FCA, the U.S. subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, said Friday that it is readying five commercials to air during Super Bowl LII on Sunday, with a focus on the Jeep and Ram brands. No details were revealed about the creative work for the spots. One spot will air in the first quarter, two in the…
“Next up”
With those words, the anonymous Instagram account that’s been taking deadly aim at prominent men in the ad industry announces its next intended target. Since January, the account, “Diet Madison Avenue,” has been naming and shaming industry execs it says have engaged in sexual harassment. In the past month, it’s become a twisted parlor game within the industry: Who’s next?
Well, we know who was last: Droga5 chief creative officer Ted Royer, who was let go Thursday, and who was one of three executives named in the account who became the subjects of internal investigations within those agencies, and have since left their jobs.
In the ’90s, the commercial became the show as infomercials ruled the night. Were we all just looking for televised Prozac?
The Charleston Gazette-Mail has long had a reputation as a scrappy and tenacious local watchdog, but it isn’t immune to the pressures of the industry.
Last summer, Wingstop worried about the Super Bowl.
Demand for chicken wings typically ebbs during the summer months, pushing prices down. That lets the restaurant chain, with more than 1,000 U.S. locations, stock up on its key product for the busy football season, which culminates on Sunday with the Super Bowl.
But something was off in 2017. Chicken wings, growing in popularity for years, were everywhere. That included the convenience store chain 7-Eleven Inc., whose promotion helped drain supply and send prices surging as much as 34 percent to a record $2.16 a pound in September from a year earlier.
Finding the right influencer partner for your brand can be tricky. In recent memory there have been events ranging from the disaster that was the Fyre Festival to the downfall of Logan Paul, that have demonstrated to brands the potential pitfalls that can come from working with influencers. AI influencer technology company Influential and OMD…
Between gearing up for Sunday’s Super Bowl and lots of news around different social ad products, it’s been a busy week in digital marketing. Here are five data points that stood out: 1. Is the Super Bowl worth it? Every year, marketers wonder if pricey $5 million Super Bowl ads actually drive sales–or at the…
Last summer, Wingstop worried about the Super Bowl.
Demand for chicken wings typically ebbs during the summer months, pushing prices down. That lets the restaurant chain, with more than 1,000 U.S. locations, stock up on its key product for the busy football season, which culminates on Sunday with the Super Bowl.
But something was off in 2017. Chicken wings, growing in popularity for years, were everywhere. That included the convenience store chain 7-Eleven Inc., whose promotion helped drain supply and send prices surging as much as 34 percent to a record $2.16 a pound in September from a year earlier.
As i mentioned on Monday, a fabulously perceptive and captivating exhibition titled Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald / Disappearing Legacies: The World as a Forest opened at the Zoological Museum in Hamburg back in November. The show follows on the footsteps of Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist who, over 150 years ago, (co-)formulated the principle of species evolution during research trips to South America and Southeast Asia. 150 years is not a very long time. Yet, if Wallace were to return to these tropical habitats, chances are that he would not recognized them. The rainforests have been destroyed at a very rapid pace by heavy logging, agricultural clearance and urbanisation. Large numbers of species have been driven to extinction in the process. Would Wallace still be able to develop the theory of evolution through natural selection in this context?
Exhibition view (entry lithograph of Amazonia.) Photo: ReassemblingNature.org, Michael Pfisterer
Armin Linke, Orangutan in the Tanjung Puting National Park, Kumai, Kalimantan Tengah (Borneo) Indonesia, 2017. Photo: © Armin Linke
Disappearing Legacies: The World as a Forest gathers contemporary artworks as well as zoological and botanical objects to investigate the changes in the tropical regions that Wallace once traveled and to shed light on the ecological issues faced by today’s fauna and flora of Amazon, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
The show also interrogates our traditional concept of nature: how can it be mediated and maintained in a context characterized by extinction, deforestation and climate change?
The artworks are exhibited inside the main exhibition space of the museum and not in a dedicated, white space gallery. The curatorial decision means that families who enter the space to see taxidermied bears and exotic flowers are confronted with challenging questions and artifacts they might not otherwise get a chance to explore in such details. It might look like an unusual curating choice to some but i thought it was a brilliant move as 1. I’m always in favour of broadening the audience of contemporary artworks 2. by installing the works in the middle of a traditional Museum of Natural History, the curators invite us to reflect on the role that such an institution should play in the age of the anthropocene and Sixth Mass Extinction. Is our knowledge about biology and evolution in need of an update?
