks to push its Olympics and Paralympics sponsorships, according to Shultz. The automaker released two of its ads on Friday, one 60-second spot tear-jerker called “Good Odds,” which portrays the journey of Canadian Paralympic skier Lauren Woolstencroft from infant to gold medalist. The other, a 30-second spot, is a cut-down of an ad that first aired in October, squeezing 100 people of all ages into a 120-second video combining scenes of athletic training with Toyota’s mobility technologies. Toyota sat out of the game last year.
(TrendHunter.com) Designer Angela Friedman’s vintage silk lingerie is paired with French lace detailing to magnify its luxurious fashion appeal. The alluringly delicate pieces “bridge the gap between an…
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