In an attempt to become relevant again, BlackBerry is jumping into the movie business—though shorter than feature length. Two days after wrapping Sin City 2, awe-inspiring film director Robert Rodriguez (also known for Spy Kids, Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn) partnered with BlackBerry to direct the short film Two Scoops as a part of BlackBerry's "Keep Moving" project.
Two Scoops was written, produced and shot by Rodriguez, but three scenes were left incomplete. Fans of Rodriguez (and presumably of BlackBerry) could then help complete the story by tweeting ideas, submitting SFX ideas and conceptualizing weapons/props to be incorporated into the final film.
As it turns out, the completed film is just what one might expect from the eccentric Rodriguez—featuring a strange, futuristic, monster-filled world with massive toy-like weapons and scantily clad twins in search for their missing father. Oh, and a splash of that slightly awkward Spanish comedy. Like all Rodriguez films, things are not as they seem.
No one feels sorry for Jeff Lewis, and most everybody wants to see Padma Lakshmi in a soaking-wet cocktail dress. These and other truisms come through in Bravo's just-launched summer 2013 commercial, with the backdrop styled to look like a deserted tropical island. It's actually green screen, shot in winter in New York, so there were no real waves or sharks and, with lots of Real Housewives on hand, few real body parts. But lo and behold, James Lipton gets his second-in-a-row cameo, cementing his unlikely Bravolebrity status amid all the gold diggers and social climbers.
And speaking of prostitution, the ever-droll Lewis says in the behind-the-scenes footage that he feels "no better than a common street whore" for having participated in the spot. Chin up, Jeff. Many of your cable cohorts have done plenty worse than take a bucket of water in the face in the name of self-promotion.
The campaign, with new videos expected in the coming months, is the fourth consecutive summer-pegged Bravo work from L.A.-based Stun Creative. It hypes Top Chef Masters, Princesses: Long Island, Don't Be Tardy, Watch What Happens Live and other series in the cable channel's trashy universe. Will.i.am and Miley Cyrus, already gunning for "song of the summer" status with "Fall Down," provide the danceable soundtrack. And there's a Giggy appearance, so that's always good.
Second spot after the jump, with James Lipton playing cards with a monkey!
With each new announcement about the upcoming launch of the Xbox One, Microsoft seems to be making a few more enemies.
Gamers and industry observers have become increasingly skeptical of the next-gen gaming console thanks to features that seem catered far more to piracy-paranoid game publishers than to game buyers. For example, Microsoft said today that users won't be allowed to play games if their consoles are disconnected from the Internet for more than 24 hours. (Laughably, the brand says you can still "watch live TV" while disconnected, though I'm not sure defaulting to a cable box is a great selling point.) Reddit's Gaming community has exploded today with posts mocking the Xbox One's unpopular features and requirements. As of this writing, 23 of the top 25 posts on the Gaming subreddit are anti-Microsoft (check out several of the best after the jump).
It's not all a reaction to the required-connection announcement, either. Despite Microsoft's assurances that you'll be able to turn off the motion-detecting Kinect's microphone and camera, gamers still see the mandatory peripheral as an potential invasion of their privacy. Players also weren't thrilled to hear that the ability to buy or sell used games will be determined by the game publishers, who might require you to pay full price when you install one of their titles, even if you buy the disc used.
The infuriated response by gamers is definitely a PR nightmare for Microsoft, but here's the real question: Will Sony manage to keep looking like a hero? So far, Sony has revealed relatively few details about the PlayStation 4, and there's a good chance that as gamers learn more about Sony's own anti-piracy measures and hardware requirements, much of the brand's recently garnered goodwill could erode. Or as today's most popular Reddit Gaming post puts it, "Don't screw this up, Sony, and you will own the next generation."
