As anyone with a pulse is certainly aware, we are inching ever closer to one of the most sacred days on the American calendar: Super Bowl Sunday.

And just as the NFL Playoffs are whittling down a field of hungry competitors to two lucky participants, advertising agencies across the globe are cutting excess footage and tweaking taglines in preparation for the industry's most prominent showcase.

Some 110 million Americans will likely tune in to this year's game when it kicks off Feb. 2, and you can bet that the world's biggest brands will be doing everything they can to make a good impression. With a going rate of $4 million to run a 30-second commercial, they'd be silly not to.

Though many brands and their agencies will no doubt be frantically piecing together their strategies all the way up to gameday, some have started to give us a taste of what we can expect to see in between the action of Super Bowl XLVIII. They include mainstays like Budweiser and unknown newcomers like Squarespace.

We've summarized everything we've learned here, and we'll continue to add updates as they become available — right on up until kickoff.

Bud Light

This year's Super Bowl is an especially big one for Bud Light, the official beer of the NFL. Amid slipping sales, Bud Light will introduce a new tagline — "The Perfect Beer For Whatever Happens"— in three ads totaling 2 minutes of airtime.

In the coveted A1 spot, the first ad of the first quarter, Bud Light will promote its new reclosable bottle with a 30-second ad, called "So Cool," from the St. Louis agency Cannonball. The ad will feature the world debut of a song from a well-known artist. Bud Light has also said the ad will offer consumers some sort of "digital reward".

Bud Light's other attraction comes in the form of a 60-second ad and a 30-second ad that together will tell a cohesive story called "Epic Night". The first Super Bowl work from BBDO since it was named Bud Light's agency of record earlier this year, "Epic Night" will seek to win over millennials with surprise celebrity appearances, including one from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The campaign will include a digital integration from the agency AKQA, and represents Paul Chibe's last Super Bowl as the head of U.S. marketing for Bud Light's parent company, A-B InBev.

Here's one of Bud Light's ads from last year's game, starring a voodoo Stevie Wonder:

Axe

Unilever's Axe brand is starting off the year in a radically different direction from what it is used to. Instead of using a horde of girls in bikinis to get young men to buy the brand's grooming products, Axe is putting a surprisingly cinematic and serious spin on war movie tropes.

BBH London wanted to have the ad, for the new "Peace" fragrance, be the brand's first serious commercial, and one that had an equilibrium between the sexes.

The agency even partnered with the nonprofit Peace One Day for the campaign. The final ad will be a 30-second abridged version of the one below. Watch scenes of warfare and oppression turn to those of love and celebration: 

Squarespace

Web publishing platform Squarespace will introduce itself on advertising's grandest stage with a 30-second ad from in-house creative chief and TBWA alum David Lee.

The nine-year-old company's teaser video uses a dystopian urban wasteland as a metaphor for the internet, with the implication being that Squarespace's self-publishing and e-commerce tools can help users find comfort amid an online world that can be overwhelming and scary.

Here's the teaser, called "A Better Web Awaits": 

As audiences adopt newer social networks, and people’s social activity becomes increasingly fragmented, other measures besides reach (usually measured in monthly active users) become important. How much time users spend on each social network and how engaged and interactive they are with content there are increasingly important ways of evaluating the sites. 

It’s easy to sign up for yet another social network, and the statistics show many of the newest sites just keep growing. But then the question becomes — how much attention has the latest social network really captured, and are other networks losing engagement as these sites rise?

In a recent report, BI Intelligence looks at how much time social media is now occupying in Internet users’ daily lives and how time-spend is distributed across different networks. We also look at some of the breakout surprises, including the networks that are seeing engagement grow faster than overall audience size. The report identifies what kinds of activities are popular on the different networks, and how compelled users are to participate, rather than to simply scroll their feed. This report complements our popular reports on social media demographics and global audience sizes. 

Access The Full Reports And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here are some of our findings: 

• Social is now the top Internet activity: Americans spend more time on social media than any other major Internet activity, including email.
• Social-mobile rules: 60% or so of social media time is spent not on desktop computers but on smartphones and tablets. 
• Facebook has a monster lead in engagement: Facebook is a terrific absorber of audiences' time and attention, 114 billion minutes a month in the U.S. alone, on desktop PCs and smartphones. By comparison, Instagram commands 8 billion minutes a month, ahead of Twitter, at just 5.3 billion. 
• Facebook attracts roughly seven times the engagement that Twitter does, when looking at both smartphone and PC usage, in per-user terms. 
• Snapchat is a smaller network than WhatsApp, but outpaces it in terms of time-spend per user. 
• Pinterest, Tumblr and LinkedIn have made major successful pushes in 2013 to increase engagement on their mobile sites and apps. The new race in social media is for engagement across all devices.
• While mobile is where people are increasingly consuming social media, the desktop still leads as the place where they are interacting on social networks— posting, sharing, and commenting.

The report is full of charts and data that can be easily downloaded and put to use. 

In full, the report:

• Creates engagement indexes comparing established and emerging social networks by time-spend per user, and  includes statistics for time-spend, and share of aggregate time-spend. 
• Analyzes how mobile usage is the engine driving time-spend gains at social networks, which benefits mobile-centric networks like Twitter. 
• Explains how streams or news feeds are still creating the stickiest social experiences despite the fact that many social networks are moving away from the metaphor. 
• Discusses how photo-sharing in particular and status updates are still ultra-popular social media activities, but how content creation is also rising and drives impressive engagement. 
• Reveals how Pinterest and LinkedIn have championed smartphone and tablet-based usage in the race to drive incremental engagement gains and catch up to Facebook. 

For full access to the report on Social Engagement sign up for a free trial subscription today.

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A great advertisement sells something and strikes a primal emotion. Last year, advertisers from around the world became obsessed with marketing through fear.

The trend of using a terrifying hidden camera prank to promote a product became so popular that it even got its own name, "prankvertising."

Most of the ads included in this list got tens of millions of views on YouTube, but their critics wondered if views actually translated into effective marketing.

Apparently, ad agencies believed the viral exposure was worth the risk of a prank victim not taking too kindly to the stunt, as new prankvertisements kept popping up throughout the year. 

And there's even one from this month, meaning that the trend is not over just yet.

