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Man 'Cleans His Lenses' in Public in Marc Jacobs Ad

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Dude, cut that out. Right now. It's unseemly, wrong and so very public. And as any purveyor of fine eyewear will tell you, wiping your sunglasses on your shirt is just plain dumb. You'll scratch the lenses and, in this case, make an overpriced designer product completely unwearable. Flannel as a shammy? No, no, no! So, that's one of the things that's wrong with this ad for Marc Jacobs sunglasses starring a rakishly handsome young man. The other? Well, there's the simulated public jerking off part. According to The Cut blog, the "lens polisher" is a Marc Jacobs employee from the SoHo store in New York. Hope he got a proper cleaning cloth along with a bonus.


Portrait: Cornerstone

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Specs

Who Co-CEOs Jon Cohen (l.) and Rob Stone
What Marketing and PR agency
Where New York offices

When it comes to mixing music with marketing, Cornerstone may be king. This summer it created the Pepsi NFL Anthems campaign, getting stars like Kelly Clarkson and Kid Rock to write hometown stadium songs for pro football teams like the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions. Founded in 1996 by former Arista exec Rob Stone, the agency employs 100 people with clients like Bushmills, Converse and Microsoft. Its growth was fueled in part by what’s-next music magazine The Fader, which Stone started with co-CEO and Columbia veteran Jon Cohen in 1998. “The Fader’s editorial mission really helps keep us in the know,” said Cohen. 

Samsung Gets Overly Attached Girlfriend to Play a Possessive PC

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It. Does. Not. Compute. Or does it?

Laina Morris, who became an overnight sensation with the Overly Attached Girlfriend video she made for Justin Bieber, stares wide-eyed and creepy from your screen and raps as an "Overly Attached Computer" in this Viral Factory ad for Samsung's SSD 840 drive, designed to encrypt and protect user data.

In her earlier song, Morris promised/threatened, among other things, "If I was your girlfriend, I'd drive you up the wall/Question who you're with, yeah I'd always call and call/I wouldn't call it jealousy, just lookin' out for you/Readin' all your texts, watching everything you do." Ah, true love. Here, Morris plays a possessive PC that knows all its user's secrets—naughty Web-search history, passwords, bank-account numbers—and has no qualms about letting such info leak or erasing crucial data if it doesn't get enough user attention. She drones: "Remember all those things we shared?/Illegal downloads, I didn't care/I kept them safely for you/Played them when you asked me to/I'd hate to see you get all heated/If suddenly they got deleted/Love me again … Love me again." With that attitude, she must be a Dell. Mac's don't play that.

With nearly 1.8 million YouTube views in four days, the clip has clearly gone viral, which isn't so surprising given Morris' (spurious and fleeting) celebrity, but pretty darn good for a niche product and audience. Some detractors are whining about her "selling out" (like they wish they could, no doubt) or that the ad is confusing, which it is, initially, as the pitch doesn't come until the end, but makes sense once you get there. What I find especially savvy about the meme is its retro vibe. Note the old-style music store and vinyl records that pop into view as Morris drones on about "illegal downloads." And the lyrics appear in a font considered techie-futuristic in a bygone era. It all harkens back to a time when folks actually worried about the over-mechanization of society and feared we'd all one day be enslaved by digital boxes that would make us do their bidding. Thank goodness that never happened! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to buy an SSD and gas dusters for the precious. I'll be shopping online, naturally.

Ad of the Day: Morrisons

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Christmas is a lot of work. For those brave souls whose job it is to decorate the house, trim the tree, send the cards, stuff the stockings, wrap the presents and cook the meal, pulling off a successful Christmas once a year can seem like a nearly impossible task—a feeling that U.K. supermarket chain Morrisons perfectly encapsulates in its new spot, "For Your Christmas," by London agency DLKW Lowe.

In a country that takes its Christmas ads seriously, this is one of the year's stronger contenders so far. You know how when you finally manage to set up the tree, it seems like all the needles suddenly fall off? Or how cooking a turkey can turn into a wrestling match? And you've somehow invited 100 people over for Christmas dinner? On top of which, you've got 20 pots on the stove and your mother-in-law is literally incapable of finding the spice cabinet? All of these things—usually an exasperated exaggeration of the truth—become real (or rather, surreal) for one British mum. Her Christmas is a lesson in Murphy's Law, where the needles really do fall, the line of people expecting to be fed actually does go around the block, and the Christmas turkey is legitimately pugnacious.

