How to put a fresh spin on a reliable, well-regarded staple on hardware store shelves for the past 131 years? To hear David Melançon tell it, the biggest challenge he faced when he joined Benjamin Moore as CMO was to dispel the assumption that “paint is paint is paint.” So Melançon turned to one of the country’s most beloved cultural cues.

Photo: Sasha Maslov

With an assist from lead creative shop The Martin Agency, Melançon exploited the idea that paint doesn’t only cover our houses but also creates the aesthetic of the American hometown. The “Main Street Matters” campaign tapped into Benjamin Moore’s Rockwellesque heritage with a contest to give American towns a whole new look.

Launched with a cable TV spot narrated by Brad Pitt, plus local newspaper, radio and online ads, the contest asked consumers to nominate and vote for 800 towns most deserving of a refreshing. After 800 nominees, 500,000 votes and 1.3 million unique visits to the Benjamin Moore site, 20 municipalities got a free color consultation and a dramatic makeover, each unveiled with a street celebration.

At a time when big-box stores have taken over and many lament the loss of the town square, the campaign achieved a profound halo effect for Benjamin Moore. “We didn’t just want to make Main Streets prettier—we also wanted revitalization,” explains Melançon. To extend the goodwill, the company donated a portion of sales to 1,800 local downtown restoration projects. “Proof that the ‘Main Street’ program went beyond aesthetic improvements is that all the [winning] downtowns have experienced an increase in new tenants because now they are more attractive places to be,” reports CEO Mike Searles.

The campaign also helped drive 5 percent growth in sales nationally and foot traffic at the paint company’s largest dealers, many of which saw their sales rise by 6 percent.

Fresh Coat | The brand's 'Main Street Matters' campaign spruced up American towns. Photo: Courtesy of Benjamin Moore

While the initiative emphasized Benjamin Moore’s traditional side, Melançon also wanted to stress paint’s ability to express daring and individuality. So with The Martin Agency, the brand launched “Shades of Life,” a campaign that captures a splay of paint flying through the air, à la Jackson Pollock. In one spot, actress Elisabeth Moss narrates a tale of choosing freedom over love. “The ads are effective because they distill the product down to its bare essence,” says Tom Agan, managing partner of brand consultancy Rivia. “They tug on our basic, deep visual triggers for color and shape.” They also snagged about 30,000 views each on YouTube.

Those efforts demonstrate Melançon’s determination to invest in marketing and take creative risks—and have some fun in the process. Last Halloween, the brand promoted its Ultra Spec 500 paint (which does a “scary good job”) by luring paint contractors into a “haunted” hotel, then scaring the hell out of them as hidden cameras capture the moment. “I don’t generally like marketing gimmicks,” Melançon says. “But I had to trust my team, and they executed it brilliantly.”

Melançon left his CMO post in June and now consults for parent company Berkshire Hathaway. But Searles remembers well how he “increased the importance of marketing at Benjamin Moore and strengthened the brand’s position with our dealers and their communities.”

Rich Weinstein, group account director at The Martin Agency, adds that Melançon “understood that this venerable, classic Americana brand needed to act like a challenger brand. David is a visionary.” 

View the Brand Genius winner class of 2014:
Paul Crandell, GoPro | Mark Crumpacker, Chipotle | Michelle N. Fernandez, Canon USA | Camille M. Gibson, General Mills | Trudy Hardy, BMW of North America | Matt Jauchius, Nationwide | Quinn Kilbury, Newcastle Brown Ale | David Melançon, Benjamin Moore & Co. | Shane Smith, Vice | Dana White, UFC 

Specs
Who Principals Shannon Slusher (l.), CEO, and Darryl Cilli, CCO
What Agency focused on sports, lifestyle and higher-education projects
Where Philadelphia

When 160over90’s founders opened their shop in 2001, they knew right away this wasn’t going to be one of those let’s-smash-our-names-together agencies, given that the result would have been Cilli Slusher—which conjures up an image of county-fair Slurpees. Rather, the independent agency’s name is tied to something more human: elevated blood pressure. “Why would anyone come to us for just TV spots? They want human reaction,” explained chief creative officer Darryl Cilli. Using teenage consumer insights gleaned from its core higher-education clients, 160over90 has added marketers like American Eagle Outfitters, Under Armour, Nike and the Miami Dolphins pro football franchise. A labor of love is the hometown team Philadelphia Eagles: An online film the agency released featuring a John Legend and the Roots soundtrack got more than 1 million views in just two days.

Every day, millions of people walk into any of 20,519 Starbucks in 65 countries, and most walk back out with the same thing: a white cardboard coffee cup. Do you know the one? Of course you do. “Starbucks cups have become part of the cultural backdrop, an unconscious reminder that the brand exists,” observed management consultant and business speaker Can Akdeniz. “It’s an extremely powerful piece of packaging.”

Photo: Nick Ferrari

And every year, Starbucks sells somewhere around 5 billion of them.

The story of how a simple paper cup got to be the most recognizable to-go container in the world is a strange one, and it’s about to get even stranger. Because, before we talk about the cup, we have to talk about breasts—a mermaid with breasts, actually.

