Last night at the 65th Annual Creative Arts Emmys, Grey New York and MJZ director Nicolai Fuglsig won the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial for their Canon “Inspired” commercial. That’s the one with the tire on fire rolling down the hill.
The two other ads in the running this year were BBH’s Google Chrome “Jess Time” and CP+B’s Grey Poupon “The Chase.”
L.A.-based Zambezi, which has given us NBA 2K14 Lebron spots and vitaminwater ads as of late, regales us with a story about unplugging for a bit, meaning abandoning email for a day (like we did over vacation). According to founder/managing director, Chris Raih, the agency “lived to tell the tale.” And now, here we go, with video included above.
Our mid-sized creative agency recently banned email and instant messenger for a period of 24 hours. No outgoing or incoming messages; email was even de-activated on mobile devices. In-person contact, video chat, and phone calls were allowed.
And guess what? It was glorious.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Toronto studio Ubisoft teamed up with Soap Creative to develop an integrated mobile companion to Splinter Cell Blacklist.
The game, released August 20th across PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC platforms, is the latest in the popular Splinter Cell series, and marks the return of Tom Clancy’s Sam Fisher character. Soap Creative helped Ubisoft extend the game’s Strategic Mission Interface, while also adding three AAA mobile games that let players continue their Splinter Cell Blacklist experience while on the go. Ubisoft and Soap Creative hope that the mobile games will not only appeal to hardcore fans of the franchise by allowing them to earn currency transferable to Splinter Cell Blacklist, but also attract new gamers with an experience that can function independent of the console game.
“Companion experiences are creating new players and a broader universe for them to enjoy, even among the most established franchises,” says Matt Griswold, managing partner at Soap. Splinter Cell certainly qualifies as an established franchise, with a pretty large audience already willing to shell out for the latest in the series. The question is whether adding mobile games will help them convert new fans.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
UK and Chicago-based brand design agency, and longtime McDonald’s partner, Boxer has created a new packaging design for McDonald’s takeout bags and fountain beverage cups.
Boxer’s CCO Paul Castledine describes the new design, without irony, as one that “takes customers on a visual journey of discovery into all the things that make their McDonald’s meal enjoyable.” Visual journey of discovery? What he means is the new bag design features text saying things like “perfectly seasoned” “sssh! secret sauce” and “melting cheese sizzling beef!” accompanied by attractive graphics. The packaging design seems somewhat reminiscent of Chipotle, and it’s hard to fault McDonald’s and Boxer for looking to Chipotle’s success at appealing to Millenials for inspiration.
Since McDonald’s can’t exactly champion the quality of its ingredients (other than to remind you they use 100% beef), more vague but appetizing-sounding descriptions of the food are necessary. The newly-designed cups and bags also feature a QR code providing customers easy access to nutritional information from mobile devices, so they can know exactly how much they’re setting back their diet with their burger run. All in all, Boxer’s new designs are attractive and the new bags and cups should look great crumpled up on the floors of McDonald’s customers everywhere.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
In my years as an agency media director and account director, I worked with many different personality types – including one long-term client who, for many years, wouldn’t respect me or my work. One day he angered me so much I screamed at him for five minutes straight, telling him I knew exactly what the hell I was doing and he should shut up and listen to what I have to say.
While I certainly don’t recommend letting your anger get the best of you or screaming at your clients, in this particular case my years of attempting to placate, coddle and generally bend over for this particular client never worked. It wasn’t until I stood up to him with the same forceful authority he always commanded that he respected me. And from that point on, our relationship was wonderful.
Read the rest on the Central Desktop blog.
Dallas-based Dieste has put together an infographic advices agencies what they should not do this Friday the 13th. Among the advice, pick a different day to backup your work, be careful who you choose to cut your spot, beware of focus group mirrors and several others. Check out the infographic for them all.
Here’s a bit of distraction for your rainy (at least where we are) Thursday afternoon. Vienna-based agency PKP BBDO decided to have a little bit of fun at the expense of Apple’s just-announced iPhone 5c which comes in five colors. Perhaps attempting to align the new iPhone with the much-maligned Crocs brand, the agency took a lunch break to shoot this shoe-tastic spoof.
