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A fake Google site appeared online today promising to tell users’ futures. ‘Google Fortunetelling’ instead directed them to a page about the refugee crisis, which has forced 60 million to flee their homes. Netherlands-based creative communications agency BrainMedia confirmed they are behind the site, which linked to the donation page of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Google is also raising money to help with the crisis, having donated $1 million and pledging to match up to another $5.5 million donated on its website.

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For years we have bombarded people with irrelevant messages. It’s horrible.

RAPP USA chief creative officer Frank Iqbal, on why agencies and brands don’t care about ad blocking

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WTF is ad blocking?

Ad blocking is having a moment. Thanks to Apple and Howard Stern, the tech is inching its way into the mainstream, which is bad for the many publishers that rely on advertising to make money. But for many Web users, ad blockers are a godsend. Not only do they reduce the number of distractions on a page, but they also speed up page performance. Publishers efforts to fight back so far have had limited success, in large part because the ad blocking community has been extremely active about subverting publishers defense. The result: Many in the industry say that the solution isn’t to subvert ad blockers but to create better ads.

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“VRoom Service,” in partnership with Samsung, is Marriott’s latest foray into virtual reality, which allows guests to take inspiring virtual tours with just a Samsung Gear VR headset and accompanying headphones. “It is portable and using Samsung Gear headsets allows us to really democratize the virtual reality experience,” said Michael Dail, vp of global marketing at Marriott Hotels.

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Latest on: Brands

DDB uses minute-long videos to train millennial employees

DDB has found that as margins shrink, there has been an unprecendented effect on a key part of its business: training. In person training sessions, which are expensive, gave way a couple years ago to online webinars. The problem was, only 2 percent of people were engaging with boring slideshow presentations. To fix the problem, chief talent officer Sally Ali used micro-learning videos — 60-second short films — that can be used for training and development. That means that DDB’s 11,000 employees can get onboarded, learn career skills, get messages from corporate and more, just with short animations. That helps keeps millennials engaged: “They want to see that we care about their career growth,” said Ali. Otherwise, they’ll leave.

Agencies share their most memorable eBay bids

eBay is celebrating 20 years of buying, selling and bidding within its e-marketplace, launched in California in 1995. To honor the two-decade mark, we asked agency folk to share their most memorable eBay moments. Some highlights: an account manager at McKinney who thought she scored a cheap antique mirror, just to find that it was a dollhouse mirror when it arrived, the senior recruiter at Huge who scored a date thanks to winning a bidding war, and the R/GA producer who found the perfect … stuffed jackalope head.

Patrón mixes margaritas and more on social

A year ago, “ultra premium” tequila Patrón had no focused social strategy — the brand didn’t even have a presence on the most basic social media platforms. But since then, it has not only found its voice online, but also amassed more than 218,000 followers on Twitter and more than 43,000 followers on Instagram. The focus of the brand’s messaging has, unsurprisingly, been placed on mixology and the art of crafting cocktails. “The goal is to be the most talked about, the most enjoyed, the most loved tequila around the world, and that translates to social very easily,” said Christi McNeill, social and digital strategy manager at Patrón.

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NowThis made a bold statement earlier this year when the video publisher shut down its desktop homepage to focus on social media distribution. While the publisher still maintains a mobile website and an app, it distributes its content mainly on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Snapchat, among others. “What we drive home is the concept of producing platform appropriate content and that means that it’s custom and built for that platform specifically,” said Athan Stephanopoulos, svp strategy and partnerships. We talked to him about what a successful story looks like across platforms.

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Snapchat users are sometimes quick to skip ads. One brand whose results were shared with Digiday saw about 70 percent of viewers drop off within three seconds. The video challenge is not unique to Snapchat, as its digital rivals also force brands to get their messages across in seconds. Snapchat is unique in that it charges advertisers for every view, no matter how short. Still, campaigns appear to be working, with one source saying brands are seeing up to a 50-percent lift in favorability after running spots on the app.

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Havas Boondoggle wants interns who are looking to eat, breathe and sleep advertising — literally. The Amsterdam-based agency is using Airbnb as a recruiting tool to attract its latest crop of interns, asking them to submit their portfolios via the platform while letting them “rent” its loft for an affordable 10 euros a night. The only house rules are that the interns don’t finish all the beer in the mini fridge, don’t feed the pet Chihuahua and don’t bring the party home. “If you want to make it in the industry, you have to eat, breathe and sleep advertising — so why not offer them that option?” asked Sander Tacx, CEO at Havas Boondoggle Amsterdam.

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A local exec's guide to Brazilian creativity

Ricardo John, JWT Brazil’s chief creative officer, took us through the budding Brazilian ad industry:

The Brazilian advertising landscape is evolving

The advertising landscape in Brazil used to be dominated by TV, but marketers and consumers have since become much more digitally savvy, with agencies producing content for mobile and social media. 

