Residents of the giant hipster trap that is New York City are setting miniature hipster traps—baited with Pabst Blue Ribbon, dorky sunglasses, bike chains and American Spirit cigarettes—as a public art project around Brooklyn. One of the responsible parties, Jeff Greenspan, is the same guy who made the separate sidewalk lanes for tourists and locals as an Improv Everywhere prank last year. Fellow prankster Hunter Fine describes their efforts as laying "traps for certain subcultures. Our goal is protect neighborhoods from infestation and collect different species for further study." A worthy goal, but who cares about hipsters at this point? The real challenge would be setting traps for North Jersey commuters.
Here's an ad that's really the dog's bollocks. It's by Grey Mexico for Motor Master floor disinfectant. "What is on your floor is not always on your mind," says the tagline. The ad, though, may be on your mind for some time, and not in a good way. It is topical, though, and Grey confirms it's a real ad. "They don't have big budgets, but they are very willing to use our creativity," a Grey executive in Mexico City says of Motor Master. There's also a cat version of the ad. Via Ads of the World.
You plug Google's new $35 Chromecast dongle into the back of your TV set to wirelessly stream Internet video on a larger screen. "For Bigger Fun," this minute-long commercial by 72andSunny, shows all kinds of people doing just that. They watch mainly Hollywood fare (Charlie Chaplin, Austin Powers, etc.) or candid footage from their own lives. In a way, this is the YouTube generation coming full circle, as we can now broadcast ourselves onto our living-room screens and enjoy a stripped-down version of old-school TV stardom. The spot works hard to portray Chromecast as an enjoyable shared experience, though watching people watch TV isn't that exciting. The music, "Zorba the Greek," sets my teeth on edge. It reminds me of the bloody bouzouki that drones on and on and on and on in Monty Python's "Cheese Shop" sketch. Now there's some video worth streaming! Bottom line: Dongle's a funny word. Kind of.
Not many brands have embraced the Anthony Weiner debacle as inspiration for ads. Spirit Airlines did it in its own traditional sleazy fashion. And now Mini has come out with a little auto erotica of its own—creating (as Weiner did) a fake Twitter identity, @CarlosDMotor, and tweeting out an image of a Mini in a bathroom, showing off a little grille. "Wanna get your hands on my stick?" says the tweet. Agency: Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners.
Here's a fun project for beer lovers. Boston-based video editor Trevor Carmick has started animating the labels of some of his favorite brews, sharing his creations as animated GIFs. The results are subtle but enjoyable, like the Magic Hat #9 can whose label now swirls hypnotically, practically mesmerizing you into drinking it. On his LinkedIn profile, Carmick notes the initial success of his side project: "To my surprise, people enthusiastically responded to my label creations and I now enjoy a small online following of craft beer lovers as well as several breweries." Given the way his site is making the rounds on some of the nation's largest blogs this week, he might need to rephrase that soon. Check out a few of his creations after the jump, and visit his site for more.
The Marijuana Policy Project is spreading its message to Nascar fans by purchasing video ad space on a Jumbotron just outside the entrance to the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis from today through Sunday. Not only that, but the 30-second spot they're running (see below) disparages alcohol multiple times, something that Nascar sponsors Miller Lite and Crown Royal might not be too happy about. The video's specific claims are that marijuana has "no calories … no hangovers … [and] it's not linked to violence or reckless behavior." Drug cartels might have something to say about that last point, but I get what they're trying to say. If the MPP is truly interested in public service, they'll tell Nascar fans where to find decent weed. I grew up in Nascar country, and the stuff they smoke is total garbage.
Here's an awesome Friday-afternoon agency project: Toronto animation, design and VFX studio Crush decided to attach a GoPro camera to their dog Sadie and livestream her travels around the building today. The result was an entertainingly surreal perspective on agency life from shin level. The stream was only live for an hour, but drew nearly 1,000 viewers. Hopefully the staff—and the dog—will be up for doing it again. As someone who has worked in an agency environment for years, it just left me feeling jealous of someone who could wander the halls doing absolutely nothing and be constantly rewarded with love and food.