But on Christmas Day, as she looks at her family around the dining room table, enjoying their holiday meal, the mother's look of panic slowly turns to a smile. And come next year, it'll be that moment—the flash of clarity that maybe, just maybe, it was worth going nearly insane for this little bit of joy—that she'll remember.

And then she'll start the battle all over again.



CREDITS
Client: Morrisons
Agency: DLKW Lowe
ECDs: Richard Denney, Dave Henderson
CDs: Dave Henderson, Richard Denney, Tom Hudson
Creatives: Matt Lever, Helen Rhodes
Producer: Abbi Tarrant
Production Co.: Academy
Director: Si & Ad
Producer: Lucy Gossage
Editing House: Final Cut
Editor: Joe Guest
Flame Artist: Jason Watts
Post-Production: Finish
Producer: Justine White

Greg Jennings Is Going Nowhere in His Latest Old Spice Ad

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Old Spice feels more like Skittles in this latest "Believe in your smellf" spot from Wieden + Kennedy for the brand's Champion line. This time, speedy Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings isn't going anywhere for a while—he's stuck, body parts all over, in a block of cement. Whether this is a metaphor for writer's block or what is unclear. See another new :15 after the jump.

Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan Lead Gap's Love-Themed Holiday Ads

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Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan represent "true love" in a holiday print ad for Gap, part of the retailer's "Love Comes in Every Shade" campaign via Peterson Milla Hooks in Minneapolis. Musician Rufus Wainwright and artistic director Jörn Weisbrodt represent "married love." In a video, rapper Nas and his dad, blues musician Olu Dara, stand for "fatherly love." According to the client, "This campaign celebrates these diverse, optimistic views on family and the many forms love can take." That's laudably inclusive, though I initially wondered if the social message isn't somewhat diluted by other elements, like happy-happy quick-cuts of fireworks, babies, puppies and, naturally, all that colorful winter clothing for sale at Gap. It's a breezy take on a serious subject, a softer sell than similar campaigns by JCPenney. Ultimately, I think Gap's easy fusion of topical issues with instantly familiar sales imagery is a virtue that helps it make a point without seeming preachy. A loose, casual fit is almost always the most comfortable. More print ads below.

Rufus Wainwright and Jörn Weisbrodt

Nas and Olu Dara

The New Normal

The Atomics

Orso and Jack Huston

Haley Bennett, Thomas Keeling, and Lani Bennett

Gia Coppola and Nathalie Love

Diana Garcia and Gregory Rogove

Aubrey Plaza

Snoop's Druggy Pistachios Ad Drives the Networks Nuts

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Having your latest commercial in a long-running campaign dubbed "too hot for network TV" can only be a good thing. So, congrats to Paramount Farms' Wonderful Pistachios for its cheeky collaboration with the artist and stoner formerly known as Snoop Dogg. (He's Snoop Lion now, right? Or does he revert to the prior mammal for product endorsements?) True to form, the smooth West Coast rapper sits on a throne, taps nuts into his hand from a medicine bottle and cracks them "habitually" in the new spot. Broadcast censors didn't cotton to the overt drug reference, even if it came with a prescription, and turned down the ad. It's airing on cable and online instead. Snoop joins a long line of D-listers like Snooki, Khloe Kardashian and the Winklevoss twins who've hawked pistachios under the "Get crackin'" tagline. At least he was high while he did it (just guessing here) and probably appreciated the snacks. Aside from this spot, the marketer has been busy lately on the digital front, launching a contest on Twitter offering a $10,000 prize for unscrambling a 140-character video puzzle and a Google-themed ad that found 73,600 search results for "how to crack a pistachio." Part of the fun with this campaign is waiting to see what pop-culture or news reference comes up next. Paula Broadwell? Too soon?

Insult Your Co-workers This Holiday With the Perfect Gift From HBO

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Box sets of HBO programs are probably a little pricey as gifts for co-workers. But if you've got the extra cash, they can make the perfect passive-aggressive presents. That's according to BBDO's new holiday spot for the pay-cable network. What better way to say "You're a backstabbing slut" this season? Lena Dunham dodged a bullet here. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: HBO
Title: "Office Gift Exchange"

Agency: BBDO, New York
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars
Executive Creative Directors: Greg Hahn, Mike Smith
Producer: Diane McCann
Copywriter: Jessica Coulter
Art Director: Matt Sorrell
Executive Music Producer: Melissa Chester
Senior Account Director: Tara DeVeaux
Account Lead: Leland Candler
Account Manager: Christina Liu

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Tim Godsall
Executive Producer / Managing Director: Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Producer: Rick Jarjoura
DP: Darko Suvak
Production Designer: Bruce McCloskey

