For all the hype afforded it, the Super Bowl does a pretty lousy job at series promotion. According to Nielsen fast national data, the two shows that aired immediately after Super Bowl XLVIII failed to capitalize on their time in the national spotlight.
Chris Garbutt has been named to the new position of chief creative officer of Ogilvy & Mather East in New York, moving from his role as CCO of O&M France. Garbutt has been given a mandate to oversee creative across disciplines including advertising, customer engagement, public relations, digital, shopper marketing, branded content and entertainment. Garbutt, who has worked closely with O&M worldwide CCO Tham Khai Meng, will report to North American CCO Steve Simpson.
Twitter's ad business is flying ahead of schedule, but users are not flocking like advertisers. The company announced its fourth quarter and full year revenue today, its first financial results since going public last quarter. In 2013, Twitter's revenue reached $665 million and the company says 2014 will be the year it generates more than $1 billion in sales, according to the fourth quarter filings. Some forecasts had predicted the company would fall shy of the $600 million mark in 2013.
Super Bowl XLVIII, a bona fide bore, improbably ended up being the most-viewed TV program in American history.
Carat has won most of MasterCard’s global media business, with the exception of Latin America, which will remain at UM, sources said. Global media spending is estimated at $200 million, including $105 million in the U.S. alone. Sources identified the other review contenders as Omnicom's PHD; Publicis Groupe’s MediaVest; a team from WPP Group’s GroupM that was led by Mediacom; and the incumbent, Interpublic Group's UM.
In a somewhat surprising turn of events, CBS appears to have outbid its broadcast competition for the rights to the new Thursday night NFL package. While NBC was thought to be the lead dog in the hunt for the eight-game parcel, CBS emerged the victor.
Now that the Super Bowl ad bonanza is (finally) over, it’s time we all take a well-deserved break from obsessively tracking TV spots created for major sporting events. Just kidding! The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics are just a day away (although the opening ceremony won’t air until Friday—figure that one out), and while Sochi is still scrambling to finish preparations for the big event, here in the U.S., marketers have already kicked off an onslaught of Team USA-themed campaigns.
Agencies from across the global creative landscape are invited to submit their best work from the past year—in 18 media types—for consideration by a panel of jurors for the 2014 Clio Awards show in October. The entry period opens today and ends April 11. The members of the 2014 jury were also announced today, with a 50-50 gender ratio to "more equally represent contributions of women to the industry," the Clio Awards said in a statement today.
Unilever is trying to take the idea of free product sampling normally seen in store aisles and apply it to ecommerce. For Tresemmé, Nexus, Dove Hair, Clear Dove's Men and Dove's Men, the Cincinnati-based firm is placing samples for those hair care brands in shipments going out to customers for Gilt and Coastal.com, among other ecommerce players.
Google has elevated Susan Wojcicki to the head of YouTube, according to a report last night in The Information. The longtime Googler—the search giant's 16th employee—had been in charge of ad sales. Wojcicki reportedly had fielded offers elsewhere, and was looking to run her own company, a criteria YouTube seems to cover.