We'll take a look at some highlights, some of which are highly questionable in their attempts at horrifying people — but pretty funny nonetheless.

'Carrie': 'Telekinetic Coffee Surprise'

Patrons of a coffee shop in New York City's West Village got a psychic attack to go along with their lattes last fall. To promote the remake of the classic horror film "Carrie," a production crew had an actress appear to have an angry telekinetic outburst. 

With the help of props, remote controls, and a couple other actors, it looked as if this woman got revenge on the guy who spilled her coffee by using her mind to throw him against a wall and raise hell in the otherwise pleasant cafe:

Nivea: 'The Stress Test'

To promote its new deodorant in Germany, the charmingly awkward-sounding "Stress Protect" stick, Nivea decided to freak out a few people waiting for their flight.

When they were not paying attention, a photographer snapped a pic of the brand's target. A crew then quickly got to work printing up a fake newspaper with the person's face plastered on the cover, and sent out a "newscast" announcing to the airport that this person was on the run from authorities and considered dangerous. Eventually the authorities arrive — with an attache case full of Nivea products.

Apparently they would have dealt with the situation better if they had Stress Protect on:

Carlsberg: 'Carlsberg Puts Friends To The Test'

If your buddy called you at 3:00am and asked for a couple hundred bucks to save him from a dangerous poker game, would you drive to a sketchy part of town to save him?

Carlsberg beer did this experiment in the China Town in Antwerp, Belgium. It set up an elaborate underground poker club, filled with freaks, flames, and martial arts matches. The friends reluctantly pushed through the absurd maze until they found the seedy poker game. As soon as they laid the bills on the table, a curtain fell to reveal a production team, and the beer got flowing:

Bud Light released six short teaser videos for its upcoming Super Bowl commercials, revealing that two of the brand's ads will feature celebrities Arnold Schwarzenegger, Don Cheadle, and Reggie Watts.

Bud Light had previously announced that two of its three ads at the Feb. 2 game would form a cohesive story called "Epic Night" and include surprise celebrity cameos. The ads will launch a new tagline, "The Perfect Beer For Whatever Happens," which replaces the "Here We Go" slogan Bud Light has used since 2010.

The teaser ads give viewers a clue that the "Epic Night" ads will tell several interweaving stories featuring wild nighttime escapades in the vein of the popular "The Hangover" movies. In one video, we see Schwarzenegger gearing up for an intense game of ping-pong, and in another, Cheadle stands in an apartment building hallway with a llama that appears to be his pet.

Another teaser video insinuates that there will be some sort of "reality" angle to Bud Light's ads involving 412 actors, 58 hidden cameras, and one unsuspecting Average Joe, who will have to decide whether he's "up for whatever happens next" in the wild ride Bud Light has planned.

The ads were created by the advertising agency BBDO, and will be promoted with the social media hashtag #UpForWhatever. Bud Light has said previously that its new campaign will try to reflect Millennial values like optimism and the desire to "go out there and experience the world."

In addition to the "Epic Night" commercials, which will be 30 seconds and 60 seconds in length, Bud Light will promote its new reclosable bottle in a 30-second ad from the St. Louis agency Cannonball at the start of the game.

Here's our favorite video of the series, which stars Don Cheadle opposite a llama:

SEE ALSO: Amid Sinking Sales, Bud Light Will Get Another New Tagline In 3 Super Bowl Ads

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Facebook has temporarily blocked some dating sites from advertising on the site if they are new to the social network, the company tells Business Insider. According to an email from the Facebook ad sales force to a frustrated ad client, the dating sites won't be able to advertise on Facebook until after Valentine's Day.

Kyle McGinnis, the CEO of one of the blocked dating sites, says his ads ran for months on Facebook and were only recently bumped from the site.

Facebook confirmed the temporary ban on new dating ads to Business Insider, saying  users had complained about seeing too many of them:

We recently updated our policy to require human review for ads for online dating services. We got a lot of negative feedback from people about many of these ads, and in some cases they violated various policies. To keep the quality of ads on Facebook high, we are not currently accepting new online dating advertisers.

But McGinnis, who runs HiDine, a dating site for people who like restaurants, believes Facebook is biased in favor of bigger dating sites with larger ad budgets. HiDine said in a press release:

By giving preference to bigger dating sites that can pay more for ad space, Facebook is edging out smaller competitors. For months before the holidays, McGinnis had multiple ads running on the social network. Suddenly, Facebook stopped accepting payment and disapproved previously-approved ads.

"I am deeply disappointed in Facebook's decision. I'm not sure how or why my status as an approved advertiser was changed. I'm also sorry to hear they can accept new partners only after Valentine's Day," said McGinnis.

McGinnis says he had been running ads for HiDine on Facebook for a while, but only recently was rejected. When he complained, just before Christmas, he received an email from Facebook that said, "... you must have prior authorization from Facebook in order to buy dating ads on Facebook. We are not currently accepting new partners at this time, but we expect to open applications for new advertisers by February 15, 2014." (See the full text of the emails below.)

Feb. 15 is, of course, about 24 hours too late for any dating site worth its salt.

Part of the problem here is that Facebook is very sensitive to complaints from its users. Although anyone can advertise on Facebook, the company wants those ads to be as useful and relevant as possible. It's also struggling with ad "load," meaning that it doesn't want to overwhelm users with too many ads.

The policy appears to imply that facebook will only accept ads from dating sites that come through Facebook's ad sales team, and not through campaigns bought via Facebook's automated plug-and-play Ads API system, which only requires a credit card.

Here's the banned HiDine ad:

Here are the emails between HiDine and Facebook:

+++

-----Original Message-----
From: kyle.mcginnis@[REDACTED].com
To:
Subject: Why wasn't my ad approved?

What was your ad disapproved for?: image

Please describe your question related to your ad that wasn't approved: I have been using these ads for months and I think this is a mistake that they are being disapproved at this time.  I have several campaigns going with these images so please let me know how I can get them approved.  Thank you!

Please paste the URL of the ad that wasn't approved below: [REDACTED]

Email Address: kyle.mcginnis@[REDACTED].com

Please submit the email/notification you received about why the ad wasn't approved: facebook

+++

Hi Kyle,

One or more of the ads you set up do not meet our guidelines and has been disapproved.

