Tony Fadell: On Setting Constraints, Ignoring Experts & Embracing Self-Doubt

Tony Fadell is the founder and CEO of Nest Labs, Inc., the company that developed the Nest Learning Thermostat. The Nest Learning Thermostat learns about you and your home to automatically turn itself down when you're away and guides you to energy-efficient temperatures when you are home. Nest has been dubbed the "iPhone of thermostats" by Wired, and the New York Times describes it as "gorgeous, elegant and very, very smart."

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Under Armour and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club: A new armour is coming.

The five-year agreement represents the American company's largest European team sponsorship and their first contract with an English Premier League soccer club.

Spurs have, like Liverpool, taken up a new kit supplier after six years with Puma, also opting for an American sports clothing and accessories company.

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Squarebucks: Starbucks' $25M Square Deal Bringing Mobile Payments to the Masses

Starbucks’ $25 million investment in and deployment of Square for mobile payments, signed Tuesday by Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, will help spur adoption of mobile commerce in the US, with a halo effect that will be felt beyond.

Square will begin processing all credit and debit card transactions at Starbucks’ nearly 7,000 company-owned shops in the United States this fall via Pay With Square, and soon, customers will order their café du jour and charge it to their credit card just by saying their name.

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Worldwide Cycling Atlas project wins Silver at the Italian Art Directors Club.

Art Directors Club Italiano
Awards 2012
Category: Branded Digital Content
Silver

Title: Worldwide Cycling Atlas
Client: Selle Royal
Agency: Kerrigan's way / Macramè
Creative Director: Fabio Fedrigo / Dario Plee
Art Director: Lorena Scarpatti / Matteo de Mayda
Copywriter: Goran Mimica
Photographer : Matteo De Mayda, Laia Abril, Reed Young
Movie Director: Pablo Pastor
Soundtrack: Jhon William Castano Montoya

Go to Worldwide Cycling Atlas...

Germany's Sparkasse Chemnitz bank has launched a Karl Marx credit card.

The disappearance of communist former East Germany has not deterred them from using credit cards emblazoned with the image of the man who foretold the end of capitalism and the triumph of communism.

More than a third of customers at Sparkasse bank in Chemnitz opted for the picture of a bronze bust of the bearded 19th century German-born philosopher, bank spokesman Roger Wirtz said.

Marx's stern face is depicted gazing towards the logo of Mastercard.

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Ganz Toll will represent Buenos Aires at the UNESCO's Creative Cities Summit 2012 in Montreal.

The CMD (Metropolitan Design Center) and the Foreign Trade Department held a contest to select a representative of the "porteña" Creativity to attend the UNESCO Creative Cities Summit in Montreal. The Summit will be held from 20 to 27 May. The selected representative was Pablo Colabella, partner at Ganz Toll studio.

Go to "Montreal UNESCO City of Design" website...

Montanari Energy: "Wind is timeless, and yet ahead of its time" video.

It filled the sails on Ulysses’ ships, it drove Columbus’ caravels beyond known horizons, it let loose the imagination in a hot-air balloon going round the world in 80 days… wind puts the wings on the dreams of pioneers and has always accompanied the progress of mankind.

Brand: Montanari Energy
Client: Shado
Copywriting: Andy Smith
Illustration: Leandro Castelao
Animation: Diego Bevilaqua, Marco Mistretta - Shado
Music: Jhon William Castano Montoya
Sound Design: Davide Tiso

China: a goldmine for Hollywood's product placement

"This agreement with China will make it easier than ever before for U.S. studios and independent filmmakers to reach the fast-growing Chinese audience, supporting thousands of American jobs in and around the film industry."

That's U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's summary of a groundbreaking new deal between the two nations that will relax the controls on China's movie market. The agreement came at the end of leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping's visit to the US in february 2012.

A case study in the kinds of films that will benefit is "Transformers: Dark of the Moon". China was Transformers 3's most profitable market after the US, and its opening weekend set the all-time China record.

The (not totally) secret silver lining for China in Transformers 3 was all the Chinese product placement that made it into the film.

China homegrown brands Lenovo, Meters/Bonwe, TCL and Yili Milk all scored major roles in the film. The upshot: record numbers of Chinese filmgoers watching an American film featuring Chinese products.

But it wasn't just the Chinese brands that benefited. Thanks to the Transformers franchise, the Chevrolet Camaro is the muscle car of choice in China. The Transformers Camaro is so popular in fact that GM released the special bumblebee-yellow, Autobot-decaled edition Camaro model to the China market via last year's Guangzhou Auto Show. It retails for about 475.800 yuan ($75,000).

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Religion rebranded. "I'm a Mormon" communication campaign.

A television, billboard and Internet communication campaign that uses the tagline, “I’m a Mormon.”

It features the personal stories of members who defy stereotyping, including a Hawaiian longboard surfing champion, a fashion designer and single father in New York City and a Haitian-American woman who is mayor of a small Utah city.

These Mormons are not only white, but also Asian, black and Hispanic, and from countries other than the United States. There are plenty of traditional two-parent families, but there are also single parents, working women and stay-at-home fathers, and even an interracial couple — all family arrangements rare among Mormons until recently.

The campaign began in 2010 and was extended in november 2011 to 21 media markets in the States.

Stories can be watched in www.mormon.org website.

Read "The New York Times" article...

Hasbro and Zynga make a deal, toys and games incoming

Hasbro has struck a deal with Zynga to produce toys and games based on the social developer's catalogue of rich, nuanced IPs, which is great news if you've ever found yourself wishing you could somehow continue to give Zynga all of your money, even when you're away from your computer and smartphone.



Now, Hasbro's definition of "games" is more board-oriented than Zynga's, and while the licensing arrangement allows for "co-branded merchandise," it doesn't allow Zynga to make games based on Hasbro brands. The first products will hit store shelves sometime this fall, and while no specifics toys or board games have been announced we've got a feeling that My Little Ponyville and Ouija With Friends aren't that unlikely.


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