Brad Pitt serves a sumo in Softbank's spots
In the grand tradition of Americans doing wacky Asian ads, Brad Pitt is back with a few more commercials for Japan's Softbank. In the new spots, directed by Spike Jonze, Pitt plays a personal assistant...
View ArticleQuentin Tarantino to appear in Softbank ads
Quentin Tarantino threatens to single-handedly set U.S.-Japanese relations back to pre-Godzilla days in an upcoming Softbank commercial. The clip above, screened by the bank at a conference, shows the...
View ArticleTarantino's Softbank ad is hilarious, baffling
We recently mentioned that Quentin Tarantino was shooting a commercial for Japan's Softbank. Well, here's the finished product. It's both mystifying and awesome at the same time. Not that it will help,...
View ArticleYahoo and Alibaba Finally Resolve Alipay Dispute
After months of dispute, Chinese company Alibaba and its part-owner Yahoo have finally reached an agreement concerning Alipay, a payments processing company. Joined by Softbank, another major investor...
View ArticleJapan's SoftBank Invests $200M in Mobile Ad Startup
Mobile ad startup InMobi just announced that it has raised $200 million from Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank, in what the startup is calling the largest mobile investment of the year....
View Article10 Great TV Spots Directed by Wes Anderson
2012 is shaping up to be a big year for Wes Anderson. His new movie, Moonrise Kingdom, will open the Cannes Film Festival next month. And in his spare time, the 42-year-old director has been busy with...
View ArticleCriteo Nabs Nearly $40 Million Funding Round
Display retargeting company Criteo has been profitable since 2009, but that hasn’t kept it from raising extra cash on the side. In its latest round announced Tuesday, the New York firm raked in 30...
View ArticleAd Wreck
Blame Mary Meeker. Definitely blame Google. And most of all, perhaps, blame MySpace. Whoever’s fault it was, somewhere around the mid-2000s many people got the idea there was an enormous gap between...
View ArticleSoftbank Raises Sprint Nextel Bid
Softbank has raised its offer for Sprint Nextel to $21.6 billion, under growing pressure from rival Dish Network. The Japanese tech company's revised offer has won the support of hedge fund Pearson...
View ArticleMeet Japan's Most Popular Ad Family
The father is a human in a dog's body (for reasons "you're too young to understand," he once barked at his daughter), the son is a black American, and their maid is an alien incarnation of Tommy Lee...
View ArticleDigital Media Site for Animal Lovers Raises $4.68 Million
The Dodo, a new digital media site with a focus on animals, has raised $4.68 million with backing from Discovery Digital. Initial investors SoftBank Capital, Greycroft Partners, RRE Ventures and Lerer...
View ArticleHow DramaFever Turned Subtitles Into a Multimillion Dollar Business
DramaFever knew it had a hit when it started its business of streaming international TV shows even though the majority of its audience didn't yet know about the Asian dramas that were set to take over...
View ArticleSprint Zeroes In on an Agency for Broadcast Ads
Sprint is close to naming a new agency to create broadcast ads at a crucial time in the company's history. Deutsch L.A. is in advanced negotiations to handle the assignment, which is worth more than...
View ArticleMeet Pepper, the Robot Who's Coming to America as an In-Store Customer...
You know how exasperating it feels to call a company and get stuck in an automated voice program instead of being connected to a human being? Soon, you'll be able to experience that same level of...
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