Despite yet another report about users under 25 fleeing Facebook, ad agencies appear to be staying the course, regardless of whether they’ve been bullish or bearish on the world’s largest social network. According to new research from eMarketer, Facebook will lose 2 million monthly U.S. users under 25 this year, and it sees Snapchat picking…
BMW Motorrad’s short content film, ‘The Someday Ride’ follows two siblings on an exhilarating journey as they embark on the road trip of their dreams.
Creatively devised by M&C Saatchi and directed by Ben Perry, the rousing film aims to broaden what it means to be a motorcycle owner by engaging a new audience. Ben, who was involved early on in the film’s creation, subverted traditional motorcycle advertising with a cast of young, ethnically diverse characters.
The adventure spans an expansive array of landscapes and, being shot over four days, required extensive preproduction and precise scheduling to capture the range of locations. This involved shooting without artificial lighting and planning scenes according to sunlight hours.
Bookfest is the world’s biggest second-hand book sale. It raises funds for Lifeline, a crisis counseling hotline. Lifeline Bookfest is quite well known as an event in Australia, with tens of thousands of books on offer. So our job was to remind people about the thrill of the hunt. And do it in a way that awakens the theatre-of-the-mind that comes from reading books – and listening to the radio.
Having signed Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes, this streaming service is creating a parallel TV universe. But imitation isn’t the route to brilliance.
Songs with lyrics are permitted at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang for the first time. And because the Games are considered a “live event,” no special permission is required.
TBWAChiatDay New York announced today that it poached creative duo Amy Ferguson and Julia Neumann from MullenLowe New York. The two will come aboard as executive creative directors on March 1.
Julia Neumann and Amy Ferguson
Ferguson and Neumann were the first hires at MullenLowe New York, which brought them on in 2015 to oversee the JetBlue account. The pair have since produced JetBlue’s viral Mother’s Day film, “FlyBabies,” which won at Cannes Lions, The One Show, the Clio Awards and the Effies, among others.
“We’re at a pivotal point in our creative trajectory with opportunities that we can absolutely turn into great work, and we need leaders like Amy and Julia to push the work and level of craft to make the very most of them,” said Chris Beresford-Hill, TBWAChiatDay New York chief creative officer. Ferguson and Neumann will report directly to him.
Neumann started her career at Saatchi & Saatchi New York, where she won the agency’s first Cannes Lion for P&G’s Tide years before people asked whether this is a Tide ad. She also spent stints at Young & Rubicam New York, Wieden + Kennedy Portland and BBH New York.
Ferguson got her start as an intern at TBWAChiatDay, leading her to then take on her first full-time role as art director at the agency. She then moved to Grey New York and worked as a freelance creative director for several years before joining MullenLowe.
Outside the agency world, Neumann recently wrote and directed “Deporting Myself,” a short documentary about immigration, and Ferguson has produced her own line of greetings cards.
In addition to hiring Neumann and Ferguson, the agency also announced today the promotions of Walt Connelly and Evelyn Neil as executive creative directors. Connelly was named a global creative director in 2014 and Neil was hired by TBWAChiatDay New York in 2017 as a group creative director, after having served as a freelance creative director for the agency since 2016.
Frannie Rhodes, who joined the shop in 2016 as director of creative services, as been elevated to executive director of creative operations.
The CW is growing from five nights of programming to six next season. Starting in October, the network will expand its schedule to Sunday nights, for a total of 12 hours of prime-time shows each week. This will be the first time in nine years that The CW will program on Sunday nights. From 2006-2009,…
In 1929, the slaying of seven gangsters in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre delivered a wake-up call to Chicagoans and the American public about the destructive effects of Chicago’s notorious gangs. The aftermath of the violence began a new era of enforcement designed to clean up the gangs and ultimately marked the beginning of the…
Introducing THE WASHABLE BOOK, the world’s first picture story book that teaches the importance of hand-washing, while washing the pages. As the children wash the hands of the characters on each page, the colors of the illustrations are revealed with a special printing technology. At the same time they learn through the act of washing their hands that germ-free hands are key to a healthy future. All children have wishes for their future. However, in developing countries, 6000 children die every day from infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria which are transmitted via dirty hands. Angfa, a Japanese soap company wanted to teach them the importance of hand-washing to protect their lives and their future. Since its launch, the story of the WASHABLE BOOK spread through numerous media with over 1.5 billion impressions and increased sales of Angfa’s soap by 1730%. But most importantly, it’s changing children’s lives and making their wishes all the more real.
So what’s this all about?
Snowboarder Shaun White just did something historic at the 2018 Winter Olympics, but some of his personal history is complicating thingsfor him and for the media.