We’ve been deluged with tips over the last 12 hours that bi-coastal agency KSL Media, shut the doors of all of its offices including the main operations in NY and LA. Perhaps the writing was on the wall as last we heard from KSL, which was just a couple of weeks ago, CEO Hank Cohen and president David Sklaver both left the agency. Calls to the NY office this morning were left with an automated message that “your call cannot be completed as dialed.” Hmm. From what we gather via the tips we’ve received, KSL has declared bankruptcy and from what those on the Spy line say, “all employees terminated with no severance.” KSL was founded over 30 years ago and worked with clients including UGG and Guitar Center during the span. We’ll keep you posted if we find out more.
Update: Yes, sources familiar with the matter tell us that the decision was made yesterday to close their doors.
–Update 2: Here is the Chapter 11 announce that KSL is bankrupt. We’re hearing that certain issues with a higher-up may have had something to do with it. link
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Origin “The Unknown” from Psyop on Vimeo.
Psyop and Clemenger BBDO Melbourne bring us this whimsical spot, offering up a childlike take on how electricity is made.
As Psyop Director Fletcher Moules puts it, they wanted to express “that feeling that something magical is hidden around every corner,”…or behind every socket. The spot uses whimsical imagery such as a monkey riding a bicycle that spins a turbine and fighting magnets to effectively communicate that most people really don’t know all that much more about energy use now than they did when they were children imagining such fantastical scenarios. Timing is key here: Just when you might be wondering “Okay, where exactly is this going?” comes the “It’s time to take the mystery out of energy” tag. The spot then ends by directing you to discover five ways to control your energy at originenergy.com.au. It’s refreshing to see an ad utilizing seeming randomness to deliver its message, as opposed to the myriad of ads whose message is obscured by attempts at random humor. continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Gleefully heaping praise on YouTube as if it had just launched yesterday, MDG Advertising is out with a video infographic (yes, that’s a thing, too) that touts the benefits of creating video content and using YouTube to feature that content.
The video begins with the wonders of the Old Spice campaign and how the Gangnam style video generated $870,000 in revenue. We are then told top brand have, on average, 35,000 subscribers and 884,000 monthly video views. These brands have 203,000 Twitter followers and 2.6 million Facebook Likes.
These top brands also see $23,000 in monthly ad revenue, darners 350 social interactions per minute of video, 7.5 million favorited videos, 25 million comments and 55 million ratings. We are also told 21.7% od U.S. internet users visit YouTube every day.
Of course after touting the benefits of YouTube, MDG wants you to contact them so they can create all kinds of amazing videos for you.
And so, it continues. We’ve received word that David Bonner, who joined IPG-owned Momentum Worldwide’s St. Louis office barely six months ago as SVP/executive creative director, is no longer with the agency. From what we’ve been told, Bonner’s departure is “related to a proactive restructure of” Momentum’s “Midwest creative resources” and that the agency does “wish him well on his next chapter.” Bonner joined Momentum and essentially replaced Jeff Stevens after spending time on the senior creative tier at the likes of JWT Chicago, BBDO Toronto, Doe Anderson and GJP. No word yet if there are plans to replace Bonner at Momentum St. Louis, but we’ll let you know when we do.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
This month’s Advertising and Interactive Annual issue of Applied Arts Magazine features some unusual creative thought from Zulu Alpha Kilo. ZAK is guest art directing for the magazine, and the agency decided to produce a thought experiment that would challenge the way industry insiders perceive quality work. In short: the issue’s winning work was rejudged by “regular” consumers, and the results were quite different.
