Online printing company MOO.com does some pretty great self-promotions. And its latest one is particularly inspired—a set of business cards for famous fictional alter egos like Walter White/Heisenberg, Bruce Wayne/Batman and Clark Kent/Superman.
The "Double Lives" collection promotes MOO's new square business card, which appears to be perfect for meth makers and superheroes.
See more over at The Drum.
Host Whoopi Goldberg brought the funny all evening long at Wednesday's 55th Clio Awards in New York. But it was Jerry Seinfeld who brought down the house with a brilliant, hilarious speech about why he loves advertising—which ended up being a blistering anti-advertising rant that comically eviscerated the business.
"I love advertising because I love lying," Seinfeld began. And he only got more brutally honest from there.
"I just want to enjoy the commercial. I want to get the thing," he said. "We know the product is going to stink. We know that because we live in the world, and we know that everything stinks. We all believe, 'Hey, maybe this one won't stink.' We are a hopeful species. Stupid but hopeful. But we're happy in that moment between the commercial and the purchase. And I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy."
Seinfeld also mentioned the debacle that happened at the 1991 Clio Awards, when greedy attendees rushed the stage in a mad grab for Clios they hadn't won. That's his favorite award-show story, Seinfeld said, because it's so honest.
There were roars of laughter—because of course, Seinfeld is hardly an innocent party when in the ad game. He's done plenty of lying and duping over the years, most recently for Acura, and was getting an Honorary Award for that work last night. (He also thanked Ogilvy & Mather and American Express for getting him into the business to begin with.)
But while most attendees agreed the speech was the highlight of the night, there may have been a few hurt feelings here and there. As an award winner said in his speech later in the night, "Apparently everything I do is meaningless. But it was Jerry Seinfeld who said it, so I suppose that makes it OK."
Via Clios.com, which just unveiled a new blog this week. (Disclosure: Adweek and the Clio Awards are both owned by affiliates of Guggenheim Partners.)
Usually if something sounds too good to be true, you can bet dollars to doughnuts there's going to be a catch. Well, what if I told you there's an ad featuring an Irish dude dressed in a homemade Batman costume busting moves to a karaoke track of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" in a shop that sells fancy tire rims?
"Aww, hell no, Alfred! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," you'd say.
Well, lo and behold, fake Irish "Billie Jean" Batman.
In the ad below, for Kingdom Alloys, an Irish purveyor of alloy tire rims, this joker dances around and air-humps to a slightly off karaoke version of MJ's classic track. The punch line/tagline borrows the lyric "Don't think twice," which appears on-screen as the fake caped crusader stops dancing and turns away, leaving us wishing for more.
At the risk of tossing some guano in the punch bowl, it's hard to imagine DC Comics liking this as much as we did. The advertiser knows this, saying in the YouTube description: "Our Look-alike character is dressed in a custom 'fan-made' Costume, to resemble that of the film version. We are NOT affiliated with, DC comics or any other entertainment company or their affiliates. The music used is a 'fan-made karaoke' version to resemble that of the real version of the track. We are NOT affiliated to any music entity or label."
So, take a look at the most absurd minute of advertising you'll see today before it gets cleansed from the Internet.
This lunatic British ad admits dealing with life insurance can be "a bit of a nightmare." How much of a nightmare? It feels like having your nice bubble bath interrupted by a screaming pig-faced beast who sprays you with tap water and beans you with you own rubber ducky.
Frankly, the anti-bubble-bath sentiment expressed by that thing is offensive to me. Don't bath-shame, ugly.
Fortunately, the beast has some kind of heart attack or asthmatic seizure, and—well, just watch for yourself. I haven't exactly worked out the details, which is OK, because I don't think the agency creatives that made this hurt themselves thinking about them, either.
Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Beagle Street
Managing Director: Matthew Gledhill
Agency: The Corner London
Creative Director: Tom Ewart
Copywriter: Robert Amstell
Art Director: Matthew Lancod
Planning Director: Neil Hourston
Planner: Ollie Gilmore
Business Director: Fleur Andrews
Account Director: Tenzin Pooch
Agency Producer: Daisy Mellors
Assistant Producer: Lauren Gray
Media Company: MEC
Production Company: Colonel Blimp
Director: David Wilson
Production Company Producer: Sam Levene
Editor: Max Windows at Stitch
Postproduction House: Finish
Postproduction Producer: Fi Kilroe
Audio Postproduction: Sam Ashwell at 750mph
Twenty years from now, I'll be a silver-haired fox and speak with a British accent, judging from this "Future Self" campaign created by Publicis Conseil and Jam3 for European telecommunications giant Orange.
Upload a photo of yourself, and the software creates an interactive 3-D model of how you might look two decades hence. You can ask questions of your future self using your computer's microphone or keyboard.