In 1971, Starbucks (then a mere fledging coffee shop on the Seattle waterfront) was looking for a logo, something that would embody the seafaring history of its home city. The three founders hired a consultant named Terry Heckler. According to CEO Howard Schultz, Heckler “pored over old marine books until he came up with a logo based on an old 16th-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid.” (Medieval-minded blogger Carl Pyrdum has pointed out that there were no Norsemen left by the 16th century, but let’s just move on.)

The mermaid was exotic. She was also topless. At first, and despite some complaints, Starbucks just rolled with it. As Schultz later explained, “Bare breasted and Rubenesque, [the mermaid] was supposed to be as seductive as the coffee itself.” But then the time came to put the logo on the delivery trucks, and that was problematic. “The logo was huge,” Heckler’s website relates, “—and so were the mermaid’s breasts.”

Starbucks solved the problem by restyling the mermaid’s hairdo so it draped over the trouble spots. Then, in 1986, entrepreneur Schultz bought out the original Starbucks partners and modified the logo by placing the mermaid in the center of a green circle, a striking and memorable badge for that white cardboard cup.

The resulting device became an icon nearly overnight. Bryant Simon, author of Everything but the Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks, relates the folklore of how Madison Avenue interns used to splurge $5 on a Starbucks latte, drink it and then carry the empty cup around for the remainder of the week. “They wanted people to see them with the cup,” he said. “Through the intervention of users, Starbucks was able to make that cup shorthand for someone who was discerning, sophisticated and had enough money to waste on coffee.”

1. In 1971, the first Starbucks opened its doors in Seattle, featuring a sign made of painted cedar planks. When the building was demolished in 1974, the company moved the furnishings to a new “original” location at 102 Pike Street. This store (where the wallpaper is made from old burlap coffee sacks) is still open today.

2. Starting in the ‘90s, the Starbucks coffee cup enjoyed cameos in both TV and film. Carrie Bradshaw took a stylish sip in this 1998 episode of Sex and the City. In 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada, tortured assistant Andrea buys Miranda her coffee each morning, bringing it in those perennially fashionable white cups.

3. The original mermaid, au naturel from 1971 (top), and just below, her contemporary counterpart.

Out-of-home experiential advertising can be a boon to brand awareness, but recent campaigns from Coca-Cola and Jimmy Dean show how marketers are trying to magnify the effect of these efforts through connected digital activations.

Coca-Cola recently worked with Clear Channel Outdoor on an interactive billboard as part of the bigger #ShareACoke campaign. In exchange for sending a text message, a billboard displayed a bottle of Coke with the consumer’s name on it in real time. The campaign generated 110,000 submissions and 820 million impressions, which measures how many consumers saw the ads.

On a smaller scale, Jimmy Dean and TBWAChiatDay in Los Angeles have seen 6,000 impressions so far from an activation that rolled out on Sept. 8 along Hollywood Boulevard. The campaign centered around a sculpture that used sunlight to create GIFs of brand images, which were then uploaded to social media. The brand is now using the idea to drive a bigger user-generated content push based on the same theme.

“Experiential out of home has not been part of our plan in recent years, but we felt with this big announcement and launch that there was a real opportunity to do something different,” said Karmen Conrad, director of marketing at Jimmy Dean Frozen.

Research from BIA/Kelsey backs up the move toward digital out-of-home activations. Out-of-home spend will hit $7.8 billion this year, with $3.3 billion coming from digital. By 2019, digital will make up $4.4 billion of a $9.2 billion industry. “It probably makes sense for brands to be pushing it a little bit to see what works—you have to break through the clutter somehow,” said Rick Ducey, managing director at BIA/Kelsey.

Kudos to Dole and Denstu Y&R for making what might be the coolest bananas in the world.

At this year's Tokyo Marathon, 200 runners received personalized Dole bananas with information like finish times and praise from Facebook friends all printed in edible ink (though hopefully nobody tried to eat the peels).

The idea manages to be pretty sweet, even if it is a little silly … not altogether unlike a banana. It aimed to amplify Dole's broader role of handing out some 91,000 bananas to participants in the race, and by the agency's measures, it was a roaring success, earning some $1.1 million in media coverage.



Dole determined the winners of special trophy bananas by lottery, but even the boring, textless bananas available to all the runners were still "Gokusen," or the high-end kind that can cost $12 a bunch—or as much as $6 per banana with special gift packaging.

Then again, in a culture where gift giving is prevalent, and where supermarkets therefore tend to carry $300 cantaloupes—and where even more special melons have sold for  $16,000—a pricey banana starts to sound like a total steal.

Via Design Taxi.

Following the trend of marketers becoming publishers, Marriott International is launching a global creative and content marketing studio to handle internal work for its portfolio of 18 travel-related brands.

"We view this as the opportunity to be the world's largest producer of travel-related content," said David Beebe, Marriott's vp of creative, content marketing and global marketing. The former Disney-ABC Television executive and producer will lead the new initiative.

As the largest hotel chain in the world, Marriott aims to leverage its expertise on travel, according to Beebe. Similar to the approach that Red Bull and GoPro take with action sports, Marriott wants to own the travel entertainment space—and, in turn, gain the recognition as a trusted source for all travel needs.

"You're most likely to remember something if a friend recommends it," Beebe said. "We want to take that same approach as a brand through building engaging content communities through social platforms."

