Hasta La Creative!

Red Lobster has named Publicis Kaplan Thaler as its lead creative agency, reports AdAge.

The appointment follows a review, which Red Lobster started in April, after Darden decided to sell off the brand. Grey had been the brand’s creative agency after winning agency of record duties from The Richards Group back in 2010. According to AdAge, Grey did not participate in the review process, but retains creative duties for Darden brands Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse. They also report that Olson, Barkley, and Interpublic’s Martin Agency were the other finalists in the review process, which was overseen by Pile & Co.

Mark Gilley, senior vice president, marketing at Red Lobster told AdAge that “the chain chose Publicis Kaplan Thaler because of its creative pitches, its existing work and digital and social strategy, the last of which is [a] particularly important element for Red Lobster as it moves more marketing dollars into digital,” adding that he admired how the agency’s recent work for Wendy’s “‘broke conventions’ in the fast-food category.”

Publicis Kaplan Thaler’s first campaign for Red Lobster, which spent around $156 million on measured media in 2013, is expected in the first half of 2015.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here’s a spot-on, if disturbing, visual for how kids stumble across disturbing images and video while browsing online.

The online and print campaign, for child-safety nonprofit Innocence in Danger, features images of kids, each with three mouths open in horror—one mouth in the normal spot, and one where each eye should be.

Created by Publicis Frankfurt, the effort is aimed at jolting parents into recognizing and addressing the potential dangers of letting their kids surf the Web too freely.

According to Innocence in Danger—creator of the equally disturbing real-life emoji campaign—many children search for terms like “sex” and “porn,” while others accidentally stumble upon graphic scenes, but few discuss what they’ve seen.

While it’s a good use of the visual, this definitely isn’t the first time we’ve seen mouths for eyes. One of our favorites was 2012’s Irish eyes ad for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Atlanta, but you can find the “mouth eyes” meme all over, even ruining the lovely Stop Girl. 

Via ABCNews.com.

Last year was a good year for Purina’s Beneful dog food, which spent more than $52 million in measured media advertising. Fallon was at the helm of those buys, as they were with Purina One for more than 25 years.

Today, Fallon has neither brand.

Interpublic Group’s Avrett Free Ginsberg

scored Purina One, and now Publicis & Hal Riney have won the creative for Beneful. While no one of note at Publicis & Riney could be reached for comment, Fallon was happy to say this about its quarter-century shaggy-dog story:

Agency CEO Mike Buchner said of the brand’s departure: “It has been an honor for Fallon to have represented Purina’s core dog food brands for over a quarter of a century. We are proud of the brands we’ve built together and the work we’ve created that has helped drive their business forward for decades.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In what appears to be a clandestine RFI process, Starbucks has announced a changing of the guard in its media agency relationship.
Following only the first phase in review, the java giant has decided to cut ties with Omnicom PHD and hire Publicis Groupe’s Spark. Prior to the RFI and decision after the initial review, PHD was Starbucks’ media agency for the past six years.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In the weeks since the Omnicom and Publicis Groupe megamerger fell apart, many have been asking why such a problematic union was proposed in the first place. Well now we know: It was all another agency's elaborate marketing stunt.

In an entertaining parody case study, Fred & Farid Group takes full credit for the "Omnipub" merger, an idea hatched to highlight just how far holding companies would go in their quest for world domination.

"Why not organize an epic fail with two giants? Instead of the usual David against Goliath, we made a Goliath against Goliath story. We created … 'The Impossible Wedding.'"

Setting events in motion like a Shakespearean villain, Paris-based Fred & Farid says it forged letters between Omnicom CEO John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Lévy, making each think the other was on board with the merger. Then the pranksters sat back and watched the hilarity ensue.

Like any good case study, #Omnipub includes some impressive metrics: 24,000 mentions, 500,000 media impressions and $100 million in wasted fees (quoted from our own coverage here at Adweek). 

So congrats to Fred & Farid for pulling off one truly epic viral prank. You got us!