Of course, these are canned responses, but most of the exchanges I sampled were amusing, and a few even felt kind of profound. When I inquired about my (his? our?) finances in 2034, Future Dave explained that money as I know it no longer exists, that it's been replaced by a system of commerce in which nobody feels short-changed.
The initiative marks Orange's 20th anniversary, and it's designed to position the marketer as hip and innovative with the millennial crowd. (Yeah, I'm sure the whole emphasis on aging will have exactly that effect.)
It's livelier than Merrill Edge's somewhat similar "Face Retirement" campaign, and more fun than this site, which emphasizes an aspect of the future I'd just as soon ignore.
Credits below.
CREDITS
—Orange
Deputy Director of Communications: Béatrice Mandine
Brand Director: Thierry Marigny
Head of Corporate Communications: Anne Imbert
Corporate Communications Manager: Joanna Gaumet
Corporate Communications Assistant: Charlie Lévêque
—Publicis Conseil
International Creative Director: Steve O’Leary
Copywriter: Méric Settembre
Art Director: Thomas Bernard
Worldwide Account Director: Cécile Lejeune
International Account Director: Guillaume Foskolos
International Account Executive: Laëtitia Mulinazzi
Digital Strategic Planner: Benoit Candelle
Creative Technologist: Julien Chaillou
Digital Consultant: Paula Petrucci
Special thanks: Benjamin Sanial, Isabelle Appé
—Digital production – Jam3
Creative Director: Adrian Belina
Executive Producer: Graham Budd
Producer: Sumit Awjani
—Video Production
Producers: Pierre Marcus, Thierry Delesalle (Prodigious)
Director of Photography: Joël Labat
Postproduction: Reepost
Sound Design Videos: Pink Factory
—Dialogues
Benjamin Euvrard, Ingrid Morley-Pegge, Benjamin Dumont, Charly de Witte, Romain Grandsire
—Sound Design: Apollo Studios
Executive Producer: Bénédicte Leclere
—Website: futureself.orange.com
—Media Plan: banners (Le Monde, YouTube, Le Bonbon, Orange.fr, Dailymotion, Deezer, Vice...)
Droga5 has won raves for its Newcastle Brown Ale work, which skewers beer-marketing clichés. Now, the agency is bringing a similar sensibility to another Heineken-owned brand: Strongbow Hard Apple Cider.
The new "Cider at Its Bestest" campaign shows how the drink is best poured over ice. It launches with the 60-second spot below, featuring an image that will be familiar to booze-ad watchers everywhere: a horse running in slow motion on a beach. (In fact, a Clydesdale did just that in the very first ad for Bud Light—then called Budweiser Light—in 1982.)
But this Strongbow horse—well, let's just say he's not your typical excessively slow-moving quadruped. And he won't elicit the typical (glazed-over) reaction from viewers, either.
"With cider brands trying to out-refresh each other, we went better than best, to bestest," John McKelvey, creative director of Droga5 said in a statement.
"The overall campaign explores the absurd notions of making the best even more desirable. In this case it meant enjoying a Strongbow with your horse that only runs in slow motion. That's the bestest," added creative director Hannes Ciatti.
An additional 15-second spot, "Three Sunsets," will debut later this fall. The campaign will include a mix of traditional and paid media, digital, PR and experiential marketing.
Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Strongbow, Heineken USA
Brand Director: Alejandra De Obeso
Global Marketing Manager: Olivier Darses
Senior Director, Portfolio Brands: Charles Van Es
Chief Marketing Officer: Nuno Teles
Agency: Droga5, New York
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Directors: John McKelvey, Hannes Ciatti
Copywriter: Molly Jamison
Art Director: Eric Dennis
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Verity Bullard
Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Digital Strategy Director: Dan Neumann
Group Account Director: Dan Gonda
Account Director: Nadia Malik
Production Company: Rattlingstick
Director: Hamish Rothwell
Director of Photography: Ben Seresin
Executive Producer: Joe Biggins
Producer: Sam Long
Editing: Workpost Editorial
Editor: Rich Orrick
Assistant Editor: Adam Witton
Executive Producer: Erica Thompson
Postproduction: The Mill
Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Producer: Alex Fitzgerald
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Flame Artist: Nathan Kane
Music: Human
Founding Partner: Marc Altshuler
Producer: Jonathan Sandford
Sound: Sonic Union
Studio Director: Justine Cortale
Producer: Pat Sullivan
Mix Engineer: Stephen Rosen
Remember the old basketball game HORSE? The one where you and a friend take turns trying to make baskets, and whoever doesn't make one gets a letter, and if you get enough letters and spell HORSE first, you lose? Or something like that?