The notion of being secretly photographed, digitally manipulated and publicly displayed might make some folks shudder. But the furtive surveillance in Adobe's "Street Retouch" stunt, via Swedish agency Abby Norm, seems almost jolly. While waiting at a Stockholm bus stop, people were surprised and, judging by the video below, mostly delighted to see themselves Photoshopped by retouch wizard Erik Johansson (operating from a nearby van) into various scenarios on a seemingly typical outdoor ad panel. One particularly crabby-faced gent steals the show, his sour demeanor sweetening as he watches himself transformed into a city-smashing monster on the electronic billboard a few feet away. The guy winds up smiling, and like others caught up in the stunt, promoting Adobe Creative Day this Tuesday, he snaps a picture of the panel as a keepsake. Unlike more malevolent ad stunts that hinge on provoking fights, flight or just plain fear, this prank gives more than it takes—instant gratification, a novel and positive experience and a cool product demo. So, despite the invasive setup, the stunt succeeds because the people involved seem less like "targets" and more like partners in the campaign. That righteous vibe pervades the highly viral clip (9 million views since Friday) and helps put viewers in the picture about Adobe's creative potential.
Zombies, beach bodies, Michael Jackson, Street Fighter 2. This might just be the best ad ever made for a product that doesn't exist. The four-minute video below, masquerading as a promo for an energy drink called Ibizious, was actually created by Spanish production studio Limon Estudios to launch a new nightclub called Amnesia on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. The lengthy clip is a bizarre and hypnotic mashup of '80s pop culture, with cameos from the original Nintendo Game Boy, hot-pink sports cars and denim jackets. It's not until a good three minutes in that we segue to footage of Carnival-esque debauchery, which I would assume is from the nightclub, scheduled to open this Saturday.
Neil Christie of Wieden + Kennedy in London received the letter below on Monday morning from a 10-year-old girl who seems to have fallen in love with the agency's "Cog" spot for Honda—the instant classic which was released a decade ago, possibly before this girl was even born.
"It was astonishing how you did all of it," she writes. "How do you make it so smooth? It must have taken you months to get it right." The girl says she tried a similar experiment "with my little brother Alex's toy truck and my stationary" and managed to make it work. Now, she wants to visit the agency.
Christie writes: "I can't help thinking that a visit to our office will be a bit of a disappointment for Melissa—it's just like a normal office only more untidy—but it's a very good letter for a ten year old. Neat handwriting and only a couple of errors. Perhaps there's a future for her as a copywriter."
A commercial that inspires a love letter from a child a decade after it was made—that is special advertising. See the letter below, along with the spot and the making-of video.
After years of weirdness and grotesquerie, Skittles has found its calling—breaking Grandma's knickknacks. This enjoyable interactive YouTube video from DDB Chicago features a young man who breaks a porcelain unicorn after it promises it will turn into Skittles if he does so. Naturally, the interactive part involves clicking on, and watching the guy break, a bunch of other stuff, including two frogs, two birds and a monkey. It's pretty fun, and I'm glad to see Skittles run those anarchic creative tendencies of theirs through some quality control. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Mars/Skittles Agency: DDB, Chicago Ewan Paterson: Chief Creative Officer Mark Gross: ECD Alex Zamiar: ACD/Art Director Jonathan Richman: ACD/Copywriter Will St. Clair: Exec. Producer Jon Ellis: Exec. Digital Producer Matt Green: Producer Scott Terry: Production Manager Director: Harold Einstein, Station Film Editorial: Beast Editorial
Jell-O's new "Jigglevision" social campaign from Crispin Porter + Bogusky is not quite as titillating as it sounds. You write a brief message on the brand's Facebook app using various "Jigglevision" patterns as camouflage, then share the note with friends via email or social media. Recipients decode the message by reading it through a red Jell-O gelatin snack lid. Just like they do at the NSA! Integrating social and real-word elements is cool, in theory. But if someone sent me a Jell-O jiggle-message, my first and last thought would be: #FML. Also, needing a Jell-O lid to play implies that you have to actually buy some product. Come on, that's not what social media is about! Kids will probably love this modern spin on a throwback idea (assuming they don't make a sticky mess of the computer), but to me it just feels a little insubstantial. Then again, given the product, what did I expect?
