Highdive work, Oprah deal, Kendall spot, Hip Hop bday

Boutique start-up Highdive, launched last year by former DDB creatives Mark Gross and Chad Broude, announced its first new project-based assignments.

The shop is set to promote Barilla’s new Ready Pasta and Marriott Signature’s new EMC2 hotel in DTC as well as unspecified “initiatives” for home loan brand Guaranteed Rate.

“We’ve been patiently waiting for the right partners and are confident we found them in these iconic brands,” Highdive founder, creative director Chad Broude said in a statement. “We look forward to building our relationships and supporting our new partners in any way we can.”

Gross added, “It’s been a thrilling start to Highdive. We’re extremely excited about these new opportunities. We look forward to helping them do outstanding work that will help them achieve growth.”

The small team has started to expand recently as Broude and Gross hired former DDB colleague Matthew Gallo to work on business development and Aly Withey, also formerly with DDB, as Client Services Director.

“Highdive has been a terrific partner,” said Barilla VP of marketing Melissa Tendick in an Agency Spy report. “Their ability to deliver innovative thinking and new creative solutions has been key to helping us meet our business objectives.”

Scott Stephen, president, online at Guaranteed Rate, said the agency “gives us everything a big agency can but with the scrappiness of a start-up,” adding, “It doesn’t get better than that.” Look for work to break at the beginning of September.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! A new food line for Oprah

You get a soup! And you get a soup! And you get a side dish!

Oprah Winfrey is officially in the food aisle business!

The media mogul’s new healthy food line called O, That’s Good! will hit some supermarket shelves this week–with plans to expand nationwide in October.

The new venture is part of the powerful Weight Watchers spokeswoman partnership with Kraft Heinz that was announced back in January.

In a USA Today report, Winfrey explained that it all started with her cauliflower mashed potatoes.

“The twist is really what sparked the whole idea,” she explains. “I was sitting at my table in my own home and had whipped up some cauliflower, trying to make myself think I was eating mashed potatoes, but it was not working. So It thought, ‘What if I used a portion of the mashed potatoes and added the cauliflower?’”

Winfrey was involved in the recipe development, including a trip to the Kraft Heinz test kitchen.

For starters, shoppers will be able to buy The Original Mashed Potatoes and Garlic Mashed Potatoes sides, which both have added cauliflower, according to People Magazine.

The Three Cheese Pasta is made with added butternut squash, and white beans are added to the Creamy Parmesan Pasta. Broccoli Cheddar Soup is also added with butternut squash, and the Creamy Tomato Basil Soup is added with celery and carrots.

Lastly, the Baked Potato Soup and Creamy Butternut Squash Soup are made with added cauliflower and pureed sweet potatoes and carrots, respectively. The soups will retail for $4.99, and the sides will sell for $4.49, according to CNN.

The partnership with Kraft comes after Winfrey helped give Weight Watchers a membership boost. Two years ago, Winfrey took a $43 million stake in the company. She helped increase memberships when she talked about eating bread every day while still losing weight on the program. After that, her stake grew to $294 million, according to CNN.

The advertising campaign is set to break October 2

Kendall Jenner’s new Adidas spot causes run on social


Dear Kendall, the next time a brand approaches you about being their spokeswoman, you may want to use those new Adidas you just got and well…

Run.

Just months off of her disastrous turn for Pepsi, in which she sported a blonde wig and marched past sign-carrying protesters to offer offered a riot cop a sugary beverage to restore peace, the youngest Kardashian is back in a new spot of Adidas.

This time the spot features a scantily clad Jenner in what appears to be a hibernation chamber, channeling Frank Sinatra, “I did what I had to do. I faced it all, and I stood tall. I did it my my way.” Following Jenner’s declaration, the phrase “Original Is Never Finished” flashes on the screen. Watch below:

And you can always count on social media to react.

Google doodles with hip hop’s bday

Forty-four years ago today, Hip Hop was born in a backyard party in the Bronx when Kool Herc spun and backspun records and invented hip hop.

Google which has created some time-sucking interactive has made some brilliant high-concept interactive doodles over the years honoring everything and everyone from Pac-Man to Robert Moog to Freddie Mercury, but today’s doodle is well… the sh*t!

It’s a super stripped-down DJ table with two turntables and users can mix samples from various tracks, from George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” to the Isley Brother’s “Between the Sheets.” The doodle also features a short video tutorial narrated by hip-hop icon Fab 5 Freddy and the logo graphic was created by Cey Adams, the legendary graffiti artist.

You can spin some tunes here. This brings me back to when I was a DJ, known as “Captain C!”

Follow Colin Costello on Twitter @colincostello10.