Table of contents for November 30, 2015 in Adweek

If you watched the most recent Game of Thrones finale, you were probably a bit shocked to see the poster for next season, which was released by HBO last week. (Spoiler alert: If you’re not caught up on the series yet, you might want to stop reading here.) In the poster, Jon Snow isn’t looking great, but he’s also not looking very … dead. Since HBO’s version of the series has now caught up with George R.R. Martin’s books, even die-hard fans of the novels aren’t sure what to expect from the show going forward, so this poster is quite a bold way to market the next season. And given that the premiere is in April, you’ve got plenty of time to wonder, theorize and throw around words like “skinchanger.”…

Serial, a spinoff of the popular This American Life podcast, debuted in October 2014 to little fanfare but would go on to become the medium’s first monster hit. Listeners became enthralled by host Sarah Koenig’s deep dive into the 1999 true-crime case of Adnan Syed. During its debut run, Serial garnered more than 100 million downloads on iTunes, averaging around 8.3 million per episode. “If there is a renaissance in podcasting, then it’s because of This American Life, Serial, [This American Life host] Ira Glass and [Serial producer] Sarah Koenig,” said Mark McCrery, CEO and founder of Podtrac, which handles advertising for Serial and This American Life, as well as WNYC’s Freakonomics and Psychobabble with Tyler Oakley. Serial’s Season 2, which reportedly will focus on ex-POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl who…

Specs Claim to fame Christoph Becker as CEO and CCO of gyro has guided it to winning the BMA Global B2B Agency of the Year for two consecutive years (2014, 2015). Prior to joining gyro in 2009, Becker was chairman and CCO at FCB N.Y. for eight years. Base New York Twitter @gyro Companies are no longer judged on what they say, but rather on what they do. That is why whatever goods or services you are selling, business will always be better and more sustained when people buy into your culture first. There has been a massive change in this regard. The values of a company always used to be a soft factor; the preserve of features editors rather than market analysts. How did building a strong culture become…

Roger Ailes’ first moon shot came when he was 29 years old. He was in the Oval Office setting up the first interplanetary split screen. “Eagle” had just landed on the moon. “I had video from the Earth and I realized I could set up a split screen,” Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News and this year’s Adweek Media Visionary, recalls during an interview in his midtown Manhattan office. “The problem was, I couldn’t control Neil Armstrong. He could walk across Nixon’s nose if I wasn’t careful.” In the end, Ailes made it work. Just like that day in 1969, Ailes has spent a career straddling the worlds of politics and media. He worked on four presidential campaigns before returning to TV in 1993. “CNBC was completely in the…

HOTTEST THOUGHT LEADER New York Two years ago, many of New York’s dedicated readers bemoaned the title’s decision to go biweekly as the beginning of the end for the iconic magazine. As it turned out, nothing could be further from the truth. The nearly five-decade-old title remains as essential as ever, publishing headline-making cover stories (like its feature on the Bill Cosby accusers), expanding its network of must-read blogs (which attract an audience of 23 million UVs each month, driving digital ad growth of 10 percent this year) and even venturing into live events with the Vulture Festival. HOTTEST LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE WSJ. Magazine While The Wall Street Journal itself might not be considered a bastion of high fashion, the newspaper’s luxury lifestyle spinoff, WSJ. Magazine, has managed to cement itself…

HOTTEST SHOW OF THE YEAR Empire When Lee Daniels’ hip-hop prime-time soap Empire premiered in January, Fox had hopes it might resuscitate its flat-lining season. Instead, it saved all of broadcast television. Its Season 1 finale delivered a 6.9 rating in viewers 18-49 and emphatically obliterated the conventional wisdom that primetime megahits and appointment TV were things of the past—as Taraji P. Henson’s Cookie rocketed into the pantheon of the tube’s all-time greatest characters. –Jason Lynch HOTTEST COMEDY Inside Amy Schumer Comedy Central lost Jon Stewart and Key & Peele this year, so it’s a good thing that Inside Amy Schumer solidified itself as one of the top comedy shows on TV, tackling gender inequality with “Last Fuckable Day,” which has more than 4.6 million YouTube views, and domestic violence…

Many marketers are realizing they have to look beyond first-party data and existing audience segments in order to better understand consumers, and remain competitive and relevant. Compounded by device proliferation and the growing issue of audience fragmentation, brands have little to no visibility into what content consumers are engaging with, outside of their paid, owned and earned media. Social media has become a large source of important primary data. It is easy to track, but ultimately accounts for less than one-third of all digital engagement. Additionally, social data alone can be misleading, representing the vocal minority versus the silent majority. Amobee is solving this challenge for marketers through its patented Brand Intelligence technology, which analyzes over 550 terabytes of consumer engagement data per day across digital. The data is updated…