The tension between present and past is emerging in the increasingly schizophrenic coverage of White over the past 12 hours or so. On the one hand, there’s plenty of coverage that focuses primarily on his current triumph. For instance, “Shaun White Makes History With Gold Medal Win In Halfpipe” (subhead: “He became the first person to win three gold medals in Olympic snowboarding competitions”), per HuffPost. Or for something even more sympathetic and human-interest-y, here’s Us Weekly’s take: “Shaun White Cries as He Makes History With Third Olympic Gold Medal.”
PepsiCo giveth, and taketh away
On an earnings call Tuesday, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi cited the recent federal tax cut as allowing the food and beverage giant to pay bonuses of up to $1,000 for an unspecified number of workers in the U.S. What she failed to mention is that the company was also laying people off. The job cuts were later confirmed by the company, which stated that it is laying off “less than 1% of our U.S. workforce focused on corporate positions” as part of a “continuation of the 5-year, $5 billion productivity program we publicly announced in 2014.” As of Dec. 30, PepsiCo employed 263,000 people worldwide, including 113,000 people in the U.S., according to financial filings.
Drunk and happy in Philly
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 more than seven million smart TVs. The ads here ran on national TV for the first time yesterday.
A few highlights: In an ad celebrating diversity that’s set to the 4 Non Blondes song “What’s Up,” Procter & Gamble says that “Hugs don’t care who give them” and “Equations don’t care who solve them.” RuPaul declares that “This Valentine’s Day, I’m my own sweetheart” while using a Google Pixel 2 phone for some selfie-love. And Denny’s announces that its all-you-can-eat pancake deal will be ending on “Neversday” at “never o’clock.”
The production of “Harry Clarke,” a one-man show starring Billy Crudup, is the latest step in the audiobook maker’s investment in contemporary theater.
(TrendHunter.com) Demand for traditional sodas that are made with sugars or sweeteners has decreased immensely, which is seeing the need for new alternatives like the ‘FEEL’ bottle come about. Capable of…
Leo Burnett has promoted Kieran Ots, a 20-year veteran of the agency, to executive vice president and executive creative director of its Chicago office, effective immediately.
Ots served nearly two decades at Leo Burnett Sydney in the role of digital creative director.
Kieran Ots spent 20 years at Leo Burnett Sydney before being promoted in Chicago
“Kieran is a strong leader with a gift for creating ideas that connect deeply with humans, regardless of medium,” said Britt Nolan, Leo Burnet Chicago chief creative officer. “He approaches business issues with creative solutions—not just ads. Kieran is the perfect fit to help us continue our transformation.”
Ots will report directly to Nolan and oversee the creative direction for client Samsung. He previously contributed to the Samsung account in Sydney, according to a statement from Leo Burnett.
Before bringing Ots to Chicago, Nolan oversaw the Samsung work himself.
Ots is most recognized for having led a series of digital projects in 2013 for the Australian Bureau of Statistics in which a team raised awareness of census data among Australians. One part of that included creating smartphone game, Run That Town, which had players reject and approve proposals for their own neighborhoods. The outcome would either please or piss off residents, based on real demographic data collected in 2011. The game won Gold at Cannes Lions in the creative data category.
Ots has also worked with Leo Burnett clients Canon, McDonald’s and Subaru.
Global experience agency Huge today announced the appointment of Dick de Lange as managing director and global head of planning. De Lange served as chief strategy officer of North America at Young & Rubicam before leaving in January. When his resignation was announced in December, a Y&R spokesperson said de Lange was leaving “to pursue…
The CW is adding a sixth night of original programming to its lineup next season, joinining its much larger broadcast rivals with first-run shows on Sunday nights.
The move shows that even as traditional TV networks invest more in their digital and streaming initiatives, The CW, which historically has attracted a younger audience than its broadcast counterparts, is still investing in the linear model.
“Broadcasting remains the foundation of our multi-platform approach to bringing our programming to viewers,” Mark Pedowitz, president of The CW, said in a statement. “Over the past seven years, The CW has added more than 80 hours of original scripted programming to its schedulenow that number can continue to climb, as we grow our broadcast lineup, and continue to add content on every platform.”
Another showrunner who has a been a staple for traditional TV is decamping for Netflix. Ryan Murphy, whose series like “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson” have been both critical and pop-culture hits for Fox Networks Group, has signed a five-year deal with Netflix that once again leaves a network group searching for its next hit-maker.
Shonda Rhimes, who is responsible for key ABC hits such as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” announced in August that she was taking her Shondaland banner to Netflix, ending her 15-year relationship with the alphabet network.
Following Rhimes’ move, Murphy’s departure should put other traditional TV networks on alert. As Netflix looks to spend as much as $8 billion on content this year, it could very easily go after other networks’ key showrunners. The CW is currently airing six series from Greg Berlanti with several more in development; Chuck Lorre is a staple for CBS comedy; and Dick Wolf’s “Chicago” franchise along with “Law & Order: SVU” make up a big chunk of NBC’s drama slate.
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