Nothing says "this cultural phenomenon isn't cool anymore" like a branded coffee drink, so Grumpy Cat will have to make peace with being old hat now that it has one. It's called Grumpy Cat Grumppuccino (because Grumpspresso looked too awkward on the bottle, I guess), and it will have three flavors when it comes out, whenever that happens. The tagline is: "It's awfully good." Was coffee really the best they could do? A Grumpy Cat version of Duke Phillips's "You Smell" toy would have been more fun, and relevant to the cat's image.
Talk about a loud poster! Novalia in England has developed a drum-kit poster you can play with your fingertips. The interactive paper works like a touchsceen and produces seven different drum sounds, including cymbals. (Sadly, there's no cowbell.) The poster itself acts as a speaker. There's also a Bluetooth version that plays through iPads and iPhones. When the neighbors complain, you can let them look around your apartment and honestly say, "Drums? I don't have any drums. Must be the people upstairs." (Ba-dum-bum-CHING!) Needless to say, the company has a more enlightened vision for the technology. "Packaging, greeting-card manufacturers, point-of-sale, bus-shelter advertising, books, newspapers—yes, you can touch a story in a newspaper and if you've got your smartphone with our app anywhere on your person it can automatically pick up the recording of the actual press conference," Novalia's Kate Stone tells Cambridge News. The company has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund volume production. Fusing traditional media with new technology is becoming a trend. What will they think of next—a print ad that charges your cell phone? Via PSFK.
You would think the epic-ness of a Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich would speak for itself. But just to be safe, Carl's Jr. has layered its new ad (via 72andSunny) for the dessert treat with breathless commentary from the blogosphere and perhaps the most awe-inspiring soundtrack around: Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra," otherwise known as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Can the product possibly stand up to this grand teaser? Judging by the early reviews, yes—yes, it can.
Here's a simple concept executed simply for Adidas. This beautifully shot, expertly cut short tells the story of the opening of the D Rose Jump Store in London. This unique store gave fans a chance to jump with the Chicago Bulls point guard to get a pair of Derrick Rose signature Adidas sneakers. Hundreds of fans descended and tried to make the 10-foot jump. Great moments, from Rose laughing at a girl who can't get enough air to helping a kid reach a pair, are offset by some pretty impressive jumps—including a dude who not only reaches the shoes but manages to kiss them on the shelf. Best pop-up store promotion in a while.
Mark Holland has upgraded his social-media standing from "some random guy on Twitter" to "some random guy on Twitter who answered a largely rhetorical question from a 43-year-old TV ad." He did this by counting how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Holland posted his final count, 850, on Twitter last Saturday. That number conflicts with at least three previous studies—Holland needed many more licks than most people. (Officially, Tootsie Pop says the number of licks "depends on a variety of factors such as the size of your mouth, the amount of saliva, etc. Basically, the world may never know.") While Holland's hard work should definitely be acknowledged (and mocked), we can't consider this question settled. More people need to keep doing this and posting their results so we can move ever so slowly toward an accurate number. Photo above via.
If CBS' The Crazy Ones seems like a day at Leo Burnett in Chicago, there's a good reason for that. The agency's executive creative director, John Montgomery, works as a consultant and executive producer on the fall comedy—and, in fact, inspired the show, which marks the network series return of former Mork from Ork Robin Williams.
It's no accident, then, that the pilot has the fictional ad folks working on a campaign for McDonald's, one of Burnett's biggest clients. (They want pop star Kelly Clarkson to shill burgers. "I don't do jingles," she sniffs, but eventually belts out a meat-loving ditty.) The brand didn't pay for the prodigious placement, though Williams told 200-plus reporters at a Television Critics Association panel on Monday in Beverly Hills to "look under your chairs—there's a Happy Meal!"
Expect to see other real brands on the show, likely from Burnett's stable, that were willing to let the creative team poke some irreverent fun at them. Montgomery has been spending several days a week with the sitcom's writers, said executive producer David E. Kelley, giving them agency scoop that's "sometimes crazier than we could imagine." Kelley and Williams also visited Burnett's offices to soak up the agency flavor. Even the show's title comes from advertising—"Here's to the Crazy Ones" was the anthem spot from TBWA's "Think Different" campaign for Apple.