Music House: Stock
Editing House: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Carlos Arias


Corcoran Will Find You the Perfect Luxury Home, If You're a Dog

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Corcoran is the real-estate broker for dogs. Not just any dogs, mind you. Dogs with taste. Upper East Side dogs like Marcel who have summer places in the Hamptons. Marcel likes a good shiatsu. Also a good Shih Tzu. But that's a different matter altogether. Marcel doesn't discuss such things. Too much class, Marcel. He was friends with Trouble Helmsley, you know. Met her one sunny day in Carl Schurz Park. Not the dog run. Too much class for that, Trouble. Out front of Gracie Mansion. Very pleasant afternoon, that was. Shame about Trouble, really. C'est la vie, though. The important thing to remember is, Marcel recommends Corcoran. For dogs with taste. This is Corcoran's first TV commercial. It will run on NY1 and Fox. The casting is perfect.

'70s Ad Hinted That Twinkies Were Not of This World

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Hostess, which is going out of business after a crippling strike, had a proud history of weird ads, particularly back in the 1970s. This one for Twinkies is a classic. Note the ongoing fascination with the space age; the spot's casual sexism; and the implication that Twinkies could probably survive, more or less still edible, a trip across the yawning chasm of space. Twinkies ads stayed weird up through this summer, when Olympic-timed ads from Bernstein-Rein characterized them as the choice of the world's worst athletes. It's a shame Twinkies are going away, but actually, they'll be with us for another 88 years. In 1999, Bill Clinton included some Twinkies in a millennium time capsule that's due to be opened in 2100.

Ad of the Day: Scrabble

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Gimme a P! Gimme a Q! Gimme a blank square!

What's that spell?

Nothing. It spells nothing at all. You're useless. If you had an I, you could spell "quip," but that's it. And you don't. You have to sit there and miss a turn while everybody else spells words with X's and J's that you swear aren't in the dictionary. You just sit there, hating your letters.

Did you ever think about how that makes them feel?

P, predictably, seems pretty nice, although she does say "I'm P!" at the end in a way that makes my inner 6-year-old giggle, the way he used to when asked to spell "icup." Q, unsurprisingly, has low self-esteem, but the spot featuring the little guy is a great boon to pedants like myself, who are forever telling their siblings (who are all getting a link to this blog post, believe you me) that "qi" is so a word.

Easily the best of these 30-second spots is "Blank," which makes everyone's favorite square out to be a huge Donald Trump-level jackass, owner of everything everywhere and the life of all the parties. That's totally what he'd be like, amirite?

San Francisco's Pereira & O'Dell got the Mattel games account earlier this year. (Though Hasbro markets the game in the U.S., Mattel does so abroad. These branding spots will break this month in France, Latin America, Spain, Germany and Mexico.) The agency has been doing good things for the kids market—notably some really, really fun stop-motion spots for Lego's DC Super Heroes line—and it's interesting to see them give wildly different personalities to the each Scrabble letter's advertisement. You have to dig a little bit to find the humor in the P ad (unless you're 6, of course), making it probably the weakest of the bunch. But the running theme of letter-people making interesting words mostly by accident is a nice way to realize the brand's aspirational, we-promise-your-family-won't-end-up-arguing-this-time strategy.

For a real challenge, let's see what Mayfair Games can come up with to promote my family's notorious fight-starter, Settlers of Catan. Proposed tagline: "The murder should look like a robbery."







CREDITS
Client: Mattel
Vice President, Games Marketing: Nick Karamanos
Global Marketing Director: Elizabeth Grampp
Senior Marketing Manager: Rebecca Cottrell 
Marketing Manager: David Schwartz
Associate Marketing Manager: Blake Knight
 
Agency: Pereira & O'Dell
Chief Creative Officer: P.J. Pereira
Executive Creative Director: Jaime Robinson
Creative Directors: Aricio Fortes, Paulo Coelho
Art Director: Keli Linehan
Copywriter: Charlie Wolff
Executive Producer: Jeff Ferro
Producer: Monica Wilkins
Director of Client Services: Gary Theut
Account Director: Henry Arlander
 
Production Company: Biscuit
Director: Jeff Low
Executive Producer: Shawn Lacy
Producer: Colleen O'Donnell
Line Producer: Mary Beth Jenner
Director of Photography: Igor Jadue-Lillo
 
Editorial Company: Umlaut
Editor: Inome Callahan
Assistant Editors: Jaime Kruse, Peter Geiger, Michael Pavloni
Executive Producer: Gina Locurcio
 
