Adweek : Advertising & Branding

Geico Makes the Perfect Ad for Hump Day

Tim Nudd — Wed, 22 May 2013 07:07:20 PDT

Here is Geico's latest commercial from The Martin Agency. Uploaded on hump day, it's all about hump day. And it stars a certain mammal that hails from the Middle East and Africa. You can see where this is going. Part of the insurance company's ongoing "Happier Than" campaign. Silliness at its best. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Geico

Agency: The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va.
Chief Creative Officer: Joe Alexander
Group Creative Director: Steve Bassett
Creative Director: Wade Alger
Creative Director/Art Director: Sean Riley
Senior Copywriter: Ken Marcus
Agency Executive Broadcast Producer: Molly Souter
Agency Producer: Samantha Tucker
Agency Junior Producer: Emily Taylor
Strategic Planner: Melissa Cabral
Group Account Director: Chris Mumford
Account Director: Liz Toms
Account Supervisor Parker Collins
Account Coordinator: Carter Crenshaw
Project Manager: Susan Karns

Group Talent Director: Suzanne Wieringo
Production Business Manager: Amy Trenz

Production Company: Hungry Man
Director: Wayne McClammy
Director of Photography: Tim Ives
Executive Producer/ Managing Partner: Kevin Byrne
Producer: Nate Young
Production Supervisor: Steve Ruggieri

Editorial Company: Makenzie Cutler
Editor: Ian MacKenzie
Editor: Dave Koza
Assistant Editor: Carmen Hu
Editorial Producer: Evan Meeker
Director of Operations: Biz Lunskey

VFX: The Mill
Executive Producer: Jo Arghiris
Producer: Colin Blaney
Shoot Supervisor: Tony Robins
2D Lead Artist: Randy McEntee
2D Artists: Tony Robins, Paul Downes, Jamin Clutcher
Art Support: Rob Meade
3D Lead Artist: Kevin Ives
3D Artists: Billy Dangyoon Jang, Olivier Varteressian, Laurent Giaume, Justin Diamond, Sean Dooley, Joshua Merck, Hassan Taimur, Wyatt Savarese, Samuel Crees, Ross Scroble

Audio Post Company/Sound Design: Rainmaker Studios
Engineer: Jeff McManus
Music: "Happier Than" theme song by Adam Schlesinger

Principal Actors in spot: Musical Duo in all spots:
"Ronny" - Alex Harvey
"Jimmy" - Timothy Cole

"Hump Day"
"Mike" - Michael Clark
"Julie" - Lindsay Stoddart
"Leslie" - Leslie Tsina
"Camel VO" - Chris Sulivan
Voiceover talent: Andrew Anthony – Announcer VO

Puma's Dance Dictionary Will Leave You at a Loss for Words

David Gianatasio — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:37:53 PDT

The Puma Dance Dictionary, created by Grey London to push the brand's new Sync fragrances (yes, Puma makes fragrances), allows users to select words and phrases which are then translated into dance moves by freestyle performers. These "moving" messages can be shared via social media or emailed to friends. You start with various templates and then shift a few words in and out to create sentences. The pre-set "I love women with heart," for example, can be changed to "I love women with popcorn." Or "I love guys with muscles." Or even "I love women with nuts," if you're into that. Manipulating other templates yields sentiments like "Money makes me want to get naked," "Hey bro, your face is crazy" and "Will you stroke my girlfriend?" This can be amusing, but not very, as the vocabulary is too limited. I understand the dancers could interpret only so many words, and Puma naturally wants to avoid potential hate speech or outright vulgarity. But the enterprise seems hamstrung by a lack of true interaction. The dancing on display is self-consciously goofy: "Women" is signified by hip wiggles and boob gestures, and "nuts" is communicated by pointing to one's head with accompanying eye rolls. Plus, the brand message is ill defined. Maybe Puma should've sat this one out.

Samsung Presents Advertising's Most Idiotically Primitive Husband Ever

David Gianatasio — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:32:56 PDT

This new ad for Samsung televisions is precipitating foul rumblings across the cyberverse for depicting men as gassy, unkempt, couch-bound louts. Sounds like truth in advertising to me. Especially the flatulence. The spot touts the Evolution Kit, which turns any Samsung television into a smart TV. A young wife saddled with a sorry spouse decides he needs a similar upgrade, and plugs the kits into his back. Suddenly the dude's cooking, cleaning and styling her hair with a vacuum. (Don't try that last one at home! But if you do, let me know how it works out.) The complaints generally follow this example from Reddit: "I find this advert quite sexist. The idea of an 'evolved man' is basically making him the stereotype of a woman. This isn't evolution rather than devolution. If this advert had the women being attached to some machine to make her better equipped to clean/cook/look after children/make her loving to her spouse/partner, there would be an outcry from feminists about equality." Sure, Samsung squeezed out some questionable material. But the clip is nearing 10 million YouTube views in just a week, and generating gobs of attention for the product, so I'd hardly call it a total stinker. Agency: To be determined; CHI & Partners, global agency for Samsung TVs, says it wasn't them.

Tablets Overtake Smartphones as the Big Shopping Device

Lucia Moses — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:38:30 PDT

Mobile devices account for just 15 percent of e-commerce today, but eMarketer estimates that by 2017, one-fourth of online sales will be mobile-based as people conduct more of their lives on smartphones and tablets. The spread of tablets in particular will drive mobile commerce; by 2017, nearly three-fourths of mobile retail sales will be done on tablets, with 125 million people using them to make purchases.