The in-house division will have three parts: content development, which will be the personal creative agency; production, or the entertainment division responsible for video content ranging from Web clips to TV shows; and distribution, a real-time marketing group that will monitor social media to ensure immediate interaction with trending topics. Marriott will continue to work with external agencies and other production companies as needed.

Marriott has signed a stable of exclusive talent from the online space, including Sonya Travel's Sonya Gil, stunt team Substance Over Hype, social media news purveyors What's Trending and comedian Taryn Southern. Shows in development include Renaissance Hotels' indie music performance series The Navigator Live; action-comedy stunt show Two Bellmen; and Web series Marriott Rewards' Year of Surprises, which will honor people in the community for their contributions to society. Online series will be broadcast on Marriot.com and Marriot Mobile and through Marriott Rewards and other media channels like YouTube.

Gartner's Andrew Frank said Marriott's in-house approach reflects a general trend in the industry that meets the increasing demand for content marketing, particularly ongoing interactions for long-term campaigns. It can be a risky move, however, because brands can be less experienced in creative and media strategy compared to agencies, but widening media access has made it easier. "Since most agencies are not organized to support content marketing engagements, at a certain scale it can be more cost-effective to bring it in house," he said.

Larry Woodard of digital advertising Graham Stanley Advertising added that brands like Pepsi and Nike have had internal resources for years, and it can be a smart way to create a following and get in touch with your consumer base. "Things are growing so fast and are so divergent from traditional marketing that you need to cast a wide net just to stay relevant,” he said.

Still, Frank noted that it isn't easy to become a global entertainment entity. Marriott, in particular, has an uphill battle considering how many travel programs are already established online and offline.

"For every brand do-it-yourself content publishing success story, there's a much larger number of failed attempts. Brands that lack creative core competencies may be surprised at the costs and cultural challenges involved in building a world-class in-house capability," Frank said.

Woodard was skeptical as well. "Neither Marriott nor any other travel giant will be able to own travel entertainment online. For the foreseeable future consumers will be the leading edge of content creation," he said. 

Need a place where you can audition someone for your band? Where you can haul your giant computer equipment for a geeky meeting? Where you can fuel up with your fellow bikers? Where you can celebrate a birthday, reconnect with a long-lost friend or just engage in a little PDA?

There's a Starbucks for that.

The coffee giant rolled out its first global brand campaign on Monday. And the focus is very much not on Starbucks (well, kind of not on Starbucks) but on the millions of people who get together at its stores every day—and the stories they have to tell.

The feel-good theme is "Meet me at Starbucks," and the centerpiece—a five-minute-plus mini documentary by 72andSunny—shows people doing just that. It was culled from 220 hours of footage filmed in a single 24-hour period in 59 Starbucks stores (including the one I visited this morning, on Astor Place in New York) in 28 countries by 39 local filmmakers and 10 local photographers.

We get to visit everywhere from Rio de Janeiro to Bogota, Singapore to Beijing, Mumbai to Toronto, Paris to Berlin to Istanbul. And the bonhomie—like your latte—appears to be much the same wherever you go.



Last week we posted some new Starbucks work by BBDO New York that was very minimalist—images of text-message conversations cleverly showed how meeting people face to face is better than communicating virtually. The new campaign has the same message, but the style is sprawling by comparison.

On YouTube, the five-minute film is interactive, giving you options to watch eight other films that tell the stories of different eclectic groups who regularly get together at Starbucks. We meet scrapbookers in Long Beach, N.Y.; postcard-sending fanatics in the Czech Republic; women practicing the art of knot tying in Japan; a hearing-impaired group meeting weekly in Honolulu; and more. (The film was cut into 30- and 60-second TV ads.)

If that's not enough, you can click on "Gallery Mode" and get a whole screen full of smaller screens—with little films and vignettes everywhere you look. If this smorgasbord of virtual content doesn't convince you to stop consuming virtual content and go meet someone face to face, nothing will. (Actually, it's not that easy to embed anything except the main film, and perhaps that's a way to prevent virtual sprawl.)

Rather than make any real argument for getting together at Starbucks specifically, the campaign assumes you probably already do. (It takes a brand of Starbucks' size to say things like, "It's never been just about the coffee.") And so the brand happily blends into the background. It's so ubiquitous, it's almost invisible. It's the happy host. And it lets the consumer be the hero.

What the campaign does suggest about Starbucks, though, is that it's not just the unthinking, inevitable choice. Indeed, everyone here is thinking, and feeling, very deeply indeed. It's not just what everyone does. It's what interesting, passionate people do—and it's what they choose to do.

"Good things happen when we get together. See you tomorrow," says the copy at the end. It's hard to argue with the first statement. The second, despite the phrasing, is actually up to you. And if the campaign does what it's supposed to, it will feel like a real choice—and one you'll gladly make.