Graphics: Laundry
 
Music: Tonic
Track: Original Track

Dying Is Dumb and Hilarious in Adorable Australian PSA

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Not since The Gashlycrumb Tinies has there been so much exquisitely hilarious death on display as in this animated PSA from McCann Australia for the Melbourne Metro train system. Described aptly by one viewer as "Feist meets Itchy and Scratchy," the three-minute spot catalogs all manner of avoidable demises in a series of simple and amusing set-piece cartoons—with the ludicrously jolly and catchy tune "Dumb Ways to Die" by Tangerine Kitty playing in the background. The spot draws only slightly more attention to the one kind of death Melbourne Metro is particularly interested in avoiding—the getting-hit-by-a-train kind—but that just makes it more delightful. "This campaign is designed to draw people to the safety message, rather than frighten them away, especially in our younger segments," says Chloe Alsop, marketing manager of Metro Trains. It should help curtail deaths by superglue, too. Via Reddit.

Nicki Minaj Becomes the Bride of C-3PO in New Fragrance Ad

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Perfume ads are often total nonsense, especially when they're for celebrity fragrances. So, it's no surprise that Nicki Minaj has tweeted out a baffling new commercial for her first signature scent, Pink Friday. It opens on Minaj writhing in a garden of black roses. She pricks her finger on one, and bleeds a drop of pink blood that sweeps through the scene, turning the roses pink and her skin golden until she looks like the bride of C-3PO. Her new track, "Freedom," plays in the background, and in the end we hear "Pink Friday" whispered seductively. It's a pile of clichés that may or may not symbolically represent Minaj cementing her lady-rap legacy amid a decidedly male pantheon of rappers. The fragrance comes in one of the most hideous examples of package design I've seen in ages: a creepy gold-and-pink bust of Nicki, including her bust. You have to pop off her head to get at the fragrance. Minaj herself admits the design is "outrageous," but trusts that her Barbz (her pet name for her devoted fans) will understand.

Media All-Stars

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In an expansive, ever-morphing multimedia world, never has the media buy been more complex—and never have media buyers worn as many hats. Negotiator. Analyst. Cultural guru. Digital expert. Mathematician—and in some cases, magician. In our annual Media All-Stars report, you'll learn about one dozen of the most talented, innovative media point people for leading brands, including Media Executive of the Year Doug Ray, president of Carat North America. And our Rising Star is Sarah Bachman, director of mobile strategy at Horizon Media. These media pros don't just go by the numbers; they have mastered the numbers.

View the Media All-Stars here

Illustrations by Joel Kimmel

Voice: Your Helveti-topia Awaits

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You’ve seen them. Those videos that giant technology companies create to demonstrate their vision. In the spots, people do ordinary things—they fly places and use parking meters and do stuff at work and then go shopping.

That’s now. But on this page, it’s 20 minutes into the future, a future in which every possible surface—windows, doors, walls, hands, food, even other people—is covered in functionally arranged typography. Namely, Helvetica.

He climbs into a cab and Helvetica welcomes him to Istanbul and projects a map of tourist attractions on the window. She reaches for a bagel, and Helvetica in a head-up display in her glasses informs her of the caloric content. His entire desk lights up and he must only flip blobs of Helvetica data at other blobs of twirling double-helix Helvetica in order to invent some new thingy. A thingy no doubt equipped with the ability to display Helvetica at any given moment.

What is so compelling about these Helveti-topias? (Or is it Uto-petica?) These future worlds where it seems environmental artist Christo has run rampant with a glowing blue-hued sheet of Letraset? One thing that seems worth noting: They don’t have advertising (in the traditional sight, sound and motion sense) in them.

A font is a basic block of every brand’s DNA. Stroll Main Street or surf the Web for a few minutes and you are enveloped in a riot of fonts, colors and logos. But rest assured in the future this will all be gone. Brands will no longer fund communications apertures with advertising as they now do. There will only be information and we will know it is pure information, unadulterated by wicked marketers because it’s all in Helvetica.

I get that advertising is perceived as disinformation and that a future without it is seen as desirable. But doesn’t every new communications technology start out as a sort of weird, uncomfortable and rather dry public service? Alexander Bell’s original intent for the telephone was to facilitate public meetings. Early television is laughable in it’s hegemonic condescension. The Web started out as the great equalizing source of all knowledge, filled with earnest scientists and educators and anarchists. Those guys are still there, but now there’s stuff for the rest of us as well. Cat videos, games, humor.

That’s what advertising does. On a mandate of the brands that inject money into the system, advertising brings the fun, the emotion. It turns utilities into entertainment.

