Put on your pants, it's Domino's: Tuesday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters. It’s nothing personal Love it or hate it, the USA Today Ad Meter is tough to ignore. The annual arbiter of Super Bowl ads has spoken and, according to the results, Bill Murray and his groovy groundhog bowled over Big Game viewers. The commercial, a late entry for Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep Gladiator from Chicago’s Highdive, put an entertaining new spin on the 1993 film “Groundhog Day,” in which Murray’s character actually gets to experience a new day instead of repeating it. (Best line ever: While playing whack-a-mole, Murray assures his furry friend, “It’s nothing personal.”) Coming in second was Hyundai’s “smart park” spot from Innocean, featuring a barrage of Boston accents that viewers rated a wicked pissah. Third was Google Creative Lab’s “Loretta,” a touching tribute to a widower using tech to remember as much as he can about his late wife. “Groundhog Day” also topped another ranking by iSpot.TV that tallies digital share of voice. In addition to the consumer polls, the results are in from The Clio Awards, which asked more than a dozen creatives from shops like Droga5, McCann-Erickson, Wieden & Kennedy and Joan, to name the best spot in the game. Their pick was Snickers’ “Fix the World,” which did not rank in the top five of either the Ad Meter or the iSpot share-of-voice ranking. We’ll let you decide what to make of that. Accenture exits media auditing Accenture is dropping its media auditing business, according to Digiday, due to concerns over conflicts of interest. "For several years, Accenture has served as an objective auditor of how media agencies buy ads, while simultaneously owning a business that competes with those same agencies," writes Digiday. "This unique setup pricked concerns among marketers and agency executives alike: Marketers wondered whether they could trust Accenture as an auditor to make objective recommendations about which media buying agency they should work with, while agency executives feared that the insights Accenture took from auditing how they bought ads could be used to beat them at their own game." And now a response from Seventh Generation Seventh Generation has bought a roadblock of time immediately after tonight's State of the Union address for the express purpose of stating the brand's outlook on climate change. The 60-second ad from Opinionated "drives home what Seventh Generation stands for, which is based on an ancient Iroquois philosophy that decisions made today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future," writes Jack Neff. Separately, Google's video site YouTube tightened its moderation policy just in time for the Iowa Caucus. YouTube said in a blog post that it will remove videos that promote "claims that a candidate is not eligible to hold office based on false information about citizenship." Other policies are designed to combat manipulated videos, like deepfakes. Google and other internet platforms have been struggling with how to police political speech especially since 2016 showed how easily bad actors could attack and game their services. Got Almost Milk? Chobani is taking a big leap into oat milk with a line of products under the Almost Milk label, writes Ethan Jakob Craft. Among the planned products are an oat-based dairy alternative called Oat Drink, dairy-based coffee creamers and a series of yogurts with oatmeal and fruit blends. The in-house campaign has a seriously retro vibe, with print recalling the old Saturday Evening Post covers done by Norman Rockwell—complete with an (almost) milk mustache. Don't get caught with your pants down Those who didn't get their fill of takeoffs on '80s and '90s movie classics in the Super Bowl will love Domino's new commercial that leans heavily on Tom Cruise's imfamous pants-free dance sequence in "Risky Business." The pizza purveyor's spot promotes a technology that lets customers get a customized alert to know when their delivery driver is two, four or six minutes away, writes Jessica Wohl. The reason: Consumers need time to put their pants on. Just briefly Stalking horses: A group including some of Forever 21’s biggest landlords—Simon Property Group, Brookfield Property Partners and Authentic Brands Group—has offered to buy the bankrupt retailer for $81 million, reports Bloomberg News in what’s known as a “stalking horse” bid. The unkindest cut: The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit to block Edgewell Personal Care, owner of Wilkinson Sword and Schick, from buying startup Harry's, reports CNN, on the grounds it would blunt competition in the industry. Sweet nostalgia: General Mills is bringing back another '90s-kids sensation, Dunkaroos, which until recently were only sold in Canada, according to People.com. The snack, which allows kids to dip their cookies in a side container of frosting, will hit stores this summer. For the uninitiated, here's a video from the company's archive telling you everything you need to know about its kangaroo-shaped cookie. Last, but never least: Ad Age's upcoming Ad Age Agency Report 2020 will include the industry’s definitive ranking of agencies, agency networks and agency companies. Make sure your agency is included by completing Ad Age Datacenter’s questionnaire. Download the questionnaire at here. Questionnaires are due now. Ad Age Agency Report 2020 will appear online and in print on May 4. Questions? Email AgencyReport@AdAge.com. That does it for today’s Wake-Up Call—thanks for reading. For more industry news and insight, follow us on Twitter:@adage. From CMO Strategy to the Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, we’ve got newsletters galore. See them all here. Subscribers make the difference. Individual, group and corporate subscriptions are available—including access to our Ad Age Datacenter. Find options at AdAge.com/membership.

Put on your pants, it's Domino's: Tuesday Wake-Up Call

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