Agency

If you’re headed to South by Southwest Interactive this weekend, as I am, there’s a very good chance that you’re complaining about it. It’s too big and corporate. It’s full of — shocker! — marketers instead of geeks now. It’s been impossible to get housing downtown unless you’re willing to sell a kidney on Craigslist. The Driskill Hotel won’t be fun for late-night drinks anymore because some sports marketers have taken over the whole place. You know the drill.  I’ve been going to SXSWi for years, and I agree that some of those complaints are legit. I don’t like waiting in line for breakfast tacos, and I don’t like booking insanely overpriced hotel rooms that are a 10-minute drive from the Convention Center, either. Still, I’ll confess: I like the fact that the chaos makes us think about attention. There are some lessons for us all to learn about confronting the inconveniences of representing a brand in a chaotic space. (And why not learn these things when there are open bars everywhere?)

SiriusXM announced that it will air a special broadcast of “El Show de Piolín” on Saturday, March 8 during the upcoming blockbuster Pay-Per-View boxing event, “TOE TO TOE: Canelo vs. Angulo,” featuring Mexican boxing superstar “Canelo” Alvarez facing veteran fellow countryman  Alfredo “El Perro” Angulo.   

Terra, a global digital media company and content producer with a presence in 19 countries, is proud to announce “Terra Live Music in Concert” with Juanes, an exclusive live-streaming music performance featuring the vibrant Grammy-winning superstar Juanes, on Wednesday, March 12th at 10:00pm ET to debut his upcoming new album “Loco de Amor” (“Crazy from Love”) which will be released globally the day prior.

Johnson & Johnson, the Official Healthcare Sponsor of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, announced the launch of the Champions of Care program in the United States to shine a spotlight on people who go above and beyond to do extraordinary things in caring for others.

Yahoo unveiled world-renowned coach, Jose Mourinho as their global football ambassador for 2014.  For the billions of football fans who make football their daily habit, Mourinho will be an exclusive analyst for Yahoo’s worldwide football coverage including the FIFA World Cup 2014 and he will also provide exclusive behind the scenes content from his world on his own Tumblr.

The power of the purse is losing ground to the weight of the wallet and a new breed of male consumer is emerging, this according to Defy Media’s 2nd annual Acumen Report: Brand New Man. More than 2,000 men ages 18-49 participated in the study to voice opinions on how they spark a relationship with a new brand, research products and make purchasing decisions across a wide variety of categories including alcohol, snacks and grooming products.

Imagine seeing a dozen pictures flash by in a fraction of a second. You might think it would be impossible to identify any images you see for such a short time. However, a team of neuroscientists from MIT has found that the human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds — the first evidence of such rapid processing speed.

TD Bank has announced results of its second annual Mortgage Service Index, a nationwide consumer survey that gauges the home buying experience. The Index revealed that 68 percent of Hispanics this year (compared with 62 percent last year) found their most recent home buying experience to be “excellent” or “very good,” compared with 62 percent of the general market.

Telenovelas on Spanish-language TV networks, Latin American music on local radio stations and Spanish-language versions of popular magazines—all are mainstays of US Hispanic-focused programming and media that remain important channels for marketers looking to reach this growing segment of the population. But it’s also where many efforts to connect with Hispanics often end. In their quest to reach this market—especially its large millennial and preteen populations—brands are failing to understand how and where Hispanics are consuming media, according to a new eMarketer report, “US Hispanics’ Media Usage: A Mix of the Trendsetting and the Traditional.”

Collective Bias, a social shopper media company, launched a number of new service offerings and programs that together will make it easier for social influencers and brands to develop social shopper marketing campaigns that drive sales and product engagement.

Valassis announced results of its Shopper Marketing Report with data marketers can tap into to influence a specific shopper with added focus on digital, social and mobile trends; millennials; and Hispanic shoppers.

Zimmerman Advertising announced that it has been selected by Dunkin’ Donuts for its national local store marketing (LSM) business. The agency will support more than 7,000 Dunkin’ Donuts locations by working with the brand’s powerful LSMNow platform to create a variety of materials to help drive franchisee profitability from coast-to-coast, including Dunkin’ Donuts’ future locations in California.

This year will be another big year in audience measurement as we enable measurement of broadcast and digital video on mobile devices across both the linear and dynamic ad models.

Univision News, the news division of Univision Communications, Inc., announced that renowned Spanish journalist Borja Echevarría de la Gándara has been appointed vice president, Digital. He will be based in Miami and report directly to Daniel Coronell, senior vice president and executive director of News at Univision.

In last week’s blog post, we looked at the “Cool List” – the top 10 coolest things right now — among Hispanic Adult Millennials. This week, we’re going to dive in a little closer and show how Hispanic males and females differ in their perceptions of what’s cool. Based on data from Tr3s’s soon-to-be-released 2014 study of Hispanic Adult Millennials ages 19 to 34, here are key findings on the “Cool List” and gender.

Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI), chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, released draft tax reform legislation which includes a provision that will, if enacted, severely impact the economy and lead to significant job loss. This provision, which would be phased-in for tax years beginning before 2018, would allow advertisers to deduct only 50 percent of all advertising expenses in the first year and amortize the remaining 50 percent over the next 10 years. Since the inception of the Tax Code in 1913, advertising has been treated as a fully tax deductible ordinary and necessary business expense.

The video landscape is in a time of major flux, with digital viewing on the rise, advertisers seeking integrated campaigns and yet TV networks still holding most of the cards. But with the emergence of new technologies—and new measurement capabilities—video advertising is poised for change. Last year, Nielsen and Simulmedia brought together a core group of researchers, marketers and C-suite executives from all sides of the media industry to discuss the future of video advertising.

The rise in social media analytics tools has satisfied marketer demand for a way to measure and gather insights from social marketing efforts.

Getting consistency right also requires the attention of top leadership. That’s because by using a variety of channels and triggering more and more interactions with companies as they seek to meet discrete needs, customers create clusters of interactions that make their individual interactions less important than their cumulative experience. This customer journey can span all elements of a company and include everything from buying a product to actually using it, having issues with a product that require resolution, or simply making the decision to use a service or product for the first time.

In 2014, 7UP will amplify the EDM energy, community and movement with #7x7UP. This yearlong 7UP program will bring uplifting experiences to 7 festivals and events. As part of this exciting collaboration 7UP will partner with 7 DJs, including the world-renowned DJ, Tiësto, who helped 7UP light up a village in Chile as part of 7UP’s newly launched creative.