All except Facebook, which neatly straddles the world of information and entertainment. We find it entertaining because it is information about that which we care about the most: ourselves. It’s a travel guide of the ego for its 1 billion users.

In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the character Zaphod Beeblebrox is sentenced to an awful punishment for some interplanetary misdeed. He is placed in a machine that reveals how insignificant one is in the scale of the universe. This usually results in the victim emerging as a fantastically humbled, gibbering idiot. Beeblebrox, however, is unchanged. It turns out (no surprise to him) that he is, in fact, the most important person in the universe. Beeblebrox was supposed to get an existential flogging; instead, he got a Museum of Me.

I’m as big of a fan of Swiss kerning as any designer, but that’s not the real charm of the Helveti-topia. The real charm is that it’s Facebook unleashed on the physical world. That’s my trip to Istanbul on the window. Those are my calories to be consumed. Every surface is transformed into a thing about me. Technology is simply confirming what I’ve always guessed: that I’m the most important person in the universe.

Right now, in every agency, a small group of people is huddled somewhere, bringing your clients’ brands to life “natively.” Hit fast-forward to a world where Facebook and its ilk are not relegated to phones and computer screens and where brands are only expressed in a single color, a single font, logo-less. In Helveti-topia, that small group of people might just become the most important thinkers in your agency.

I’d like to figure this all out myself. But I’m busy. I got these AR (augmented reality) glasses that will tell me how many likes I got for this article, even when I look at the print edition. All in glorious Helvetica, of course.


Hyundai's Veloster SR Turbo Handles Brilliantly, at Least in Video Games

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Hyundai's three-door Veloster SR Turbo looks darn attractive. Not so much in real life, actually, but it's certainly a cutie when reimagined as a toy car tearing around an amazingly detailed urban play-set track in this animated promo for the automaker's new contest tie-in with the popular mobile driving game Asphalt 7: Heat. The competition launches today and runs through Nov. 25 on Gameloft's Asphalt app for iPhones and iPads. The grand prize is a tour of Hyundai facilities in Korea and a trip to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Check out the Matrix-style slo-mo beauty shot of the car in mid-air around the 45-second mark of the commercial. It looks like a taxi, another vehicle known for excessive speed and frequently getting airborne. The final frame of the car bursting out of its toy persona to reveal the actual vehicle is pretty cool. Remember that Super Bowl ad where the Veloster raced the cheetah? That was cooler.

Ad of the Day: Old Navy

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There are a few ways to approach Black Friday commercials. You can go all heartwarming in the spirit of the season. You can go heavy on the sale specs. Or you can get George Takei to sing an epic power ballad promoting an epic sale with an epic name.

Old Navy wholeheartedly embraces the latter strategy with a 60-second spot from Crispin Porter + Bogusky that broke Sunday night during the American Music Awards. In it, Mr. Sulu takes to the microphone and belts out an exuberant and heartfelt (if not quite on key) rendition of Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing," reimagined here as "I Don't Wanna Miss a Deal." The song, of course, is from the 1998 movie Armageddon—likewise, the theme of Old Navy's 2012 Black Friday sale is "Cheermageddon," which the company is characterizing as the "most epically friendly sale ever," which apparently means it won't stress you out inordinately or cause you to get trampled mercilessly by fellow deal-seekers. (This is because the deals are spread out over a number of days—and because Thursday's big "doorbusters" are staggered throughout the day, though they will begin, surely somewhat stressfully, at midnight.)

The spot is suitably over the top. You've got the control room/music studio; the nerdy engineer band; the cheesy dancing and jumping and showing off the clothes; and loads of absurd mock-interplanetary goofiness, including a snowball asteroid, from which only Old Navy's performance fleece can save you. Scrooges would call it Forced Cheermageddon, though it fits in perfectly with Old Navy's existing cartoon world of light irony writ large in bold, bright colors.

Takei is himself a cartoon character, perfectly ludicrous for the role. As usual in commercials, he's seen here (mostly) in a white lab coat, and surprised no one when he delivers his trademark and (probably contractually obligated) "Oh my!" at the end. Old Navy is reinventing precisely nothing here, and having a fun time doing it.

The spot is backed by a more hardworking :30, in which Takei and his nerds run down some of the specific deals. CP+B also created the campaign site at cheermageddon.com.