Infographic: Carlos Monteiro

Time.com Is On a Hiring Spree

Lucia Moses — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:57:48 PDT

Here’s a story you might not expect to come out of Time Inc.: Time.com is on a hiring binge. Two months after several higher-ups left in a round of cost-cutting, the site is hiring some 30 staffers, roughly a 50 percent increase, in preparation for a big relaunch in early fall.

It’s one of the first signs of change since ex-Daily Beast honcho Edward Felsenthal joined the site as managing editor in March. In other developments, Daniel Bernard has been working quietly as product lead for Time Digital. Bernard, like Felsenthal and News and Sports head Todd Larsen, is a Wall Street Journal vet (he was chief product officer for its Digital Network until earlier this year). He's reporting to John Cantarella, president of digital for News and Sports.

With more than half of the new hires coming on the editorial side, Time.com is planning to bulk up in its coverage across the board.

“We want to play in a bigger space and on a bigger scale,” Felsenthal said. “We play in the general news space very strongly, and we want to play stronger.”

The specifics of the site relaunch haven’t been worked out, but with 30 percent of the site’s traffic now coming from mobile users, double what it was just six months ago, mobile will certainly inform the new design, said Cantarella.

“It’s not going to be desktop focused,” he said. “We’re going to make sure whatever we launch is going to be mobile-focused, based on the traffic patterns we’re seeing.” With audience growth as the goal, Time is sticking with its free model for now, while continuing to keep the magazine content behind a paywall.

The ramp-up happens as the future of weekly print news has long been in question, which means there’s that much more urgency for the site to figure out where it’s heading if (or when) a print-free existence comes to pass. Time is the last of the three big weekly news magazines, Newsweek having recently ended its print life following U.S. News & World Report. Growth on the online side could help make up for what’s being lost in print. In the first quarter of 2013, ad pages at Time declined 13.4 percent to 197.

Still, there’s a lot of catch-up to do. Time.com has been trying to grow its relevance by adding verticals like entertainment, tech and sports, reaching 12.4 million uniques in April, per comScore. And while it more than holds its own against smaller, specialty news sites like The Economist and The Atlantic, it has a long way to go to compete head-to-head with giants like Yahoo, The New York Times and the Huffington Post. Playing in the online news space is a size game, and the risk is that Time will stay in the murky middle, neither distinguishing itself as a mid-sized general news site nor catching up to the big contenders.

Warren Buffett Helps Pitch Berkshire Hathaway's Dairy Queen as Barkley Airs First Ad for Chain

Andrew McMains — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:45:44 PDT

Warren Buffett is helping to pitch Dairy Queen just as Kansas City, Mo.-based agency Barkley is airing its first TV ad for the chain, five months after it landed the creative account. The godfather of DQ parent Berkshire Hathaway does not appear in the spot—although a lookalike does pop up in the middle of it. (Buffett has done ads before, as you'll surely recall his cringe-worthy star turn as Axl Rose in this crazy 2010 Geico video.) The DQ voiceover explains, "Here's to our fans. The local heroes … and local legends. The next in line … and the next generation. At DQ, we don't make fast food. We make fan food." Buffett is doing his part beyond the advertising, though. On Monday night, he and DQ CEO John Gainor visited an Omaha, Neb., DQ to test the first S'Mores Blizzard of the summer.

Digital Dignitaries Debate Display's Death

Mike Shields — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:51:04 PDT

Display advertising is largely ineffective. Brands aren’t interested and they’re not likely to get on board any time soon. No, the brands are coming online soon—just wait.

Those were two competing visions presented at Federated Media’s Conversation Marketing Summit in New York by several top Web luminaries. On the "display ain’t cutting it" side were Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures and Terry Kawaja, founder and CEO of Luma Partners, the man behind the infamous slides that serve as the encyclopedia of ad tech.

On the brand side was a perhaps a surprising advocate, Neal Mohan, vp of display advertising of Google, a direct response ad factory if there ever was one.

During a particularly lively keynote, Kawaja urged the industry to get used to fragmentation, to embrace data and to acknowledge that the consumer isn’t in control. He playfully knocked the IAB’s attempt to produce a brand centric alternative to his slide, pointing out that it actually left out a key constituency: consumers.

But for the most part, Kawaja urged the industry to give up on brand dollars and interruptive ads and embrace its commerce-facilitating identity.

“When we talk about brand advertising on the Web, we’re not taking into account consumer modalities,” he said. “An interruptive media is not native to the Web. Bigger ads are not the solution.”

Instead, advertisers need to facilitate “what people are trying to do in the first place,” Kawaja urged. Particularly in mobile, where he said full-screen takeover ads are “intolerable.”

“The big publishers need to migrate,” he said.

Not necessarily, according to Mohan, who used his keynote interview with Federated CEO John Battelle to showcase Google’s new oversized display unit The Lightbox, which can stream live content. He actually demonstrated an ad that streamed their interview, nearly in real time.

But when Battelle asked Mohan about Wilson and Kawaja’s contentions that display ads had become “unworkable and on the decline,” Mohan pushed back.

“We as consumers are living in a 24/7 digital world. And our message to brands is that if you’re not focused on that, you’re missing out,” Mohan said. “You’re going to be left behind.”

Getting more brand dollars to the Web “is our top priority of the year,” he added. How’s that going to happen? Mohan identified three key trends: richer ad canvases on the Web, targeting that goes past just basic demographics, and better ad effectiveness numbers for upper-funnel measures like awareness and purchase intent.