CREDITS
Agency: 72andSunny
Glenn Cole, Chief Creative Officer
John Boiler, CEO
Grant Holland , Group Creative Director
Chiyong Jones, CD/CW
Gui Borchert, CD/Designer
Jc Abbruzzi , Lead Writer
Warren Frost, Lead Designer
Martin Schubert, Jr. Writer
Natalie Viklund, Jr. Designer
Aaron Tourtellot, Jr. Designer
Matt Swenson, Creative Technologist
Matt Jarvis, Chief Strategy Officer
Kelly Schoeffel, Co-Head of Strategy
Elisha Greenwell, Strategy Director
Chris Kay, Managing Director, LA
Josh Jefferis, Brand Director
Celeste Hubbard, Brand Manager
Alex Belliveau, Brand Coordinator
Tom Dunlap, Chief Production Officer
Sam Baerwald, Director of Film Production
Dominique Anzano, Calleen Colburn, Ellen Pot, Sr. Film Producers
Peter Williams, Film Producer
Heather Wischmann, Director of Interactive Production
Ruben Barton, Sr. Interactive Producer
Adrienne Alexander, Interactive Producer
Jason Heinz, Sr. Analyst
Melissa Bell, UX Design Director
Chip Davis, UX Designer
Michelle McKinney, Business Affairs Director
Christina Rust, Business Affairs Manager
Jesse Sinkiewicz, Business Affairs Coordinator

Production Company: m ss ng p eces, in collaboration with Co.MISSION Content
Josh Nussbaum, Director
Kate Oppenheim, Ari Kuschnir, Brian Latt, Executive Producers
Dave Saltzman, Head of Production
Mike Prall, Producer
Harrison Winter, Co.MISSION Content Group EP / CEO
Kris L. Young, Co.MISSION Content Group President

Ideas United
David Roemer, CEO
Tammi Montier, Business Development
Aaron Azpiazu, Partner Manager

Editorial: Cut & Run, Los Angeles
Michelle Eskin, Managing Director
Carr Schilling, Executive Producer
Remy Foxx, Post Producer
Lucas Eskin, Stephen Berger, Isaac Chen, Sean Stender, Kendra Juul, Editors
Brian Meagher, Christopher Malcolm Kasper, Assistant Editors

Editorial: 72andSunny Studio
John Keaney, Director of Operations
Nick Gartner, Editor
Becca Purice, Producer

VFX: Jogger
David Parker, Creative Director
Matthew Lydecker, Artist
Megan Kennedy, Producer
Liz Lydecker, Sr. Producer

Telecine: CO3
Sean Coleman, Colorist

Mix: Play Studios
John Bolen, Ryan Sturup, Mixers
Lauren Cascio, Executive Producer

Music
Keith Kenniff, Unseen Music
Jóhann Jóhannsson
Youth Faire
Andrew Simple

Interactive: Stopp/Family
CEO/Executive Producer: Fredrik Frizell
Executive Producer: Eric Shamlin
Producer: Callan Koenig
Creative Director: Zachary Richter
Associate Creative Director: Abe Cortes
Junior Designer: April DiMartile
UX: Wai Shun Yeong
Junior UX: I.K Olumu
Technical Director: Ola Björling
Backend Developer: Mattias Hedman
Frontend Developer: Jin Kim
Subtitle Developer: Brian Hodge

In its first global campaign for Volvo, Grey London strives for a "quietly epic" tone to position the Swedish nameplate more firmly in the premium auto space. Director Marcus Söderlund, working through Academy Films, delivers the goods with a visually compelling minute-long film called The Swell.

We open on a moonlit beach, where a Volvo XC60 sits in the sand, the hum of its radio melding with the sounds of the sea. "To feel, to really feel, is a rare thing these days," a voiceover says. We watch a woman paddle her surfboard through dark, choppy water as a huge wave rises with thunderous force … and the tagline, "Seek feeling," flashes on screen.

The Swell weaves its tale in moody hues, offering glimpses of the car as it focuses on the lonely surfer and approaching wave. (Söderlund also directed Grey London's fiery Vodafone ad about emergency responders.)



It's an unexpected approach, and the first campaign from global creative director Hollie Newton, who joined Grey last year from Wieden + Kennedy, where she contributed to award-winning efforts for Lurpak butter. For Lurpak, she designed sensory experiences with cheeky, playful subtexts that reminded viewers not to take the ads too seriously.

The Swell shares this "sensory" sensibility, but ratchets up the intensity to a point where I imagine some viewers might be put off. Even so, Grey deserves credit for making a commercial that ripples with energy without drowning in car-ad clichés.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Volvo
Vice President, Brand Marketing: Tomás Caetano
Marketing Communication Director: Ingela D'Angelo
Marketing Content Director: Magnus Brodd
Project Leader: Anna Wirsen
Spot: The Swell
Agency: Grey, London
Executive Creative Director: Nils Leonard
Global Creative Director: Hollie Newton
Creative Team: Hollie Newton, Jamie Starbuck, Howard Green
Managing Partner: Nick Dutton
Business Director: Camilla Ashenhurst
Account Manager: Mel Caplan
Agency Producer: Harriette Larder
Creative Producer: Glen McLeod
Planning Director: Matt Buttrick
Planner: Hayley Cannon
Production Company: Academy Films
Director: Marcus Söderlund
Editor: Tom Lindsay, Trim
Producer: Medb Riordan
Executive Producer: Lizie Gower
Directors of Photography: André Chémétoff, Allan “Willy” Wilson
Colorist: Aubrey Woodiwiss
Postproduction: Yourick Van Impe, Aubrey Woodiwiss, Electric Theatre Collective
Audio Postproduction: Aaron Reynolds, Wave
Photographer: Gian Paul Lozza

Ask anyone you know how they feel about boobs, and I'm pretty sure it will be positive. Indeed, you'd have a hard time finding anyone hesitant to sing their praises.