An AT&T AdWorks trial program launched earlier this month provides the ability for advertisers to run addressable advertising campaigns across TV and mobile devices, powered by technology from AT&T AdWorks and mobile ad platform Opera Mediaworks. Advertisers in this trial can engage consumers with an ad on TV and extend the ad experience to mobile devices. The mobile ad will serve up relevant content to users, and offer actions such as the ability to click-to-call, add an event to a calendar or receive relevant coupons. This new ad product can also measure engagement in various ways like a visit to a retail location, coupon redemption and an in-person or digital purchase.…

Earlier this month, TiVo Research and Viacom announced a first-of-its-kind strategic alliance focused on advancing Viacom’s proprietary data and advertising solutions. TiVo Research’s suite of single-source measurement tools will integrate with Viacom Vantage’s advanced predictive engine to augment its precision and consumer targeting capabilities. The new collaboration also provides Viacom’s creative content group with more data that can help increase the impact of custom campaigns and further expands the unique analytics delivered to ad partners.…

Dec 7 Agency of the Year A celebration of the best and boldest global, U.S. and digital agencies of 2015! SPECIAL SECTION EMAIL MARKETING GUIDE Dec 14 Adfreak Issue A look back on 2015’s best and worst in advertising, branding and design! Featuring ADS OF THE YEAR THE YEAR IN REVIEW Jan 4 CES Issue A guide to making the most of your time at this year’s international CES. Jan Media Agency of the Year A salute to 2015’s standout media agencies. Jan Super Bowl Issue A preview and review of the brands taking the field during the big game. Feb Mobile Issue A deep dive into the latest on innovations and trends in mobile media and marketing. ALL CONTENT IN PRINT, ONLINE & TABLET To advertise contact your Adweek…

Now that Thanksgiving is over, most networks are preparing to roll out their Christmas-themed shows and specials for December. But Hallmark Channel is way ahead of them. The cable network’s annual Countdown to Christmas, which features 55 straight days of round-the-clock holiday programming and more than 1,300 hours of content, has been going strong since Halloween. In its fifth year, Countdown to Christmas is bigger than ever for the family-friendly network, which is debuting 17 original holiday-themed movies (with titles like Angel of Christmas and Merry Matrimony), up from 12 last year. An additional four movies will premiere on sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. “It’s not just about the holiday programming because anybody could put that on 24-7,” said Bill Abbott, president and CEO for Crown Media Family Networks.…

Reddit is often called “the front page of the Internet,” but for many brands it’s remained a no-go zone, given the likelihood of getting flamed or trolled by anonymous users. There’s just as much potential on the social platform’s forums (called subreddits) to make money and generate influence and goodwill, but it too is fraught with danger. Maybe all you need is a guide. After just one year of running stealthy Reddit campaigns for tech companies, Brian Swichkow, founder of nascent social-marketing firm Ghost Influence, said he now “gets calls all of the time” from agencies wanting to subcontract his work, which has the potential to quadruple a brand’s social impressions. Swichkow said he attracted $500,000 in new business in just a few weeks earlier this year after a campaign…

To say it’s a magazine cover that made history doesn’t quite cut it. We’re talking about an project so massive, so secretive that only eight people inside publisher Condé Nast knew about it and a security firm was enlisted to keep it under wraps. The cover and accompanying story would end up generating not only record-breaking newsstand sales and Web traffic but also have the whole planet, even the president of the United States, talking about it. Vanity Fair’s July issue, introducing the former Olympic champion Bruce Jenner as Caitlyn Jenner, wasn’t just your garden-variety media spectacle. It was a true cultural moment of the kind rarely achieved anymore what with digital media’s continuous, explosive disgorgement of chum. That it was executed by a print vehicle makes it all the…

Throughout her legendary career, Bonnie Hammer has learned just about everything there is to know about the television industry, except for one thing: how to rest on her laurels. “If you’re not always thinking about the storms that are about to come, you’re going to be in big trouble,” she says. “I’ve never been afraid of change.” That’s why the chairman of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group and Adweek’s TV Executive of the Year has spent the past year shaking up the 10 networks she oversees—including heavyweights USA, Bravo and E!—keeping them fresh, exciting and relevant for audiences in a turbulent TV landscape. “It’s taking a look at every piece of the organization, almost from a zero base,” says Hammer. “If we were designing a world to compete in today, not…

The early chapters of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s public life have arguably made for a modern-day Silicon Valley soap opera. For a couple of years, the main storyline was his lawsuit (since settled) with Reginald Brown, an estranged colleague and alleged Snapchat co-founder. During the first half of this year, the plot involved a significant executive brain drain, with the departures of revenue boss Mike Randall, HR director Sara Sperling and COO Emily White—the latter an ad agency favorite who was supposed to be to Spiegel what Sheryl Sandberg is to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. By this spring, it had become fair to wonder: Would the company turn out to be as ephemeral as the disappearing photos and videos upon which it was built? No one is asking that now, thanks…