Here’s a quick and very partial tour of the exhibition:
Shannon Lee Castleman, Tree Wounds, Muna Island, Southeast Sulawesi, 2010-2011
Shannon Lee Castleman, Tree Wounds, Muna Island, Southeast Sulawesi, 2010-2011
Shannon Lee Castleman, Tree Wounds, Muna Island, Southeast Sulawesi, 2010-2011. Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald. Photo: UHH/CeNak, Reiss
I was very moved by the Tree Wound photographs that Shannon Lee Castleman took during a field trip to Muna Island in Indonesia.
While visiting the island, the artist noticed enormous wounds on many of the older teak trees in the conservation forest. These forests are older teak plantations that have been awarded “conservation” forest status—not because of bio-diversity (which was devastated by timber planting in the 19th and 20th centuries) but because former plantations maintain the water table for the island. Castleman was told that since felling teak in these forests is illegal, impoverished villagers who pass by large teak trees will give a tree one cut with an axe after another … until finally the tree falls or dies and no-one is to blame.
The portraits of these wounded trees recount, on a micro-scale, the tragedy of deforestation and illegal logging taking place all over the world.
Julian Oliver & Crystelle V?, Extinction Gong, 2017
Julian Oliver & Crystelle V?, Extinction Gong (details at the back of the gong), 2017
The Extinction Gong, by Julian Oliver and Crystelle V?, is a ceremonial automaton for the Sixth Mass Extinction.
The Chinese ‘Chao Gong’ beats to the rhythm of species extinction, estimated by biologist E.O. Wilson to be about 27,000 losses every year, or once every 19 minutes. Even though this is a conservative estimate, it is still much higher than the average background rate (the non-anthropogenically influenced extinction rates) of plant, animal and insect species extinction.
Should biologists declare a new species extinct while the Extinction Gong is active it will receive an update via a 3g link and perform a special ceremony: four strikes in quick succession alongside a text-to-speech utterance of the Latin Name of the species lost, resonating through the gong.
The front side of the Chinese ‘Chao Gong’ is painted with the Extinction Symbol, the official mark of the Sixth Mass Extinction. The back, however, reveals the engineering of the artwork.
“This diametric expresses a brutal and contradicting irony – while advances in science and technology augment the devastating impact of human endeavours over wild habitats, so are they our best means of studying and understanding it.”
I found the work extremely moving. It gives presence and dignity to insects, plants and animals who disappear quietly while most of us remain deaf and indifferent to the loss of biodiversity.
Robert Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists, Useful Nature, Useless Nature, 2017
Robert Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists, Useful Nature, Useless Nature, 2017
Robert Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists, Useful Nature, Useless Nature, 2017
Over the past few years, Robert Zhao Renhui has been documenting the ways in which the human species is altering other life forms. Directly or indirectly. His photographic works show animals, insects and plants that had to evolve in order to cope with the pressures of a fast changing world or as the direct result of human intervention and for purposes ranging from scientific research to the desire for ornamentation.
For the exhibition in Hamburg, the artist focused his research on insects. Over a single day, Zhao gathered insect carcasses from windows, insect traps, house corners and other crevices in his studio in Singapore. The carcasses reveal the wide variety of insect life that co-exists with human beings yet go largely unnoticed.
The carcasses are neatly aligned in one exhibition window. A nearby display features a collection of gadgets and chemicals used to repel and kill insects.
One of the questions raised by Zhao regards our selective love for nature and for insects in particular: why do we classify some species as useful resources or products while we regard others as pests or vermin? What gives us the right to celebrate some, tolerate others and wipe out a third group of insects?
The work is sadly echoed by the result of recent studies that observed that insect populations have dramatically plummeted in Germany: the researchers counted that the country hosts 76 percent flying insects compared to 30 years ago.