Well, Foot Locker and BBDO New York recently invited people to play HORSE with Houston Rockets shooting guard James Harden, aka an actual NBA player.
Before you (rightfully) say, "Wow, that sounds like a terrible idea. Obviously the regular human is going to suffer an embarrassing loss," understand that Foot Locker has a very loose definition of the word "play." In this case, the game of HORSE did not involve two people actually interacting on a basketball court. Instead, people were asked to share videos of themselves making crazy shots (presumably after at least 100 failed attempts) using the hashtag #HorseWithHarden, which Harden would then try to replicate.
The actual "games," recapped in the YouTube video above, aren't especially riveting. What is riveting is watching Harden interact with the nameless hype man in the video who was apparently hired by Foot Locker to make loud noises and be a general annoyance to everyone. You'll remember the sound of his grating, high-pitched shout-squeals long after you remember why you were watching James Harden play HORSE in the first place.
You know that FX series You're the Worst that everyone seems to really like even though the promos looked terrible? That show is probably about this guy.
CREDITS
Client: Foot Locker
Title: "Horse with Harden"
Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Chris Beresford-Hill
Executive Creative Director: Dan Lucey
ACD/Art Director: Jesse Snyder
ACD/Copywriter: Tim Wassler
Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe
Associate Director of Digital Production: Joe Croson
Lead Producer: David Martinez
Shot Producer: Eric Bloom
Associate Producer: Courtney Fallow
Production Supervisor: Michael Gentile
Account Director: Janelle Van Wonderen
Account Manager: Nick Robbins
Assistant Account Executive: Samuel Henderson
Senior Digital Strategist: Rhys Hillman
Production Company: The Kitchen
Director: Lawrence Chen
Line Producer: Jonathan Hsu
Director of Photography: Tinx Chan
Live Broadcast Switcher: Marcus Taylor
Live Editor: Keith Vogelsong
Event Recap Video Editor: Nick Divers
Music: Apollo Studios
Specs
Who Co-founders and co-CEOs Mark McDonald (l.) and Josiah Humphrey
What App development company
Where Headquarters in Melbourne, Australia
Mark McDonald and Josiah Humphrey were barely teenagers when they went into business together selling SEO services, deepening their voices over the phone to sound older and more authoritative. It was the beginning of a beautiful millennial partnership. Three years ago, the duo—then 19 and 20, respectively—created Appster, a development company that has created apps for Jägermeister and Coca-Cola and now has a staff of more than 100 people in three countries. “We want to be a development hub for the greatest ideas in the world,” Humphrey said. For startup client Bluedot Innovation, Appster created a geo-location payment platform accurate up to two meters from the source. Nine months later, Bluedot is valued at $7.5 million. And Appster itself is projected to hit $100 million in annual revenue in the next four years—not bad for a couple of twentysomethings.
How can a brand get that coveted millennial nod? It's all about talking to them in their own language.
"Ever since youth culture became a defined concept, marketers have been using the unique values of youth as an ‘in’ to young consumers,” according to a study from Havas. But in the 1950s and ‘60s, that essentially meant being against authority and the establishment. But that, the study says, is no longer true of the younger generation. Millennials “have less of an interest in rebellion and revolution” and tend more toward problem-solving, the study notes.
They also have a different relationship with their products and the brands that create them, said Norty Cohen, founder and CEO of agency Moosylvania. “This is a group that will adopt brands,” he said. “If you can create a friendship with these consumers, you really take it to the next level. They will go to great lengths to support you.”
In its study, Hashtag Nation, Havas notes that this loyalty aspect is very good news for marketers: “Today’s youth are significantly more apt than their elders to recognize—and value—the role brands play in their lives.” But this can be a tricky relationship to maintain, the study notes, as 40 percent of respondents ages 16-24 complain that brands don’t take them seriously enough.
“Brands also need to recognize that they’re now dealing with a generation of consumers who are much savvier than their parents were at that age,” the study concluded. “Young people have an innate understanding of marketing and of their value as consumers. And they’re significantly more likely than older generations to believe they have the capacity to help a brand succeed or fail. And why would they think that? Virtually every day they see some evidence of the power of ordinary people to effect change, whether it’s using Twitter to foment a rebellion in the Middle East or using social media to compel a company to behave better.”
In its 2015 study, Moosylvania benchmarked qualitatively what brand characteristics mean the most to millennials.
Initially, Moosylvania's Cohen said, marketing “was all based on sort of this militaristic approach: Here is your target, blitz them with media. And now what we’re finding is they don’t want to be blitzed. … The tonality has to be in the zone of what’s on this page making people look good, keeping them entertained,” he said. “It’s all about this friendship piece.”