Magazines HOTTEST MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR Wired HOTTEST THOUGHT LEADER The New Yorker HOTTEST LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE WSJ Magazine HOTTEST FOOD MAGAZINE Cooking Light HOTTEST TRAVEL MAGAZINE Travel + Leisure HOTTEST HOME MAGAZINE Domino HOTTEST FASHION MAGAZINE Brides HOTTEST WOMEN’S MAGAZINE Redbook HOTTEST HEALTH/ FITNESS MAGAZINE—WOMEN Women’s Health HOTTEST MEN’S MAGAZINE Details HOTTEST HEALTH/ FITNESS MAGAZINE—MEN Men’s Health HOTTEST CAR MAGAZINE Car and Driver HOTTEST SPORTS/OUTDOOR MAGAZINE Golf Digest HOTTEST CELEBRITY/ ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE National Enquirer HOTTEST BUSINESS MAGAZINE Inc. HOTTEST KIDS/TEEN MAGAZINE Seventeen HOTTEST REBORN MAGAZINE Self HOTTEST MAGAZINE ON SOCIAL MEDIA Women’s Health HOTTEST MAGAZINE IN DIGITAL The New Yorker HOTTEST NEWCOMER Beekman 1802 Almanac HOTTEST DESIGN W HOTTEST MAGAZINE COVER OF THE YEAR New Yorker CHARLIE HEBDO MASSACRE (JAN. 19) Television HOTTEST SHOW OF THE YEAR Empire (Fox) HOTTEST…

Video is one of the fastest growing channels for consumer engagement. Amobee OutStream is a next-generation video advertising product powered by Brand Intelligence technology. It guarantees 100-percent viewability and enables marketers to understand and target audiences efficiently and effectively via compelling content. The customizable, interactive video units have user-friendly placements and use Amobee INK cross-device audience targeting to reach users on desktop, mobile or tablet with ad sequencing and frequency-capping capabilities.…

NetBase recently launched Audience 3D, a new solution that provides brands and agencies with a complete, dimensional understanding of consumers. With early access to the Gnip Audience API from Twitter, NetBase Audience 3D is one of the first products to leverage the power of this new audience data. Twitter audience data, in combination with NetBase-patented language technology, enables brands to have an unprecedented view into an audience and connect with them in authentic ways. Brands such as Coca-Cola, 7-Eleven and Taco Bell have already benefited from Audience 3D to create winning marketing campaigns, engage their most loyal fans and expand their audiences.…

In 2011, three Hollywood media veterans joined forces to start a social agency. Disney exec Oliver Luckett, WME’s Ari Emanuel (who served as inspiration for Ari Gold in HBO’s Entourage) and Sean Parker of Napster, Spotify and Facebook founded theAudience to help Hollywood celebrities expand their reach through social media. It soon grew and shifted focus toward aligning social media stars with brands like American Express, Calvin Klein and Heineken. While social agencies are typically thought of as dressed down and maybe even a little sloppy, CEO Luckett has an eye—and soul—for aesthetics and has filled the Los Angeles office with meaningful and sophisticated works of art. “I think of the art in the office as a peek inside my brain on the walls,” he said. “I am solely interested…

TWITTER MOMENTS Twitter, a pioneer in breaking news, has seen slower user growth, and some marketers say, has become an echo chamber. To broaden its appeal, Twitter launched Moments, which curates tweets on the top stories. Promoted Moments should be a great place to target Twitter’s core audience—techies, sports fans and political junkies—but it’s unclear whether it will branch out. “There’s a serendipity to Twitter that you don’t necessarily get with other platforms,” said Solis. “Twitter Moments is trying a little too hard to introduce formality as a result of having to monetize those moments and having to compete against other social networks.” Pros Moments button prominently placed atop homepage. Real-time news for nonusers Livestreaming app Periscope could be incorporated. Cons Moments lacks brand awareness. It may be banking on…

At a time when ads are being trimmed to accommodate Snapchat and Vine, some marketers instead are playing the long game, serving up spots that run 15 minutes or more. Moët & Chandon, JetBlue, Johnnie Walker, Canada Goose and American Girl all released short films in the last few weeks featuring A-listers either in front of or behind the camera. The strategy, say marketers, is simply to offer entertaining content consumers would be more apt to engage with. A study by digital media consultancy Mist Media found that an average Internet user spends 88 percent more time on a website with video. “Film is what people are consuming today,” said Canada Goose CMO Kevin Spreekmeester. “It’s one, if not the best, way to tell stories that connect emotionally with your…

