Morning Update: Y&R NZ win Andy’s with McWhopper; The Guardian’s suicide mission; NY Post editor in chief Col Allan retires
https://vimeo.com/162693274
Ad Week: Y&R Staff Worldwide Make McWhoppers in Adorable Video Celebrating Major Ad Award Win
Y&R New Zealand’s celebrated McWhopper campaign took home the highest honour, the Grandy, at the 52nd annual International Andy Awards on Tuesday night. And Y&R staffers from around the globe celebrated in a fun (if not very healthy) way—by making their own handmade McWhoppers, as seen in the video.
It’s rare and refreshing to see this kind of network camaraderie, particularly around awards, where offices far from the winning one might not ordinarily feel much of a connection. For the McWhopper stunt, which happened last August, Burger King reached out to McDonald’s and suggested they partner up and actually make a McWhopper for Peace Day. McDonald’s politely declined, which meant it was never officially made.
GQ: Alan Rusbridger’s Guardian is on a suicide mission
One of Alan Rusbridger’s last acts as the Guardian’s editor and leader was to leave it with a yearly loss of £45 million – the largest loss for any newspaper anywhere in the world last year. This comes on the heels of many years of consecutive losses such that Rusbridger may have lost more money in the newspaper business than anyone in history – save only for Rupert Murdoch.
But even Murdoch’s losses have their limit. His newspapers, and their costs, were sequestered from the rest of his holdings in a spin-off in 2013, which has brought greater accountability and austerity to his papers. Quite the opposite has happened at the Guardian, where, under Rusbridger, the Scott Trust – administering the Guardian Media Group with discipline and savviness in contrast to the paper itself – has been largely liquidated in the past few years, so that its assets, rather than just its income, could become available to fund the paper’s operational costs.
NY Post: Longtime Post editor-in-chief Col Allan is retiring
Col Allan, the Editor-in-Chief of the New York Post and the longest serving editor at News Corp, is retiring from the paper, it was announced Thursday. He will be succeeded by Stephen Lynch, who is now the Sunday Editor, the paper said in a statement.
“Col Allan is one of the most outstanding editors of his generation,” Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corp. said. “Col’s intelligence, insight, humour and unrelenting energy has created the New York Post that today stands as a newspaper of great influence, in print and online. During his time as editor, the paper expanded it’s digital audience more than tenfold to a record 31.5 million unique users in March.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a 10-year plan to connect the world that sounded as much like a political cause as a grab for potential billions in dollars.
In a sweeping address that took on sharp political tones at times, Facebook’s 31-year-old CEO detailed how Facebook aims to reach the planet’s 7 billion people — half of whom do not have Internet access. And he took very direct aim at those who would limit free trade and immigration.
“We are one global community,” he said. “Whether we are welcoming a refugee fleeing war or an immigrant seeking opportunity, coming together to fight a global disease like Ebola or to address climate change.”
Buzzfeed: The Digital Media Bloodbath: Hundreds Of Jobs Lost
There’s blood in the pixels again. Since the beginning of last year, media companies with large U.S. digital operations have been shedding employees and even shutting down entirely. In total, more than 1,000 job cuts have been announced over the last 12 months, and industry watchers fear more to come.
While all media companies struggle in their own way, it is clear that all face a similar set of industry-wide problems. Companies reliant on digital advertising dollars have seen rates for display ads plummet as wave after wave of new competitors saturate the internet with content. Only those with the largest audiences and most sophisticated revenue machines have prospered; others, like Mashable, theInternational Business Times, and Gigaom, have all laid off staff.
Mumbrella Asia: Is SK-II’s ‘Leftover women’ film empowering or milking our insecurities?
In this guest post ,former digital strategist at Social@Ogilv, Hong Kong, Joanna Yuen takes issue with the motives of the latest instalment of the #ChangeDestiny campaign from P&G skincare brand SK-II, which confronts the issue of ‘Leftover women’ in China.
How do brands milk the insecurities of women? By disguising as ultra-empowering brand for women it seems. Most people I know are impressed by the latest SK-II “Marriage Market” ad because, they say, it is “empowering”. I’m Asian, female and 27, so by China’s standards I belong to the group of “sheng nu”, or leftover women [who are unmarried by this age]. I used to be a fervent user of SK-II, but I felt somewhat exploited by the brand. Here’s why:
Ad Week: Samsung Wins Cannes Lions Marketer of the Year
Samsung Electronics is already a big winner at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, scoring the award for Marketer of the Year. At the 2015 festival, Samsung walked away with 27 awards for some of its work including the innovative live-saving technology to be fitted onto big trucks, the Samsung Safety Truck—which was also awarded the Gravity Award for Adweek’s Project Isaac Awards honoring creative innovation, last year—from Leo Burnett Argentina.
In the past year, Samsung has continued to create innovative campaigns, pushing further into virtual reality and collaborating with companies like Vice and 20th Century Fox to bring VR experiences to life for consumers. Other recent campaigns include work from Wieden + Kennedy for the Galaxy S7 starring Lil Wayne and a spot from Leo Burnett Italy featuring new technology for motorcycles that check texts, calls and emails.