This morning in news that has nothing to do with the Omnicom/Publicis collapse, WPP/GroupM media agency Maxus poached a top executive from Omnicom’s PHD.

Steve Williams, who spent two years as president at PHD, will be Maxus’ new North American CEO starting June 1, replacing the retiring Louis Jones; Williams will report to global CEO Vikram Sakhuja as well as GroupM’s North American chief Kelly Clark.

In the new role, Williams will work with the New York, L.A., Chicago, Minneapolis and Toronto offices of what the press release and RECMA call “the fastest growing global media agency for the past four years.”

Before joining PHD, Williams served as CEO of the UK’s OMD Group.

No word on how much pleasure Martin Sorrell took in making this announcement.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

If you’re a gambling man, you might want to bet against the pending mega-merger and the double-headed hydra it would create.

Earlier this week, WPP‘s Martin Sorrell gleefully told Reuters–via a little birdie–that chances of the deal going through were less than even. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that analysts at Albert Fried had lowered the official odds to 40% (the previous number was 66%) while downgrading  the theoretical stock price from $70 to $56.

The fact that Publicis recently lost Microsoft, Samsung and Miller Lite didn’t help; the defections have compounded risks created by a clashing of egos over the contested CFO role.

All involved parties still say the deal will go through, primarily because “there’s a $500 million break-up fee at stake”, so we expect to see a few more upbeat press releases in the days ahead.

As principals at both companies sweat a bit more heavily this week than last, WPP may have already begun planning its victory lap.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Over the weekend you may have heard of some newfound uncertainty regarding the world’s soon-to-be-biggest agency: the bastard child of Publicis and Omnicom.

Let’s review the reports, shall we?

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ainda ontem, mostramos por aqui um comercial da seguradora Thai, da Tailândia, que falava sobre a prática de se fazer o bem. E se alguém resolvesse testar essa “tendência” que o ser humano tem de fazer o bem, para saber se é só falácia ou se as pessoas realmente estão dispostas a ajudar? Foi o que a organização de caridade The Pilion Trust fez, ao criar uma encenação com um homem circulando pelas ruas de Londres carregando uma placa e gritando “Fuck the poor” (os pobres que se fodam).

A ação, criada pela Publicis, propôs um experimento social: será que as pessoas se incomodariam com alguém que não se importa com os pobres e quer que eles se danem? Sim, muitas se incomodaram e foram tirar satisfações com o homem-placa. Teve até quem quis bater nele.

Em seguida, vemos o mesmo homem-placa, desta vez com os dizeres: “ajude os pobres”. Pergunta: quantas pessoas pararam? Nenhuma. Entra, então, a assinatura: “Nós sabemos que você se importa. Por favor, se importe o suficiente para doar”.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Quando se fala em igualdade entre gêneros, geralmente as mulheres assumem o papel de porta-vozes, uma vez que são elas que fazem as reivindicações. A United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, braço da Organização das Nações Unidas, resolveu mudar um pouco essa história colocando os homens para defender os direitos da mulher em HeforShe.

A campanha criada pela Publicis de Dallas conta com um hotsite, que apresenta o projeto e traz links para o Twitter e para o canal do YouTube, para onde os homens podem enviar vídeos com depoimentos sobre a igualdade entre gêneros.

“Estamos em 2014 e mulheres ao redor do mundo ainda estão sendo abusadas, objetificadas e silenciadas. Ainda assim, mulheres constituem metade do potencial mundial e cada uma delas tem direito a uma vida livre de discriminação. Sua voz tem poder – levante-a para dizer ao mundo por que a igualdade para toda mulher e menina é digna de luta”, destaca a apresentação da campanha.

HeforShe conta com porta-vozes conhecidos, como Desmond Tutu, Ban Ki-moon, Matt Damon, Patrick Stewart e Antonio Banderas. No Flickr e no YouTube, já é possível encontrar alguns depoimentos. Vale conhecer.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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