Tiger Woods's latest chapter in his blood oath to Nike is this ad from Wieden + Kennedy in which the golfer is compared to a track-and-field competitor, a boxer, a basketball player and a baseball player (referencing Babe Ruth, no less). The idea is to stress golf's athleticism, but all it did for me was reinforce how lethargic golf is compared to sports where people aren't driven around in carts with other people who carry all their stuff. I would like to see how Tiger trains for big tournaments, though, so maybe next time Nike could be less roundabout in its approach. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Nike Golf Spot "The Sport of Golf"
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Creative Directors: Don Shelford + Rob Thompson Copywriter: Tom Sebanc Art Director: Derrick Ho Producer: Felicia Glover Account Team: Scott Sullivan + Karrelle Dixon Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples / Susan Hoffman Agency Executive Producer: Ben Grylewicz
Production Company: Bob Industries Director: Brad Parker Executive Producer: TK Knowles Line Producer: Melissa Murphy Director of Photography: Morgan Susser
Editorial Company: Joint Editorial Editor: Kyle Valenta Post Producer: Lauren Pullano Post Executive Producer: Patty Brebner
VFX Company: The Mission Executive Producer: Michael Pardee VFX Supervisor: Mark Kolpack VFX Producer: Ryan Meredith CG Lead: Pitor Karwas VFX: Rob Trent
Music Composer: Philip Glass Sound Designer: Jeff Payne Song (if applicable): "67 Cities"
Mix Company: Eleven Sound Mixer: Jeff Payne Producer: Caroline O’Sullivan
Gillette has a super-geeky Man of Steel tie-in and YouTube takeover going on right now, where they ask an impressive list of celebrities, "How does Superman shave?" Bill Nye, the science guy, offers a theory based in materials science. Super-geek movie director Kevin Smith suggests he uses a piece of the spaceship he came to Earth in (while detailing and dismissing some super other amusing theories, including the one from the comics that he uses his heat-vision reflected in a mirror to burn each hair off). The Big Bang Theory's Mayim Bialik (whom you may know as Blossom, and who also has a real Ph.D in neuroscience) puts forth that Superman has super-Nair. Finally, the MythBusters guys give five or six theories before landing on the Large Hadron Collider. Surprisingly, but not in a bad way, no one said with a Gillette razor. It's a smart idea and a great tie-in. Ad agency Concept One came up with the notion for Gillette. If you want to hash over your own theory, tweet at #HowDoesHeShave. Or just search it to geek out on the crazy pseudo-science theories. Asking comic-book nerds to argue an absurd bit of superhero minutiae on social media? Their evil plan just might work! More spots below.
While most gamers were focused this week on learning what the new Sony PlayStation 4 will look like and how much it will cost ($399), ad geeks were treated to their own big reveal: the console's new marketing campaign. "Greatness Awaits" will be the launch tagline for the PS4, and the campaign rolled out this week with a suitably epic 90-second anthem spot from BBH New York. The agency won the PlayStation account earlier this year, succeeding longtime creative lead Deutsch/LA, whose ads featuring fictional PlayStation vp Kevin Butler were roundly beloved until ending awkwardly with a lawsuit against the star talent. The new guard's inaugural work for the PS4 features actor Taylor Handley (from CBS's recently canceled series Vegas) delivering a long-take soliloquy on embracing your greatness. Speckled with cameos by game characters and self-destructing set designs, the ad ends with the actor diving into the fray to break some pirate legs and clothesline a few clowns. If those are both part of the same game, I'd be willing to pre-order a PS4 today. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Sony PlayStation 4
Agency: BBH New York Chief Creative Officer: John Patroulis Executive Creative Director: Ari Weiss Creative Director: Nate Able Copywriter: Rick Herrera Head of Integrated Production: Justin Booth-Clibborn Senior Producer: Jennifer Moore Bell Production Assistant: AJ Gutierrez Head of Account Management: Armando Turco Account Director: Melissa Hill Account Manager: Georgie Gooley Account Coordinator: Marshal Kerns
Production Company: MJZ Director: Rupert Sanders Director of Photography: Greig Fraser President: David Zander Executive Producer: Kate Leahy Producer: Laurie Boccaccio Production Supervisor: Adriana Cebada Mora Production Designer: Dominic Watkins Costume Designer: Mayes Rubeo