Lower jaw of the critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceros in the CT scanner of YXLON. Photo: Reassembling the Natural / Etienne Turpin, 2017
Skull of the critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceros in the CT scanner of YXLON. Photo: Reassembling the Natural / Etienne Turpin, 2017
As rhinoceros horns are in high demand on the black market, even the skulls of the already dead animals have been stolen from zoological museums. On the occasion of Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest, CT-scanner developer Xylon International produced a high-res scan of a Sumatran rhinoceros skull from the Mammal Collection of the CeNak. Even the horn of the specimen was cut off before it was acquired for the collections.
Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno, Riau, (Sumatra) Indonesia. Photo: Reassembling the Natural/Anna-Sophie Springer, 2017
Drone Akademi Indonesia, Indonesian Province of Riau, Sumatra. Photo: Reassembling the Natural/Etienne Turpin, 2017
In 2014 activist geographer Radjawali Irendra founded Akademi Drone Indonesia (ADI), an organisation dedicated to research, education and policy surrounding unmanned vehicles for terrestrial and aquatic research and an advocacy interested in environmental issues.
Indigenous communities and poor people whose land rights are threatened use ADI’s drones to collect detailed spatial data, create their own aerial imagery and challenge official narratives.
Paulo Tavares, Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments, 2017. Satellite and ground identification of the ancient village of Bö’u, the old geopolitical center of the Xavante territory of Marãiwatsédé, which is still outside their demarcated land. Credit: Bö’u Association/autonoma
Paulo Tavares, Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments, 2017. Policarpo Tserenhorã and Domingos Hö’awari conduct botanic inventory research in the cemetery site of the ancient settlement of Tsinõ. Credit: Bö’u Association/autonoma
From the early 1950s to the late 1960s, the A’uwe – Xavante people, an indigenous nation of Brazilian Amazon was subjected to a brutal land dispossession and forced removals to open space for giant cattle farms and soy plantation. The campaign was part of a strategy of territorial colonisation that the Brazilian military described as “occupying demographic voids.”
In 1966 the A’uwe of Marãiwatséde were deported from their ancestral land in an operation led by the Brazilian Air Force. In 1974, the State Indigenous Agency (FUNAI) emitted a certificate attesting that this territory wasn’t indigenous land anymore.
In collaboration with the Bö’u Xavante Association of Marãiwatséde, a team led by architect Paulo Tavares conducted a forensic analysis of the sites, mapping and surveying their ancient villages and cemeteries in order to provide evidence of their ancestral possession of this territory.
The sites studied display very similar feature in that a patch of vegetation had grown precisely in the arc-like shape of the ancient village. Made of a combination between medium and large trees, palms and other types of plants and vines, these botanic formations contain certain species that are associates with Xavante traditional occupation and land managing systems.
The botanic formations are the equivalent to an architectural ruin. Some of the questions raised by this research into forest wilderness/domestication include:
Can we claim trees, vines and palms to be historic monuments? Is the forest an “urban heritage” of indigenous designs?
Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares, Forest Law, 2014. Installation view
Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen, Savane Du Sud (Pirouette), 2017
I’ll leave you with more images from the show and a text from Alfred Russel Wallace that reads like it has been written yesterday and not in 1910:
Yet during the past century, which has seen those great advances in the knowledge of Nature of which we are so proud, there has been no corresponding development of a love or reverence for her works; so that never before has there been such widespread ravage of the earth’s surface by destruction of native vegetation and with it of much animal life, and such wholesale defacement of the earth by mineral workings and by pouring into our streams and rivers the refuse of manufactories and of cities; and this has been done by all the greatest nations claiming the first place for civilisation and religion! And what is worse, the greater part of this waste and devastation has been and is being carried on, not for any good or worthy purpose, but in the interest of personal greed and avarice; so that in every case, while wealth has increased in the hands of the few, millions are still living without the bare necessaries for a healthy or a decent life, thousands dying yearly of actual starvation, and other thousands being slowly or suddenly destroyed by hideous diseases or accidents, directly caused in this cruel race for wealth, and in almost every case easily preventable. Yet they are not prevented, solely because to do so would somewhat diminish the profits of the capitalists and legislators who are directly responsible for this almost world-wide defacement and destruction, and virtual massacre of the ignorant and defenceless workers.