In other highlights from the Internet Week event:

-Kawaja revealed that from 2010 to 2012, Luma Partners recorded 53 out of 204 companies getting acquired. “That’s 25 percent consolidation,” he said. Yet 74 new companies were added. “That's Lumascape whack-a-mole.”

-Mohan said, “if you are building specifically for mobile, you are building for the past."

-Kawaja called Facebook Home a “Trojan horse for data.”

-Wilson lamented Twitter’s position in the identity space as a distant third.
"I don't know how many identity providers we need on the Internet."

-Wilson was more bullish on the growth of native ads, like on Tumblr and other platforms. "It’s inevitable that people are going to build APIs into these native ad systems."

Ad of the Day: Nike

Tim Nudd — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:46:57 PDT

The consensus around these parts over the years has been that Roger Federer is a singularly awkward brand spokesman. But that's not entirely fair.

All you have to do to make a successful Federer spot is make it as pleasantly goofy as he is, limit his speaking lines to approximately zero, and find a costar who won't overshadow him.

You can tick off all three boxes with this new spot from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., for the Nike Free sneaker. The ad shows the 31-year-old, 17-time Grand Slam singles winner locked in one of the more brutal showdowns of his storied career—as he tries to swat a pesky fly in his lovely, spacious Swiss home.

The shoe is apparently uniquely flexible, and so is the commercial, directed by Furlined's Adam Hashemi. Its 45 seconds give it room to breathe, allowing both the faux-suspense and the comedy to build (the shot from outside the home, with Federer poking the broom at the ceiling, is a particularly strong one). It also gives the sneakers some decent airtime as well.

The problem is not that Federer isn't charming—he is. It's that most commercials call for him for actually attempt acting, which is a disaster waiting to happen. Instead, this spot plays to his strengths—giving him a few hero shots, an uncomplicated plot he can tackle lightheartedly, and a chance to show off his athleticism. In those things, he remains undiminished, even in the twilight of his career.

The ad is part of a larger campaign that also included the earlier spots "Cat Flap" featuring Gabby Douglass and "Toy Claw" featuring Ashton Eaton and Allyson Felix. See those ads below as well.

CREDITS
Client: Nike

—Spot: "Running Free/Fly Swatter"

Global Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Ryan O'Rourke
Copywriter: Jeff Salomonsson
Art Director: Sara Philips
Producer: Chris Capretto
Executive Agency Producer: Matt Hunnicutt
Account Team: Catherine Wolpe, Vanessa Miller
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman, Joe Staples

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Furlined
Director: Adam Hashemi
President: Diane McArter
Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Line Producer: Ben Mann
Director of Photography: Toby Irwin

EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Kirk Baxter
Assistant Editor: Nate Gross
Post Producer: Toby Louie
Post Executive Producer: CL Weaver

VFX
VFX Company: The Mill
Lead 3D Artist: Michael Panov
Lead 2D Artist: Daniel Thuresson
Smoke Artist: Scott Johnson
Exeutive Producer: Sue Troyan
VFX Producer: Christina Thompson

COLOR
Color Company: Company 3
Colorist: Sofie Borup

MUSIC + SOUND DESIGN
Music+Sound Company: Trinitite Inc
Written by: Mozart
Sound Designer: Brian Emrich
Song: Requiem in D Minor perf by Leipziger, Schreier, Dresden

AUDIO
Mix Company: Lime Studios
Mixer: Rohan Young
Assistant Mixer: Jeff Malen
Producer: Jessica Locke

—Spots: "Cat Flap," "Toy Claw"

Global Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Ryan O’Rourke
Copywriters: Jeff Salomonsson (Cat Flap, Toy Claw), Dylan Lee (Toy Claw only)
Art Director: Sara Phillips
Senior Producer: Jennie Lindstrom
Associate Producer: Kirsten Acheson
Account Team: Catherine Wolpe, Vanessa Miller
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman
Executive Producer: Matt Hunnicutt

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Furlined
Director: Adam Hashemi
President: Diane McArter
Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Line Producer: Pete Vitale (Toy Claw, Cat Flap)
Director of Photography: Toby Irwin

EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Kirk Baxter
Asst. Editor: Nate Gross
Post Producer: Toby Louie
Post Executive Producer: CL Weaver

COLOR/TELECINE
Company: CO3
Colorist: Sofie Borup

VFX
VFX Company: The Mill
Creative Director: Phil Crowe
Lead Flame: Sarah Elm
2D VFX Artists: Remedy Huynh / Patrick Munoz / Drew Huntley / Elad Offer
VFX Producer: Christina Thompson
VFX Production Coordinator: Samantha Axelrod

MUSIC
Music Company: Search Party (Toy Claw only)
Composer: Jesse Novak
Music Producer: Sara Matarazzo

SOUND DESIGN
Sound Design Company: Trinitite Inc (Toy Claw + Cat Flap)
Sound Designer: Brian Emrich (Toy Claw + Cat Flap)

MIX
Mix Company: Lime Studios
Mixer: Rohan Young
Asst. Mixer: Jeff Malen
Producer: Jessica Locke

Cramer-Krasselt Beats the Odds to Keep Porsche

Andrew McMains — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:51:21 PDT

Cramer-Krasselt has beaten the historically poor odds of retaining an account in review, beating back thick competition to remain lead creative agency on Porsche.

The other contenders for the account, with media spending estimated at $20 million, were Droga5 in New York, McKinney in Durham, N.C., Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami and Olson in Minneapolis.

