Author: rssmasher

Leading up to the win-or-go-home game of Sweden against Mexico in the World Cup (which Sweden won 3-0 to advance in the tournament), Volvo Cars highlighted its longstanding partnership with the Swedish national football/soccer team. The double-page ad features a visual trick combining a stadium with the characteristic “Thor’s Hammer” headlights of the Volvo V60…

The Walt Disney Company just received its biggest boost yet in its quest to beat out Comcast for the right to purchase 21st Century Fox: the Justice Department has conditionally approved Disney’s deal for Fox. As part of the DOJ’s approval, Disney has agreed to divest Fox’s 22 regional sports networks, which were initially going…

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” While Alvin Toffler wrote those words almost 50 years ago for his influential book Future Shock, the statement resonates more than ever today. The imperative to learn and relearn is especially relevant…

The Daily Beast will offer exclusive content to subscribers, joining other publishers who are betting on their audience and hoping they’re loyal enough to pay for the material they post. Many publishing companies–including most recently, Bloomberg, Vanity Fair, Business Insider (and Adweek)–put their content behind a paywall. Other platforms, such as The New York Times,…

The very notion of identity is a unique and intimate concept, one that evokes a deep and personal reaction from all of us. Identity has gone through centuries of discovery and exploration, and labels for such have been continuously disrupted by social structures, governments and now technology. Between names, places of residence, birth dates, financial…

Nothing says influence like giving your name to an entire era. More than a century after the sun finally set on Queen Victoria’s remarkable 63-year reign, her name remains a byword not just for a time period but a set of values and cultural expectations. And if Victoria is still influencing us today, her impact…

Get ready for a quick trip back to the 1980s, thanks to a partnership between Netflix’s Glow and Lyft. Lyft users in Los Angeles and Las Vegas will have a chance to ride around town in Melanie “Melrose” Rosen’s stretch limo seen in Season 1 of the show about female wrestlers. Lyft released a short…

CANNES, France–It’s one of the most visually complex ads ever created, a perfectly choreographed adventure that’s half Alice in Wonderland, half Wrinkle in Time. But Apple’s “Welcome Home” spot for the HomePod began, as all great ads do, with a simple, concise thought. “We started talking about how great music makes a space feel bigger,”…

It’s no secret how popular streaming video services have become. According to Deloitte’s 2018 Digital Media Trends Survey, over 55 percent of U.S. households were subscribed to a paid video streaming service in 2017. In early 2018, 10 percent of all TV usage was through video streaming, according to Nielsen. Over the years, competition has…

CANNES, France–Typically, tourism policy changes in small island nations don’t spark international attention. But at this year’s Cannes Lions, that’s exactly what took center stage. Palau Pledge, a conservation initiative created by Australian agency Host/Havas, was the festival’s most highly honored campaign this year, taking home an unmatched three Grand Prix. The project won top…