For example, one of the biggest recent hits was Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” by Ogilvy Brazil 2013, which became one of the most shared videos on YouTube.

Creativity is also being pushed to new heights

“The internal dynamics of agencies in Brazil have completely changed and so have definitions of what constitutes good work,” said John. Which is why, he said, Brazil today is known for its envelope-pushing campaigns.

Take a campaign by JWT and partners for Brazilian NGO AfroReggae to promote social inclusion. Before, dense urban settlements called favelas were invisible to search engines, appearing as blank spaces on digital maps. The campaign created a social platform called Ta no mapa (“On the map”) to make the favelas more visible on the maps, enabling their local shops and points of interest to be promoted.

Ingenuity and improvisation is in Brazil’s DNA

Brazilians have an eclectic sensibility, and creatives there tend to draw inspiration from anything and everything. The creativity extends to work habits: Rather than follow strict schedules and precise guidelines, they tend to improvise a lot.

That approach came across in JWT Brazil’s project this summer for Coke. To celebrate the iconic Coke bottle’s centennial, JWT enlisted Dolby technology to capture the sound of liquid flowing from the bottle into a glass.

Creative talent is in demand

Now that creative talent is in demand by tech startups, the ad industry has had to do a better job at attracting and retaining talent. One response, by JWT Brazil, for instance, is to bring levity to boring tasks. The agency turned the task of filling out timesheets into a hackathon. If they’re filed on time, everyone gets free beer — an idea that has spread to some other JWT offices across the world, including Thailand. Brazilian agencies are also opening up their doors to more global talent and accounts.

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We rounded up the buzziest news from this week in just under a minute. Watch and be a little smarter going into the weekend.

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It’s back-to-school season, so in the spirit of continued education, we asked top editors for their book picks for the fall. Cosmo editor-in-chief Joanna Coles recommended “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow for lovers of American history. The forthcoming memoir of Carrie Brownstein “Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl” was Mental Floss editor-in-chief Jessanne Collins’ pick for creatives. And The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson chose style over substance with “The Elements of Eloquence” by Mark Forsyth.

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There’s “Movember,” where men sport mustaches every November in support of men’s health. But don’t be surprised if you start seeing people trying to balance spoons on their noses in support of “Spoontember.” In a bid to bring attention to the problem of hunger in America and support September as the “Hunger Action Month,” nonprofit Feeding America is launching a campaign encouraging people to share a “spoon selfie” — pictures of themselves balancing spoons on their noses.

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Revenue-hungry publishers have been cramming more high-impact ads onto their sites, but the growing spectre of ad blocking could be the nail in the coffin for some of those obnoxious units. Early data from Moat Ad Blocking Analytics suggests 10 to 15 percent of all premium publishers’ desktop ad inventory is being blocked. On mobile, less than 5 percent is blocked. That, coupled with the awareness that those ads could be a reason people install ad blocking software, could dampen their use, industry observers say.

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Nonprofit Central Park Conservancy, which maintains New York’s Central Park, is largely credited with its post-’80s revival. Today, it has found a powerful new weapon to help it in its mission: social media. The Conservancy maintains a robust social media presence for the park across platforms — from Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram to Twitter and even Periscope — focusing on pushing out different types of content on different platforms. While it uses Facebook and Twitter for general announcements regarding closures or events, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine and Periscope are prioritized for promoting engagement and advocacy among visitors.

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Inside Rubber Tracks, Converse's contribution to the music community

Converse, now a $2 billion Nike-owned company, says it owes its status to the music industry, which organically adopted Chuck Taylors for the stage. So to give back, it launched Rubber Tracks, permanent and pop-up studios that host emerging artists’ free recording sessions. The program also became a key component of Converse’s content strategy. “Converse owes so much to music,” said the brand’s global music marketing director Jed Lewis.

The studios offer budding bands and musicians free eight-hour studio sessions, time with a sound engineer, access to equipment and rights to recorded songs.

To work with Converse, musicians apply online for a studio slot and, if accepted, are recording in a month or so.

Bands that record at Rubber Tracks sign a contract with Converse stating that they own all the rights to their own music, with a few contingencies: With the band’s permission, Converse can share the music recorded in their studios on social media and their online streaming site SoundCloud page, which has 11,000 subscribers.

Converse can use Rubber Tracks-recorded songs as its own digital content, with artists’ permission.

To date, 1,400 musical acts have spent a combined total of 11,200 hours recording with Converse.

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From Nicki Minaj calling out Miley Cyrus to Kanye West setting the stage for a presidential run in the next election, the MTV Video Music Awards was one of the most buzziest events online this year. Brandwatch says that 16.5 million tweets were registered last night, more than the Super Bowl or Grammy Awards. West’s speech was the most tweeted about moment.

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We’ve recapped the buzziest news of this week in under a minute so you can sound just a little bit smarter at happy hour today.