There's another ad connection with The Crazy Ones. James Wolk, who plays the shadowy Bob Benson on AMC's Mad Men, stars as the new show's office lothario and creative whiz. "I only do advertising and marketing shows," he joked during the panel. The workplace comedy, premiering Sept. 26, also features Sarah Michelle Gellar as Williams's pragmatic daughter who's trying to keep her screwball dad in line.
Subaru stakes its claim as the car for people whose lives are just so damn cute in this pair of new spots from Carmichael Lynch.
"The Date" follows a young couple as they drive down country roads, first stopping at a diner for chocolate shakes and then at a produce stand, where the woman sticks an orange in her mouth for, I dunno, an impromptu impression of Marlon Brando from The Godfather, or something. It's such an awkward moment, I would've split and left her there. This guy's more of a gentleman, however, and drives her straight to the commercial's cutesy twist ending. Turns out they're strangers who just met when her truck ran out of gas and he drove her to the station to get some. I guess they really clicked on the ride. How sweet.
"Redressing Room" tells the tale of a toddler who keeps undressing in the back seat. "If I've gotta wear clothes, you've gotta wear clothes," says his perky mom. (If I had a dime for every time my boss at AdFreak has told me that!)
Look, there's nothing wrong with these spots; they're well directed by Lance Acord, and I'm sure they'll resonate for some. That said, I found them strangely insincere. They just feel too much like, well, Commercials with a capital C, right down to details like the hunky "Date" dude's windblown hair and scraggy bread and the "Redressing Room" mom's cutesy (yet disturbing) decision to keep extra kids' clothes in plastic drawers in the hatchback.
Stranded in this deflating post-modern-Rockwell vision of America, I'm the one who needs a lift.
It may not be the fountain of youth, but it could keep you from death's door—pretty much indefinitely.
Anacin maker Insight Pharmaceuticals sprang into action this week upon hearing that the newly minted world's oldest man, Salustiano "Shorty" Sanchez-Blazquez, credited his longevity to a daily dose of six Anacin tablets and one banana. The obvious next step? Investigating whether "Bananacin," a banana-flavored Anacin tablet, might be the most powerful elixir for longevity.
"Historically, apples are the fruit most associated with staying healthy and avoiding doctors. Our scientists had never looked into the banana before," Jennifer Moyer, vp of marketing for Insight Pharmaceuticals, says in a tongue-in-cheek press release. "But now that the certified oldest man in the world credits bananas and Anacin as his life-extending combo, we're certainly going to explore whether a new Bananacin product makes sense."
They will do no such thing, of course, but you can't fault them for seizing the opportunity here. "If nothing else, Bananacin sounds delicious!" Moyer gushed. "And it only makes sense that the oldest man in the world recognizes the benefits of Anacin, which is one of the oldest brand pain relievers in the U.S."
Sanchez-Blazquez, a 112-year-old who lives in Grand Island, New York, outside Buffalo, was born in 1901 and is now officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest man—following the death of Japan's Jiroemon Kimura at age 116 in June.
ESPN's "This Is SportsCenter" is among the handful of classic sports ad campaigns of all time. Launched in 1995 by Wieden + Kennedy in New York, the campaign—originally inspired by the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap—hasn't changed much over the years. And why would it? You don't mess with a winning formula.
The premise of the ads, as we've noted before, is that ESPN's Bristol, Conn., offices are the center of the sports universe—a surreal yet mundane fantasy world where athletes and mascots live and work together with anchors and journalists. Where other marketers portrayed athletes as superhuman, "This Is SportsCenter" presents them as comically, relatably human. Eighteen years and more than 400 spots later, the campaign continues.
As part of the Adweek story linked above, W+K drew up a list of its 10 favorite SportsCenter ads. Now, ESPN has one-upped its agency—devoting a whole special, airing this Thursday at 8 p.m. ET and hosted by Jason Sudeikis, to its 50 favorite SportsCenter spots of all time. The show will feature anecdotes and stories about the top 50, and fans are encouraged to vote for their favorite spot over on Facebook. Sudeikis will announce the winning spot on the show. (More than 1 million votes have been cast so far.)
Check out the program on Thursday, and click the link below for a sneak peek at ESPN's official top 10 favorite "This Is SportsCenter" commercials.