Please check your Ads Manager and edit any ads that have been disapproved. You will only pay for any actual impressions or clicks your ad receives.

Disapproved Ad

HiDine - dating for foodies!

nymag.com

The exclusive dating site for foodies where women are taken out to their favorite restaura...

Reason(s):

It looks like you submitted an ad for a dating service through one of our self-service advertising tools.

Unfortunately, ads for dating sites and apps are only allowed from approved advertisers at this time.

If you’ve read the guidelines in the Help Center and think your ad follows the rules and should have been approved, please let us know.

If you'd like to advertise your dating service on Facebook, please follow this link to learn more.

For more information, please read our Terms of Use and Advertising Guidelines.

Thanks,

The Facebook Ads Team

+++

From: The Facebook Ads Team
Date: Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 3:08 AM
Subject: Re: Why wasn't my ad approved?
To: kyle.mcginnis@[REDACTED].com

Hi Kyle,

We've recently updated our Advertising Guidelines for dating sites and apps.

To ensure a positive experience for everyone on Facebook, ads for dating sites and apps are only allowed from approved advertisers through a direct sales partnership. We hope this change will help encourage greater accountability and maintain the quality of dating-related advertising on Facebook.

This means that you must have prior authorization from Facebook in order to buy dating ads on Facebook. We are not currently accepting new partners at this time, but we expect to open applications for new advertisers by February 15, 2014.

Thanks,

Kyna

Facebook Ads Team

SEE ALSO: 25% Of U.S. Teens Have Abandoned Facebook

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Derek Muller, the curator of science video blog Veritasium, has a pretty large following across a number of social media channels: 21,000 followers on Twitter, more than 1 million on Youtube, and 118,000 fans on Facebook.

But unlike Twitter and YouTube — where his content is not filtered — his Facebook fans who have "liked" his page only ever see a fraction of what he posts.

"The problem with Facebook is that it's keeping things from you," says Muller in a new video on YouTube. "You don't see most of what's posted by your friends or the pages you follow."

Muller is among many page owners who have seen the reach of their pages wane over time. Edge Rank Checker recently analyzed roughly 1,000 different Facebook pages and found another drop in December of the number of people seeing posts, noting that "the news feed continues to be a more challenging place to get your content displayed."

So what's the deal?

With so many posts being shared throughout the day on Facebook, Muller says that "clearly some filtering is required. The problem is Facebook is using its filtering power in order to make money."

Facebook has repeatedly denied any allegations of "throttling" certain posts or "gaming" its news feed against certain pages.

"Where he does have a point is that even in the competition for organic news," said Brandon McCormick, Director of Communications for Facebook, in a telephone interview. "There's just a lot more competition than there used to be."

While McCormick admits that Facebook does "curate the experience," he strongly rejects the argument that Facebook is forcing people to pay for more exposure. Further, he explained that sponsored posts in the Newsfeed don't compete with organic posts. They are their own separate, dedicated advertising slots.

"We give users a lot of control over what they see in their Newsfeed," McCormick said. "You can filter the News Feed and see everything. You can highlight pages you want to see everything from … a lot of users may not realize that, but anyone can do those things."

Muller's argument stems from problems with his own page, Veritasium, of which 118,000 people have become fans.

"The last time I shared a video on there, it only went in the news feeds of about 9,000 people," he claims, a number that is less than 8% of his fan base. "This continues the downward trend in numbers I've been seeing."

In part, Muller's problem is that many of his posts probably aren't interesting enough to deserve a wider audience. Facebook's News Feed algorithm is designed to restrict the reach of posts that get little reaction from friends and followers, but to promote posts that get high levels of engagement. It's been this way for months. Most recently, Facebook tweaked the algorithm to bury pictures of cute cats and to surface useful news items.

Facebook advises page owners to produce more "engaging content"— posts and pictures that get "likes," comments, and "shares.""It doesn't mean every single person who's connected is going to see it, but the more engaging content the more people are going to see it," said McCormick.

With so much content appearing throughout the day, it seems those "likes" and "shares" have a huge impact on whether a post gets seen. "Don't you think it's possible to see a post and like it or find it interesting without finding a need to 'like it' or comment on it?" asks Muller in his video. 

"He's not wrong, but in the absence of another signal that you like that or you're interested in that type of content," McCormick said, "it's hard for us to know."

The other option, McCormick says, is that he can pay to get his content in front of more people.

Muller could increase his reach in the form of promoting posts — paying Facebook anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars — to ensure they get in front of the page's fans. That's much easier for a large brand to do, but far too costly for someone running a small website or nonprofit.

Contrast that with a site like YouTube, where practically anyone with a video camera can make a video, upload it freely to the site, and be paid for it if it gets viewed by many others. On the flip side is Facebook, where people are still creating content, but instead of getting paid for it, they sometimes need to pay to have it viewed.

"On YouTube the roles of creator, advertiser, and viewer are distinct," Muller says. "The creators make the videos that the viewers want to watch, the advertisers make the pre-rolls and the banner ads, and the majority of viewers are not also creators."

But that model is nowhere close to Facebook. Muller explains:

"The creators are treated like advertisers — they have to pay to reach the viewers. And viewers themselves are also creators. So viewers are also advertisers."

Of course, if your YouTube video isn't interesting it meets the same fate as a dull Facebook post: no one sees it, and no one knows it's there. The difference between the two is that on Facebook you can pay to promote material, whereas on YouTube there's not much you can do — short of buying an ad campaign across Google — to promote videos.

"[On Twitter,] you just see what you see as you scroll down," said McCormick. " ... There's a big chunk of things you don't see, that's the reality of how all services work, unless you spend your entire day scrolling down. Every company is going to have a way to organize this information. No user is ever going to be able to see everything."

Since Facebook did once offer a high level of reach for free, people feel aggrieved now that it's been taken away. McCormick compares the changes to search, where in the past you could create a website and easily use search engine optimization to get it seen in the top results.

That changes every time Google or Microsoft makes a change to their search algorithm — forcing people to work harder at producing better content that people want to see, or paying for ads.

Still, Muller is not alone in his criticism. A widely shared October 2012 post from the blog Dangerous Minds called it the "greatest 'bait n' switch' in history."

