Table of contents for July 18, 2016 in Adweek

With the always unpredictable Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, this year’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland promised to be one for the ages. And boy, did it deliver. From Trump’s rock star worthy entrance (complete with smoke machines) to the Melania speech plagiarism scandal to Ted Cruz’s eyebrow-raising non-endorsement, the four-day event produced headline after headline. (Trump’s fiery Thursday night primetime speech drew around 30 million viewers, according to Nielsen overnight ratings.) Meanwhile in New York, a different conservative changing of the guard was taking place, with longtime Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes being ousted from the network he helped make wildly successful following allegations of sexual harassment from former host Gretchen Carlson and other female employees. For more on that story, turn to…

Given how strong the scatter market had been last season, and the network execs’ brash predictions of a lucrative upfront after a couple of lean years, buyers had entered upfront negotiations prepared for the worst—or so they thought. “We knew it was going to be ugly,” admitted one buyer, “but we had no idea.” While CBS Corp. chairman, CEO and president Les Moonves’ bold pre-upfront predictions of double-digit gains may have seemed at the time like a pipe dream, that ended up becoming more of a benchmark in this year’s robust market. With the upfront almost completely in the books (NBCUniversal is the last major company that hasn’t completed negotiations at press time), all of the networks have reason to celebrate, as many notched CPM increases stretching into the double…

Specs Claim to fame Marie Goldstein is a social marketing manager at 360i where she focuses on innovation and strategic thinking. Base New York Twitter @ThePreppyMAG Pokemon Go could be the beginning of a shift in the way we advertise. Yes, it is bridging the gap between the online and offline experience and leveraging the latest augmented reality. But, it is also finding success using a generic targeting approach to marketing. In a world where marketers are using hyper-targeted strategies to drive brand awareness and conversion from the “right” audience, it is hard to believe success can be found leveraging a generalized approach. Pokemon Go, the latest and greatest augmented-reality mobile application, became the most popular mobile app across generations, cultures, genders and race in less than a week. With…

If creativity, deep down, is just inventive problem solving, clearly it’s more in demand than ever in a world of increasingly complex business challenges—as well as a political and cultural landscape, in America and globally, that seems to be spiraling into nightmare. Adweek’s sophomore edition of the Creative 100—our annual list celebrating masters of the creative idea—profiles 100 problem solvers from advertising, media, technology, branding, pop culture and more. Just as advertising has taken a broader role in addressing issues beyond the corporate bottom line, this list also honors creatives who aren’t just profit generators. Our cover subject, Milana Vayntrub, is a perfect example: an improv actress whose creativity drives business for AT&T but also, in her activist work for Syrian refugees, helps some of the world’s most disenfranchised people.…

JESSICA WALSH Designer/Partner, Sagmeister & Walsh If you ask Walsh to create something, it’s likely you’ll get an explosion of vivid color, along with a message that has humor and heart. A partner at Sagmeister & Walsh since she was 25, the art director and designer might be best known for a social experiment she did with Timothy Goodman where the two tried dating for 40 days to see if they could fall in love. Their aptly titled “40 Days of Dating” blog went viral and led to appearances on morning talk shows, a book and a movie deal with a script penned by Lorene Scafaria. They partnered again in 2016 for a new project, “12 Kinds of Kindness,” which is just one of the ways Walsh seems to be…

‘This [lawsuit] represents a threat to the brand’s image, no doubt about it.’Paul Friederichsen, founder, BrandBiz What is Fox News without Roger Ailes? A question once only whispered in the cable news giant’s headquarters on Sixth Avenue in New York has grown to be the pressing query in media circles. The man who created the Fox News brand in 1996, and aggressively built his network into the No. 1 cable news outlet and the voice of the conservative political movement, fell from his throne in a matter of days. Ailes’ reign was upended on July 6, when Fox News host Gretchen Carlson sued the Fox News chairman and CEO for sexual harassment, accusing him of ignoring her complaints of harassment on the set of the network’s top-rated morning show, Fox…

‘A few years ago, social was a buzz tool–and now social is TV.’Jared Feldman, CEO of Canvs In the past few weeks, Twitter has secured deals with several television companies and sports leagues hoping to get in early on the San Francisco-based social network’s burgeoning livestreaming business. And while Twitter has struggled to grow fast enough to please Wall Street in the last few quarters, broadcasters and advertisers are hopeful that a new set of products could help Twitter get back on course (if only as a hedge against the growing clout of Facebook and Snapchat). In early July, Twitter announced a partnership with CBS News to livestream gavel-to-gavel coverage of last week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland and this week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Days later, it revealed…

Specs Current gig Vp, group creative director, Courageous at CNN; juror for the Adweek ARC Awards Previous gig Creative director, OgilvyEntertainment Twitter: @ottobell Age 34 CNN’s in-house branded content studio Courageous just celebrated its one-year anniversary. What have you learned? Content is king and distribution is god? I’ll leave those trite clichés aside. I’ve learned that it’s great to have distribution, and to know that the work you produce will be seen as both a blessing and a responsibility. It’s wonderful to know that what you’re working on will have a large reach. But especially when you’re producing for CNN, you do have this responsibility to make sure the work you do is additive. Those three little letters of “CNN” kind of give you that instant and immediate attention of…

Ethan Murrow is a fine artist in every sense of that term. His highly realistic yet often phantasmagorical works—some the height of a two-story building—have been shown from Paris to Los Angeles. He’s drawn murals at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and for the offices of Facebook. Murrow’s sweeping images are “done with such precision, such sensuality,” waxed one critic. Staring at them, “you may feel you’re plummeting, Icarus style, from cerulean heights,” said another. You may presume that an artist of Murrow’s caliber must work with sable brushes and hand-crushed pigments—but no. Murrow uses Sharpies. Yes, the $4 felt-tip markers you can get at Walmart. “I started using Sharpies in 2010, and I’ve been hard at it ever since,” Murrow said. The marker, he said, “has a…