And how can marketers move into the friend zone? “There’s a lot of personal interaction with this demo. They’re going to look at any kind of social endorsement. TV still has a place, as do magazines.” And, he said, millennials love experiences, whether they’re in-store or app-based or video or experiential.
Innovation in this space is helping some new names into Moosylvania’s top 50 millennial brands for 2015. Macy’s was one of them. “Macy’s is doing all sorts of predictive analytics,” Cohen said, adding that Ralph Lauren is doing same. He added that their marketing is “very personalized and about making you look better, making you feel better.”
The Yahoo/DigitasLBi/Razorfish/Tumblr study included a list of tips for content marketers trying to reach this dream demo:
Robert Senior doesn’t like to dwell on the past, yet many of the challenges he’ll face as Saatchi & Saatchi’s next global CEO date back several years.
The churn in the New York office’s top ranks, for example, began in 2010 and continued this year. Likewise, the shop’s shortcomings in big pitches has recurred since 2009. Inconsistency in the agency’s reel is another chronic problem, though certainly that’s common among most global shops.
In his first interview since Publicis Groupe named him to succeed Kevin Roberts starting Jan. 1, Senior acknowledged those hurdles and said he was prepared to make changes when the time was right. “The market has changed visibly, palpably in the last 12 to 15 months,” Senior said. “So, you’ve got to remain nimble, you’ve got to remain agile in your mind. What was it that General Eisenhower said? ‘Plans are useless. Planning is everything.’”
There’s a lot to process: Saatchi New York has had three CEOs in two years (Mary Baglivo, Durk Barnhill, Brent Smart) and three creative chiefs in the past four (Gerry Graf, Con Williamson, Jay Benjamin), though Baglivo and Graf served eight and two years, respectively. And since last year, brands that collectively spend $240 million in media annually—Miller Lite, Pillsbury, Kool-Aid, Capri Sun—have left, though Saatchi added a significant client in Walmart. (Other wins included Charter Communications, Tecate and Vita Coco.)
This year, the shop also pitched two big accounts: Procter & Gamble’s Duracell and Microsoft (with several sister shops) but in each case failed to close. Same goes for Pizza Hut last year and in 2009. The New York leadership turnover may have been a factor.
“To win new business on a consistent basis takes a cohesive leadership team and I’m not sure they have it,” said marketing consultant Avi Dan.
When asked about the turnover, Senior said that it reflected the high expectations that global leaders have for New York and their willingness to change course when results don’t materialize. He also praised current business and creative chiefs Smart and Benjamin, both of whom he had a hand in selecting.
As for client erosion, Senior turned philosophical. ““I don’t want to spend any time or energy drawing up faux theories about the past,” he said. “I would sooner stare at the future through the lens of realistic optimism and belief, work with like-minded people and see what we can do together.”
When it comes to popularity, notably among millennial consumers, golf has gone from scoring birdies to tallying triple bogeys over the last decade, driven home by NBC earning the worst overnight ratings ever for its recent Ryder Cup broadcast.
Many lay the blame on the flameout of golf’s former golden boy Tiger Woods. But it’s not just television broadcasts that young adults are tuning out—they aren’t hitting the links themselves, either.
Dick’s Sporting Goods has blamed golf’s millennial problem for lagging sales. Meanwhile, brands are working to appeal to millennials. Golf Digest did a redesign, putting celebrities with youth appeal like Jimmy Fallon on the cover. And G/Fore has put a sexy spin on golf apparel.
Might digital media be in a position to save golf from an indifferent Gen Y, which sees the pastime as too slow, too difficult and too expensive?
Over the coming winter, the Professional Golf Association will try to flip the script, overhauling its Web properties while taking a hard look at its digital game overall.
“We can’t hide from millennials not playing the game as much as they could,” said Kevin Ring, CMO of the PGA. “We have to find ways of growing and evolving our social channels and digital platforms. We are in the middle of a transformational moment.”
The association points to emerging young stars like Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler—with social media followings in the millions—as marketing assets. The PGA could use a social boost. The association has only 155,000 followers on Instagram. This compared to Major League Baseball, which, even with Gen Y issues of its own, boasts 1.2 million.
Ring aims to make the sport more tech-savvy, implementing promotions like one this past summer during the PGA Championship that let fans decide online where pin placements were. But the marketing chief admitted he is still searching for the answer.
“Is it Instagram? What new digital thing haven’t we thought of yet to engage millennials with the game of golf where they feel it’s authentic and where their friends are getting involved in it?” he said.
Liz Eswein, executive director of social agency Laundry Service, suggested that golf courses themselves are a natural for share-worthy photos via social media. “They need to hit on the passion points,” she explained. “They’ve got to figure out how to tell a story about these [young adults] that connects emotionally.”