The Chicago shop’s win caps a process that began in December, with Porsche Cars North America hiring outside consultancy, External View Consulting Group in Culver City, Calif., to draw up a list of shops for the automaker to consider.

In February, Porsche, after meeting with a bevy of shops, narrowed the field to the five finalists.

Given exhaustive process, participants were expecting Porsche to hire a new agency. As one source put it, “We were expecting regime change.”

Still, Cramer-Krasselt had deep knowledge of the iconic brand, having worked on it since 2007. Also, the automaker had realized sales gains just before the review began.

And while several competitors put in strong showings, none was good enough to replace Cramer-Krasselt. “In a prize fight, you need to unseat the champ,” the source added, reflecting on the result. “And nobody really unseated the champ.”

Nutella Thanks Its Biggest Fan, Founder of World Nutella Day, by Sending Her a Cease-and-Desist

David Griner — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:30:24 PDT

Most brand marketers can only dream of having a superfan who organizes a global holiday dedicated to their product. And then there's Nutella. The chocolate-hazelnut spread's parent company, Italy-based Ferrero, SpA, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to World Nutella Day founder and organizer Sara Rosso. This Saturday, she plans to deactivate NutellaDay.com and the 7-year-old event's social-media channels in response to the legal notice from the company. "I've seen the event grow from a few hundred food bloggers posting recipes to thousands of people Tweeting about it, pinning recipes on Pinterest, and posting their own contributions on Facebook," Rosso writes in a blog post about the cease-and-desist. "There have been songs sung about it, short films created for it, poems written for it, recipes tested for it, and photos taken for it. The cease-and-desist letter was a bit of a surprise and a disappointment, as over the years I've had contact and positive experiences with several employees of Ferrero, SpA, and with their public relations and brand strategy consultants." So far, the parent company has not responded to several media requests for comment and clarification. Via Consumerist and Neatorama. Photo via chaojikazu.

UPDATE: Rosso emailed AdFreak to tell us there's been a resolution in the matter. As reported this afternoon in Italy, Ferrero has stopped legal action against her, saying it was "a routine procedure in defense of trademarks." The company furthermore "would like to express its sincere gratitude to Sara Rosso for her passion for Nutella, which extends gratitude to all the fans of the World Nutella Day" and considers itself "lucky to have a fan of Nutella so devoted and loyal as Sara Rosso."

Diaper-Buying, Sex-Starved, Death-Obsessed Lonely Island Guys Promote New Album

T.L. Stanley — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:54:23 PDT

Are the guys from Lonely Island trying to say that marriage and kids are shortcuts to the grave? They sure don't seem too happy to be "grown-ass" men, maybe because they're starving for sex, wiping baby bums and visiting their own funeral plots in "Diaper Money," posted below. The video, released as part of YouTube's Comedy Week, also promotes the trio's latest musical effort, The Wack Album, due June 11. Look for more promos in the coming weeks.

Video is NSFW (language).

Jack Link's Will Never Get Tired of Messin' With Sasquatch

T.L. Stanley — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:17:41 PDT

Just when you thought you ran out of ways to mess with Sasquatch, someone comes along with lipstick and press-on nails. And as you'd guess, Sasquatch does not care for his glam makeover. In the ongoing saga for Jack Link's beef jerky, the hirsute man-beast gets punked yet again—three times, in fact, in new TV spots from longtime agency Carmichael Lynch. He's just come out of hibernation, so his backstory goes, and roams too close to civilization, where he's an easy target for public humiliation. He gets "beautified," doused with slop and hosed. Who could resist? Retaliation, which has become a hallmark and creative flourish of these ads, ensues. Those folks will never learn. More spots and credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Jack Link's
Agency: Carmichael Lynch
Chief Creative Officer: Dave Damman
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Brad Harrison
Senior Copywriters: Tim Blevins and William Bloomfield
Director of Integrated Production: Joe Grundhoefer
Senior Content Producer: Freddie Richards
Content Producer: Tara Mulholland
Director of Business Affairs: Vicki Oachs
Director of Account Management: Andrew Dauska
Account Director: Holly Wheeler
Account Manager: Sofya Guterman
Account Leader: Andrew Pautz
Senior Project Manager: Elizabeth Charron

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Rocky Morton
Senior Executive Producer: Scott Howard
Producer: Donald Taylor
Director of Photography: Mattias Rudh

Editing House: HutchCo Technologies
Editor: Jim Hutchins
Asst. Editor: Joaquin Machado
Executive Producer: Jane Hutchins

Post Production/Special Effects: Rabbit Content
Creative Director: Nick Losq
Executive Producer: Joby Barnhart
Producer: Lloyd Dsouza
Music House: Black Iris

Sound Design: Francois Blaignan and Joel Waters

Audio Mix: Lime Studios
Mixer: Joel Waters
Executive Producer: Jessica Locke

Client: Playboy
Advertising Agency: DDB, Paris
Executive Creative Director: Alexandre Hervé
Copywriter: Alexis Benoit
Art Director: Paul Kreitmann
Production company: Les Télécréateurs
Director: The Perlorian Brothers
Account Director: Xavier Mendiola
Planner: Fabien Leroux
Sound: THE
Client Team Director: Jurgen Scharfenstein
Agency Producer: Emilie TALPAERT
Agency Producer: Sophie Megrous
Account team: Julie Garguillo
Account team: Timothee Desruelles

Introducing Beardvertising: Tiny Billboards That Clip on to Your Beard

David Gianatasio — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:44:18 PDT