Ironically, Muller posted his video to his Facebook page and it received much higher levels of engagement than what he normally receives — likely due to the large number of "likes" and "shares." Many commenting agreed with him and offered their own complaints:

"I liked this page months ago but this is the first time I have ever seen it in my news feed," wrote one person.

"I reposted this on my wall.. The irony is that only a small part of my friends list actually sees it.." wrote another.

You can watch Muller's full video below:

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Mobile advertising has carved out a significant share of advertising revenues faster than many expected. But until recently, increased spending had not made the mobile ad ecosystem any less complex.

A wave of deals is starting to change that. Partnerships and acquisitions are beginning to streamline the industry. Mobile ad companies are all beginning to resemble one another: Ad networks, ad exchanges, real-time bidding platforms, and many other self-styled mobile ad "solutions," as big players are gobbling up smaller, more specialized players. The last companies standing will be those with the best data, the best and most varied targeting technologies, and access to the most premium sites and apps.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we cut through the noise, identify the most meaningful shifts in the mobile ad landscape, discuss the biggest M&A deals, and demystify the actual role played by the different entities and technologies, explaining each player's strengths and weakness. We also look at how the rise of programmatic buying will affect buyers and sellers across the mobile landscape. 

Here are some of the key developments in the mobile ad ecosystem:

• The industry is simultaneously consolidating, and growing more complex. Ad exchanges, supply-side platforms and mobile ad networks are all reaching for scale and the latest ad technology. Increasingly, the lines between these entities are blurring.
• These companies are all vying for advertiser dollars and making big promises about the data and inventory they can provide buyers. But the fractured landscape makes it difficult to determine which companies have the best set of offerings to meet mobile advertisers' goals.
• Programmatic is growing at a fast clip in developed mobile markets like the United States, 56% annually by some estimates. Within mobile programmatic, real-time bidding, which allows for the serving of personalized ads to app and site visitors, is particularly influential. We explain why RTB is crucial in mobile. 
• The rise of programmatic is leading to a reshuffle of the entire industry. Many of this year's mergers and acquisitions in mobile ads can be traced to either the need for scale or the rise of data-focused programmatic ad trading. 
• Demand-side platforms and agency trading desks face a major barrier to their rise as engines for the demand side of the programmatic equation: media agencies and media planners remain locked into their comfortable one-on-one relationships with traditional ad networks.  

Subscribers also receive instant access to our ongoing coverage of mobile advertising including, "Mobile Ad Industry Consolidation Led To A Flurry Of Major Deals In 2013."

In full, the Mobile Ad Industry report:

• Sizes the mobile ad market and provides charts and data showing how that spend is breaking down in terms of format and company revenues.
• Clearly defines the different players in the mobile ad ecosystem, both old and new, and how they work together — and apart.
• Examines the benefits and weakness of each of the different players within that ecosystem.
• Explains how programmatic is becoming one of the most important developments changing the game for ad buyers and sellers.
• Considers programmatic's limitations for the time being, and its projected impact in the future.
• Articulates the biggest consolidations and mergers within the mobile ad ecosystem and what these changes mean for mobile advertising.

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Samsung's Web-connected Smart TVs appear to be more than just a way to stream stuff from Netflix and Pandora. It looks like the company is also experimenting with ways to show you ads on your set, just like you'd see when browsing the Internet.

David Chartier, a tech writer and commentator, posted a photo of a pop-up ad for a "Yahoo Broadcast Interactivity" app that randomly appeared on his Samsung Smart TV last week. But the pop-up ad itself wasn't the strangest part. It turns out the ad showed up while Chartier was watching his Apple TV, which was on a separate input. Whether it was a glitch or not, this clearly isn't an optimal experience.

Chartier wrote that he had to dig through Samsung's Smart TV app store to find something called the SyncPlus app that disables pop-up ads on his TV. Again, that's hardly a good experience for users who are annoyed by the ads. If Samsung decides to switch pop-up ads on by default, it's odd that it would make users jump through so many hoops to switch them off.

In a statement to Business Insider, Samsung said Chartier's experience was part of a partnership with Yahoo. The pop-ups are supposed to be opt-in, but for now users must switch them off. Here's the statement from Samsung, which includes instructions on how to turn the Yahoo pop-ups off:

Samsung has been working with consumers and with strategic partners since 2011 to explore and develop more interactive smartTV features that will allow consumers the choice to experience a new generation of home entertainment. These new interactive experiences are offered on an “opt-in” basis via the Samsung SmartHub.  We are working with Yahoo to create an opt-in screen prompt specific to their service as soon as possible. In the meantime, users can opt out of the Yahoo experience by swiping up on their touch remote to highlight the check box and then clicking to uncheck it. To opt-out of Yahoo Broadcast Interactivity, Exit Smart Hub first, press Menu on your Samsung Remote and scroll to Smart Hub > Terms & Policy > Yahoo Privacy Policy. Scroll to “I disagree with the Yahoo Privacy Notice.” and you can toggle the option on to opt-out.

Samsung isn't alone in this practice. Panasonic also displays banner ads on its smart TVs that you have to disable in the settings menu.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story said Samsung would not comment for this article. A spokesperson for the company did finally explain the Yahoo pop-up ad after this story was published.

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The idea that there is a difference between "natural" chemicals — like those in fruits and vegetables — and the synthetic version of those chemicals produced in a laboratory is a common misconception.

Marketers often feed off consumer's concerns that "man-made" chemicals are bad. But the fact is that all foods (and everything around us) are made up of chemicals, whether they occur in nature or are made in a lab.

Australian chemistry teacher James Kennedy wanted to dispel the myth that chemicals are bad for us. He created an ingredient list for natural products, like the banana above, to show that there many chemicals in our food's natural flavors and colors. And some of them have long, scary sounding names, too. We first saw the graphics at io9. 

"There’s a tendency for advertisers to use the words 'pure' and 'simple' to describe 'natural' products when they couldn’t be more wrong," Kennedy writes on his blog."As a Chemistry teacher, I want to erode the fear that many people have of 'chemicals' and demonstrate that nature evolves compounds, mechanisms and structures far more complicated and unpredictable than anything we can produce in the lab."

You can see two more "all-natural" posters below, and head over to Kennedy's blog to check out all of his great infographics, like a table of esters and their smells.

