Table of contents for February 15, 2016 in Adweek

In addition to being really, really, ridiculously good looking, Derek Zoolander is turning out to be a skilled pitchman. Paramount, the studio behind Zoolander 2, went all out with marketing integrations ahead of the movie’s release this past weekend, and brands were more than happy to sign up. Kiehl’s invited customers to visit The Derek Zoolander Center for People Who Don’t Age Good; Mattel took over the official Zoolander Instagram account, posting photos of Barbie cavorting with a doll-size Derek; NBCUniversal rolled out Zoolanderthemed parodies of NBC’s famous “The More You Know” PSAs; Cîroc released a limited-edition Blue Steel vodka (which it promoted with a Zoolanderstarring ad campaign); and Fiat premiered a TV spot featuring Derek Zoolander driving a 2016 Fiat 500X.…

The 2016 Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue, on newsstands Feb. 16, features plenty of eye-popping stuff. But the biggest surprise is actually in the advertising pages. Clad in a reflective gold bikini, Nicola Griffin will demonstrate that swimsuit models are not always stick figures—and they’re not always 20-somethings, either. At 56, Griffin is the oldest women to appear in SI’s fleshy showcase since its debut in 1964. She will appear on a three-page ad buy from Swimsuits for All, a Web merchant that specializes in sizes 10-34 and bills itself as “the leader in swimwear for curvy women.” —Robert Klara…

Leave it to a puppy, a wolf and my own brain waves to remind me I’m not immune to the power of Budweiser. Last month, I joined Light Reaction and Spark Experience to see how people interacted with digital ads on smartphones. Before the participants arrived, I tried on the gear to watch Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” Super Bowl spot from 2015. After viewing the spot, I was able to rewatch it with Spark and Light Reaction to see where my attention and emotions were strongest. I could see where my eyes traveled and my heart rate jumped. The results of an EEG accurately predicted when I would, indeed, tear up. “There was a point where you were sad, but then you laughed,” Spark founder Spencer Gerrol told me afterward. The…

How is your new role different from your previous position? I previously was the chief client officer, responsible for oversight of our account team and clients. As of the end of October, I was promoted to evp, general manager, so I’m now responsible for the entire MXM business of 600-plus employees. What do you make of more brands building in-house content teams? It’s absolutely a trend. What [marketers] realized is that they need to put out a lot of content all year long. There’s a role for that in-house team to react to news, but they’re still coming to companies like us because they want someone to help them with their long-term planning. One of our clients is Lowe’s, for example. We develop how-to kitchen remodel content, and that’s hard…

Major key Probably the most popular of Khaled’s catchphrases. He often says “major key” or “major key alert” and uses the symbol of a gold key in his snaps—a heads-up that he is about to share either some hot news or a life lesson. He regularly encourages his followers to work hard and never give up on their dreams. Bless up A general greeting, along the lines of “What’s up?” Can also be used to wish someone well—something Khaled does a lot in his videos. They Represents all those who have doubted or derided Khaled, or anybody. As in, “They don’t want you to win.”…

Big numbers surround Tumblr. Nearly three years ago, Yahoo bought the quirky blog platform for a cool $1.1 billion; and today the site hosts nearly 300 million blogs and boasts half a billion monthly visitors. With all those imposing figures floating around, one may assume that the real-life Tumblr would be corporate and buttoned-up. But the company has taken painstaking measures to retain the authenticity and community feeling that it cultivates online. “When designing our space, we aimed to reflect the open-minded, creative culture that exists on Tumblr,” said head of office experiences and events Megan Leet. “All of the art on our walls comes directly from the community, like a living Tumblr Dashboard. Tumblr’s original mission is to serve creators and being surrounded by their awesome work is a…

Twitter underwent some big changes with the introduction of an algorithm that reorders the top of users’ timelines with tweets it predicts will be interesting and relevant to them. The optional feature—which will roll out gradually, and can be turned on or off by users—is essentially an extension of the “While you were away” feature Twitter introduced in January 2015. Twitter, which tested the beta version of the new format with more than 100 users and brands, found that the update caused people to tweet or retweet more than they previously had. Brands also saw increased organic reach. —Marty Swant…