CREDITS
Client: Old Navy
Spot: "I Don't Want to Miss a Deal"
Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Partner, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Rob Reilly
Executive Creative Director: Jason Gaboriau
Creative Directors: Robin Fitzgerald, Cameron Harris
Senior Copywriter: Gerard Seifert
Senior Copywriter (Spanish): Jorge Ortega
Senior Art Director: Cerra Buckholz
Copywriter: Rachel Carlson
Art Director: Patricia Ortiz
Director of Video Production: Chad Hopenwasser
Executive Integrated Producer (Music): Bill Meadows
Executive Integrated Producer: Deb Drumm
Junior Integrated Producers: Jackie Maloney, Kelli Espinoza
Executive Business Affairs Manager: Amy Jacobsen
Production Company: Smuggler, Hollywood, Calif.
Directors: Randy Krallman, Tobias Perse
Production Company, Executive Producers/Partners: Brian Carmody, Patrick Milling Smith
Production Company, Executive Producer/Chief Operating Officer: Lisa Rich
Production Company, Executive Producers: Allison Kunzman, Laura Thoel
Production Company, Head of Production: Andrew Colon
Line Producer: Cory Berg
Editorial Company: Cut & Run, Santa Monica, Calif.
Head of Production, Senior Producer: Christie Price
Executive Producer: Carr Schilling
Editor: Frank Effron
Assistant Editor: Susan Kim
Postproduction Company: Method, Santa Monica, Calif.
Executive Producer: Robert Owens
Producer: Colin Clarry
Lead Compositor: Kelly Bumbarger
Set Supervisor: Rob Hodgson
Visual Effects Supervisor: Jason Schugardt
Music Company: Search Party, Portland, Ore.
Music Company Producers: Sara Matarazzo, Genevieve Vincent
Composer: Nicholas Wright
Partner, Managing Director: Steve Erich
Group Content Director: Danielle Whalen
Content Director: Kate Higgins
Content Management Supervisor: Joselyn Bickford
Content Supervisors: Charissa Kinney, Georgette Young
Content Managers: Kristin Obi, Michelle Forbush, Tommy Cottam
Cognitive Anthropologists: Lindsey Allison, Jennifer Hruska

Client: Old Navy
Spot: "Cheermageddon"
Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Partner, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Rob Reilly
Executive Creative Director: Jason Gaboriau
Creative Directors: Robin Fitzgerald, Cameron Harris
Senior Copywriter: Gerard Seifert
Senior Copywriter (Spanish): Jorge Ortega
Senior Art Director: Cerra Buckholz
Copywriter: Rachel Carlson
Art Director: Patricia Ortiz
Director of Video Production: Chad Hopenwasser
Executive Integrated Producer (Music): Bill Meadows
Executive Integrated Producer: Deb Drumm
Junior Integrated Producers: Jackie Maloney, Kelli Espinoza
Executive Business Affairs Manager: Amy Jacobsen
Production Company: Smuggler, Hollywood, Calif.
Directors: Randy Krallman, Tobias Perse
Production Company, Executive Producers/Partners: Brian Carmody, Patrick Milling Smith
Production Company, Executive Producer/Chief Operating Officer: Lisa Rich
Production Company, Executive Producers: Allison Kunzman, Laura Thoel
Production Company, Head of Production: Andrew Colon
Line Producer: Cory Berg
Editorial Company: Cut & Run, Santa Monica, Calif.
Head of Production, Senior Producer: Christie Price
Executive Producer: Carr Schilling
Editor: Frank Effron
Assistant Editor: Susan Kim
Postproduction Company: Method, Santa Monica, Calif.
Executive Producer: Robert Owens
Producer: Colin Clarry
Lead Compositor: Kelly Bumbarger
Set Supervisor: Rob Hodgson
Visual Effects Supervisor: Jason Schugardt
Music Company: Search Party, Portland, Ore.
Music Company, Producers: Sara Matarazzo, Genevieve Vincent
Composer: Nicholas Wright
Partner, Managing Director: Steve Erich
Group Content Director: Danielle Whalen
Content Director: Kate Higgins
Content Management Supervisor: Joselyn Bickford
Content Supervisors: Charissa Kinney, Georgette Young
Content Managers: Kristin Obi, Michelle Forbush, Tommy Cottam
Cognitive Anthropologists: Lindsey Allison, Jennifer Hruska

El Ojo de Iberoamérica Honors the Best of Latin American Creative

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Almap BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather and Coca-Cola were among the big winners at the 2012 El Ojo de Iberoamérica festival of creativity, which wrapped up Friday after honoring the best creative work in Ibero-America (essentially Latin America plus Spain and Portugal).

Almap was named the best agency, Ogilvy the best network, and Coke the best advertiser. Almap's Luiz Sanches was honored as the region's best creative director, Primo as the best producer, and Nico & Martín of Pulse Films as the best directors.