SEE ALSO: 17 Cool Facts About Flavorings

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Good morning, AdLand. Here's what you need to know today:

On Sunday night, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman became the talk of social media when he made a pivotal play in Seattle's NFC Championship win over the San Francisco 49ers and followed it up with a post-game rant declaring his greatness and the "sorry" state of San Francisco receiver Michael Crabtree. Earlier that day, Beats By Dr. Dre released a prescient commercial in which the polarizing Sherman uses the headphones to tune out a frenzy of reporters asking questions about whether or not he's a "thug.":

Twitter VP of product Michael Sippey is leaving his position to take an advisory role with the company. According to Re/Code, there had been tension between Sippey's consumer products team and the company's revenue teams.

Campbell Mithumhired David Carter to be its chief creative officer. Carter has previously worked as senior creative director at BBDO in Minneapolis. 

Vespahas a new campaign trying to convince people who think of themselves as nerds that they can become hipsters (which we guess is better?) simply by purchasing one of its motorized scooters.

Hill Holliday chairman Mike Sheehan has stepped down from that role in order to pursue his advisory and investment gigs outside of the agency. Sheehan recently accepted a job as an advisor to The Boston Globe.

Deutsch New York hired DDB New York executive creative director Menno Kluin. Kluin leaves DDB after nearly three years with the agency.

Ad Age looks at how brands like McDonald's and Equinox went about "celebrating" Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Hint: It wasn't subtle.

Lifestyle website and blog network Glam Media entered a partnership with Hubert Burda Media to launch Glam Media in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.

Previously on Business Insider Advertising:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger And Don Cheadle Star In Bud Light's Super Bowl Teaser Ads
  

• 10 Insanely Scary Marketing Pranks From Around The World

• Here's A Preview Of The Ads You'll See On Super Bowl Sunday

• Samsung Appears To Be Stuffing Pop-Up Ads For Yahoo In Its Smart TVs

• Blogger Nails A Major Problem With Facebook's Newsfeed

• Facebook Is Blocking Ads From A Bunch Of Dating Sites Until AFTER Valentine's Day

• American Eagle Abandons Photoshop For New Lingerie Campaign

• Uber Claims It's Cheaper Than Lyft In This Ad

• Subaru Puts Dogs Behind The Wheel, And Even Gives A Puppy Its Own Booster Seat

Join the conversation about this story »

Last month, Volkswagen said its Super Bowl ad would poke fun at the seriousness of its German engineers, and Monday, the car brand released a teaser video making good on its promise.

The video shows a German engineer in a lab devising an algorithm for "the ultimate commercial for your big American football festival."

The result? Carmen Electra, puppies, and a midget firing a tennis ball at an old man's crotch:

Set to the strains of Wang Chung's 1986 hit "Everybody Have Fun Tonight," Volkswagen's teaser video features a mash-up of advertising cliches and American stereotypes that includes babies, football players, bikini models, and a man in an Abe Lincoln costume.

The joke is that Volkswagen's engineers are so dedicated to science and math that their first inclination when asked to make a Super Bowl ad was to write a formula to isolate the variables that made previous ads successful and funny.

The teaser video was created by the advertising agency Argonaut, which will also make the 60-second Super Bowl ad. The premise for the Super Bowl ad comes from Volkswagen's longtime agency, Deutsch LA.

Volkswagen also has released a short video that allows viewers to go behind-the-scenes at the filming of the teaser video:

The Super Bowl will be played Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. On average, brands spent $4 million for 30 seconds of air time.

SEE ALSO: Here's a preview of the ads you will see on Super Bowl Sunday

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With each new holiday or anniversary comes another chance for a brand to embarrass itself. 

SpaghettiOs did just that on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, for instance, when it tweeted its cartoon mascot holding an American flag. Just because a brand could have its heart in the right place does not mean that a silly attempt at real-time marketing will not cause an angry backlash or mocking on a viral level.

So, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day presented a perfect opportunity for cringe-worthy marketing messages.

Like this one from PETA, using a day of remembrance for the struggles and triumphs of African-Americans to plug its cause:

Today, we honor Martin Luther King Jr. & the plight of animals who are tortured, abused & neglected: http://t.co/khNLiAOPQ7#NeverBeSilent

— PETA (@peta) January 20, 2014

It is notable that even though tweets like the one from PETA angered many people on Twitter, PETA and other brands did not have knee-jerk reactions to the response. Instead of deleting tweets and issuing an apology, brands like ZzzQuil chose to stick to their guns and explain to individual critics that they meant no offense:

Today is the day for dreaming. Happy MLK Day.

— ZzzQuil (@ZzzQuil) January 20, 2014

Companies like PopChips and Krazy Glue saw the perfect opportunity for a pun:

eternal poptimist #mlkpic.twitter.com/NIp8Llz0U5

— popchips (@popchips) January 20, 2014

Honored to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today. pic.twitter.com/p2LeNjwv0J

— Krazy Glue (@KrazyGlueExpert) January 20, 2014

Many were respectful, but just looked silly due to a weird brand association:

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' - Martin Luther King, Jr.

— Chicken of the Sea (@COSMermaid) January 20, 2014

Big brands that normally love timely tweets avoided controversy by not tweeting at all, like Oreo and Burger King.

Taking the opposite approach, PornHub decided to fearlessly make some industry-appropriate jokes. The brand got equal attention from fans who found its tweets funny and critics who found them distasteful:

Happy MLK. In honor of his death, make sure to only use the Ebony category today.

— Pornhub Katie (@Pornhub) January 20, 2014

Apology: MLK would have wanted everyone to watch the Interracial category today. #IHaveADream

— Pornhub Katie (@Pornhub) January 20, 2014

Even though the porn tweets survived MLK Day, there was a notable Twitter fail in the traditional sense, and it came from the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command at the start of the long weekend. MARSOC quickly deleted the tweet and apologized for the "lone gunman" reference that brought to mind King's assassin:

And here's the apology:

From the Command in reference to our latest tweet: pic.twitter.com/9ln39HCWqA

— MARSOC (@MARSOCofficial) January 17, 2014

MLK Day proved that Twitter users can expect more questionable marketing tweets on the next holiday or day of remembrance. Though it also showed that more corporate social media teams are becoming aware of the dangers that come with real-time branding. Some are choosing to stand their ground, and others are choosing to just keep quiet.    