Below is a fun series of ads from DDB Singapore timed to Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. They'll hit close to home for anyone who regularly uses social media and happens to have breasts, or knows anyone who has them (and wants them to be healthy). The familiar logos have been redesigned to anatomically pay homage to breasts and remind you to perform an exam—on yourself, or someone you care about—as frequently as you check your social feeds. 

The ads, for the Breast Cancer Foundation, also point to an online petition urging social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to actually change their logos temporarily for the cause. So, check out the ads below, and consider a screening so you can live longer to keep liking and faving.

Via Design Taxi.

GE has been doing a lot of poignant ads through BBDO New York lately—the dreamy fantasy world of "Childlike Imagination" (an Emmy nominee this year); the haunting dystopia of "Ideas Are Scary"; the adorably odd science fiction of "The Boy Who Beeps."

So, obviously it was time to completely change things up—and hire Tim & Eric (aka, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim) to direct a barely clothed but great-haired Jeff Goldblum in this totally bonkers fake infomercial for the GE Link lighting solutions.

It's kind of all over the map, but the two-minute spot has lots of enjoyable over-the-top moments—particularly the peppy transitions from super-suave Goldblum to the "unremarkable nobodies" who deliver the testimonials.

A fake infomercial isn't the route you'd typically choose for explaining new technology like GE Link. But this seems to be more of an awareness play. We'll find out later whether it really does make everyone look like a cocky, raven-haired movie actor.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: GE
Spot: "Enhance Your Lighting"

Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Michael Aimette
ACD/Art Director: Anne Lac
ACD/Copywriter: Judd Counsell
Group Executive Producer: Anthony Nelson
Senior Integrated Content Producer: Darbi Fretwell
BBDO Music Producer: Rani Vaz

Worldwide Senior Director: Brandon Fowler
Senior Director: Peter McCallum
Account Manager: Gabriela Benitez
Account Manager: Sam White
Assistant Account Executive: David Slifer

Production Company: PrettyBird
Director: Tim and Eric
Director of Photography: Andrew Wheeler
Line Producer: Hillary Calhoun

Post Production Company: Prettybird
Editor: Kyle Brown
Assistant Editor: Joe Carugati
Executive Producer: Kerstin Emhoff
Producer: Karl Reid
Visual Effects & Animations: Makana Sylva

Additional Visual Effects: Skulley VFX

Music/Sound Design: Beacon Street
Mix House: Heard City
Mixer: Cory Melious

Graphic Designer: Anthony Madlangbayan

Telecine: Company 3
Colorist: Tom Poole

Anyone who says flying is a terrible experience hasn't had a missing carry-on item returned by KLM's lost-and-found delivery beagle.

Say what, you say?

It's simple, says KLM: Its trained beagle traces the scent of left-behind personal effects—maybe a pink iPhone, or some headphones—and chases down the owner while he or she is still in the airport. Joy, gratitude and cooing abound, warming even the most frozen and incredulous jet-lagged souls (including more than 9 million YouTube viewers at last count).



Is this an excerpt from a 20th century movie about a dog with a big heart who teaches people a thing or two about humanity? Nope, this is an ad by DDB & Tribal Worldwide for a Dutch airline, which is shrewd to pretend it employs a dog who will always be more genuinely happy to see you than any bipedal flight attendant, because the dog will hold out hope that you might reward its loyalty with a snack, but forgive you—or at least forget—if you don't. (Before you hesitate to break off a piece of that beef jerky, don't forget that dogs are people, too.)

Too bad it's all a sham, if a wildly popular one, designed to promote KLM's obviously inferior humankind methods for returning lost items. In other words, it will leave you feeling cheated and disoriented, which at least is consistent with lots of flying experiences.

Over the past decade, Dove has established itself as a brand that initiates conversation about real beauty and self-esteem. It latest long-form spot, "Legacy," at less than three minutes, is shorter than other recent Dove films, but it drives the point home: How girls feel about their beauty starts with how their mothers about theirs.

In the film, made by Ogilvy Paris, five women are asked to write two lists: what they like and don't like about the way they look. Then their daughters are asked the same questions, and we watch the mothers read their daughters' lists.



The mothers' reactions are particularly fascinating—they're restrained but disheartened. "Oh, she said her legs, too." The women realize their daughters are picking up on their complaints about their bodies and making them their own.

The ending is lovely, as the girls point out the things they do like about their bodies. Early in the film, one mother says, "I believe that the fact that I smile a lot has a lot to do with why my skin stays nice." And at the end, her daughter follows up with, "I like my face, because it is smiley."

"Whether a mother, aunt, coach, teacher or sister, all women can set a positive example for the next generation by expressing their own beauty with confidence," says Jennifer Bremner, director of marketing at Dove. "Dove has long been dedicated to fostering positive self-esteem in women and girls, and we invite all women to join us in making a difference to the next generation by ensuring their own beauty legacy is a positive one." 

Dove kicks off the 5th Annual Self-Esteem Weekend at the United Nations on Oct. 9.

CREDITS
Client: Dove
Agency: Ogilvy Paris

Geico introduces its latest advertising theme, "It's what you do," in this amusing horror-movie sendup from The Martin Agency that breaks just in time for Halloween.