David Droga of Droga5 wrapped up the week's conference program with a presentation that called on advertising creatives to use their talents for good, not just for business. "We are not only creators of advertising, we are creatives. Therefore, we can create ideas not just to sell, but to work on behalf of humanity," he said.

Below, check out all of the winners of El Gran Ojo, or the Grand Prix, for each category.


• El Gran Ojo: Audio-Visual Production
"Dads in Briefs"
Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Argentina, and Primo for BGH Silent Air



In a region where many consider air conditioning a luxury, dads are all too comfortable in nothing but briefs. This series of commercials makes a compelling case for getting that AC installed.


• El Gran Ojo: Tercer Ojo (Titanium)
"My Blood is Red and Black"
Leo Burnett Tailor Made, Brazil, for Hemoba (the blood bank of Bahía)



To raise awareness for the lack of blood in the state of Bahía, the popular soccer team E.C. Vitória removed the color red from their jerseys to encourage fans to donate. As donations increased, red began to return to their uniforms.


• El Gran Ojo: Outdoor
"Rivers of Light"
Lowe/SSP3, Colombia, for the Colombian Ministry of Defense



To encourage members of FARC to demobilize and spend Christmas with their families, messages were placed in brightly lit Christmas ornaments and placed in the rivers near known guerilla fronts to help guide their way home.


• El Gran Ojo: Direct and El Gran Ojo: Mobile
"Download Concert"
Ogilvy & Mather, Colombia, for streaming platform Coke FM



To promote Coke FM in Colombia, a concert was held with the band suspended 50K meters above the crowd. For every song downloaded by the crowd, the band came 10 meters closer to being within view.


• El Gran Ojo: Interactive
"Fashion Like"
DDB Brazil for C&A Brazil



To help indecisive shoppers, C&A Brazil installed racks with hangers that would show the number of "likes" each item had gotten on Facebook, in real-time.


• El Gran Ojo: Print Production
"Flags"
JWT, Argentina, for Mercado magazine







A print campaign for business magazine Mercado to illustrate the complexities of how the world changes.


• El Gran Ojo: Print
"Vicious Cycle"
Young & Rubicam, Mexico, for Save the Children







This compelling campaign demonstrates the sad fact that 70% of abused children grow up to become abusive adults.


• El Gran Ojo: PR
"The Most Popular Song"
JWT, Puerto Rico, for Banco Popular



Bono once said, "Music can change the world, because it can change people." In this case from JWT Puerto Rico, it was important to change the song first.


• El Gran Ojo: Content
"The Concert of Toys"
CHINA, Spain, for Toys R Us in Spain



To celebrate 20 years of Toys R Us in Spain and remind families of the importance of play, the Madrid Metropolitan Orchestra gave the world's first classical concert using only toys as instruments.


• El Gran Ojo: Film/TV
"1882 Anxious People and a Pen Cap"
Madre, Argentina, and Úrsula for Fernet 1882



The bitter liqueur Fernet 1882 mocks the nervous habits of an anxious crowd by putting their manias on grand display while two calm observers watch the show as if it were a circus, contrasting the madness with the serenity of relaxing with a good drink.


• El Gran Ojo: Promo
"Back to Garbarino"
Leo Burnett, Argentina, for Garbarino



Doc Brown and the DeLorean make a crash landing in Argentina's flagship Garbino electronics store, making it clear that the future's at Garbino.

T-Mobile Taps Industry Vet as New CMO

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T-Mobile named Michael Sievert chief marketing officer over the weekend, filling a position that's been open since Cole Brodman retired from the telecom in May.

Sievert was was most recently the CEO of tablet gaming firm Discovery Bay Games, but has served in mostly marketing exec capacities during his 22-year career, including positions at Clearwire, AT&T Wireless, Microsoft, IBM and Procter & Gamble.

Andrew Sherrard, T-Mobile's acting CMO since Brodman left the company after 17 years, will resume his duties as svp of marketing for contract business for the company. T-Mobile is the fourth-largest carrier when it comes to wireless subscribers, trailing Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel.

In a prepared statement, John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile USA, suggested Sievert was the right choice to catapult his brand forward. "Mike is a unique creative genius, and his track record as a disruptive force in tech and telecom couldn’t be better suited to our plans to redefine wireless as America’s un-carrier," he said.