Matt Rednor, creative agency MRY’s chief innovation officer, had some far more radical advice. “They need to digitize the course,” said Rednor. “Maybe lights go up so you can see the putting line to help you make it. The clubs could show you how to swing better, so it’s like there’s a coach with you.”
But does a centuries-old sport really require a tech-centric makeover to survive in a digital age?
“Gorgeous advertising isn’t going to fix the brand—it’s just going to cover the blemishes,” said Thomas O’Grady, chief creative officer at Gameplan Creative.
After the spring thaw, it will be worth keeping an eye on whether the embattled sport can get itself out of this sand trap.
Said Ring: “We have to stay up to speed with what’s going on—if not one step ahead of what everyone else is doing.”
Once again, Apple is the butt of Samsung's jokes. This time literally.
Does the iPhone 6 have a tendency to bend in your back pocket when you sit down? Would the Internet lie about such a thing? Samsung gleefully embraces the "Bendgate" scandal in this two-minute video, "Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Endures the Gluteus Maximus," which delivers exactly what the title says. You'll marvel, or not, as the Samsung phone survives stress tests set to a techno beat. Robotic buttocks, sporting blue jeans (of course!) and equal to the weight of a 200-pound human being, pose the biggest challenge, smooshing the handset repeatedly.
One day, when the machines rise up against their masters, this denim-clad butt-bot will crush us all!
The clip has more than 2 million views on YouTube, and its entertainment factor is awfully high. Though, as other commenters have noted, the only thing this demonstration proves is that Samsung continues to define itself largely in relation to Apple, slinging mud and hoping it'll stick to the rival brand.
I'm pretty flexible, but after a while, that strategy gets to be a bummer.
Feeling a little down? Don't worry. Ikea's new piece of furniture thinks you're amazing.
The Swedish retailer has introduced a prototype of a mirror in Britain that looks you up and down and (thanks to Kinect technology and some "complex coding") gives you a robo-compliment, which people appear to be as thrilled to receive as the real thing.
This "Motivational Mirror" is based on scientific information, commissioned by the retailer itself, which found:
• 49% of Brits receive no compliments in an average week.
• 43.6 million people in the U.K. are self-critical of their appearance.
• 33% of the nation feel they look their worst before 9 a.m. on a Monday morning.
But this mirror tries to fix all that.
Ikea also did research into which specific compliments people would like to hear. Among the top choices were "Your eyes are mesmerizing," "Have you been working out?" and "Your skin is glowing"—all of which are incorporated into this mirror's uplifting robo-repertoire.
The retailer demo-ed the mirror in its Wembley store to "raise awareness of how simple solutions in the home can make our daily routines better," according to a statement.
"We all know how that first look in the bathroom or bedroom mirror can determine whether we have a good or bad day," says Myriam Ruffo, head of bedrooms and bathrooms at Ikea U.K. and Ireland. "That's why we thought—wouldn't it be great if the mirror actually told you something positive for a change!
It is a little funny that Ikea is trying to jump into Dove territory. (And yes, the inspirational talking mirror idea has been done before—most notably by the all-female Austin band The Mrs., but also by other marketers.) Still, no real harm done, I suppose?
Just as long as they don't mass produce this thing. (Worst actual bedroom mirror ever.)
You're asking for trouble if you visit a ouija board reader. But these poor Brooklynites got even more than they bargained for.
Thinkmodo, the agency behind the Carrie and Devil's Due virals, returns with its latest sadistic horror-movie stunt, using a fearsome combination of terror—remote-controlled planchette, dead person under the floorboards, woman who can pop her eyes out of her skull—to psychically torment some innocent folks.
The reactions are priceless, and of course that's what these videos are all about.
Via Unruly.
You're familiar with the joke at this point. Someone is super hungry, turns into a celebrity, eats a Snickers and goes back to being a normal person. Punch line: "You're not you when you're hungry."
Now, though, London agency AMV BBDO has made perhaps the best ads yet in the global Snickers campaign, by tapping one of Britain's most beloved wonky comedians, Rowan Atkinson, better known as Mr. Bean, as the celeb.
If you're unfamiliar with the work of Mr. Bean, well, first of all, shame on you. But in fact, these hilarious spots might actually serve as a suitable intro to the absurdist comedian's work. Watch below as the awkwardest man alive tests his mettle as a ninja.
Needless to say, his ninja friends don't like him when he's hungry.