Much like the insurer's "Did you know?” commercials, and the ads featuring Maxwell the pig and Caleb the hump-day camel, "It's what you do" espouses the wisdom of switching to Geico in order to save money. Some other things people do aren't nearly so clever.

For example, teens in scary films are famous for making bad choices that significantly increase their peril. That's just "what they do." Here, a bunch of numbskulls on the run from a murderous maniac look for a hiding place—and consider an attic, a basement, a spooky running car and a garage crammed full of chainsaws.

When one girl suggests hightailing it to the cemetery, that actually seems like a smart idea, because this clueless crew will probably wind up dead anyway.



CREDITS
Client: Geico
Vice President, Marketing: Ted Ward
Manager, Broadcast Production and Agency Relations: Amy Hooks
Marketing Planner: Amy Ruddell
Marketing Coordinators: Katherine Kalec, Tom Perlozzo

Agency: The Martin Agency
Chief Creative Officer: Joe Alexander
Senior Vice Presidents, Group Creative Directors: Steve Bassett, Wade Alger
Senior Vice President, Creative Director, Art Director: Sean Riley
Senior Copywriter: Ken Marcus
Vice President, Agency Executive Broadcast Producer: Molly Schaaf
Bid, Prep, Shoot, Edit Producer: Alex Scheer-Payne
Visual Effects, Finishing Producer: Sam Tucker
Agency Junior Producer: Emily Taylor
Business Affairs Supervisor: Suzanne Wieringo
Senior Integrated Production Business Manager: Amy Trenz
Vice President, Group Account Director: Brad Higdon
Account Supervisor: Parker Collins
Account Executive: Meg Ingraham
Senior Project Manager: Jason Ray

Production Company: Hungry Man
Director: Wayne McClammy
Director of Photography: Bryan Newman
Executive Producer Mino Jarjoura
Producer: Nate Young

Editing Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Ian MacKenzie
Assistant Editor: Nick Divers
Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfield
Editorial Producer: Evan Meeker

Telecine: The Mill
Colorist: Fergus McCall

Audio Post Company: Rainmaker Studios
Engineer: Jeff McManus

Horror Movie:
Conform: Running With Scissors
Conform Artist: Chris Hagen
Executive Producer: Scott Friske 
Producer: DeeDee Ray

Sustain has become the first condom brand to aggressively market to clearly unmarried women for the sake of recreational sex with globe-trotting good Samaritans.

Jeff and Meika Hollender, the father-daughter duo who started the brand (yes, condoms can be a family business), were looking for someone to buy into rubbers made with sustainable rubber. And naturally, they looked to women.

It's not a small market. Some 40 percent of condoms are bought by women, and research says most of those women hate buying them. Worse, only 19 percent of women age 22-44 use condoms regularly. Sustain wanted single women to be more comfortable buying their own condoms and insisting that men use them.



Which brings us to our sex-positive protagonist. She doesn't rely on her hot, socially conscious lay to have an unexpired, unscented, properly sized condom. No, she buys her own, and because she's all about practicing what she preaches, she makes sure they're produced with sustainable, fair-trade rubber from a brand that also gives 10 percent back to support women's reproductive health.

Yes, this modern woman with her slight southern draw has all the shock potential but without quite the acting chops of the Poo-Pouri girl. But all Sustain has to do is get some conservatives upset about this ad showing a lady who enjoys having sex for fun, and it could go all the way.

Not every famous photograph was taken with a Leica. But they were all taken thanks to Leica.

The German camera brand on Wednesday unveiled this incredible new ad from Brazilian agency F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first Leica camera and the opening of Leica Gallery São Paulo in November. And the message it conveys is not exactly a humble one.

Leica helped to move photography out from the studios and into real life. And so, in a way, it made possible every photo you've ever seen that captures real, unscripted, unposed life. To celebrate this, the two-minute spot recreates some 35 famous photos of spontaneous moments—and it does so delightfully and beautifully.

The spot is best watched at full screen. May also be NSFW due to brief nudity.



There are echoes here of Grey London's "Icons" spot, though the Leica spot is less of an elaborately structured set piece. But it's a triumph all its own—a spot that visually pays off its grand statement and, remarkably, stands as a pretty damn good tribute to every photo ever taken in the past 100 years.

CREDITS
Client: Leica Gallery São Paulo
Agency: F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi
Spot: "100"
Product: Leica Institucional
Executive Creative Director: Fabio Fernandes | Eduardo Lima
Head of Art: João Linneu
Creatives: Bruno Oppido | Romero Cavalcanti | Thiago Carvalho | João Linneu
Agency Producer: Victor Alloza
Account Management: Marcello Penna | Melanie Zmetek
Media: Fábio Freitas | Gabriela Guedes
Planning: José Porto | Guilherme Pasculli
Production Company: Stink
Direction: Jones+Tino
Producer Designer: Daniela Calcagno
Director of Photography (DOP): Bjorn Charpentier
Executive Producer: Cecília Salguero | Maria Zanocchi
Editor: Jones+Tino | Danilo Abraham
Line Producer: Victoria Martinez
1ad: Santiago Turell
Location Manager: Lucia Sánchez
Producer Designer: Daniela Calcagno
Stylist: Alejandra Rosasco
Postproduction: Casablanca Effects
Sound Studio: Satélite Áudio
Production: Equipe Satélite
Maestro: Equipe Satélite
Account Management: Fernanda Costa | Marina Castilho
Voiceover: Nick Brimble
Client Approval: Luiz Marinho | Anna Silveira

Buddy Cianci served as the mayor of Providence, R.I., for two decades and is running again this fall, despite having been convicted of two felonies over the years—for assault and corruption—and spending time in federal prison.