Alfred Russel Wallace, 1910
“Natives of Aru shooting the great bird of paradise”, in Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, 1869
Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen, Savane Du Sud Dessus, 2016
Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald. Photo: UHH/CeNak, Reiss
Beetle drawings in Alfred Russel Wallace’s Natural History Notebook, 1854. Photo: Reassembling the Natural/Etienne Turpin, 2014. Courtesy Linnean Society London
Palm oil plantation in the Indonesian province of Riau, Sumatra. Photo: Reassembling the Natural/Etienne Turpin, 2016.
Mark Dion, Monument for the Anthropocene, 2014
Exhibition view (Wallace panel / Mark Dion rhino replica.) Photo: ReassemblingNature.org, Michael Pfisterer
Exhibition view. Photo: ReassemblingNature.org, Michael Pfisterer
Exhibition view. Photo: ReassemblingNature.org, Michael Pfisterer
Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald. Photo: UHH/CeNak, Reiss
Barbara Marcel, The Open Forest, 2017. Still from the Videoessay
Barbara Marcel, The Open Forest, 2017. Still from the video essay
Armin Linke, Palm oil plantation, Kecematan Bataian Kabupaten Rokan Hilir (Sumatra) Indonesia, 2017. Photo: © Armin Linke
Armin Linke, Fighting fire in the peatland, Kecematan Bataian Kabupaten Rokan Hilir (Sumatra) Indonesia, 2017. Photo: © Armin Linke
Armin Linke, Inagritech International Agricultural Machinery fair, truck for palm oil collection, Jakarta Indonesia, 2017. Photo: © Armin Linke
Previously: Palm oil, peatfires, Nutella and the anthropocene.
Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest / Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald remains open until 29 March 2018 at the Zoological Museum in Hamburg.
The exhibition is free.
Prof. Anna Tsing will give a keynote lecture on 26 March in the context of the Hamburg exhibition. On 26 April a second version of the exhibition will open at Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin. In the fall, a third iteration of the exhibition will open in Halle/Saale.
Global digital experience design agency Critical Mass welcomed two senior hires to its New York office. Pedro Laboy joins the agency in the newly-created role of chief data innovation officer and Steve Susi arrives as executive creative director. The agency also promoted Sara Anhorn to the new role of senior vice president, talent.
“Critical Mass has been a digital agency since our inception, and we have continued to evolve ourselves and our services at the speed of digital,” Critical Mass CEO Diane Wilkins said in a statement. “Adding data innovation leadership to our already thriving Marketing Science capability tees us up to help clients navigate the data transformation landscape and develop more comprehensive pictures of the end customers we all serve. I’m honored to have Pedro join our team to help make that happen.”
Susi rejoins Critical Mass from Amazon, where he spent nearly six years as executive creative director, U.K. and international, following a little over a year as a creative director for American Express. During his first stint at Critical Mass he spent four and a half years as a creative director, leading digital creative.
“I’m honored to have Steve come on board again in our New York office,” Critical Mass president Chris Gokiert said in a statement. “As Amazon continues to exert its increasingly powerful influence over the global economy, including as an advertising platform, Steve’s experience and long-standing relationship will serve as a powerful asset for us. What’s more, all of our teams and clients across the board will benefit from his multifaceted creative leadership.”
Laboy joins Critical Mass from MRM//McCann, where he spent the past three years as executive vice president, marketing transformation and analytics. Prior to that he spent three years as president for MDC Partners’ data-driven digital marketing and communications agency Attention and a year as chief strategy officer for social analytics platform Tracx.
“I am excited to be joining such an industry-leading organization known for exceptional customer experience design,” Laboy said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Critical Mass’ amazing team to support our clients with data-driven innovation, integrated data technology solutions, and partnerships that deliver superb customer experiences and drive business results.”
Anhorn is an agency veteran of over 15 years and spent the past two and a half serving as vice president, project management. Prior to that she spent six years as vice president, operations for Critical Mass’ Calgary office. She originally joined the Calgary office as a senior project manager in 2000.
“My experience within Project Delivery and Global Business Operations divisions has given me an appreciation and deep understanding of how we work, what matters to our employees, and what trends are going to shape the employee experience in the future,” Anhorn said in a statement.
The New York Times confirmed yesterday that it will retain the services of its creative agency Droga5 after news broke that chief creative officer Ted Royer had been placed on leave and then fired.