SEE ALSO: The 10 Biggest Social Media Marketing Fails Of 2013

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After starring in a Super Bowl ad for the Greek yogurt brand Oikos in 2012, actor John Stamos has now enlisted the help of his "Full House" co-stars, Dave Coulier and Bob Saget.

In a teaser for Oikos' upcoming Super Bowl ad released Monday, Stamos is seen watching television with a cup of Oikos yogurt. When Stamos turns off the television ("Now that was a good game!"), he looks over his shoulder to reveal Coulier and Saget sitting beside him in their pajamas.

That's when Saget delivers the video's punchline, which plays on the actors' experience playing characters who lived together in the long-running sitcom "Full House."

Saget asks his friends whether they think it's time they all get their own homes. After a pause, the trio responds in unison: "Nahhhhhh."

Like Oikos' 2012 commercial, the concept for the this year's Super Bowl ad was created in collaboration with a select group of talent from Poptent, a video production platform that connects brands and agencies with independent filmmakers. The ad itself will be created by Young & Rubicam's Barcelona office, Vinizius.

The Dannon-owned Oikos brand will see competition at this year's Super Bowl from Greek yogurt rival Chobani, which will debut a new campaign at the big game.

This year's Super Bowl will be played Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, with brands paying an average of $4 million for 30 seconds of advertising time.

SEE ALSO: Here's A Preview Of The Ads You'll See On Super Bowl Sunday

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Social media can be brands' best friend or worst enemy. Today's customer or client is absorbing and broadcasting information all day long and much of what they're saying has to do with brands, whether they're endorsing a certain product or complaining about a recent customer service experience. 

But most brands and businesses don't actually communicate with their customers on social media on a day-to-day basis or understand sentiment on social media. That's why customer relationship management is refocusing on social customer relationship management (SCRM). It is becoming more flexible, fast-paced, and interested in customer opinions.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we explore how SCRM is changing the way companies interact and more effectively serve their customers, and why it is critical for brands to adopt a social customer strategy, especially as social media and mobile apps begin to mediate more and more customer feedback, purchase decisions, commerce transactions.

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today > > 

Here are some more highlights from the report on social customer management:

• The report looks at data and mini-case studies to reveal the best practices for opening up customer relationship management, and how to involve different facets of business organizations in this function, from customer service teams, to marketing departments, IT officers, and sales executives.
• The wealth of data on customer desires being generated by this strategy is helping organizations work more effectively, and achieve better results. 
• We discuss social customer relationship management's huge sales potential. The data shows that social customer management doubles the percentage of sales leads that result in actual sales, relative to traditional CRM approaches. 
• The report also explores the three main differences between traditional and new social-influenced approaches to customer service and relationship management.
• We present the four necessary ingredients of a successful social customer strategy, and examples of businesses that have paved the way for holistic approaches such as social customer service.
• We'll answer frequently asked questions about social customer relationship management and what defines it.
• Boosting leads and customer lifetime value are two aims of social customer management, but a broader goal is to bring customers' concerns deeper into the company's decision-making.

In full, the report looks at a few case studies of good social media customer-centric efforts: 

1. Dell: The computer technology corporation was an early adopter of social customer relationship management and in 2010, Dell opened up its social media command center to all employees, regardless of their function. 
2. Domino's: A disastrous YouTube video posted in 2009 showed two Domino’s employees mishandling a pizza. After the video went viral, the company launched a massive campaign to analyze public opinion across all social media. 
3. Best Buy: The electronics retailer unrolled a Twitter-focused marketing and customer service strategy built around “Twelpforce,” a system the company created to allow thousands of employees across departments to receive and respond to customer queries via Twitter. 
4. American Airlines: Socialbakers ranks industries and brands according to “social devotion,” or how attentive they are to customers on Twitter. Surprisingly, troubled American Airlines ranks ninth among all U.S. brands (American has a response rate of 94%). 

For full access to this report along with dozens of in-depth social media and mobile industry reports and a library of hundreds of charts, sign up for a two-week free trial of BI Intelligence.

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"In the mirror I cover my arm, like part of it, to make it more narrow," a teenage girl tells her mother.

"I would have never guessed you did that in the mirror," her mom replies.

The above is from Dove's new ad campaign called "Selfie," which premiered yesterday at the Sundance Film Festival as a 7-minute documentary.

The beauty company looks at teenage girls and their relationships with their mothers and themselves as they navigate the trend of taking selfies, and the ways we alter and adjust our image to create the perfect, seemingly "natural," reflection of ourselves in a photo.

The girls are shown as being frustrated trying to take a selfie that they're happy with, while the mothers realize that the way they internalize their own body issues affects their daughters.

Both mothers and daughters were asked to take a selfie that highlighted the features they disliked the most, the ones they'd usually try to hide in photos.

Then they attended an event where their selfies were blown up and posted in a photo gallery.

The goal is for the women to "redefine their own beauty and see that insecurity often lies beneath the personal snapshots,"ABC News reports.

Dove says its own research found that 62% of women feel they are responsible for influencing their own definition of beauty and that 55% of women believe social media now plays a larger role in influencing the beauty conversation than traditional media.

This is one of several Dove Real Beauty campaigns. In the past, the beauty company created a viral ad in which a hired FBI-trained forensic sketch artist drew a woman as she described herself, and then drew her as a total stranger described her. As expected, the results were dramatically different. 

Here's "Selfie" in full:

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Toyota released a teaser video Tuesday revealing that The Muppets will star in the auto maker's Super Bowl commercial alongside actor and former Old Spice pitchman Terry Crews.

In the video, Crews pulls over on a desert highway to ask the driver of a painted, broken-down bus whether he or she needs help. The teaser then cuts to a shot of a muppet fiddling with the lock on one of the bus' doors:

Toyota will promote its new Highlander at the Feb. 2 game with a 60-second commercial from the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi LA.

According to a press release, the ad will show off how the Highlander is both fun and functional, with the Muppets gang showing Crews how to "unborify" his life while the characters take over his vehicle. There will also be a musical number for the ad, which will help promote the forthcoming "Muppets Most Wanted" movie.