Fuigo, a design-focused company founded by the brothers who helm the textile company Fortuny, recently launched an upscale co-working space. The space, located on New York’s Park Avenue South, is the only co-working facility dedicated to interior designers, allowing Fuigo to cater to their specific needs. In fact, along with the opening of the space, Fuigo launched the new tech platform that the in-house designers can use to manage their businesses. Currently, 12 designers work out of the office, but that count is expected to rise to 150 by the end of 2018. And when it does, Fuigo will have more resources in place to help them succeed. “[The Fuigo resource library] is fully staffed by a ‘resource oracle,’” said co-founder Maury Riad. “It is a critical resource for designers…

1996 Ailes quits as president and chief executive of CNBC and America’s Talking, the NBC-owned cable channel that would soon fold and become MSNBC. 1996 Ailes is hired by Rupert Murdoch as the founding chief executive of the Fox News Channel, which launches in October. 2001 One of Fox News’ first primetime stars, Paula Zahn, was fired by Fox after she received a job offer from CNN. When asked about dismissing his star, whose ratings had risen dramatically in the 10 p.m. hour, Ailes delivered a legendary put-down: ‘’I could have put a dead raccoon on the air this year and got a better rating than last year. That’s all just the growth of the network. All our shows are up.’’ 2002 Fox News surpasses CNN, becoming the No. 1…

Mention the name Domino to any décor-savvy 30-something, and you’re likely to get a squeal of excitement followed by a sigh of nostalgia. Launched by Condé Nast in 2005, Domino was a revolutionary brand within the shelter category, embracing a fun and eclectic design mix that was largely absent from its buttoned-up peers and attracting a younger set of readers who were just embarking on their own home-decorating journeys. Unfortunately for them, Domino’s heyday was a short one, and the title shuttered in 2009. But throughout the next few years, images from the magazine’s pages frequently circulated in the blogosphere on Pinterest, while Domino: The Book of Decorating, published in 2008, continued to be a must-have. (Even today, it ranks No. 11 on Amazon’s list of best-selling interior-decorating books.) In…

It hasn’t even been around for a full month and Pokemon Go has already changed the way marketers and advertisers are thinking about young consumers. The augmented reality (AR) mobile game that has been responsible for crashing servers (and cars) all over the world is poised to alter the entire advertising landscape. Boston-based ad agency Hill Holliday was quick to survey a large sample of the game’s U.S. users to look for possible ways to get clients’ in on the action. “Our survey shows that players will generally welcome brand sponsorship and integration options,” said Hill Holliday’s head of research Ilya Vedrashko. “If the economics are right, we will see a lot of demand from retailers happy to buy incremental foot traffic that will also likely come with a layer…

JESSE WILLIAMS Actor/Racial Equality Activist In his seven seasons as Dr. Jackson Avery on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Williams has smartly used his Shonda Rhimes spotlight to create projects that push for social justice. He executive produced art project Question Bridge: Black Males and documentary Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement. He and his wife, Aryn Drake-Lee, also created a keyboard app, Ebroji, featuring GIFs and images for people of all races and genders (including transgender). Last month, he cemented his status as one of the Black Lives Matters movement’s most influential voices by accepting BET’s Humanitarian Award with a passionate speech about race and police brutality. “There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of,” he said. “There has been no…

Eugenia Kim “Currently Offline” Sun Hat $485 So you’ve set an “out of office” message, left the laptop at home and vowed to take a weekend-long break from social media. (Apart from posting a few envy-inducing vacation photos on Instagram, of course.) The final step: proclaiming your unplugged status to the rest of the world by donning Eugenia Kim’s uber-chic straw topper. Featuring matte sequined embroidery and a matching black grosgrain band, the hat has a wide brim to protect you from the elements—and provide some much-needed privacy. Buy it: neimanmarcus.com LOUNGE Up in the Air Tentsile T-Mini Double Hammock $150 Stay high, dry and blissfully comfy with Tentsile’s two-person tree hammock. Despite weighing just 6 pounds (including a single ratchet), the T-Mini can hold up to 485…

Specs Age 35 Claim to fame Reprises her role as Nicky Parsons in Jason Bourne (July 29) Base Vancouver Instagram @missjuliastiles What’s the first information you consume in the morning? I turn on the radio. I’m a really big fan of old-fashioned dial radio. I love WNYC and NPR and also 88.3 in New York, which is the jazz station, and it’s usually good for background music. If I’m not in New York City or by a traditional radio, I’ll stream it on my phone, although I usually try not to look at my phone first thing in the morning. What social media do you use? I’ve been on a diet from social media recently, but the one that I have the most fun with is Instagram. Who do you…

When Cher and Sonny Bono tied the knot in 1964, pop culture history got a major rewrite. The following year, after toiling in the music business for years, their single “I Got You Babe” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, knocking The Beatles from the top spot. By 1971, they would become TV stars with the debut of CBS’ The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, a variety show featuring singing, goofy sketches, and appearances by celebs like Carol Burnett and Sally Struthers. While centered around the couple, a third character often stole the show: Cher’s outrageous wardrobe from designer Bob Mackie. During its three seasons, it consistently ranked in the top 20. FACT After their divorce, the couple reunited professionally in 1976 for the short-lived Sonny and Cher Show.…