The Chicago office of DDB has filled its top new business role with an executive from a smaller, crosstown rival. Jamie McGarry, former new business chief at O'Keefe Reinhard & Paul, is now director of business development at DDB in Chicago. She fills a vacancy created by the December exit of Isabel Schuler, who held the role for 17 months.
Mannequins usually symbolize the consumer ideal of the "good life," draped in couture and jewelry in department-store window displays. But now they've fallen on hard times in a JWT stunt meant to raise money for Amsterdam's growing homeless population. Agency staffers rounded up unused mannequins, dressed them in ragged clothes and placed them around the city with cardboard signs asking for money. Each mannequin also had a piggy-bank-style donation slot cut into its head, and donations went to advocacy group BADT.
Last week we wondered if another marketer had managed to out-Nike Nike with a flashy short film around the World Cup. Nike probably didn't care, though, as it was busy changing direction completely—Ronaldo-like—and again looking to leave its rivals in the dust. With the kickoff of the 2014 World Cup just three days away, Nike Football has unleashed its latest blockbuster in the "Risk Everything" campaign. And the creative direction certainly is a risk for the client and its agency, Wieden + Kennedy.
ZenithOptimedia will use the high profile of Cannes to discuss its new "Owned First" strategic approach. The strategy centers around how marketers prioritize and allocate resources across paid, owned and earned media. "The principle is that if you've got assets that deliver genuine value in the digital space to consumers from an owned perspective, then the strategies that you undertake in your paid investment can become subject to them rather than disconnected from them," said Sean Healy, global communications planning director at ZenithOptimedia.
Sometimes the best thing a brand can do is lean into the conversation that's already going on around it. And that's exactly what Lucky Charms, a brand that some people have always seen as a little queer, is doing, in part to support LGBT Pride Month.
Remember the good old days, when a Coca-Cola cost only a nickel, and people weren't always whining about how bad soda is for your health? Coca-Cola does. "A Coke used to cost 5 cents," says this new Coke ad. "But what if a 12-oz. Coke cost 140 calories?" the brand adds, in a head-scratcher of a rhetorical non-sequitur that's the perfect setup for the awkward answer that follows. A 140-pound person would have to ride a bicycle for 23 minutes, on average, to burn off an equivalent amount of energy, according to the commercial.
As the World Cup quickly approaches, brands are pouring millions into showing the world that they love and understand soccer that much more than their competitors. But are fans listening, particularly to the ones that signed on to be official sponsors of the event? Adidas is doing everything it can to protect its most-coveted soccer-playing market from getting consumed by Nike.
Dove Men+Care’s digital campaign for Father’s Day riffs off the idea that dads are sick of their Ward Cleaver image and want credit for changing diapers, making dinner and consoling heartbroken teens. But this creative isn’t all touchy-feely—it’s based on some hard data. Dove hired Edelman Berland to interview 1,000 fathers ages 25-54. “Three-quarters of dads say they are responsible for their child’s emotional well-being,” said Rob Candelino, marketing vp and general manager, Unilever’s skin care.
The broadcast ad market is on its feet and moving toward deals as of this week, but one thing that seems to be in much greater play this year is accountable, verifiable data—and not necessarily from the usual sources. “Budgets are being registered, but I don’t think there’s a lot that’s start-to-finish closed,” said one buyer.
You know you have achieved the status of marketing legend when you don’t need to even put your name on your communications and still everyone gets the message. For a French campaign last year, McDonald’s, selected as Creative Marketer of the Year at the 2014 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, employed pictures of burgers, French fries and sundaes free of any tagline or even those familiar golden arches.