A former football player, Crews currently stars as Sergeant Terry Jeffords on the Fox comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and has made his mark in AdLand by acting in several funny, non-sequitur ads for Old Spice.

Here's one we particularly enjoyed:

SEE ALSO: Here's a preview of the ads you will see on Super Bowl Sunday

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Chobani's first Super Bowl ad will position the brand's Greek yogurt as the healthy, all-natural choice in supermarket yogurt sections.

The ad has yet to be released, but we got some new information on it from a Chobani representative and the brand's head of marketing.

In the commercial, Mother Nature is represented by a "discerning bear" who just woke up from hibernation. He wanders into a supermarket, but instead of eating everything in sight, he becomes enraged at the lack of natural food choices, "especially in the yogurt aisle."

New York agency Droga5 produced the 60 second ad, which will air during the game's third quarter.

The Greek yogurt brand encountered some trouble last year with a product recall in September and the announcement that Whole Foods would stop carrying the product in January (contrary to many initial reports, the upscale supermarket chain did not make the decision because Chobani's dairy cows ate genetically-modified vegetarian feed, supposedly disqualifying the yogurt as "all-natural" according to Whole Foods' standards; rather, the chain says it was a choice meant to make room for competitors, probably including Whole Food's own brand).

Despite those difficulties, the Super Bowl ad will not be a response to them, according to Peter McGuinness, Chobani's chief marketing officer.

McGuinness said that it was an obvious move for the company. 

"We're America's number-one yogurt brand, so why not be in America's number-one event?" McGuinness said. Chobani has 12.5 percent of the country's yogurt market, and brought in $4.2 billion in revenue in 2013.

Despite its success, the brand is still only known to 37% of the country. The Super Bowl ad is meant to introduce the brand to the other two-thirds of the country, while providing an entertaining spot for existing Chobani fans.

"We're a mass brand and we're proud of it," McGuinness said of the growing company, which spent its early years largely dedicated to manufacturing and brand expansion.

The Super Bowl commercial will serve as a turning point that will make marketing a core aspect of the brand from now on, especially since the yogurt market is more competitive than ever. Dannon will be advertising its Oikos brand Greek yogurt during the Super Bowl with a mini "Full House" reunion, and McGuinness said that Chobani will rise up to the challenge.

Chobani is also a sponsor of the Sochi Winter Olympics and will advertise during the Academy Awards.

The Super Bowl commercial, called "Ransacked" will launch the year's "How Matters" campaign.

"A lot of brands are 'When,' 'What,' 'Where' companies," McGuinness said, referring to those touting their historical background, the face value of their products, or where the products were made. "How things are made isn't always pretty," he added, saying that Chobani is choosing to differentiate itself by celebrating the simple way its all-natural ingredients are made into yogurt.

The brand thinks consumers will notice this distinction, in the same way the ad's bear does.

"2014 is the year of the yogurt wars," McGuinness said, and Chobani intends on being the victor. 

SEE ALSO: Greek Yogurt Brand Reunites The Men Of 'Full House' In Latest Super Bowl Teaser Video

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Scott Lake, the co-founder of Ottawa-based ecommerce company Shopify.com is tackling a hard problem with his latest startup, Source Metrics.

He wants to help retailers use Facebook ads to get people to shop in physical stores. Currently, much Internet advertising is focused on ecommerce sales because it's often easier to get people to click through to a website then to get them to get in their cars and drive to the store.

Source Metrics has released a new product called the Facebook In-store Ad Tracker that lets retailers send an offer to a Facebook user's smartphone. The person must takes the offer to the store to get the deal. The store's marketers can then track the popularity of its Facebook ads, without any changes made to the store's cash register software (known as the point-of-sale system or POS).

The company tried an initial pilot with Morguard, owners of various shopping malls in Canada. "Morguard ran a contest. It wanted to know, how do we drive people into the mall to hopefully buy something?," Craig Fitzpatrick, Source Metrics vice president of products told Business Insider. 

Source Metrics sent Ad Tracker coupons to all the people that had "liked" the mall's Facebook page.  Some 30% of them took the bait, went to the mall and bought something.

Source Metrics is currently aiming its Facebook Ad Tracker at retailers with more than 300 stores who have more than 300,000 fans, Fitzpatrick tell us.

Next up, it will release similar tech for Pinterest and Instagram. It's focused on Facebook now because retailers are actively and heavily advertising on Facebook, Fitzpatrick says.

SEE ALSO: Former Googlers Launch A Cool Startup That Will Make The Internet Much Safer

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Thirty years ago today, Apple aired what is widely considered the greatest commercial in Super Bowl history. But some of the first people who saw the ad thought it would be an absolute flop.

In his new book, "The Insanity of Advertising," former Apple ad account manager Fred Goldberg reveals that when he sent Apple's now famous "1984" ad to be tested by the leading market research company of the day, he was told it would be one of the least effective commercials the firm had ever tested.

On ASI Market Research's 43-point scale predicting how effective a commercial would be at persuading people to buy a product, Apple's first ad for the Macintosh computer scored a measly 5, well below the average score of 29.

Fortunately for Apple, Goldberg chose not to share the results with any of his superiors at the ad agency Chiat/Day (now TBWA\Chiat\Day), and ASI's prediction couldn't have been further from the truth.

You can judge for yourself by watching the ad below. Its tagline, "Why 1984 Won't Be Like 1984" plays on George Orwell's dystopian novel and reassures viewers that Apple's new technology would be used for freedom, not control.

In it, a Big Brother figure addresses a room full of drab, bald-headed people and praises the futuristic society's achievement of the "Unification of Thoughts." A blond-haired woman in a white T-shirt and bright, orange shorts then runs into the room, chased by policemen, and throws a sledgehammer through the screen:

Mesmerized by the ad's state-of-the-art cinematography and alluring message about the promise of technology, consumers flooded electronics stores across the country when the Macintosh debuted the following Tuesday. Those consumers would go on to purchase $155 million worth of Macintoshes in the three months after the Super Bowl.

"It was the first time that anybody did something so outrageous on the Super Bowl," Goldberg said in an interview with Business Insider. "I didn’t immediately know it was going to be what it was, but it sure was a really great way to introduce the product and get attention."

Indeed, the ad's extraordinary production values and riveting story made it one of the most-talked about topics in America, and was rebroadcast on television news shows around the country.