CREDITS
Client: Snickers
Agency: AMV BBDO, London
Executive Creative Directors: Adrian Rossi, Alex Grieve
Copywriter: Richard McGrann
Art Director: Andy Clough
Agency Planner: Will Whalley
Agency Account Team: Katy Davis, Dhane Scotti, Chloe Harding, Anna Ohrling
TV Producers: Rebecca Scharf, Nikki Holbrow
Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Daniel Kleinman
Production Company Producer: Johnnie Frankel
Postproduction: Jungle
Chief Sound Engineer: Owen Griffiths
Film Editor: Eve Ashwell, Cut and Run
Media Planning: Mediacom
Media Planner: Amanda Zafiris
Media Buying: ZenithOptimedia
IDEA: Vanguard Pictures won plenty of fans with its first two, unbranded Nitro Warriors films—see them here and here—exquisitely made stop-motion shorts that showed toy cars in wonderfully frenetic car chases. Among them was Mattel's Hot Wheels brand itself, which loved the way the films showed off its miniature vehicles.
So, Hot Wheels officially got on board with the just-released third installment, Nitro Warriors: Dare to Connect—a wild three-minute film that follows two Hot Wheels cars careening on the brand's iconic orange tracks through fantastical alien landscapes.
COPYWRITING: Vanguard's Paul Greer wrote and directed the new film. "I drafted the original concept, inspired by Hot Wheels TrackBuilder, showcasing the limitless possibilities of a boy's imagination through play," he said. "This served as the general vision and then translated into a storyboard. Every shot was outlined."
The film opens with two Hot Wheels cars self-generating from mystical glowing balls guarded by a roaring dinosaur head (the epic imagery isn't exactly subtle) and zipping off for the world's craziest ride.
They race through mountains and deserts; into and out of a raceway oval with three tiers of Hot Wheels cars watching as spectators; into the clouds, though a heavenly loop, down again and over to a high-rise building, rippling with electricity, where a winged gargoyle breathes out another mystical ball, which ends up being the finish line.
There's no explicit Hot Wheels messaging beyond the logo, which appears at the beginning and the end, and of course the cars themselves.
FILMING/ART DIRECTION: It took Greer six months to produce the film, including two and a half months of actual filming at a rate of one to three shots per day at a studio in London. (Each shot in a stop-motion film can involve between 50 and 250 actual photographs. There are more than 25,000 photos in this piece.)
Almost everything was filmed in camera; CGI was used mostly to "paint out" rigs that held the Hot Wheels tracks in place.
The visual look, helped by the surreal matte-painting backgrounds, is "dreamlike—half real, half fantastic," said Greer. He used neodymium magnets in the cars and flat metal rods in the track to keep the cars in place in shots where they're upside down. The camera also moves in more than two-thirds of the shots.
"We had reconstruct traditional camera rigs and developed remote speed controls to help us maintain perfect control. A lot of stop motion films automate this. We don't, as we want to have manual control," Greer said. "The human element adds something special, the slight imperfection. We also wanted the camera movement to be as graceful as a Hollywood movie. To do this, we hired a physicist to help us develop this work."
The Hot Wheels cars featured are all 2014 models. "It was like Christmas Day when we had over 500 cars and countless track sets arrive at the studio," said Greer. "Suffice to say we didn't do any work that day."
SOUND: The music is by Audiomachine, which often does music for film trailers. Sound design was also crucial, particularly the sound of screaming engines. "I wanted it to feel real and not 'mini,' with a sci-fi edge," Greer said.
MEDIA: This film is being released on Hot Wheels' and Vanguard Pictures' online channels and will be entered in a series of film festivals.
THE FILM:
BEHIND THE SCENES:
CREDITS
Client: Hot Wheels
Writer/Director: Paul Greer
Production Company: Vanguard Pictures
Animation: Allan Canfield, Brenden Kent, David Smith
Lead Animator/Assistant Director: Victoria Smith
Technical Engineering: David Smith
Miniatures & Modeling: Geoff Cartwright
3D Sculpture Designer: Ian Pickering
Sculpture Paint Finishing: Tom Gaw
3D Print Services: 3DPrintUK
Set Design: Elena Lanzoni, Abby Louise Price
Design Assistants: Louise Fairnie, Allan Canfield, Victoria Smith
Visual Effects: Composite London (Janusz Murawski, James Knopp, Jonson Jewell)
Digital Matte Painter: Lisa Ayla
Visual Effects Supervisor: Andy T
Sound Design: Peter Rolls
Music: Audiomachine
Jack Link's Beef Jerky likes to make mischief, but it has a serious side, too.
Take, for example, this new faux-oil portrait of Sasquatch, the brand's longtime mascot. Instead of chucking obnoxious millennials into mud piles—as he does in much of the brand's advertising—he's sitting in a plush chair, wearing a three-piece suit.
Carmichael Lynch got artist Jason Seiler to create what it calls a "digital painting" to celebrate the agency's (and sister PR shop Spong's) 10 years of working for Jack Link's. It's the picture of dignity, too, except for the fact that Bigfoot is still badly in need of a haircut—that is to say, he still looks like the byproduct of a drunken one-night stand between a Klingon and a Wookie.
