Morning Update: New video tells ad industry to stop objectifying women; Is Twitter doomed?; Droga5 wins AdAge agency of the year
Mashable: This video powerfully reminds the ad industry that women are not objects
A new campaign is tackling how women are depicted in ads — and it’s using a simple Google search to start the conversation.
On Nov. 18, 2015, ad executive Madonna Badger Googled “objectification of women” as part of a campaign called #WomenNotObjects, turning up years’ worth of sexist ads that hypersexualize and objectify women’s bodies for marketing. In a new video released this month, the campaign spotlights some of these ads, with women sarcastically confronting the images for their harmful depictions.
AdAge: Droga5 Is the Ad Age and Creativity 2016 Agency of the Year
When asked about Droga5’s biggest strength, founder and Creative Chairman David Droga knows that many would say creativity. Others would cite strategy. But he believes the key to the agency’s success is caring — perhaps too much.
“Caring is out of scope, but we do anyway,” Mr. Droga has said time and again over the years. It’s this obsessive, restless giving-a-damn – about making work that stands out creatively, drives business and, in the best-case scenario, has an impact in the real world — that has led the agency to where it is today.
BBC: Time spent online ‘overtakes TV’ among youngsters
Young people are spending more time playing and socialising online than watching television programmes, according to an annual survey tracking children’s media behaviour in the UK.
Staff at research agency Childwise described it as a “landmark change”.
Among those watching TV, the Netflix on-demand service was more popular than any conventional television channel.
There was also a surge in children’s ownership of tablet computers, up by 50% compared with last year.
On Sunday night, following reports by our sister publication Recode, Twitter confirmed that several of its top executives were leaving the company. The list included Kevin Weil, its fifth head of product since 2009; Jason Toff, who ran Vine; and vice presidents in charge of engineering and human resources.
It’s an ugly list of departures for a company that has seen its user growth stall and its stock price drop 55 percent over the past year. And it calls into question CEO Jack Dorsey’s efforts to stabilize a company that was in turmoil for much of 2015. The Verge’s Nilay Patel and Casey Newton recently sat down in a Google Doc to tackle a question no one in the media has ever dared to ask: is Twitter doomed?
Tech Crunch: Twitter Confirms Amex’s Leslie Berland As Its New CMO
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey today announced a new CMO for the company — Leslie Berland, who joins from American Express. The confirmation comes two days after her name first came up in connection with the role, amid a number of other big executive changes at the company.
Matching some of the current internal turmoil at the company, Twitter has been having a lot of problems in the public markets, with its stock trading at one of its lowest points in 52 weeks (it hit its 52-week low last week after some system outages). Its share price is still settling on the news: at one point in pre-market trading it was up over 2% to $17.40. But it seemed to be short-lived. As of our latest check, it has dropped a couple of percentage points again to below $17.
Twitter makes its money by showing ads to its users. But not all of its users: For the past few months, the social media company has stopped displaying ads, or has dramatically reduced the number of ads it displays, to a small group of some of its most prominent and active users.
For those people, Twitter is an ad-free, or nearly ad-free, experience.
Sources say Twitter made the move in an attempt to get some of its VIP users to stay engaged with the service. That seems a little counterintuitive for a company that appears to be focused on getting new users, not pleasing its hardcore base. But CEO Jack Dorsey seems to endorse the notion: Twitter started playing around with the idea in September, when Dorsey was interim boss, and has kept at it since he took the title for good.
https://youtu.be/D8sEo7JJepY
AdWeek: A Hungry Marilyn Monroe Butchers ‘Happy Birthday’ in Snickers’ Super Bowl Teaser
She’s America’s original sweetheart. But when she’s hungry, Marilyn Monroe takes a turn for the worse. That’s according to Snickers’ new Super Bowl ad teaser, in which she reprises her iconic “Happy Birthday” serenade—to celebrate the Super Bowl’s 50th birthday—but with quite the husky vocal.
“Since we’re kicking-off the ’50’ celebration of one of the world’s most iconic events, it seemed only fitting to cast Marilyn Monroe, a Hollywood icon with global appeal, to help us celebrate,” says Snickers brand director Allison Miazga-Bedrick. “But this is just a small glimpse of what America should expect from Snickers on Super Bowl Sunday. As always, the ad will feature a funny surprise that we’re confident will satisfy fans hungry for a laugh.”
Digiday: How Snapchat pitched advertisers a $1.8 million Snapchat ad during the 2015 Super Bowl
This year is the first Snapchat has inked deals with big brands for a Super Bowl ad campaign on the platform, but it’s not the first year it’s tried.
Last year, Snapchat was out seeking a single big-name sponsor to spend $1.77 million on video ads in the app on game day. That works out to about 40 percent of what a 30-second commercial would cost during the game. Snapchat was offering the brand three “snaps,” which it calculated as costing 9 cents per unique view. It estimated viewership, over 24 hours, of 15 million with average viewing time of 2.1 minutes
The Guardian: Apple to offer subscription content through its News app, sources say
Apple is working to make subscription content available through its News app, giving publishers with paywalls a new way to control who sees their articles, two sources familiar with the matter said.
The move would differentiate Apple News from Facebook’s Instant Articles news offering, which does not offer subscriber-only content, and would probably give Apple a boost as it seeks to distinguish itself from a growing crowd of online news apps.
The Drum: Adidas’ decision to terminate IAAF contract illustrates the evolution of sports marketing
Adidas’ decision to terminate its sponsorship deal with IAAF comes as no surprise given the revelations surrounding the doping scandal and while the decision was influenced by the morals of the situation, it has also been a pragmatic one which illustrates the evolution of sports marketing.The German company’s 11 year supplier contract with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was due to run until the end of 2019 however the claims of “state sponsored doping” led Adidas to walk away from the scandal ridden organisation.
It’s unlikely that this was a reluctant retreat however as the £23m ($33m) deal wasn’t building engagement in the same way that its football and running divisions have.