Specs Current gig Chairman, Mullen Lowe Previous gig Chairman, CEO, Mullen Lowe Twitter @wizbolt Age 64 After 40 years in advertising, and 33 years at Mullen, including 15-plus as its chief executive, you’re retiring at year’s end. What comes next for Joe Grimaldi? I like building things that matter with people who have a shared purpose and inspire each other to exceed expectations. I recently became the president of the board of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, an institution that’s been creating excellence in kids and teens through classical music for the last 58 years. We have a vision to create The BYSO Youth Center for Music in Boston. It will have a profound impact on Boston’s cultural character for generations to come. Give me a thumbnail description that puts…

Overhauling the status quo at a massive media company can be a daunting task. When that company has as deep a legacy as the 128-year-old Hearst does, that task gets even harder. Add in a slew of strong-willed editors overseeing 19 independent brands, and it’s nearly impossible. But for Troy Young—Adweek’s Magazine Executive of the Year—the challenge proved far from insurmountable. In the two-plus years since becoming president of Hearst Magazines Digital Media, Young has successfully unified the publisher’s print and digital brands into a single, well-oiled machine whose traffic has surged 157 percent, leading to a 75 percent revenue hike. When he first joined Hearst, Young already had more than two decades of digital experience behind him. As president of Say Media, he went from selling the company’s first…

Anybody who thinks broadcast television is dying obviously hasn’t met Greg Berlanti, the talented and prolific writer and superproducer behind this fall’s two biggest freshman series among viewers 18-49. First, there’s NBC’s Blindspot, which the network has already renewed for a second season. Then, there’s Supergirl on CBS, Berlanti’s third superhero series along with the CW’s The Flash (that network’s most-watched show ever) and Arrow. (A fourth superhero project, the Flash/Arrow spinoff DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, will debut Jan. 21.) As if that weren’t enough on his plate, he’s also got The Mysteries of Laura, NBC’s sole freshman series from last season to make it to a second year. Berlanti, Adweek’s TV Producer of the Year, never intended to oversee six TV shows at once (he serves as co-showrunner on…

Between the Reagan and Obama administrations, Joe Yanarella carved out a ham-and-egger journalism career with print publications like the Hudson Valley News in upstate New York and Wizard magazine. Then, in 2009, as the U.S. economy was trying to get out of reverse, he took over as editor in chief of Bleacher Report, a woebegone digital pub filled with aggregated sports content. If this sounds like a story of a baby boomer struggling in a world of digital natives, it is actually the complete opposite. Over the last six years, Yanarella reinvented himself and Bleacher Report, which today has ESPN and Sports Illustrated not only looking over their shoulders but in many cases trying to catch up with an editorial machine that’s laser-focused on social and mobile. “We’ve gone from…

Celtra has painted an encouraging picture of digital advertising in the results of its Q3 2015 Digital Display Advertising Report. The analysis found a higher ad engagement rate in Q3 across all standard formats, with banners seeing a 14-percent increase in engagement over Q2 and interstitials being 8 percent higher. In addition, user-initiated video completion and consumption rates were higher across the board, and more desktop creative units used mouseover as an engagement metric. The complete downloadable report can be found at: www.celtra.com.…

4info recently published the second of a series of eyeopening reports detailing industry benchmarks for Return on Ad Spend based on offline sales lift attributed to mobile ad exposure. This analysis is based on the measured sales effect of 91 actual campaigns run over the past two years for 68 brands, providing performance guidelines for other advertisers to use for their mobile efforts. The studies were conducted in partnership with Catalina and Nielsen Catalina Solutions, which independently compiled and validated the benchmarks shared in the study.…

Yamaha SLG200S Silent Guitar $629 Guitar-playing apartment dwellers, take note: Thanks to Yamaha’s Silent Guitar, your late-night jam sessions don’t always have to end with angry calls from the neighbors. The pared-down instrument is barely audible when played live, but when plugged into a pair of headphones (or other line-out), it sounds like a full-bodied acoustic guitar. The recently released SLG200 series includes Yamaha’s new SRTpowered technology, which adds even more realistic body resonance, tone and ambiance. The Silent Guitar is incredibly portable too, featuring a detachable top section that can be stowed in the included cabin-size carrying case. Buy it: kraftmusic.com PHOTO Up Close And Personal Olloclip Macro Pro Lens $70 Your iPhone camera may be great at taking selfies, but when it comes to close-up images, it leaves…

Specs Age 54 Claim to fame Host of Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore (Mon.-Thurs., 11:30 p.m.) Base New York Twitter @LarryWilmore What’s the first information you consume in the morning? I’m very scatterbrained, so I do several things at once. I usually toggle between three different shows—Morning Joe, CBS Morning News and CNN—to kind of get a lay of the land. While I’m doing that I have The New York Times here and I’m looking online. If it’s the political season, sometimes I’ll be on Politico or that kind of thing. Tell us about your social media habits. I’m kind of a troller more than anything else. I’ll troll a little bit of Facebook; I’ll do a little bit of trolling on Twitter. I assume you mean…