The native advertising programmatic gold rush is on. Following the emergence of a handful of native ad networks came yesterday's announcement that the startup TripleLift was launching a native ad exchange with several top brands and publishers.
Izea, a firm that has ridden the trends of sponsored content and social media by connecting companies with celebrities and personalities, is announcing today that it has raised $12 million in new funding. The 7-year-old company has already raised $24 million in four rounds of funding, but this is the largest amount raised in a single round to date. The funding was led by Special Situation Funds, with participation by Izea board members and other investors, which were not disclosed.
DDB is splitting with Reebok amid a review of the sneaker and apparel company’s global creative business. The review is in its late stages with a trio of contenders that sources identified as Mother; Goodby Silverstein & Partners; and Venables Bell & Partners. Select Resources International in Santa Monica, Calif., is managing the process. Annual global media spending on the brand is estimated at $50 million.
Mad Woman Lauren Reeves is a true romantic. If you're paying.
It's Feb. 11. You know what that means? There are only three days left until Valentine's Day! Oh, and it also means you'd better have solid dinner plans for Friday night, because all the good reservations filled up months ago. But what if, between the Super Bowl and the Olympics and constantly shoveling snow, you forgot to make plans? Heineken has you covered, thanks to a new social-media campaign devised by Wieden + Kennedy in New York.
Thanks to the country's anti-gay laws, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia have turned into a de facto platform for LGBT marketing. Earlier, we had the Canadian ad that said the two-man luge is "a little gay." Now, we have this crazy spot from Norwegian sports apparel retailer XXL. It's an over-the-top, absurd blockbuster of an ad, with overly slick visuals, overly cheesy music and a "twist" ending you could spot from Moscow. And yet … somehow you have to love it. Its heart is generally in the right place, even if it plays out like a male fantasy.
Brands don't typically allow campaign metrics to go public unless they've exceeded expectations. With that in mind, HTC today says a just-wrapped 11-week campaign that mixed global social media with Times Square ads drew 54,000 photo submissions. The effort, pitched in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, centered on a contest to win a 24-carat-plated HTC One smartphone worth $2,500.
Sweden's One Hour Agency is the brainchild of interactive art directors Ben Langeveld and Ingmar Larsen, who, along with a half-dozen other creatives from the Hyper Island program, want just 60 minutes of your time. "You give us one hour. We generate quality ideas," they say. At typical client-agency meetings, awkward pauses and efforts to reboot PowerPoint can last longer than an hour, but this startup remains undeterred.
BBDO goes in for a big sweep: the agency can potentially win four major clients in the next five weeks. Plus, Zumobi CEO Ken Willner tells us why brands should own their own apps, and we take a look at whether reward-based mobile can work.
If you still needed proof that selfies have taken over the Internet, here's a telling infographic about how brands went into pic-snapping overload in the past year. To help promote the upcoming deadline for entries (Feb. 18) in The Shorty Awards' Best Facebook Campaign category, contest sponsor Unmetric decided to analyze how major businesses embraced the selfie in all its ego-stroking glory over the course of 2013.
