1. Coca-Cola "Choose Happiness" Campaign: Coca-Cola is launching a new advertising campaign in UK and Europe, with a rap-ad promoting happiness as a choice. Working together with Ogilvy & Mather and Amsterdam-based artist/producer HT, the ad is a song, a music video and an overly branded ad. It is the first time we see the "one brand" strategy in action, with all 4 variants of Coke in the packshot.

2. The Super Bowl of Boxing: Advertisers have put their bets on the "Super Bowl of Boxing", Mayweather-Pacquiao, while #MayPac took over social media. Apparently, Tecate paid an estimated $5,6 million to sponsor the fight and Hublot paid an undeclared amount in a bold move to sponsor Mayweather. Not to mention all the social content generated and the media budgets invested by many other brands.

photo source: Outdoor Advertising Orlando

3. Royal Baby: The #RoyalBaby opportunity was treated with the uttermost respect and consideration too :). Oreo even made it to the finals:

4. Star Wars Day: Two days after, on 4th of May, brands jumped again on the bandwagon, celebrating their own #StarWarsDay. AdWeek made a nice selection with the "tip of the lightsaber of tweets".

5. The Hamburglar is back: McDonald's has a new Hamburglar. Hot or creepy? The internet debates.

6. Nokia's Here Maps Bidding: Facebook, Uber, Apple or German automakers? Who is going to buy Nokia Maps? Facebook is not waiting around to see and goes to action with Here's integration into its services.

7. Oculus Rift: Virtual reality is coming becoming mainstream. Oculus Rift will be on the market at the beginning of next year. Game on!

8. Swarm Mayorship and Badges: Foursquare is bringing Mayorships to Swarm and goes to a new level of gamification. Or, at least, this is what they declare, encouraging users to "conquer neighborhoods".

 

On the media front: last week was the THE financial week and looks like wake-up calls from quarterly reports are not left unanswered. The battle for media revenues and content heats up:

1. IBM partners with Facebook to improve targeting.

2. Facebook introduces Native Ads inside apps.

3. Instant Articles brings Buzzfeed, New York Times, National Geographic articles on the Facebook platform. 

4. Google announces more AdWords innovation: Automobile Ads, Hotel Ads, Mortgages, new reporting dashboard, enhancements in dynamic search ads.

5. And launches Search Analytics Report.

6. Google Plus introduces the Collections feature, similar to Pinterest functionalities.

7. Google Search and Google Maps make it easy to order food delivery, reserve tables, and book appointments.

8. Snapchat introduces video ads for 2 cents per view. Also, there is a new share feature in its new update.

Watch out for the grill this weekend and don't forget to share some sun!