Hasta La Creative!

He oversaw the expansion of U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings, a boon to high school seniors but also a target of criticism.

While the move to a self-serve advertising platform in June 2017 sparked a rise in the number of advertisers on Snapchat, it also resulted in lower ad prices on the platform, according to the latest forecast from research outfit eMarketer. eMarketer lowered its projection for 2018 net digital ad revenues in the U.S. to $662.1…

Levi’s is going all in to get voters out — casting their ballots on Election Day. Ahead of National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25, the 165-year-old denim brand is debuting a new TV spot encouraging voting. It will also host voter registration booths in select stores and sell a limited edition “Vote” T-shirt.

The Levi’s push is a concerted effort from a brand that hasn’t shied away from controversial issues. Earlier this month, Chief Executive Chip Bergh penned a letter in Fortune magazine pledging the brand’s support in ending gun violence. “As a company, we have never been afraid to take an unpopular stand to support a greater good,” Bergh wrote.

Taking a stance on voting could help the San Francisco-based apparel brand connect with younger consumers, experts say. Larry Chiagouris, professor of marketing at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business, notes that voting registration campaigns can help a brand appeal to a certain group of consumers without “antagonizing other segments.” He notes that it’s an issue that appeals to all.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Dunkin’ Donuts was actually born out of a different restaurant’s name. William Rosenberg opened his Open Kettle restaurant in 1948 in Quincy, Massachusetts. He served five-cent doughnuts and 10-cent cups of coffee. And he renamed the restaurant Dunkin’ Donuts in 1950.

The change comes 12 years after Dunkin’ Donuts began running ads featuring the tagline “America Runs on Dunkin’,” created by its former longtime creative agency, Hill Holliday.

“Dunkin’ is a shorter, simpler more modern version of who we’ve always been,” says Tony Weisman, who joined Dunkin’ a year ago as U.S. chief marketing officer.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

When it comes to a brand crisis, it’s not a matter of if but when, according to Endeavor CMO Bozoma Saint John, who emphasized her point to Brandweek attendees by humming the theme song from Jaws. To prepare for the inevitable disaster, and manage it well, Saint John believes brands need to look internally at…

While Snapchat is often viewed as the platform of choice for teens, 80 percent of the messaging application’s users in the U.S. are actually of voting age, so the company teamed up with nonprofit, nonpartisan organization TurboVote to encourage those people to get to the polls. Snapchat marked National Voter Registration Day Tuesday by announcing…

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger abruptly departed the company Monday night, leaving the future of the Facebook-owned app uncertain. In a statement, Systrom, Instagram’s CEO, wrote that he and Krieger were “ready for our next chapter.” “We’re planning on leaving Instagram to explore our curiosity and creativity again,” Systrom wrote. “Building new things…

The latest in the name-shortening branding trend involves the stuff that America runs on: coffee. In what it calls an extension of its “first-name basis” with fans, the chain formerly known as Dunkin’ Donuts announced at its Global Franchise Convention that it’s now just Dunkin’. “Dunkin’ Donuts has been on a first-name basis with its…