Local Production Company: Kinema Films de Mexico Local Production Co. Producer: Jose Ludlow
Editorial: Work Post NY Executive Producer: Erica Thompson Editor: Neil Smith Assistant Editor: Healy Snow
VFX & Finishing: The Mill NY Exec Producer: Jo Arghiris Senior VFX Producer: Charlotte Arnold VFX Supervisor: Iwan Zwarts VFX Supervisor: Rob Petrie Assistant Producer: Juan Handal Colour Producer: Heath Raymond Colourist: Fergus McCall 2D Lead Compositor: Iwan Zwarts 2D Compositing Artists: Kyle Cody, Dan DiFelice, Additional: Danny Morris, John Mangia, Ilia Mokhtareizadeh, Greg Spencer, Dan Giraldo 2D Conforms and Cut-downs: Jade Kim 3D Lead Artists: Rob Petrie and Joji Tsuruga 3D Lead Lighter: Olivier Mitonneau 3D Animators: Jeff Lopez, Alex Allain, Tyler Hurd 3D Artists: Olivier Varteressian, Per Bergsten, Ivan Luque Cueller, Billy Dangyoon Jang, Boris Ustaev, Hassan Taimur, Ruben Vandebroek, Tim Kim 3D MASSIVE: Wyattt Savarese, Ed Hicks, Hassan Tuimir 3D FX: Nick Couret, Ian Baxter, Phil Mayer, Cedrick Grousse Matte Painting: Can Y. Sanalan Title Design: Mario Stipinovich, Tetsuro Mise, Eugene Kolb
Additional: LIDAR services provided by Scanable: Travis Reinke Rotoscoping provided by: Trace VFX Sound Designer: Brian Emrich at Trinitite Music: Woodwork Music Music Producer: Andrew Oswarek Composer: Phil Kay Mix: Sound Lounge Mixer: Tom Jucarone
Beef jerky raining down from the sky. We've all dreamed about it. I'm pretty sure it's prophesied in the Bible somewhere. Well, Jack Link's and ad agency Carmichael Lynch brought the fantasy to life on Tuesday night to celebrate the second annual National Jerky Day, which, of course, is today (as if you didn't already know). Thousands of Jack Link's packages with tiny parachutes were dropped from a helicopter over the Omaha Champions Village baseball complex. This is what passes for entertainment in Nebraska. More salty, meaty events are planned for today nationwide. The brand's Sasquatch mascot will hand out samples at the Hollywood & Highland Center, though passersby might just think it's Kevin Smith. The jerky drop was the culmination of "Operation Sky Meat," which featured teaser videos of a pigeon, plane, rocket and radio-controlled toy chopper attempting to sky-drop Jack Link's products, though all climaxed in fiery explosions. Yes, I spoiled the endings, and I've had a crap attitude through this entire post. It is Jerky Day, after all.
Here's something you don't see every day: a stripping politician. No, it's not Anthony Weiner. It's an ad for Represent.us, a new organization created late last year to fight the influence of money in politics. Josh Silver, the founder, is betting that a provocative ad—with a not-too-subtle metaphor for how politics works these days—can help him create a grassroots movement to pressure policymakers to enact sweeping reforms. "We need to get people's attention," he said. "We wanted an ad that cuts to the truisms."
This one may do it. It opens with an aide telling a white-haired, well-coiffed Senator, "We need these guys. They have deep pockets." Soon the Senator is stripped down to red-white-and-blue briefs, while people stuff wads of cash into his pants. Hackett Creative created the ad, offering to produce it pro bono at cost because he felt the problem of money in politics is "the most important in the nation," Randy Hackett told Silver. He has created advertising for brands including IBM, Johnson & Johnson and American Express and directed spots for Delta Airlines, ESPN and Motel 6. The ad for Represent.us was produced for less than $25,000. It will run online and move to Washington, D.C., cable next week.
For all the talk of healthier options at fast-food joints these days, what really seems to succeed is excess. In recent years, restaurants around the world seem to be competing to come up with the oddest, most sauce-slathered, diet-destroying dish possible. So, who has come out on top? We decided to ask the experts at EpicMealTime, YouTube's most popular gluttonous gourmets. Having made their own staggering culinary inventions, like the "84-Egg Sandwich" and the 75,000-calorie "BBQ Coliseum," they seemed like the perfect guest judges. At the link below, EpicMealTime host Harley Morenstein (r.) and chief cook Josh Elkin give us their thoughts on some of the world's most over-the-top fast-food fare, along with a "grossness rating," which we used to calculate the winner—the greatest of the gross. And in this case, the words "grossness" and "winner" are both pretty subjective.