Still, the fruitful relationship between Jack Link's and Carmichael Lynch has included the familiar "Messin' With Sasquatch" campaign, where salty beef snacks drive teens and 20-somethings to brazenly (some might say, stupidly) play pranks on a testy yeti. It's also produced, more recently, the brand's "Hangry" effort, which charmingly imagines vicious animals that exist inside any person who hasn't had enough beef snacks.
Social Media Profile (as of 10/7/14)
Facebook Likes: 1.56 million
Twitter Followers: 17,200
Instagram Followers: 2,235
Unsurprisingly, Jack Link's irreverent "Feed Your Wild Side" platform aims to attract 18- to 49-year-old dudes, and the brand has been expanding its sponsorship slate to help reach that target. Now, Jack Link's sponsors the Seattle Mariners, which this year joined the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Red Wings on the brand's roster. It has also partnered with the Boy Scouts and GoPro, and tied Sasquatch into college sports with a campaign around the Big Ten conference.
Last year, it showed up at Comic-Con, backing Seth Meyers' Hulu cartoon The Awesomes, and since 2012 it has served as the title sponsor for a show on the Outdoor Channel called Jack Link's Major League Fishing. Because what better way to pass the time while waiting for a catch than to gnaw on jerky?
The company's recent market blitz extends beyond just branding, though. Based in Minong, Wis., Jack Link's in early 2014 announced plans to buy Unilever's meat-snack business in Europe (where it may soon be doing more in-store cardboard cutouts of women wearing nothing but bags of beef jerky).
Founded in 1986, Jack Link's has since become the best-selling beef jerky around the world. And while absurd and amusing advertising like beef-jerky mosaics of President Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 election has helped drive that success in the U.S., by far the brand's most impressive effort came in 2013, when it air-dropped thousands of packets of beef jerky over a baseball complex in Nebraska—crossing the line from public relations into true public service.
Now, someone please get Sasquatch a razor.
Fast Facts
• Jack Link's makes 100 different kinds of meat snacks, sold in 40 countries.
• Meat snacks are a $2 billion industry in America.
• Jack Link's is the official protein snack of the Boy Scouts of America.
• For true connoisseurs, Jack Link's makes small-batch, "handcrafted" beef jerky.
• For 2014's Beef Jerky Day on June 12, the brand created "Meat Rushmore," a 13-by-17-foot Mount Rushmore in New York's Columbus Circle.
• For the man who has everything: A Jack Link's "Adventure Pack" comes with nine meat snacks, a hat, sunglasses and a Sasquatch bumper sticker.
• Jack Link's jerky-making process dates to the 1880s, when Chris Links came to Wisconsin from the "old country" and brought his sausage recipes.
Americans sure have some interesting regional accents. Whether you're from New York, Baltimore, Philly, Chicago, Houston—dialects are fascinating, ya know?
So, there's this character on YouTube named Pittsburgh Dad, who's been starring in his own Web sitcom since 2011, in which he mostly sits in front of a camera and watches his terrible sports team lose or The Price Is Right. His comedy hinges on his Pittsburgh accent almost as the punch line itself, which we're sure is funny to someone.
So, now Pittsburgh Dad is promoting a local beverage brand, Turner's Iced Tea. He's done a 30-second spot, but really, it's the extended cut below where you get to enjoy his Pittsburghese in all its glory. So, Pittsburghers, is this guy actually funny or not?
You'll laugh! You'll cry! You may cringe a bit, too.
Barton F. Graf 9000's first campaign for Tomcat mouse-killing bait takes an off-off-off-Broadway approach with the introduction of "Dead Mouse Theatre." Essentially, it's a pair of hands manipulating a couple of fake mice with X's for eyes. Add some funny character voices and some atonal singing, and you've got some pretty amusing ads.
Rather than emphasize the kill, the mini-plays find entertainment value in the dead critters themselves, answering a teaser question from a perky male announcer at the beginning of each ad: "What will we do with all these dead mice?"
At their best, these ads feel like a cross between two old Saturday Night Live staples: The Mr. Bill Show and Leonard Pinth-Garnell's Bad Conceptual Theater. At their worst? Well, fringe theater still beats typical rodent-killer advertising. Oh, there's also this Tumblr page.
The tagline, enhanced in the ads by a cat screech, is, "Tomcat. Engineered to kill."
CREDITS
Client: Tomcat (The Scotts Miracle Grow Co.)