The Spot: eBay Ponies Up

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IDEA: A live pony, the pet every little girl dreams of, is lovely and sweet and the perfect Christmas gift. But no—actually, it's a violent little monster who will tear your home apart, then gallop off righteously into snowy oblivion. Venables Bell & Partners' new holiday ad for eBay offers just this trajectory, as a well-meaning dad buys a Shetland pinto for his daughter. When that goes spectacularly wrong, a quick-witted mom saves the day by ordering a plush pony from eBay's Toys R Us store. The ad achieves a few things: It shows eBay has the hottest new toys, that its mobile app is ready when you are, and that the company knows what families go through at the holidays. "Parents often put tremendous pressure on themselves to find perfect presents for their kids," said Deirdre Findlay, senior director of consumer marketing at eBay North America. "This spot uses humor to show that even the best intentions can sometimes go awry, and there's an easier way to make the holidays merry with eBay mobile."

COPYWRITING: Mom and Dad lead their daughter down the stairs on Christmas morning. "A pony!" she screams, seeing the animal in the living room. But things quickly fall apart as the pony does a freaky spin, kicks out a window, mauls the Christmas tree and flees down the road. Mom whips out her phone and quickly pulls up FurReal Friends' Baby Butterscotch. "A pony!" the girl screams, delighted again. "OK. Who wants waffles?" says dumb Dad.



VB&P creative director Lee Einhorn has three daughters, so the plot was a natural for him. "I'm 'Uncle Daddy' at home—the fun uncle who's supposed to be the dad," he said. "The spot kind of wrote itself after a while. Dad is sort of the anti-hero. Target-wise, Mom had to be the hero, along with the mobile app." The spot closes on the voiced tagline, "When it's on your mind, it's on eBay," the new eBay logo and the ebay.com/toysrus URL.

TALENT: The agency used Shetland ponies. "They look really sweet, but they're actually kind of mean," said Einhorn. "We used three ponies that looked similar: One was a kicker, one was a spinner, one was a runner. We would swap them in to get the kinds of destruction we needed." Trainers handled the animals, and the Humane Society was on hand to monitor them. The human actors are meant to look like an "all-American-ish family," Einhorn said. They couldn't look too comical, or it would steal the joke of the surprise. Einhorn said the girl was particularly adept at "screaming like a banshee over and over."



ART DIRECTION/FILMING: Director Matt Aselton shot the ad at the Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank, Calif. (The Griswold house from Christmas Vacation can be seen across the street.) Snow-making company Snow Business blanketed the outside with fresh flakes the night before, but it rained and they had to do it again in the morning. The agency dressed the entire house for Christmas. The pony kicking out the window was a real shot, though it was "Hollywood glass" made of sugar. The trainers and other extraneous visuals were removed in post. The furnishings and wardrobes feel aspirational. "We were trying to be a little bit Brooks Brothers with the dad's pajamas," said Einhorn. The spot is "super Hallmarky" at the outset, he added, "so we can yank the rug out, and then come back to this sweet little family again at the end."

SOUND: Sound design was crucial for making the chaos feel immediate, but so was the mix, as it let the family's humanity still come through.

MEDIA: TV and online. eBay declined to give more details of the buy.

THE SPOT:


CREDITS
Client: eBay
Spot: "Pony"

Agency: Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco
Executive Creative Directors: Paul Venables and Will McGinness
Creative Director: Lee Einhorn
Art Director: Matt Miller
Copywriter: Matt Keats
Director of Integrated Production: Craig Allen 
Agency Senior Producer: Emily Moore

Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Director: Matt Aselton
Line Producer: Jeffrey Shupe
Executive Producer: Marc Marrie
Managing Director: Mal Ward
Director of Photography: Toby Irwin

Editorial Company: Arcade
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Producer: Denice Hutton
Editor: Geoff Hounsell
Assistant Editor: Sean Lagrange

Sound Design: 740 Sound Design & Mix
Executive Producer: Scott Ganary
Sound Designer: Andrew Tracy

Music: Mophonics
Executive Producer: Michael Frick
Composer: Nico Mansy

Mix: PLAY, John Bolen

Telecine: MPC (LA)
Colorist: Mark Gethin

VFX: The Mill LA
VFX Head of Production: Arielle Davis
Producers: Enca Kaul/Gabriel Libitsky
VFX Shoot Supervisor: Adrian Hurley
2D Lead: Glyn Tebutt
2D Artists: Steve Cokonis, Narbeh Mardirossian, Ben Smith, Nick Tayler
2D Assist: Robert Murdock

End Animation: The Mill LA
Design Set Supervisor: Tom O'Neill
Motion Graphics: Kasey Allen
Design Coordinator: Krissy Estrada

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