Ever wanted to chomp a big, savory bite of barbecue brisket right out of the side of your soda bottle? Of course you haven't. That would be disgusting and real damn strange. But Texas-based soda brand Big Red is floating the idea anyway in its new ad for the (blessedly fictional) Big Red BBQ Bottle. The spot was created by Austin comedy duo Beef & Sage, who also partnered with the brand last year to create a surprisingly entertaining video series called "Don't Tell Mom We're Doing Experiments in the Garage." The Big Red BBQ Bottle is apparently the first of three new videos that will roll out this summer. "Our new series highlights new 'innovations' that Big Red created to either solve a common consumer problem or make the lives of our consumers better," Big Red marketing svp Thomas Oh tells AdFreak. "Complementing BBQ with the sweet, smooth flavor of Big Red is a fan favorite, so we wanted to feature a new way to enjoy both." Well, Thomas, mission disturbingly accomplished. Credits and more Big Red comedy clips after the jump.
CREDITS Client: Big Red Spot: "Big Red BBQ Bottle" Agency: Real Normal/Beef & Sage Copywriter: Beef & Sage Executive Producer: Toby Schwartz Director: Kirk Johnson Art Director: Sam Webber Director of Photography: Nathanael Vorce Editor: Beef & Sage Production Services: Real Normal
Breaking Bad wins the award for most poetic TV show promo ever. The final episodes of the series, beginning Aug. 11, are heralded by a haunting reading of "Ozymandias" read by Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White, aka Heisenberg. Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet about the inevitable decline of kings serves as a warning to all those who would create an empire, suggsting time and nature will obliterate the works of man in the end. Given that Breaking Bad is a quintessential tragedy with all the trappings thereunto, including the inclusion of a Greek chorus, nothing could have been more perfect to foreshadow the end. Glad someone paid attention in 10th-grade lit.
TBWA\Paris places ads within ads in this new McDonald's campaign, with print and billboard elements playing key roles in a series of understated TV commercials.
Branding cues such as the McDonald's name, tagline and Golden Arches are de-emphasized. In fact, they're entirely absent from the print ads and billboards. The goal is to focus on the iconic, instantly recognizable menu items. We get intense close-ups of crispy fries peeking out of familiar red-and-gold packaging, a giant McNugget dunked in tangy sauce and sundaes drizzled with nuts and chocolate.
Director Xavier Mairesse weaves these visuals into a trio of simple but effective TV spots that need no dialog to deliver their message. In "Dentist," a patient repeatedly opens and closes his mouth as he watches McDonald's fries cycle through a billboard outside. "Yoga" shows a group of enthusiasts chanting "Ommmmmm" as they ogle a full-page McNugget newspaper spread. Women who show up for a job "Interview" smear their lipstick by hungrily licking their lips when they spy a McDonald's sundae in a colorful magazine ad.
This brand-as-icon strategy is the same basic approach used in Translation's earlier, pleasingly trippy Big Mac campaign. TBWA's humor, however, is more restrained, allowing the work to quietly make its point about the effect McDonald's food can have on consumers, even when that food is present only in the form of ads.
That in itself is a tad trippy and slightly surreal, and it makes a strong though surely unintended statement about the ubiquity and cultural impact of McDonald's advertising. Consider how much of it we see in our lifetimes—all the TV spots, billboards and print ads, the countless online banners and Web videos. Heck, we might see multiple spots during one night of TV or a single sitcom.
Through sheer volume, the chain's existence in the paid-media realm is just as palpable and perhaps even more intense than its presence in the physical world. So, it's fitting that it would craft a campaign in which its own ads are the stars.
Twentieth Century Fox has ramped up its marketing machine in anticipation of the next X-Men movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past, out next May, by creating fictional advertising for Trask Industries. Trask is the evil corporation in X-Men, creators of the Sentinels—giant robots that kill mutants—and other fun anti-mutant devices. They also dabble in mutant containment and genetic research. Ignition Creative in Los Angeles made the commercial, which comes with a website and some delightful anti-mutant propaganda posters up on the movie's Tumblr. It's wonderful if already a bit formulaic fan service that's almost required for all good sci-fi movie openings these days. It's too bad the timing of the campaign release coincides with The Wolverine biting it at the box office.