I'm not sure which is more disturbing—the hirsute images that adorn the Beardvertising site from Kentucky ad agency Cornett-IMS, or creative Whit Hiler's use of the work "mancessory" to describe such facial hair. You might recall Hiler from past wacky ventures such as conquering Reddit with fake fliers (including a meetup to recreate scenes from Human Centipede—"Guys only") and crafting a tourism campaign that was presumably too "kick-ass" for the Bluegrass State. Here's his latest pitch: "Do you wanna get paid for having an epic beard? Of course you do. Join the world's first Beardvertising network. Get paid. It's simple—turn your beard into a business. Just like Duck Dynasty. Hang a BeardBoard (Patent Pending) in your beard. Sit back and get paid up to $5 per day." So far, A&W Restaurants and Eagle One Automotive have slapped their messages on Beardvertising mini-billboard clips. Maybe Schick, Gillette, Old Spice and DollarShaveClub.com should join in to cut through the clutter and carve out some unique ad space.

WPP Created One Big Digital Shop From 8 Smaller Ones

Gabriel Beltrone — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:27:11 PDT

WPP Group, like most rival holding companies, is perfectly willing to acquire a big digital player like AKQA. But with Possible, WPP’s roll up of smaller digital shops, the parent is taking a different Lego-like approach, building a global network brick by brick.

Two years in, no one is ready to declare victory. But Possible, under CEO Shane Atchison, has taken small but significant steps in its bid to compete head-to-head with bigger, more established players like Publicis Groupe’s DigitasLBi.

Today, Possible employs 1,200 staffers in 26 offices; they came from eight different shops, including Schematic, Bridge Worldwide and Zaaz. Atchison, the former CEO of Zaaz, also has installed new leadership—including a Digitas alum and some familiar Zaaz hands—at several key offices. Additionally, the shop recently added assignments from Revlon, Starwood’s Baccarat hotel and Gorilla Glue to a core base of accounts that includes Smuckers, Procter & Gamble and Microsoft. (Possible also contributed to Grey’s winning pitch for P&G’s Gillette.)

“We are already competing with the likes of a Digitas or R/GA,” said Atchison. “I’m not finding that more scale is the priority. It’s more capability.”

Accordingly, Possible has added practices focused on marketing sciences, LinkedIn and content marketing, and across all its work, the company places a Zaaz-style focus on numbers-based insights.

“We’re hiring analysts and creative directors who care about research and vice versa. We want researchers and marketing scientists and data jocks that love creative,” Atchison said.

Possible’s emphasis on audience measurement and targeting puts it in line to compete with DigitasLBi, whose roots are in direct marketing and customer relationship management. Still, with 5,700 staffers in 40 offices, DigitasLBi is not only bigger but also more well-known, with longtime accounts such as American Express and General Motors. As such, Possible still feels like it’s punching above its weight.

With some exceptions, WPP, Publicis Groupe and Interpublic Group tend to let the digital shops that they acquire or build stand on their own, unattached to traditional agencies. In contrast, Omnicom Group generally pairs digital brands with the likes of TBWA and BBDO, even while those shops develop their digital skills. Omnicom also isn’t fond of big digital acquisitions. And while Omnicom’s approach differs, its digital chief remains bullish on the strategy. “We’re the fastest growing holding company by a significant margin, and a huge portion of our business is digital,” said Jonathan Nelson, CEO of Omnicom Digital. “So, what am I doing wrong?”

Despite Atchison’s progress in ship building—and praise from even rivals—Possible doesn’t yet strike fear in the hearts of its competition. As an executive at a Publicis Groupe shop put it, “When we compete against [AKQA], we worry.” And Possible? “Not yet.”

Can the Empire State Building Brand Its View?

Robert Klara — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:15:13 PDT

The law doesn’t allow for the trademarking of a great view, but there’s nothing wrong with branding it. Just ask the marketing folks at the Empire State Building. The 1931 landmark’s 86th floor observation deck (which boasts 80-mile views on clear days) already draws some 4 million people yearly, but Malkin Holdings apparently feels it can do better. The majority shareholder has brought aboard both The Concept Farm and U.S. International Media in order to “adapt and evolve our observatory brand,” said observatory director Jean-Yves Ghazi.

Unlike his building, Ghazi didn’t offer an unobstructed view of his marketing plan, promising only “a full creative strategy and avant-garde executions.” But whatever form the branding will take, its arrival is not surprising. Malkin is well into a $550 million capital project that seeks to boost ESB’s revenue-generating potential by branding nearly everything in it. The skyscraper is now billed as “The World’s Most Famous Office Building,” which includes a new LED lighting system called the “Tower Lights” and an 80th floor event space called “Dare to Dream.”

Call it a coincidence, but the ESB’s observation-deck branding may also have a little something to do with One World Observatory, the stratospheric roost that’ll soon open atop the new World Trade Center. Eleven years ago, the 9/11 terrorist attacks handed the city’s-tallest-building status back to ESB, a reign that’ll end in 2014. In contrast to the ESB’s narrow outdoor perch on 86, WTC’s aerie will fill the 100th, 101st and 102nd floors with restaurant, retail and gawking space.

NowThis News Attracts High-Profile Supporters

David Taintor — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:03:32 PDT

Coming soon to NowThis News: native ads and big-name investors.

The New York-based startup, which describes itself as a mobile-centric news outlet for millennials, plans this summer to introduce sponsored video content to its mix of newsy and offbeat editorial fare.

If it sounds like a page out of BuzzFeed’s advertorial playbook, it does for good reason. NowThis News was co-founded last fall by BuzzFeed executive chairman Kenneth Lerer and backed by his firm Lerer Ventures.

