Morning Update: Jonah Hill’s awkward as ad; Sorrell tells marketers to dump auditors; Audio streaming overtakes video in US
AdWeek: Jonah Hill’s Brilliantly Awkward Sneaker Ad Might Be His Best Act Yet
Jonah Hill may have perfected the art of the intentionally awful ad.
The Hollywood star anchors this two-minute infomercial for London-based skateboarding brand Palace. The video—by MPC Creative and directors Lev Tanju, Stuart Bentley and Stuart Hammond—packs in as much awkward humor as possible, complete with bad dubs, cheesy green screening and batshit rambling sales pitches.
The centerpiece is an upcoming sneaker collaboration between the shop and “some sportswear company called Reebok”—or “Ree-boke,” as Hill hilariously pronounces it.
Campaign UK: ‘Conflicted’ media auditors come under fire from Sorrell
Sorrell singled out Ebiquity, arguing that it is “heavily conflicted” because it has one subsidiary, FirmDecisions, that audits whether agencies have complied with their contracts with advertisers while other parts of the business manage pitches for clients, advise them how to “secure better prices” and audit media spend.
Sorrell’s comments come after WPP’s media buying arm, Group M, began legal action against Firm-Decisions in London’s High Court in a dispute over the potential breach of a non-disclosure agreement involving “four or five” different confidential documents that were sent in error to the auditor by Group M agencies.
FirmDecisions has denied any wrongdoing and is robustly defending the case.
Ciaran O’Kane, Kevin Walsh, Zachary King, Ryan Pestano and Damien Cummings at ATS Singapore
Mumbrella Asia: Marketers need to be forced to use new technology, says StanChart’s Damien Cummings
Marketers must be forced to use new technology introduced to their companies otherwise it will inevitably fail, the head of digital at Standard Chartered Bank has said.
Talking on a panel at the ATS Singapore conference, Damien Cummings, the global head of digital marketing at Standard Chartered Bank, said that marketers’ performance should be measured against newly introduced tech otherwise the investment will be wasted and staff will simply return to their day jobs.
Over 20 years of experience of companies introducing new technology, Cummings, who worked for Philips before joining StanChart just over a year ago, said: “Unless you systematically force people to use it and change their KPIs and go through that pain period of getting used to a new way of working, it will inevitably fail.”
BBC News: Audio streaming overtakes video for first time in US
Albums by Beyonce, Drake and Rihanna have helped music streaming services overtake video sites like YouTube and Vevo for the first time in the US.
Services like Apple Music and Spotify delivered 114 billion streams in the first six months of 2016, with video platforms on 95 billion.
Overall, the streaming market increased by 58% year-on-year.
A young journalist covering severe flooding in Mexico has been fired after she was photographed being carried over puddles by two local people to avoid getting her expensive shoes wet.
Lydia Cumming was fired by TV Azteca, who accused her of lacking professionalism, but the story soon overwhelmed the internet, inspiring dozens of memes.
The young reporter was sent to city of Puebla in central Mexico, which was inundated with floodwater.
The Verge: Exclusive: Why Microsoft is betting its future on AI
Satya Nadella bounded into the conference room, eager to talk about intelligence. I was at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA, and the company’s CEO was touting the company’s progress in building more intelligent apps and services. Each morning, he told me, he puts on a HoloLens, which enables him to look at a virtual, interactive calendar projected on a wall of his house. Nadella appeared giddy as he described it. The system was intelligent, productive, and futuristic: everything he hopes Microsoft will be under his leadership.
No matter where we work in the future, Nadella says, Microsoft will have a place in it. The company’s “conversation as a platform” offering, which it unveiled in March, represents a bet that chat-based interfaces will overtake apps as our primary way of using the internet: for finding information, for shopping, and for accessing a range of services. And apps will become smarter thanks to “cognitive APIs,” made available by Microsoft, that let them understand faces, emotions, and other information contained in photos and videos.
The Drum: Ikea continues emotive ‘Wonderful Everyday’ push by focusing on the joy of cooking
Ikea wants to celebrate how cooking together helps us make more than just food in our Ad of the Day.
Continuing its longstanding ‘Wonderful Everyday’ positioning, the brand has launched a TV campaign capturing the comical and slightly awkward kitchen escapades of a grandfather and his granddaughter.
Left to his own devices for the day with the sole job of feeding his grandchild, the spot was created by Mother London and sees the duo stumble around the kitchen trying to cook lunch together. After using a string of unsuitable kitchen utensils, think stirring with a whisk, they laugh about the mess they’ve made. The grandad later finds a pre-prepared lunch in the fridge, but decides to forgo it in favour of the meal they’ve cooked together.
