Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc. launched several “I Spy” TV commercials that highlight safety features on its 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander.
The 15- and 30-second ads recreate scenarios that often play out in family vehicles—children “spy” their dog, as does mom, in the vehicle’s rear-view camera; a boat on a trailer is detected by the Blind Spot Warning technology; and a fire truck that darts in front of the vehicle is avoided, thanks to the Forward Collision Mitigation.
In another set of videos, “Kids Talk Safety,” the little ones do just that, and terms such as Rear Cross Traffic Alert and Multi-View Camera System sound cooler coming from them. Their descriptions get a boost from in-video animations created by Omelet LLC in Culver City.
Mitsubishi, whose advertising agency of record is 180LA, plans to bring the tiny stars to the Los Angeles Auto Show next month.
New Expo for Emerald
San Juan Capistrano-based Emerald Expositions LLC acquired the National Pavement Expo from AC Business Media Inc. in Fort Atkinson, Wis., on undisclosed terms.
The expo is the largest trade show that brings “vendors and suppliers together with contractors who make their living from asphalt and concrete paving, infrared pavement repair, sealcoating, striping, sweeping, crack repair, pavement repair and snow removal,” according to the company. It’s held in Nashville in February.
Emerald also renamed its Design portfolio of trade shows and conferences to Design & Construction.
“NPE has grown strongly under AC Business Media’s entrepreneurial management,” Emerald Executive Vice President Joe Randall said in a statement about the acquisition. “We’re excited to add the event to our portfolio and will seek to enhance the NPE experience for both attendees and exhibitors by applying our deep event experience, scale benefits and industry-leading best practices.”
Emerald, which produces more than 80 trade shows and conference events each year, posted $307 million in revenue last year, according to Onex Corp., a Toronto-based private-equity firm that acquired it in 2013 from Nielsen Holdings NV.
Readable Broadcasts
Veritone Inc. in Newport Beach is working with broadcaster Bonneville International Corp. in Salt Lake City, Utah, to “transform broadcast media into smart media.”
More specifically, Veritone will use its Cognitive Media Platform to record and transcribe Bonneville’s video broadcasts and programming in real time, then make it searchable. The collected data, which includes information about airing of ads, provides advertisers “with increased visibility, transparency and accountability,” according to Bonneville President Darrell Brown. “The combination of Veritone’s cloud-based indexing and storage solutions, coupled with its powerful search and discovery capabilities, made Veritone a clear choice for Bonneville.”
Serial entrepreneurs and brothers Chad and Ryan Steelberg founded Veritone in 2014.
Bits & Pieces
Mazda North American Operations has partnered with NBCUniversal on the Mazda Drive for Good community charity contest for a third year in a row. The contest enables the automaker to “support local and national charity organizations” by donating “time and money to the organizations that matter most to the Mazda community,” Mazda President and Chief Executive Masahiro Moro said in a statement … Ringler, a settlement planning company in Aliso Viejo, hired Andrea Haupert as director of marketing and communications.
