The Weekly Roundup: 21st February 2014

Bringing you our selection of the biggest and baddest adland breaking news from the last 7 days. Because we didn’t just get bought by Facebook, so haven’t retired yet.

The week at a glance:

$60mil. That’d do nicely wouldn’t it? That’s what each WhatsApp employee got paid into their bank account this week. In less lucrative news, The Brit Awards got super social, Freeview give us a happy cat/bird couple in their new ad, A&E/DDB have a management shake up and Lego release the longest ad ever (the film, we’re talking about the film).

Facebook Buy WhatsApp

In a bid to take over the entire internet, Facebook made an intern withdraw $4billion in cash from most of the ATMs in the Northern Hemisphere and send it to WhatsApp along with $12billion in Facebook shares (this series of events may not have actually happened). This deal instantly made each of the 50 employees multi-multi-multi-many-millionaires, including co-founder Brian Acton who tried to bag a job with the social media behemoth just a few years ago. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW ZUCKERBERG?! Oh, probably you still, actually.

The Brits Get Social

This year The Brit Awards (aka the Year 13 Prom aka The Big Piss-up) erected a ‘Social Wall’ thanks to sponsor Nokia, which allowed viewers to express their opinion directly to the artist in the venue. “Interaction is the future of the music industry” states Jyrki Rosenberg, Nokia’s VP of Entertainment, who believes that allowing artists to have a dialogue with their fans is the key to success (we’re not sure quite how realistic this is, but nevertheless…).

Global viewers were also invited to vote for the Best British Video using social media as the vehicle, showing how invested the award body are at pushing the digital envelope.

Freeview, the cat, and the budgie

When we heard whispers about a new Freeview ad (watch it here), we didn’t see this coming. A cat and a budgie (probably called Tom and Jerry. Probably) sing harmoniously to the tune of “You’re All I Need To Get By”… revealing the power of free entertainment. We kid you not. Supported by digital marketing and social media (with the hashtag #catandbudgie) the campaign transcends the line.  We have a theory that the cat probably ate the budgie when the camera was switched off – care to comment Leo Burnett?!

A&E/DDB

The highly sought after ad agency have had a management reshuffle to allow the four founders (James Murphy, David Golding, Ben Priest and Jon Forsyth) to step back from running the agency and instead focus on client business, leaving room for high fliers to step up.

The shake up now sees Mat Goff and Tammy Einav move into Managing Director roles, Alex Hesz becoming the agency’s first Director of Digital, and Xavier Rees as Group Managing Director.

The Lego Movie

The ad film backed by Warners took a massive £8mil on it’s opening weekend, beating Clooney’s new movie The Monuments Men. Since the teaser campaign launched last year, it’s kicked up a serious storm with ad breaks on primetime tv dedicated to Lego characters and documentaries about the influence of Lego on architecture. The film appeals to young and old, male and female – harnessing the power of the brand. Thinking about it, the Lego brand managers are GODS, they created an ad people pay to see. We kiss your feet. Watch it here.

Over and out.

If you think we’ve missed anything world-changing that should be covered, let us know and we’ll put it in next week’s round-up! Email: hello@toworkorplay.com

[Images courtesy of Leo Burnett, Campaign, Brit Awards & Youtube ]

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