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Mountain Dew's 'Most Racist Ad in History' Pulled Following a litany of complaints, PepsiCo has pulled a :60 Mountain Dew commercial that social commentator Dr. Boyce Watkins dubbed, "arguably the most racist commercial in history." The ad, indeed, carries racist overtones with a white women -- who appears to have been assaulted -- attempting to identify her assailant from a lineup of black men...and a talking goat who urges her not to spill the beans with various threats. JetBlue Shows Support For NBA's Jason Collins The outpouring of support for Jason Collins, the NBA player, who recently earned the title of the first openly gay male athlete on a major American sports team, has been impressive. JetBlue has raised its flag of support for Collins in the form of a Mullen-created social media ad which transformed the brand's i-people logo into a multi-colored show of support. The ad carries the headline, Thanks Jason, TOday We're All on the Same Team." The ad was posted to the brand's Twitter and Facebook pages and, predictably, the comments have been mixed. A Marketer's Guide to Evaluating An Advertising Agency If you're a marketer looking to evaluate an ad agency, this report from HubSpot, A Marketer's Guide to Evaluating an Ad Agency, is just what you need. Complete with a two page printable agency evaluation form and 8 criteria by which you should evaluate an agency's effectiveness, this guide will save you time and make you a hero in the eyes of your CEO. Download the guide and evaluation form now to insure you select the right agency for your brand. Dove 'Sketches' Examines Women's Perception of Themselves On Monday, Dove released a video entitled Dove Real Beauty Sketches. In the video, several women sit behind a curtain and describe themselves to former San Jose police forensic artist Gil Zamora who creates a sketch of them. They are then introduced to other people who in turn, describe the person to Zamora. Zamora then sketches a version based on that description. The women are then shown the two versions of the sketches. The exercise was designed to combat Dove's claim that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful along with the fact they are their own harshest critics. The findings are quite interesting. Give it a watch 5 Ways Brands Can Use Animated Gifs GIFs have been around for 25 years, but they're exploding in popularity in a web that caters to visuals and content curators. As once stated in a New York Times article, "GIFs function as glorified emoticons" with the ability to punctuate a moment. The ad:tech blog has summarized a special GIF-format report from 360i that explores why GIFs are enjoying a renaissance, how to create successful GIFs and five ways brands can use them to their advantage. Check out the full details here. Eric Koston Wreaks Havoc, Catches Baby in Nike Ad We suppose it's all well and good for a brand such as Nike to hook up with an athlete such as skateboarder Eric Koston but all we get after watching this Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners- created Nike Koston 2 ad is that, well, skateboarders are punks who break the law. Yea, Koston does a solid by catching a baby at the end but before that he's all about mayhem and destruction. Is this what Nike really wants kids doing when they strap on a pair of Koston's? And, yes, we understand the ad is the stuff ove roverblown legend but still. How to Hire the Perfect Inbound Marketer Are you a little bummed out at your 0.0000000001% response rates for your online ad campaigns? Angered over Mozilla and others turning cookies off by default in their browsers (so you can't properly target your potential customers)? Or maybe your miffed your "blind buys" result in your brand appearing on questionable sites? Yea, the current online advertising model in totally broken. You need to check out inbound marketing. Better yet, you need to hire an inbound marketing expert. That may seem daunting if you don't truly understand inbound marketing but, never fear. HubSpot has published a pocket guide to hiring the perfect inbound marketer for your agency. Get with the program. Inbound marketing is where the puck is headed. Don't get left behind. Download this guide and learn how to hire the perfect inbound marketer. Ford in Hot Water Over Ads Featuring Bound, Gagged, Barely Dressed Hotties An ad campaign created by an Indian agency for Ford has come under fire for its creative approach. Three ads, which tout the brand's Indian-made Ford Figo, feature cartoon characatures of women (and men) bound and gagged in the vehicle's trunk. Ford has issued an apology which, in part, reads, "We deeply regret the publishing of posters that were distasteful and contrary to the standards of professionalism and decency within WPP Group. These were never intended for paid publication and should never have been created, let alone uploaded to the internet. This was the result of individuals acting without proper oversight and appropriate actions have been taken within the agency." How Brands Can Monetize Their Content Consumers are bombarded with more commercial messaging than ever before from countless sources, but it's also easier than ever to tune ads out. People fast-forward past multimillion-dollar commercials or subscribe to web-based, commercial-free TV platforms like Netflix. They view more content on the web than ever, but online ads have become virtually invisible to them. New advertising concepts like native monetization are revitalizing online advertising. Connections between brands and potential customers are more effectively fostered when they add value to the user experience, rather than distract or interrupt. While traditional contextual targeting looks at the entire page (an increasingly noisy signal), native monetization can be relevant to the micro-context: the section, the paragraph, even the sentence. This is native monetization at its most effective - and often it's just a humble link. How Inbound Marketing Helps CMOs Give CEOs the Metrics They Need A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Chief Executive Officers hired Chief Marketing Officers to make sure all their ads looked pretty and their television commercials were shot by really cool Hollywood directors. And maybe they hoped for a few sales leads as well, but that was asking a lot. Flash forward to today, and CEOs are demanding much more from their CMOs. Both because they need to, and because the tools and services available to a CMO make it possible. 
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