Providence ad agency Nail seems pretty impressed by Cianci and apparently wants to follow in his footsteps. But can crime pay for an ad agency?

Find out below as Nail takes some tentative steps into the shadowy world of "mobvertising," and encourages people to vote in the process.

This minute-long BBDO spot for Viagra is, apparently, the brand's first to show only a woman, and its first to use the word "erection" outside of the description of side effects.

Here, an attractive woman in a slinky blue dress poses on what appears to be an unmade bed or some sort of mattress, assuring us, "Plenty of guys have this issue—not just getting an erection, but keeping it." She's got an British accent, so you know she means business. An agency rep says it's a new direction designed to focus on the partner's point of view.

That's a big change from past campaigns, which told men's stories and kept women in the background, if they were shown at all. "The intensifying of the marketing message makes sense, considering Viagra's patent expires in three years, along with its monopoly," NBC's Today points out.


Viagra ads used to be about as chaste and subdued as they could be while advertising boner pills. For example, this spot from a couple of years ago keeps the focus on some guy and his sailboat. No women in that dude's crew. Not even a mermaid off the starboard bow.

That traditional level of restraint makes the new ad (also awash in nautical imagery, by the way), well ... stick out, and not in an altogether positive way. It feels tacky, and could almost be viewed as an exercise in objectification: Take Viagra, and claim your prize!

Plus, some elements seem like overkill. She says "erection." Do we really need the ship masts in the distance, rising straight and tall? Or that long pier jutting into the briny deep? And flagpoles planted in the sand?

The perfect modern creative is a woman.
Because we have enough men, and men like it the way it is right now.

She will seek change.
And her finest qualities will be frustration and discontent.

The perfect creative presumes that the people around her are talented and want to contribute. And accepts that without meaning to, the company, the process and even she is stifling the work and its ability to be brilliant in some way.

She won't have come from a school that teaches advertising, and she certainly won't understand why we structure companies like we do.

When producing a piece of work, she won't ask herself, "Who can I get to do this?" but will instead ask, "How can we make this happen ourselves?" Because she will have grown tired of agencies making themselves dependent.

This girl gets that none of us are as smart as all of us. She won't believe that her own insight, emotional intelligence and passion are enough to make greatness happen and will draw excellent minds to her. But although she will create her best work through collaboration, she will understand the violent, urgent need to disappear on her own, the pressure all hers, at the critical moment to crack the brief. And she won't allow history, pay grade, job title or age to stop the candid conversations that will ultimately make the work special.

She will not only accept change, but understand that there might be someone new at the table next to her every day, and will use lunch in beautiful places to make these new disciplines powerful in the mix.

She is a thief of new technologies.
A murderer of trade unions and waiting lines.
A radiator of energy and believer in the genius of 3 a.m. tequila, when it all matters a little too much.

Nils Leonard

Her best friend might be a planner.
Her lover might be a producer.

She won't be ashamed to create things that sell stuff to people because she will have found a way to do it that people enjoy.

She and her workplace will not be invisible. She is no shadowy wizard.
She will work in a place that people in the real world are happy exists.
And her name will be known to people's mums, readers of Adweek and subscribers of Wired alike.

She will never be 100 percent sure, and she'll be OK with that, because she'll have the energy to convince others to take the risks that great work demands.

She will spend her time focusing less on the kerning in a poster and more on how to get the right people to collide powerfully, because agencies are filled with reasons not to say the right things to each other.

A great creative won't work in a department. She will have a crew.
An understanding that goes beyond the culture of an agency.
And she will maintain and create the rarest entity in our game—trust.

She won't just set the agenda on the work, but give the agency a true north. And will not only give other creatives a purpose, but make everyone who brings great things to bear a chance to shine.

A great creative won't support politics.

A great creative will give her people defining moments.
Then push them to move past them.

And like all star players, she will always be on loan. Never yours.
One day, the perfect modern creative will have enough of us.
Because ultimately she will want to create something sacred for herself.
And she will go and do it.
And we will love her for it.

—Nils Leonard is chief creative officer of Grey London.

IDEA: Still using that same old incandescent lightbulb that was invented in the 19th century? Get with the program, Luddite.

That's the basic message, told more charmingly, of this expertly constructed stop-motion spot from Iris Worldwide for Philips Hue lighting.

The wireless bulbs are connected through WiFi and can dim, change color (to any in the spectrum), flash, pulse and more at the touch of a finger. To showcase such impressive modernity, Philips went way back into the past, as a fixed camera shows the same family in the same room through six time periods—the Victorian era, the 1920s, '40s, '60s, '80s and today. The lighting remains the same until the modern scenes, when the family can change the ambience dramatically for all kinds of different activities.

