Hasta La Creative!

When it comes to the fifth generation of mobile technology, the sales pitch is relatively simple: Everything will be faster and everything will be connected.

Time will tell whether that will indeed be true. Still, companies are placing their bets with so-called smart cities, and trying to sell the idea that they’ll alleviate traffic congestion, reduce pollution, and improve public safety and city infrastructure. At CES in Las Vegas this week, AT&T, for example, said it will connect street lights to its network so it can track energy usage and outages.

This also presents an opportunity for better targeted ads. Some $34 billion will be spent on smart cities by 2020, a portion of which will be offset through companies offering to build out bus shelters, lamp posts that monitor foot traffic and interactive digital screens in exchange for ad space, according to the Consumer Technology Assocation.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

It’s safe to say that carbohydrates, sugars, protein and polyunsaturated fat contents were not a big topic of conversation in the Middle Ages. But that is not stopping from Bud Light from inserting a discussion about nutrition facts labeling into its medieval-themed “Dilly Dilly” campaign.

The new ads come as the nation’s largest beer brand adds a comprehensive list of ingredient labels to its packaging. One of the spots shows the campaign’s king character rehearsing a speech about putting the labels on every case of Bud Light. Another ad (at bottom) shows the labels being spread across the medieval kingdom via bow-and-arrow.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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: The Geico Gecko holds a yard salebut doesn’t really want to get rid of any of his stuff. Lowe’s serves up another installment in its series of “The moment when…” ads. And a Hardee’s manager screams “Traitor! Burgers need fire!” (It’ll make sense once you watch the ad.)

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The demarcation between pleasingly relevant and Big Brother creepy is increasingly amorphousand definitely in the eye of the beholder. As a consumer, you’d like to believe your personal data is protected. At the same time, most of us welcome, if not expect, the personalization that sites like Amazon and Netflix use to enhance your shopping experience. It’s a fine line that more and more businesses are straddling.

But what if your company enables other marketers to push right up to that line? How do you make sure your technology is seen as a force of good? To answer this question and more, I spoke with Mark Floisand, chief marketing officer of Coveo, a company whose AI-powered search technology plugs into massive marketing platforms like Salesforce, GoogleApps, YouTube and Sitecore. For laymen, this means they enable personalization at scale, something Floisand firmly believes is not just a positive but also a prerequisite for success in the digital world.

What’s the thinking behind your “Make Business Personal” tagline?

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Barbara Gardner Proctor, a trailblazing Chicago businesswoman who brought the Beatles’ music to Americaliterallyas a Vee-Jay Records executive, has died at 85, according to her son, Morgan.

He said she died Dec. 19 at Chicago’s Fairmont Care Center after falling and injuring her hip, adding, “She was in the throes of dementia.”

Proctor was best known as the founder, in 1970, of the first ad agency owned by an African-American woman. She borrowed $1,000 from a friend in the Count Basie Band and rented space above Pizzeria Uno. Her billings grew into the millions as she labored to land Jewel Food Stores and then Kraft and other mass-market consumer companies as clients.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The R&B star has enjoyed fame despite decades of claims that he’s abused teenage girls. Why?

When AT&T acquired AppNexus last year, it was the latest chapter in the emerging narrative of the rise of the super publisher. By way of definition, super publishers are scaled, vertically integrated companies like AT&T, Amazon and the Verizon Media Group (formerly Oath), who have shaken up the digital ad landscape, in some cases through…

A empresa de pesquisa de marketing Murphy Research recentemente conduziu uma pesquisa para o Snapchat para descobrir o que exatamente os usuários sentem ao acessar e manusear as principais redes sociais do mercado. O estudo, publicado na Snap Business com o título “Apposphere: How the Apps You Use Impact Your Daily Life and Emotions” (algo …

O post Estudo mostra que pessoas usam Snapchat para se sentirem felizes e Twitter para ficarem deprimidas apareceu primeiro em B9.

Heineken is out with a new beer campaign that shows people drinking at work and behind the wheel. No, it hasn’t gone roguethe brewer is just advertising a new alcohol-free beer by seizing on the freedom to market it for situations, like driving, that are normally off-limits for alcohol purveyors.

The brand, called Heineken 0.0, first debuted in Spain in 2016 and is hitting U.S. stores and bars now amid signs that more people are swearing off alcohol, or at least drinking less. “Dry January,” for which people commit to giving up drinking for a month after the holidays, has risen in popularity, for instance, while “Sober October” is taking hold internationally.

The sobriety trend is not a good thing for beer marketers, as sales are already slumping. The industry was down 1 percent in volume in the U.S. last year, Beer Marketer’s Insights recently reported, citing Nielsen data for the year-to-date period through Dec. 29. Some of the nation’s biggest beer brands, like Bud Light and Coors Light, were down more than 6 percent, according to Beer Marketer’s.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

When it comes to the fifth generation of mobile technology, the sales pitch is relatively simple: Everything will be faster and everything will be connected.

Time will tell whether that will indeed be true. Still, companies are placing their bets with so-called smart cities, and trying to sell the idea that they’ll alleviate traffic congestion, reduce pollution, and improve public safety and city infrastructure. At CES in Las Vegas this week, AT&T, for example, said it will create connect street lights to its network so it can track energy usage and outages.

This also presents an opportunity for better targeted ads. Some $34 billion will be spent on smart cities by 2020, a portion of which will be offset through companies offering to build out bus shelters, lamp posts that monitor foot traffic and interactive digital screens in exchange for ad space, according to the Consumer Technology Assocation.

Continue reading at AdAge.com