In the accompanying video, we don’t get to see what work was praised by critics and panned by consumers, but we are told that 70% of the critically-acclaimed work wasn’t as acclaimed when consumers were judging. The remaining 30%, praised by both, went on to have success at Cannes. Such a large split brings up a compelling debate about what makes certain work good, accessible, and appealing to the public. It’s the same debate that comes with any creative format, be it movies, music, art, but when consumers are involved, their opinions should help qualify what makes something good or bad. How much those opinions should count, I’m not sure. This type of experiment may not lead to easy answers, but at least it asks some very interesting questions.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Love it or hate it, Sportscenter has always been good at maintaining a certain tone across its ad campaigns. They’ve been running with the “star athletes in the ESPN office” schtick for what seems like forever, and it seems to be an infinitely adaptable formula. The latest in this long line of ads is the new 30-second spot “Candy Dish,” from Wieden + Kennedy New York, featuring U.S. Open champion Rafael Nadal, fresh off his defeat of Novak Djokovic last night.
In the spot, Sportscenter host John Anderson and ESPNNews anchor Bram Weinstein wonder what makes Nadal so popular in the ESPN office (especially with the ladies). Is it his good looks? His tan? His accent? Or could it be that U.S. Open trophy he’s using as a candy dish? If you ask me, I think it’s the sweatband. Who doesn’t love a good sweatband?
This is the second This is Sportscenter spot to be released in both English and Spanish, following the clever Robinson Cano “Handshakes” spot. The Spanish-language version swaps out Anderson and Weinstein for ESPN Deportes anchors Alvaro Morales, Jorge Eduardo Sánchez and Carolina Padrón. Personally, I prefer the Spanish version (featured below). Because, well, everything sounds better in Spanish.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Sources familiar with the matter confirm that Renee McKeon, who has been with the agency formerly known as imc2 and now as MEplusYOU for 13 years, is taking over as head creative of said agency. From what we hear, McKeon is transitioning into the role previously held by Michael Davis, who has spent over four years at the Dallas-based MEplusYou, last serving as chief creative officer.
No word on Davis’s whereabouts, but during his career, the outgoing CCO also spent nearly a decade at Draftfcb and also worked on the client side at HBO. McKeon, meanwhile, moved up from from UX/CD to her most recent role at ECD. Update: From what we’ve been told, Davis is still at MPY, though we’ll update on his latest post.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Longevity is the ad business is not common. Only six agencies in the U.S. have achieved 100 years of service thus far. The newest member of this elite club is Dallas-based TracyLocke.
The agency that has propelled visibility and sales for such iconic brands as Dr Pepper, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo and Pizza Hut will celebrate its legacy with a centennial celebration at The Dallas Museum of Art on September 27 – reuniting hundreds of employees and clients from the past and present.
Well ahead of the agency’s modern position (fueled by a methodology called “Buy Design,” TracyLocke has evolved into one of the world’s leading integrated marketing agencies), TracyLocke was a traditional shop.
Here are some of the highlights from the agency’s past:
Notable TracyLocke alums include Dallas Mayor and former CEO of Pizza Hut, Mike Rawling; David Novak, Chairman of the Board and CEO of YUM! Brands, Ron Askew, former CMO of Coors and founder of The Integer Group; Lincoln Steffens,Co-founder and Executive Director of The Marcus Graham Project; and Cindy Davis, EVP, Global Customer Insights & Analytics at Walmart.
The post TracyLocke, The Darlin’ of Dallas, Turns 100 appeared first on AdPulp.
Hmm, do you really want to be listening this much? Well, if so, here’s RPA’s latest project, which according to the parties involved, is “a fluffy data-driven light sculpture that visualizes social media conversation in real-time.” According to a statement from RPA CD Perrin Anderson, “We wanted to build something that could show what’s happening in the social media ‘cloud’ in real-time, not as data or a visualization on a screen, but as a fun, sensory, physical thing. We hope that others will share their ideas on the marriage of creativity and data by using the hashtag #ListeningCloud on their social accounts.”