 While brands are just starting to make sense of the mountains of data collected from the Internet of Things (IoT), some tech firms, Dell included, are trying to stay a step ahead by building the tools needed to power the billions of gadgets. ‘What we’re finding is that it’s less about the vertical and more about the use case.’Joyce Mullen, Dell OEM Solutions “If you [listen] to any analyst that covers this stuff, there’s going to be between 20 [billion] and 50 billion devices attached to the Internet by 2020,” said Joyce Mullen, vp and gm of Dell OEM Solutions. “All of those smart devices generate data—some portion of that data has to be analyzed, moved and stored. All of that represents a huge opportunity for us.” Indeed, estimates from…

David Etherington is chief strategy officer at Intersection, which handles ad sales for LinkNYC. Converting New York’s old pay phones into wireless kiosks is no small feat, he explains: “We are pulling something like 400 miles of virgin fiber through the streets.” On a sunny January day, a young mother strolled along West 107th Street in New York, explaining a strange phenomenon to her son. Before cellphones, there used to be these things along the sidewalks you could put a coin in and make a telephone call from, she told her bewildered child. She might as well have been describing a wringer washing machine. By the relatively recent end of their life cycle, those pay phones dotting the New York landscape had largely been beaten into a state of dysfunction.…

Streamz PRO Headphones $399 So your headphones are already wireless—why not go deviceless, too? Streamz headphones feature built-in Wi-Fi and a 1.6 GHz quad-core Android processor so you can play music directly from more than 150 streaming services—including Spotify and Pandora—without having to connect to a smartphone or computer. Rather play songs from your own collection? The headphones offer up to 32 GB of built-in music storage so you can keep your favorite tunes with you wherever you go. Use the OLED touchscreen displays embedded on each earpiece to control playback, or just tell Streamz what you want to hear next—there’s Voxxi voice-activated control built right in. Buy it: streamzmedia.com TECH Wi-Fi Wellness Check Starry Station $349 Solve your Wi-Fi woes with this space-age router, aptly named Starry Station. The…

What’s the first information you consume in the morning? I read theSkimm in the morning, which is, I think, targeted toward millennials because they explain things that are really obvious sometimes. Like the Berlin Wall coming down. But it’s a very tidy, sort of four-minute rendition of the news. I read that so I know what’s going on in the world because once I enter the Duplass Brothers cave, I usually don’t come up for air until the next morning. What are your go-to social media platforms? I only do Twitter, and I joined because people told me it was important for business purposes. But it’s pretty fun, and people are really funny on there. And so I’ve actually gotten to enjoy it. I do get a little bit addicted…

Last week, online stock brokerage site E*Trade and Atlanta-based Delta kicked off separate reviews for their respective media assignments. E*Trade, which spends about $80 million annually on ads, tapped consulting firm Ark Advisors to shepherd its competition. A dedicated WPP team has handled the client’s planning and buying for nearly two years, and is mulling an invitation to defend. Meanwhile, Delta’s contest is being guided by Joanne Davis Consulting. Delta spends about $50 million each year in domestic media. –David Gianatasio…

A new study from Fluent focused on the mobile habits of the college-aged Gen Z demo. “To relate to this newer group of post-millennials [Gen Z] that are ‘always on,’ multitasking on more screens than ever before and tempted every second by the next best thing, brands need to take risks and serve up engagement in a perpetual and experimental way,” said Fluent evp Michael Carey. “It’s this type of engagement, augmented by offline, real-world ‘touch points’ and connections, that will have a lasting impact on this younger streaming generation in the long run.”…

King of Snapchat DJ Khaled wants you to know he’s up to something. Of course, if you follow him on the wildly popular mobile platform, you already know that. He takes to the app every day to share with the world exactly what he’s doing, and planning, and thinking—producing a record, paling around with hip-hop star Nas, praising Ciroc vodka, sharing inspirational life lessons—all in his particular brand of extreme magnetism crossed with blustering machismo. As for what he’s most interested for you to know at this moment, maybe you caught his snap from last Monday when he was in the studio with artist Future, dancing along to music that those watching, however, were not allowed to hear. The text over the snap—“I wish you could [hear] this I’m working!!!…

With New York and other cities embracing the concept of the “smart city,” making free Wi-Fi available anytime, anywhere, many consumers are looking to get less connected to their fellow urban dwellers, not more. Horizon Media’s Kirk Olson and Sheri Roder have been tracking this trend for some time. Olson, vp of Horizon’s TrendSights practice, and Roder, chief of its WHY Group, observe that a wave of consumers are disconnecting from their digital devices in a quest for more authentic connections with others, more privacy and a sense of personal identity. While the pair have noticed the trend for some years, it really started to take hold over the last six months. “The incredible penetration of smartphones in the U.S. was probably the biggest tipping point,” says Olson. “Most people…