Though other advertisers, like Masterlock, had already started targeted their most important marketing messages at the Super Bowl and its huge audience, "1984" is often credited with ushering in the current era of Super Bowl advertising, in which the ads are as important and popular as the game itself.

But for all the accolades "1984" has won over the past three decades  — among them the Grand Prix award at the 1984 Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and the No. 1 slot in TV Guide's list of the greatest commercials of all time — the ad almost never saw the light of day.

Though Apple co-founder Steve Jobs loved the ad from the start and drew wild applause when he showed it to employees at a national sales meeting during the fall of 1983, the company's board of directors was less impressed with the work of ad agency Chiat/Day.

According to Steve Hayden, a Chiat/Day copywriter who helped conceive the commercial, the board sat in silence after the ad was first presented, and chairman Mike Markula asked his colleagues whether they, too, wanted to fire the agency responsible. 

"There was this odd, dysfunctional quality to presenting advertising to Apple," said Brent Thomas, the Chiat/Day art director on the project. "If the people that you had to first present to hated it, Jobs was going to like it. And conversely, if it went the other way, you knew Steve would kill it."

By the time the ad was shown to the board, Apple had already spent $650,000 to make "1984" and a second ad for its Lisa model business computer. That money was used to enlist the services of director Ridley Scott, who at the time was coming off the 1982 hit movie "Blade Runner." Apple also hired 300 extras to act in the ad, many of them real-life London skinheads.

In spite of all that, Chiat/Day was ultimately told by Apple to sell the two minutes of Super Bowl advertising it had purchased with the original intention of airing the "1984" spot and two 30-second Macintosh product demonstrations.

The Chiat/Day executives in charge of selling the time to other advertisers had other ideas. Goldberg says that at agency head Jay Chiat's urging, the executives dragged their feet and were only able to sell the two 30-second slots before running out of time. Rather than show a blank screen during $250,000 worth of airtime, Apple ran "1984," and the rest is history.

"I basically told the ad execs given the job of selling off the time ... I said I will kill you if you manage to do this," Thomas said. "I was on my hands and knees saying, 'Don’t do it! Don’t do it!' Fortunately they couldn’t do it."

The commercial would wind up having a lasting impact, not only in the world of advertising, but in the United States' nascent consumer technology industry, as well.

By throwing a sledgehammer through the screen broadcasting a dreary announcement from a Big Brother figure, actress Anya Major inspired a generation of young people to go into a technology field that appeared more than ever to hold the key to solving problems and making the world a better place.

"This commercial was classically disruptive," said Timothy de Waal Malefyt, a former BBDO vice president who currently teaches at Fordham University. "This wasn’t a machine where you were going to be kowtowed in the workplace, this was a machine for the young, innovative, entrepreneurial mind. It really inspires the creative individual to break free and start something different."

The commercial was also pivotal to Apple as it positioned itself as an innovator in the field. The Macintosh computer itself was revolutionary in that it was the first affordable, personal computer to include a graphical-user interface and allow even novice computer users to easily operate the machine with its mouse. The ad helped cement Apple's reputation as an innovator, and presented a contrast between itself and the staid marketing of industry giant IBM. 

Apple also reaped the benefits of having one of the first ads to be shown repeatedly on television news shows, exposing its product to more and more consumers with every airing.

Hayden said Apple's internal team calculated the amount of airtime the commercial got being rebroadcast on these shows, and found that it had earned about $150 million worth of free airtime as a result. 

"I guess what’s so cool is that when all the things come together, you have a computer with totally revolutionary technology, and then you create a commercial that is totally revolutionary in the world of advertising and is seen by a huge audience," said Ken Segall, who worked on Apple's "Think Different" campaign as a Chiat/Day creative director and later served the company as an in-house consultant.

"It really helped launch Apple on this amazing trajectory."

SEE ALSO: Here's a preview of the ads you will see on Super Bowl Sunday

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Good morning, AdLand. Here's what you need to know today:

A new report from IT research firm Gartner says that mobile advertising spending will leap to $41.9 billion in 2017, up from its current forecast of $18 billion for 2014. As Mashable points out, this figure is more than the $32.5 billion advertisers are currently spending on radio, a medium whose influence is on the decline. Gartner attributes its bullish mobile ad forecast to "improved market conditions, such as provider consolidation, measurement standardization and new targeting technologies, along with a sustained interest in the mobile medium from advertisers."

Interpublic Group's Lowe and Partners acquired the global digital agency Profero, which has about 550 employees.

Viacomis creating a branded content division. 

CP+B's Los Angeles office created a set of online award for GIFs called the ".GIFYS." Categories include GIF of The Year, Best Sports GIF, and Can't Look Away, as the awards seek to honor the animated GIF "as a medium, social commentary and art form."

Lowe Campbell Ewald officially moved into its new downtown Detroit headquarters. In August, we told you about LCE creative director Iain Lanivich's plan to lure other startups and creative people to the Motor City.

Native advertising distributor Sharethroughraised $17 million Series C funding. The firm helps link publishers with content producers who want to advertise on their sites.

Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick has left News Corp. after less than two years at the company. He'll be replaced on an interim basis by chief creative officer William Lewis.

Huawei named Isobar its digital marketing agency for global product launches and consumer events. The Chinese telecom and hardware manufacturer is working to move into the consumer space.

Woman-focused media and marketing firm Meredith named Tim Russell senior managing director of sales for its video studio. Russell was previously VP East at Comcast 360. 

Previously on Business Insider Advertising:

• Apple Changed Super Bowl Advertising Forever 30 Years Ago Today, But Its '1984' Ad Almost Didn't Make It On The Air

• Chobani Intends To Win The 'Yogurt Wars' With Its Super Bowl Campaign

• The Muppets Are Coming To Toyota's Super Bowl Commercial

• Volkswagen Super Bowl Teaser Stars Carmen Electra, Puppies, And A Midget Firing A Tennis Ball At An Old Man's Crotch

• Dove's Short Film Reveals The Painfully Honest Way Young Women View Themselves

• Greek Yogurt Brand Reunites The Men Of 'Full House' In Latest Super Bowl Teaser Video

• The Worst Corporate Tweets Honoring MLK Day

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