NowThis News gm Eason Jordan acknowledged BuzzFeed’s shareable ad content as a model for NowThis News.

“Everything is meant to make the consumer experience as good as it can be,” he said. “We don’t want people coming to us and saying the advertising is such that I’m just not interested.”

Preroll ads are not in the works, Jordan added, considering many of the site’s videos clock in around one minute in length.

The company has been tight-lipped about the first advertisers to sign on, but Jordan hints they are “national, renowned brands.”

NowThis News—which has apps for Apple (100,000 iOs downloads to date) and Android devices—has attracted high-profile backers, too. Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman has come on as a new investor, and former MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath is an adviser.

“When you have the father of MTV and essentially the mother of MTV Networks, we’re feeling like we’ve got a lot of good karma coming along with them,” Jordan said.

Mayer Talks Tumblr Plans, Unveils New Flickr

Mike Shields — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:01:18 PDT

Yahoo plans to lean on its search technology to help users discover more great content on Tumblr, the company’s new $1.1 billion acquisition. And Tumblr will help Yahoo reach a younger, more visual driven crowd. But other than that, Yahoo plans to stay out of the way, pledged CEO Marissa Mayer at an event in New York’s Times Square on Monday.

During the show, Mayer said that she only got to know Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp late last year. But the pair hit it off quickly as they started to realize the synergies between the two companies.

“I didn’t foresee doing an acquisition of this type that was this strategic at this time,” Mayer said. “But as we started talking together about different partnerships and things we might do together, one of the big challenges on Tumblr is discovery and serendipity. We have great personalization and search capabilities. and on our network, we really want great and compelling and engaging content. The more we talked, the more we realized there were lots of ways and places the two companies could operate independently to complement each other. So much so that it made sense to merge the two companies.”

Mayer was joined at the event by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who touted the city’s tech startup community. The pair announced that Yahoo would be moving its 500-plus New York workforce into a single office, the former New York Times offices on 43rd street. “20 years ago we used to have a different kind of Yahoo in Times Square,” the mayor quipped.

Tumblr founder CEO David Karp didn’t speak at the event. He sat in a the front row in a Tumblr sweatshirt as Mayer shifted the conversation to Flickr, a Yahoo acquisition from another era. “It didn’t fare so well,” she said. “It languished. We can make Flickr awesome again.”

To that end, Mayer and her team unveiled a visually striking, photo-centric redesign of Flickr, as well as news that users would now have access to a tera byte of storage space—negating any need for the average human to pay to store any photos on the Web. “Flickr had become about words and blue links,” she said. “This product is heart-stoppingly beautiful.”

The presentation was classic Mayer (at least based on the newish CEOs first several months on the job). It was heavy on product and user experience, while emphasizing speed; Mayer said her team only came up with the idea for the redesign and tera byte storage goal in March. Meanwhile, monetization and advertising took a back seat. That may be music to the ears of young marketers worried about Tumblr's ad plans going forward.

But Mayer did shed some light on her overall advertising philosophy, one that would seem to be in synch with Karp, Tumblr and it’s massive 300 million unique user audience. “Ads work best when they’re really seamless with the experience They match the content that’s being presented.They’re clearly marked as ads but they’re every bit as good as the content that’s being presented along side of them and they follow the same form and function.”

'Mobile Advertising Video Has Just Begun'

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:04:40 PDT

New Model Agency: Chris Cunningham of appssavvy has designs on your phone

Advertising Student Ships His Pants to Kmart's Agency, Lands Internship

Tim Nudd — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:28:03 PDT

If you can ship your pants skillfully and creatively, you have a good chance of working at Kmart's ad agency, Draftfcb. The agency said today that it has brought in a new intern in large part because of his pants-shipping abilities. Alf Zapata shipped his actual pants and résumé to Draftfcb's recruiting department. That got him an interview; his "portfolio, witty humor and enthusiasm" got him the internship, the agency says. This raises the possibility that you could get an internship at Y&R in New York simply by apologizing and then acting superior. More images below.

Girl Barfs Up Her Own Dad in Baffling Anti-Drinking Ad From Spain

Tim Nudd — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:43:06 PDT

"Every time you get drunk, you separate yourself from the things that matter most. Like your family." That's the voiceover in this weird anti-drinking ad from Spain, aimed at young adults. The girl in the ad is seen vomiting up what is apparently her father. The sound effects are nasty, and the metaphor isn't much better. Second spot after the jump, in which a guy gets "separated" from his girlfriend—by upchucking her on a bathroom floor. Agency: Bungalow 25. Via Ads of the World.

Ad of the Day: Coca-Cola

Gabriel Beltrone — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:29:20 PDT

Coca-Cola wants to help solve one of the thorniest political conflicts in the world. How? More Coca-Cola for everyone, of course.

The brand today launched the latest video in its "Open happiness" campaign. The three-minute spot from Leo Burnett showcases a pair of connected vending machines that Coke and the agency set up in India and Pakistan. Each vending machine featured a webcam and a giant touchscreen monitor. Passersby could grant free sodas to the people on the other side of the digital window—but only if both parties participated in a series of simple joint activities, like touching their hands to corresponding places on the screen, drawing concurrent peace signs, and dancing with each other.

Creatively, it's a powerful piece, and very well executed. It also feels like a souped-up extension of the smartphone app that earned Coca-Cola the inaugural Mobile Grand Prix at Cannes last year—which let users buy unsuspecting strangers around the world cans of soda. While that campaign lacked the explicit political theme of this one, both are built around making a gesture of kindness to someone you don't know, and are rooted in the global Kumbaya spirit of the brand's classic Hilltop campaign from some 40 years ago.