If you happen to stroll by RPA’s Santa Monica digs–which cater to the likes of Honda and Farmers Insurance–and love lights, colors, etc., “Listening Cloud” is there for the picking, featuring real-time data from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram public APIs. According to the parties involved, you the agency’s client will be in the mix as, via wireless bridge to LEDs, will track hashtags, likes or comments about a client, with cloud “storming” via multi-colored lightning that corresponds to the different social media channels. To be honest, this cloud shit is still new (yeah we know, blah blah) and we’ll absorb it when we can, but an interesting peek into agency and old client moving forward. Check out making-of clip after the jump.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Oh it had to come to this, didn’t it? Santa Monica-based RPA has created The Listening Cloud, an actual cloud of sorts that lives in its lobby, monitors social media around the agency’s clients and reflects it through changing colors and weather patterns.
It’s like an old-school lava lamp except it’s powered by the internet instead of, well, instead of the LSD-addled minds of its 1960’s-era developers.
Custom software pulls in real-time data from the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram public APIs, then sends commands through a wireless bridge to LEDs inside the cloud, visualizing the data through different light colors and behaviors. It uses the Phillips Hue lighting system and its RESTful API, which allowed software to be coded using Node.js to communicate with the lighting controller. A Web-interface on a nearby monitor lets viewers choose what they’d like the cloud to “listen to” and also displays a raw, real-time feed of the data it’s processing.
Of the endeavor, RPA Creative Director Perrin Anderson said,”We hope that others will share their ideas on the marriage of creativity and data by using the hashtag #ListeningCloud on their social accounts.”
This summer, we posted about the state of affairs at Minneapolis-based digital shop, Atomic, formerly known as Atomic Playpen. Well, today, Yahoo has reported what we’ve been hearing since mid-July, that AP is indeed bankrupt. Now, its hosting assets have been purchased by fellow Twin Cities operation, Atomic Data (no relation), which has been sparring with AP over the use of the word “Atomic.” According to Yahoo, “The bankruptcy and purchase of assets follows a legal dispute between Atomic Data and Atomic Playpen over the use of the name ‘Atomic’, which Atomic Data has utilized for more than ten years.”
We’ve heard a few sad tales following the dissolution of the agency, which began in July (the 12th to be exact) after co-founder Troy Venjohn told his execs that he was “shutting the shop and re-organizing.” According to those in the know, orders were given at the time to “let every employee go with the exception of a couple key technology gurus.” No idea where these “gurus” are at this point, but we’ll keep checking.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Red Urban, Volkswagen’s creative agency in Canada for the past three-and-a-half years, has unveiled the new Golf GTD with a global campaign showcasing the car’s rapid acceleration. The five 15-second spots for the campaign were filmed on location in Toronto over the course of two days, presenting quite a few challenges for Red Urban and director Curtis Wehfritz, working with several different shooting locations, a car-mounted camera and many prop gags.
The results are pretty mixed, ranging from the befuddling — expanding waistlines and accelerated childbirth — to the humorous: a grumpy child whose strawberry ice cream flies off its cone and against the rear windshield. This latter spot succeeds largely because of the perfect look on the girl’s face, and the believable (if unrealistic) execution of the ice cream splat.
The series marks the Canadian agency’s increasing expansion into global creative work for Volkswagen, which creative director Christina Yu calls “an amazing opportunity for Red Urban.” Red Urban’s work for Volkswagen in Canada has been innovative and has even seen the agency take some risks, as with their “Great Volkswagen Art Heist” campaign. While their campaign for the Golf GTD plays it relatively safe, hopefully the agency will start pushing boundaries with their future global work for Volkswagen.
Credits and one more video after the jump.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
The rise of social media has forced marketers and agencies to re-evaluate how they structure teams to better handle this new layer of marketing communication. It got us thinking.
How are agencies reconfiguring their teams to better function in the digital and social marketing era? How have agencies benefited from working not just with traditional creatives but how have they cast a wider net to include developers, freelance specialists and other partners? How do they then guard against “too many chefs in the kitchen”?
We queried several agencies and asked them what they are doing and what they have changed to improve how they work in an increasingly interconnected but complex industry. Some have retooled their org charts. Other have formed close partnerships. And still others have formed teams of people with seemingly unrelated skill sets.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
