Hasta La Creative!

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 eight million smart TVs. The ads here ran on national TV for the first time yesterday.

A few highlights: Taco Bell says that “love makes you do crazy things”like risking “movie jail” when you sneak a Taco Bell Triple Double Crunchwrap into the theater. The NFL hypes the new season of football with a spot that subtly captures the thrill of the game and ends with the tagline “Ready, set, NFL.” And Samsung thinks you’ll be totally transfixed by the “captivating color” and “gripping 4K” of its 82-inch QLED TV.

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This year’s Best Places to Workdeadline to enter is 5 p.m. todaylooks different than it has in the past.

Along with our new partner, Latitude, we have refoused our efforts on criteria that best reflect a healthy work environment, and have ensured that the playing field is even for companies big and small.

The survey encompasses such factors as a company’s diversity and inclusion policies, and whether it has grown its bottom line. Questions include the structures in place for employee advancement, compensation and profit sharing, the benefits you offer (think: maternity and paternity leaves), and the makeup of your workforce (what percentage of your U.S. employees would you classify as belonging to a minority or multicultural group, for instance?). They also look at the resources available to your employees, from mentoring programs to “creative playtime.”

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A survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee has led the party to a glum conclusion regarding President Donald Trump’s signature legislative achievement: Voters overwhelmingly believe his tax overhaul helps the wealthy instead of average Americans.

By a 2-to-1 margin61 percent to 30 percentrespondents said the law benefits “large corporations and rich Americans” over “middle class families,” according to the survey, which was completed on Sept. 2 by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by Bloomberg News.

The result was fueled by self-identified independent voters who said by a 36-point margin that large corporations and rich Americans benefit more from the tax lawa result that was even more lopsided among Democrats. Republican voters said by a 38-point margin that the middle class benefits more.

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While brands have experimented with augmented reality on surfaces ranging from murals to milk cartons, a Finnish pop star is using the technology to layer herself into a comic book. To promote her sold-out show next month, Sanni, one of Finland’s favorite artists, and her label Warner Music Finland decided to insert her into Finland’s…

The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB) introduced two new Advertising Assurance resources today, the Brand Safety Floor and the Brand Suitability Framework. “The best thing for the industry is transparency” and moving away from “fragmented standards,” UM executive vice president, chief digital and innovation officer Joshua Lowcock told Adweek. He…

It seems like every week a new whitepaper announces a revolutionary blockchain technology that will eliminate fraud and the 50 percent ad-tech tax, ushering in a new age of transparency, performance and profit. At its core, distributed ledger technology (DLT) really does have the power to transform an industry and unlock massive value for advertisers…

Adobe fired shots across several bows with its $4.75 billion deal to buy Marketo, which will help it compete in marketing services against Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and even the great powers of digital advertising, Google and Facebook.

Perhaps more than anyone else, however, Adobe sent a message to Salesforce, widely considered the market leader in business-to-business and sales marketing services. The Marketo deal was announced just days ahead of Salesforce Dreamforce, an annual mega-conference in San Francisco that attacts roughly 170,000. This year’s installment starts Monday.

“Adobe clearly stated their intention to expand their Marketing Cloud to compete more effectively with the leading players in marketing automation and customer relationship management space, and this is a first major step down that path,” says Ryan Duguid, chief evangelist at Nintex, a workflow automation platform.

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It doesn’t mention any competitors by name, but Ford’s latest commercial for the segment-leading F-150 pickup is meant to remind viewers where the Chevrolet Silverado and Ram 1500 stand, even after both were redesigned this year.

The 30-second spot, called “Big Dog,” reinforces the nameplate’s leadership in the full-size pickup segment and features a Great Dane, sand sculptures and comedian Denis Leary, a veteran of F-150 ads.

“This year was really about reiterating F-150’s standing and how that looms big over the competition,” Paul Trillo, the commercial’s director, told Automotive News. “The rest of the trucks on the market are sort of in F-150’s shadow, so no matter what they do, they are always going to be below the big dog.”

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