This week in celever self-promotions, freelance presentation designer Emiland De Cubber has created a great SlideShare that markedly improves the PRISM slides from the leaked (and terrifyingly designed) NSA PowerPoint. De Cubber says the NSA folks can do whatever they want with his data, but he pleads with them to spare his eyes. He then shows how a bunch of the key slides could be simplified and beautified with his services. The information on the slides is still scary, but now it's scarily beautiful. The NSA has a lot to learn from his graphical restraint. He even made the agency a beautiful new logo and wrote an appropriate new tagline, "Welcome to a new world." And he performed an even more impressive feat of making a simple slideshow go viral. Oh government, it's hard to stay mad at you when you're so adorably inept at doing basic things.
Drones are in the news for all sorts of horrible reasons, but Domino's might salvage its reputation somewhat by eventually—someday—using them to deliver pizza. The company's DomiCopter—a joint effort by U.K. drone specialist AeroSight, Big Communications and creative agency T + Biscuits—is an eco-friendly machine capable of carrying pizzas in heatwave bags for impressive distances without refueling, similar to how a swallow would carry a coconut. Sadly, it's also a threat to the labor force of guys who get stoned in their cars and forget where you live.
The moon isn't made of cheese. It's made of lime. Corona and ad agency Cramer-Krasselt have put up a fun billboard in New York City which—on certain nights of the month, from a certain angle—makes the waxing crescent moon look like a slice of lime resting in a Corona bottle. The next public viewing of "Luna Corona," at 15th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan, will happen this Friday and Saturday nights, if you're interested. For the promo video below, the agency trots out scientific types, who explain in hushed tones how difficult it is to get the precision just right for this. I'm not an astronomer, but wouldn't it be easy to line up the moon and the bottle throughout the evening by walking around with your camera to a different spot on the street? The billboard is cool enough on its own without making it seem too much like a true celestial event.
adam&eveDDB once again gambles on an unconventional approach for Volkswagen in this new U.K. spot, which offers cornball renditions of "My Way," including one performed on pan pipes, for the first 40 seconds (more than half its running time) while keeping the Golf GTI out of sight. Then—badda bing!—Frank Sinatra's iconic version of the song kicks in, and the car's in every freaking frame, zipping around the Las Vegas strip and hot wheelin' on the roof of the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino. This segue from weird home-video/YouTube fodder to big-bucks commercial glitz could've been jarring, but is handled so smoothly that it pays off in an ad that's different enough to be memorable without seeming ridiculous. There's a making-of clip for viewers who wish to double down. Also, have a look back at adam&eveDDB's VW spot from last month, when it really hit the jackpot with an unusual and compelling commercial highlighting the automaker's fuel-saving start/stop technology.
Huggies and Ogilvy & Mather Argentina made a belt for men that allows them to feel their unborn baby's kicks. The belt is synced up with the real-time movements of the baby in the mother's belly, apparently through some kind of wireless sorcery. It's a neat idea, although the description of it as "something special to compensate fathers" is a little weird, like pregnancy is some kind of cakewalk that they're missing out on. But, whatever. It's hard for me to get on my high horse about this when things like the Daddle exist.
I doubt I'm alone in believing that Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman's mustache) is one of the best characters in TV history. The folks at O'Charley's seem to be such fans that they've created their own "spokes-patron" who seems to be an homage to television's favorite steak-devouring Libertarian. The "Brock Roland" character appears in two new spots for O'Charley's. In one, Roland introduces himself by saying he'll gamble on push-up contests and love, but not on steak. In the second spot, he adds an order of chicken fingers to his cowboy sirloin, which might get a nod of respect from Swanson, who likes to order his steaks in threes and once asked a diner for "all the bacon and eggs you have." Check out one of the O'Charley's spots below and another after the jump, where you'll also find a few of our favorite Ron Swanson food moments.