The political element raises the stakes considerably, though. Cola diplomacy runs the risk of coming across as painfully naive by oversimplifying a complex issue that's tangled up in a long history of imperialism, religious conflict and nuclear stand-off, to name a few factors. Coke frames this powder keg of a problem as, on some level, simply one of miscommunication—because that's small enough that the brand can then frame itself as the solution. Sure, more understanding and common ground isn't a bad thing, and Coke takes some pains to temper the portrayal of its own success, erring on the side of aspirational everyman/everywoman voiceover platitudes throughout the spot (e.g., "We are going to take minor steps so that we are going to solve bigger issues.") But really, what the brand is taking minor steps toward is selling more sugar water in a way that isn't explicitly about selling more sugar water, and has at least the veneer of a higher purpose.

That's no surprise—the social-media zeitgeist holds that doing good is good for business. Yes, a warm-and-fuzzy video like this has some entertainment value, and it's is certainly more palatable—and arguably more effective—than a hard-sell product spot. But doesn't distilling a geopolitical conflict into short-form branded content do more harm than good by trivializing it?

Or if everyone just drank a Coke, would they really get along?

CREDITS
Client: Coca-Cola
Ad: "Small World Machines"
Agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago & Sydney
Global Chief Creative Officer: Mark Tutssel
Chief Creative Officer: Andy DiLallo
Executive Creative Directors: Dave Loew, Jon Wyville
Creative Directors: Grant McAloon, Vince Lagana
Art Director: Justin Carew
Copywriter: Iggy Rodriguez
Designers: Omari Miller, John-Henry Pajak, David Mugford
Director of Creative Technology: Chad Mirshak
Creative Technologists: Brendan Crich, Keong Seet, Scott North
Executive Director of Production: Vincent Geraghty
Directors of Production Operations: Michael Shanahan, Amir Mireskandari
Executive Producer: Adrian Gunadi
Producer: Stephen Clark, Michelle Browne
Executive Strategy Director: Wells Davis
Strategy Director: Olivier Tse
Executive Account Director: Bob Raidt
Account Supervisor: Katie Nikolaus
Director, DOP, Editor: Patrick Fileti
2nd Unit Director: Angus Forbes
2nd Unit Dop: Angus Forbes
Technology Partner/Company: The Super Group
Production Company: Highlight Films
Music Company: Song Zu
Set Dressing: Full Circle Corporation Marketing

Even Home Intruders Get the Girl in Campaign for Axe's New Hair Products

Tim Nudd — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:55:56 PDT

'Tis the season for male-grooming brand extensions. Old Spice introduced its shaving gel last week. And now, Axe has updated its range of hair products for men. It's advertising them with four new 20-second ads from BBH London that have launched in Europe and will reach North America this weekend. The creative idea is that well-styled hair is crucial when you meet someone for the first time. The spots present various quirky first-meeting scenarios—the most faux-provocative of which is probably the home-invasion scenario, in which burglar seduces buglee with his perfectly slicked 'do. "We wanted to capture a simple truth about guys and their grooming habits," says David Kolbusz, deputy executive creative director at BBH. "Whenever a man sees a woman he fancies, he tends to touch up his hair before making the initial approach. We dramatized this behavior by setting it in the most extreme of circumstances." More spots and credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Lynx/Axe
Agency: BBH London

BBH Creative Team: Matt Fitch & Mark Lewis and Harry Orton and Robin Warman
BBH Creative Director: David Kolbusz
BBH Producer: Charlie Dodd
BBH Strategic Business Lead: Ngaio Pardon
BBH Strategy Director: Dan Hauck
BBH Strategist: Tim Jones
BBH Team Director: Heather Cuss
BBH Team Manager: Cressida Holmes Smith

Production Company: Outsider and Station Films
Director: Harold Einstein
Executive Producer: Eric Liney
Producer: Jon Stopp/Richard Packer
DoP: Danny Cohen
Post Production: The Mill
Editor/Editing House: The Mill
Sound: Factory

TripAdvisor Hires Shops for Its First Offline Campaign

Andrew McMains — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:53:45 PDT

TripAdvisor is planning its first offline campaign this fall and has hired new agencies to lead the charge.

After a review, the travel website has hired The Fantastical to handle creative responsibilities and Hill Holliday to plan and buy media. TripAdvisor declined to discuss its media budget for the fall effort, but sources estimated it at $30 million.

The Fantastical is a startup in Boston that’s led by former Mullen group creative directors Michael Ancevic and Steve Mietelski. Hill Holliday, of course, is a full-service mainstay of the Boston market and unit of Interpublic Group.

In hiring Hill Holliday, TripAdvisor chief marketing officer Barbara Messing cited the agency’s “strong strategic approach to planning and buying [which is] supported by robust analytics.”

The Fantastical, as lead creative shop, meanwhile, will focus on bringing TripAdvisor’s brand message to TV, “as we learn how offline advertising can impact our growth and introduce the ... brand to even more people,” Messing said.

In the past, TripAdvisor marketed itself primarily online. Those efforts, which are handled in-house, will continue in tandem with the offline campaign.

TripAdvisor’s site is known for its consumer reviews of hotels, rentals and restaurants. Late last year, the brand began to roll out a meta search function that enables users to compare hotel prices. That new function gives the brand a bigger story to tell as it ventures into traditional advertising for the first time.