Agency: Barton F. Graf 9000, New York
Chief Creative Officer/Founder: Gerry Graf
Executive Creative Directors/Partners: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal
Art Directors: Jerome Marucci, Ross Fletcher
Copywriters: Steve McElligott, Nick Kaplan, Mark Bielik
Head of Integrated Production: Josh Morse
Producer: Cameron Farrell
Senior Strategist: Deepa Sen
Account Director: Jennifer Richardi
Account Supervisor: Kimmy Cunningham
Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Ringan Ledwidge
Executive Producer: Joe Biggins
Producer: Patrick Bailey
DOP: Ray Coates
Costume Designer: Rosa Dias
Production Designer: Simon Davis
Set Designers: Nigel Howlett, Nick Abbott
Puppeteer: Andy Heath
Editorial: Work Editorial Inc.
Editor: Mark Edinoff
Executive Producer: Erica Thompson
Senior Producer: Sari Resnick
Assistant Editor: Adam Witten
Finishing: The Mill
VFX Producer: Rachel Trillo
Telecine: Fergus McCall, Mikey Rossiter
2D Leads: Chris Sonia, Keith Sullivan
2D Assists: Emily Bloom, Molly Intersimone, Anne Trotman, Antoine Douadi, Dae Yoon Kang, Liz Berndt
3D Animation: Aran Quinn
Audio: Heard City
Audio Engineers: Philip Loeb, Evan Mangiamele
Music: Butter
Droga5 was just 2 years old in 2008, with nothing like the profile it has now, when it teamed up with Sarah Silverman for "The Great Schlep," encouraging Jews to visit their grandparents in Florida and get them to vote for Barack Obama.
"The Great Schlep" won millions of views along with a slew of ad awards. (Talking to Adweek earlier this year, Silverman called the reaction to it "a big beautiful surprise.") Now, she and the New York agency have reunited for another hilarious political campaign, the "Equal Payback Project," aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women.
The project, benefiting the National Women's Law Center, which advocates for equal pay, is essentially a giant fundraiser, with a ludicrously lofty goal of raising almost $30 trillion—a figure calculated by multiplying the 69 million working women by the amount ($435,049) each one stands to lose, on average, to the wage gap over the course of her career.
Silverman explains the project in the amusing video below. But then, realizing that goal is unlikely to be met, she embarks on an even more drastic plan to get the money she deserves.
Video is probably NSFW due to lots of fake male genitalia.
"It's insane that equal pay is still something we're fighting for in 2014," says Karen Short, creative director at Droga5. "More than 50 years have passed since the Equal Pay Act, and the typical woman is still making only 78 cents to a man's dollar. We want to breathe new life into an old issue still relevant to the modern working women. It's a wake-up call for us to take charge of our financial fates."
"Equal pay may not be a sexy issue, but it's an important one," says Casey Rand, Droga5 creative director. "And it is absurd. Young women need to know what's at stake. And we knew that to get them to engage, we'd need to play up that absurdity."
The video points to EqualPaybackProject.com, which goes live today and will collect donations through the end of the month. It's powered by Tilt, a crowdfunding platform, and was funded by The Ipsos Girls' Lounge.
The idea and original script for the video came from the creatives at Droga5; Silverman worked on the script, too, after signing up for the project.
"The wage gap is stubborn, it's persistent and it's outrageous," says NWLC co-president Marcia D. Greenberger. "We're thrilled that Sarah Silverman is bringing her prodigious talents and brand of irreverent humor to bear on a very serious issue for women and their families. We hope she opens hearts and minds—and a few pocketbooks—to provide the resources to close the wage gap once and for all."
See some infographics and posters from the campaign, along with credits, below. And check out our Q&A with Silverman from earlier this year on the joys and terrors of politically charged advertising.
CREDITS
Client: National Women's Law Center
Campaign: Equal Payback Project
Agency: Droga5
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Vice Chairman: Andrew Essex
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Directors: Casey Rand, Karen Land Short
Art Director: Sean Park
Head of Integrated Production: Sally-Ann Dale
Senior Producer: Anders Hedberg
Broadcast Producer: Bill Berg
Executive Technology Director: David Justus
Senior Interactive Producer: Laura Bruskin
Interactive Developer: Phillip Pastore
Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy
Communications Strategist: William deLanoy
Head of Accounts, General Manager: Susie Nam
Account Director: Amanda Chandler
Account Manager: Belle Bonar
Associate Account Manager: Jonathan Weiss
Co-Writer/Comedian: Sarah Silverman
Production Company: JASH
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Director of Photography: Jonathan Hall
Executive Producers: Daniel Kellison, Doug DeLuca, Mickey Meyers
Producer: Nicholas Veneroso
Associate Producers: Chelsea Gonnering, Skyer Predergast
Editing, Postproduction: Droga5 Studios
Editor: Matt Badger
Crowdfunding campaign powered by: Tilt
Music: Jingle Punk