"Our job was to raise awareness within the mainstream: people who are into everyday technology, design and interiors," said Chris Baylis, executive creative director at Iris. "You wouldn't write a letter on a typewriter, so why would you still use a 19th century lightbulb?"



COPYWRITING: The spot opens with the text: "How many years does it take to change a lightbulb?" Then we see a Victorian living room with a father on a stepladder screwing in a lightbulb as his wife, son and daughter watch.

The same family is then seen living in the room as the years quickly tick by—socializing, dancing, cleaning, watching TV and more—until today, when the father changes the lighting to Philips and its huge range of atmospheres.

"All of these eras felt iconic, and what we played on were the hangovers between eras—how old phones stick around, how technology changes but furniture doesn't, and then everything jumps," said Baylis.

The spot ends with the simple line "Lighting has changed" ("Why overwrite an end line just because you can?" said Baylis), followed by the new brand positioning, "Innovation + You."

ART DIRECTION/FILMING: Director Martin Stirling shot the ad in two days. "It was always going to be stop motion," said Baylis. "It was a style we thought would grab people's attention and get the film shared, and it's a very forgiving technique that allows us to tell a complex story quickly."



Production company Unit9 brought in set designers and stylists to make each period authentic. "There are some real vintage pieces in the film—none of it is fake. It was all carried into shot, filmed and carried out again for real," Baylis said.

"The lighting transformation was really the point. We could have just filmed a simple before-and-after story, but we know the Internet likes interesting film techniques, and how we got people to the big reveal was what mattered."

TALENT: "The actors had to have a certain timelessness," Baylis said. "We rejected men who were carrying too much muscle because that's a very contemporary look. If you ever look at pictures of the '80s, it's always amazing to see how slim everyone looks. We were also looking for people who could dance, and had a good sense of their own bodies and physicality. It was a demanding, intense shoot, and there wasn't much room for mistakes. Our cast nailed it."

SOUND: Each period has its own music, but it's all the same rhythm and beat, which makes the transitions seamless. "We love how the music flows. People are getting a bit sick of hearing it played all over the office, though," Baylis joked.

MEDIA: On TV in the Benelux market in Europe, and online elsewhere, including on smart TVs. Stills and digital outtakes are also running in out-of-home and online ads.

THE SPOT:

CREDITS
Client: Philips Connected Lighting
Agency: Iris Worldwide
Executive Creative Director: Chris Baylis
Deputy Creative Director: Matt Hallett
Creative Team: Pete Sanna, Matt Weston
Producer/Production Company: Dale Healy & Charlotte Dale, Unit 9 & Iris
Director: Martin Stirling
Brand Planner: Mark Hadfield
Account Director: Adam Wyatt

The iconic clock from Grand Central Terminal symbolizes the heart of New York City in this impressive 90-second animated film from Y&R, part of its campaign backing the New York Organ Donor Network.

There's darkness all around, and time is running out for Gotham as the clock struggles to keep ticking. Brick facades crumble. Cabs crawl past pedestrians who shuffle dejectedly through the streets. Even the Statue of Liberty slumps her shoulders. But ultimately, folks collect bits and pieces of NYC—subway signs, manhole covers, fire hydrants—to build a fantastical new machine (with a familiar design) that just might save the day.

The tagline pays off the plot, and viewers are directed to LongLiveNY.org for more.

"Next-to-last place—we are ranked 49th in terms of the percentage of state residents registered as organ donors—is not good enough for New York," Y&R executive creative director Glen Jacobs tells Adweek. "We need to move the needle, so organ donors can save lives. Period."



Every 15 hours, another New Yorker dies while waiting for a donated organ, and only 23 percent of the local population has registered to give. "We won't rest until we unlock the key to get this turned around," Jacobs says.

"It took several months to do the proper research and come up with the right approach," he adds. "But once we settled on the final direction, everything proceeded very quickly. It was really important for us to find the right caliber of talent to bring this idea to life."

Laurent Witz, an Oscar winner for last year's animated short Mr. Hublot, directed the film, which strikes the perfect tone of eerie melancholy before giving way to brightness and hope. The 3-D animation style is a good choice, adding a sense of lifelike urgency to every frame. (The campaign also includes the lovely poster below, which will run in the subway.)

"The biggest hurdle for the cause continues to be how many myths surround organ donation," says Jacobs. "So many people simply do not have the facts needed to make an informed decision." The film's visual élan and the Donor Network's treasure trove of information should encourage folks on the fence to give serious thought to registration. That would be a heartening development.

"If this campaign helps raise awareness for the cause, that's great," Jacobs says. "But we have a long way to go. So, our aim is to keep finding bigger and better ways to get the message out."



CREDITS
Client: New York Organ Donor Network
Agency: Y&R, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Jim Elliott
Executive Creative Director: Glen Jacobs
Creative Directors: Josh Schildkraut, Miranda Dean
Executive Director of Content Production: Letitia Jacobs
Producers: Emma Starzacher, Sarah Haroldson
Account Management: Laurie Newsome, Tre Jordan
Business Manager: Adele Solomon
Production, Postproduction: Zeilt Productions
Director, Executive Producer, Director of Photography: Laurent Witz
Production Assistant: Joane Degive
Character Design: Jerome Gillet, Ghayth Chegaar
Composer: Francois Rousselot
Music: Macedonia Radio Symphonic Orchestra