Yesterday evening, the paper itself reported on Royer’s departure, citing Adweek’s coverage of his exit and noting that the agency had alerted Times’ leadership to these developments. It included the following quote from an NYT spokesperson:
“As we have seen repeatedly, the issue of appropriate workplace conduct has impacted most industries and we were very concerned when Droga let us know this news. Based on what we know now, we’re comfortable continuing to work with our team there.”
The piece by Times advertising reporter Sapna Maheshwari also referenced “nonspecific official statements” released by several agencies to accompany recent news of departing executives such as The Martin Agency’s Joe Alexander, Wieden + Kennedy’s Paul Colman and Publicis Seattle’s Andrew Christou.
Droga5 told Adweek on Tuesday that it had hired an outside firm to conduct an investigation of Royer, and an internal email from CEO Sarah Thompson later alluded to this claim. An agency spokesperson declined to share any information about the firm it reportedly hired with Adweek or The New York Times, adding, “This is a legal matter now.”
David Droga also spoke to the NYT yesterday, stating that the reported investigation was part of an effort to “understand what’s really going on.” It is unclear whether this investigation is ongoing.
The news comes days after the agency released the latest spot in its signature New York Times campaign “The Truth Is Hard.” This ad concerns the Times’ reporting on the NFL’s concussion crisis.
A Super Bowl ad is a huge investment for any brand, but especially for smaller companies. The question is: Are they worth the cost? And are they equally beneficial for small and big brands? Crimson Hexagon analyzed the social media conversations about the 77 major commercials from last year’s Super Bowl to understand the impact…
Toyota’s Super Bowl appearance will be its biggest to date with three in-game ads created by the brand’s agencies of record, Saatchi & Saatchi and Dentsu. Two of the three spots debuted today. The third will roll out on Saturday, the day before Super Bowl LII. “This is an unprecedented opportunity for our team at…
You can’t take Tom Brady home and stick him inside a cage after he leads the New England Patriots to victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s Super Bowl. (Go Pats!) You can, however, adopt Cuddles, the quarterback in Annie’s Homegrown Bunny Bowl II, after today’s livestreamed action on Facebook, beginning at 1 p.m. ET….
T-Mobile is back in the Super Bowl with an ad involving Kerry Washington. Last year, T-Mobile had four spots–starring celebrities like Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart–in the Big Game. It’s unclear how the brand will use Washington, what the spot will be about or when it will air, as a representative for the…
In a major leadership shakeup, Leo Burnett Worldwide global president and CEO Rich Stoddart left the agency this week. The network’s global chief creative officer, Mark Tutssel, has been moved into the executive chairman role while retaining his previous title. Late last year, Publicis eliminated all global CEO titles, meaning Tutssel will effectively replace Stoddart…
Audi will sit out the Super Bowl after appearing in the game the previous two years. The luxury brand was one of the few remaining big auto marketers that had not confirmed its plans as of Thursday, but a spokeswoman today confirmed Audi won’t be coming back.
“[The] Super Bowl and the NFL remain important platforms for reaching our customers. This year, we’re focusing our marketing efforts later in the year when our new models reach the market,” she said in an email.
Audi in the 2017 game ran a 60-second spot called “Daughter” by Venables Bell & Partners promoting equal pay for men and women that drew praise but also some backlash, with some critics pointing to the majority-male makeup of the brand’s executive team. But Audi executives were pleased with the ad, which achieved a third-place ranking on the USA Today Ad Meter.
Seguindo na tentativa de popularizar a reforma da Previdência no país, o Governo Federal criou um anúncio não inspirado, mas inteiro mesmo nos moldes do famoso comercial do Posto Ipiranga. O anúncio será divulgado oficialmente na semana que vem, e traz o diálogo entre uma mulher que para o carro para fazer perguntas e pedir …
> LEIA MAIS: “Posto da Previdência”: Governo Federal copia comercial do Posto Ipiranga para promover reforma
Enquanto o Instagram segue ampliando a janela e as possibilidades para anunciantes no Stories, o Snapchat está testando seu próprio valor comercial para se manter vivo no mercado. Nesta última quinta-feira (1), a empresa lançou uma loja virtual própria dentro de seu aplicativo, uma seção nova e intitulada Snap Store onde os usuários podem comprar …
> LEIA MAIS: Snapchat abre sua própria lojinha dentro do aplicativo
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