Starbucks Is Open for Business in Vietnam

Maura McGowan — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:43:19 PDT

Starbucks opened up shop in Ho Chi Minh in February, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said that sales have exceeded expectations so far. Still, Vietnam may prove a challenge for the hegemonic coffee company because of the country's rich coffee culture that dates back at least a century.

"If Starbucks wants to succeed in Vietnam, they have to change the way they serve," customer Minh Khanh told the Journal.

"Starbucks no longer has the personality it had when it first started," local coffee retailer Dang Le Nguyen Vu told Bloomberg.

Vu owns Trung Nguyen, a Vietnamese chain with a roasting tradition dating back to 19th century French and Dutch plantations. Vu is confident that Vietnamese coffee fans will remain loyal to the "thick, oily" domestic brew.
John Culver, Starbucks president for China and the Asia-Pacific region, said, "We will aggressively grow" in Vietnam, with "hundreds of stores."

The company is focusing on expansion in Asia and said it will double the number of stores in Thailand to 320 and expand into Myanmar within the next couple of years.

Oily Bohunk Josh Button Makes Landfall in Ad for Diet Dr Pepper

David Gianatasio — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:10:59 PDT

Damn you, hot hunks of advertising! Damn you to hot, hunky hell! Your Grecian glutes mock me as I polish off another nacho platter, and your six-pack abs shame me as I knock back my six-pack of beer! Shirtless Josh Button is the latest addition to the ad-hunk trend, rising seductively from the sea in Deutsch L.A.'s new tongue-in-cheek commercial for Diet Dr Pepper. (They make diet soda now?) "Millions of guys are born good looking," Button's voiceover begins, as the number 70,611,600 flashes on screen. "But not many are really good looking." The number 64,891 appears. "Even fewer are really, really, really, really, really good looking. At least, that's what I'm told." The number 45 zips by. "I'm Josh Button, and I'm one of a kind." We then get a full-on view of his chiseled torso as the red number 1 appears, thrust like a dagger into my cholesterol-clogged heart. (Hey, I'm at least one of the 70 million fairly OK-looking dudes, right?!) "We're poking fun at ourselves and the trend of hot guys in advertising," Dr Pepper svp of marketing Jaxie Alt tells USA Today, alluding to hunk sightings in spots for brands like Kraft Zesty Italian dressing and Diet Coke. After decades of impossibly trim bikini babes making women feel insecure, I guess it's men's turn to suffer. At least one advertiser out there is providing a more realistic depiction of the male form. But when you consider the state of that beach bum's liver, and his life expectancy, it's cold comfort indeed. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Dr Pepper Snapple Group
Brand: Diet Dr Pepper

Agency: Deutsch, Los Angeles
Chief Creative Officer: Mark Hunter
Group Creative Director: Brett Craig
Creative Director: Xavier Teo
ACD, Art Director: Erick Mangali
ACD, Copywriter: Chris DiNinno, Lehr E. Ryan
Director of Integrated Production: Vic Palumbo
Executive Producer: Lisa K. Johnson
Director of Content Production: Victoria Guenier
Ken Rongey: Senior Business Affairs Manager
Directors: Craig Brett/Mangali Erick
Director of Photography: Greig Fraser
1st A.D.: Anthony Dimino

Editorial Company:
Spot Welders, Santa Monica, CA
Editor: Patrick Murphree
Executive Producer: David Glean
Senior Producer: Carolina Wallace
Producer: J. Patrick McElroy

Post Facility - Color Only:
Company 3, Santa Monica, CA
Colorist: Dave Hussey

Visual Effects:
Arsenal FX, Santa Monica, CA
Post Production Company: Arsenal F/X
Executive Producer: Ashley Hydrick
VFX Supervisor/Design: Lauren Mayer-Beug
Flame: Mark Leiss and Terry Silberman
Designers/Animators: Andrew Schreiber
Post Producer: Pravina Sippy
Production Coordinators:

Music/Composer:
Elias Arts, Santa Monica, CA
Creative Director-Dave Gold
Executive Producer-Ann Haugen
Composer-David Wittman
Producer-Kiki Martinez

Audio Post Company/City/State:
Play Studios, Los Angeles, CA

Mixer:John Bolen
Executive Producer: Lauren Cascio

Others:
Mnemonic and End Tag
Wood Shop, Culver City, CA
CD/Product Director: Trevor Shephard
DP: Tom Lazarevich
Live Action Producer: Christy Lindgren
Post Producer: Sabrina Elizondo
Nuke Compositors: John Weckworth, Forbes Hill, Jon Lorenz, Ned Wilson, Thomas Horne
3D Artist: Forbes Hill, Cody Smith CD

Client Credits
Director of Creative: Shaun Nichols
Brand Manager – Diet Dr Pepper: Angela Snellings
Director of Marketing: Leslie Vesper
SVP, Director of Brand Marketing and Sponsorships: Jaxie Alt
SVP, Marketing: Andrew Springate
EVP, Marketing: Jim Trebilcock
Advertising Manager: Sharon Leath

Additional Deutsch Credits:
Mike Sheldon, CEO
Account Management Credits:
David Dreyer, Group Account Director
Helen Murray, VP Account Director
Andrew DuBois, Account Supervisor
Kate DeMallie, Assistant Account Executive
Account Planners:
Jeffrey Blish, Chief Strategic Officer
Aileen Russell, Group Planning Director
Business Affairs
Abilino Guillermo: Director of Integrated Business Affairs