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The Kids From SunnyD's Goofy '90s Rollerblading Ad Are Back, and They Never Grew Up

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If you watch the ad below and conclude there's nothing new under the sun, you're half right.

Sunny Delight rollerblades into '90s nostalgia with this delightfully deft parody of its own goofy, iconic (some might say moronic) commercial from the first Twin Peaks era.

Created by ad agency Grenadier, and targeting millennials with fond memories of SunnyD advertising from two decades ago, the new spot presents grown-up versions of the kids from the original. They're not portrayed by the same actors, but they are still blading through suburbia and crowding into Mrs. B.'s kitchen for some vitamin-enriched, orange-flavored refreshment. Of course, they've all gained a few pounds, and the guys have lost some hair.



"Look, I can't do this anymore," the now-elderly Mrs. B. laments. "You and your friends have been doing this for 20 years. You're 36. You need a job."

"As a brand, we try not to take ourselves too seriously and to act with self-awareness," says SunnyD marketing director Dave Zellen. Grenadier partner Rob Hofferman adds: "For people who grew up with that spot—who are now millennial parents or a little older—it's a great way to give them a fun touchstone to that time that they can now share and pass on to their kids."

With shimmering analog synths in the background, and splendid comic panache, the reboot is just as "radical" as the original—though I hope that "purple stuff" hasn't been fermenting in the fridge all this time. One sip could trigger some wild flashbacks.

The ad is airing on TV is Sacramento, Indianapolis and Charlotte, and online everywhere.

And here's the original spot, created by Gumpertz/Bentley/Fried in 1991:



CREDITS
Client: Sunny Delight
Spot: "SunnyD 2015 Rollerblade"
Agency: Grenadier
Creative Director/Art Director: Randy Rogers
Creative Directors/Writers: Wade Paschall, Mark St. Amant
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Grant Minnis
Executive Producer: Keith Dezen
Production Company: Community Films
Director: Clay Williams
Executive Producer (Production Co): Lizzy Schwartz
Producer (Production Co): Helen Hollien
Line Producer: Helen Hollien
Director of Photography: Guyla Pados
Editorial Company: HutchCo Technologies
Editor: Jim Hutchins
Music Company: JSM Music
Visual Effects Company: Brickyard VFX
Visual Effects Editor: Patrick Poulatian
Visual Effects Producer: Linda Jackson
CG Lead: David Blumenfeld
Account Service Lead: Becky Herman
Account Service Supervisor: Ryan Smith
Planner: Elisa Cantero


Ad of the Day: Adult Retailer Makes Probably the Craziest X-Rated Ad Yet (NSFW)

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Sex sells, particularly when you're selling lingerie and sex toys. And now, two of Britain's top creatives have teamed up to make one of the most extravagant erotic brand films ever—a frenetic two-and-a-half-minute film for London adult retailer Coco de Mer.

TBWA\London's Walter Campbell and renowned photographer/director Rankin provided the creative vision for the film, which packs in a huge number of sexual images and vignettes, along with some other odd imagery.

It's basically an art film with the Coco de Mer logo thrown on the end. But Campbell and Rankin are immensely proud of the spot, which will run online and in cinemas.



Rankin, whose résumé includes a ton of top-notch fashion films, tells Campaign that the ad is "definitely the best thing that I have done in film. … It has layers of meaning, and to get that in advertising is rare."

He adds: "Doing something like this is about creating an experience. We're putting it on a different level. Putting it on a level with enjoying a film. People call it content marketing, but it's just about making something people want to watch."

Campbell said: "The erotic doesn't get the same overt attention as everything else on the cultural menu, so we created a film to surprise, excite and most importantly, encourage people to delve that little bit deeper into their fantasies—to reignite that connection."

Several other directors also worked on the film, including Vicky Lawton, Trisha Ward and David Allain. The production company was Rankin Film. Postproduction was done by MPC.

Pizza Hut Takes Down Selfie Sticks in This Hilarious Ad for Its 2-Foot Pizzas

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Have you taken a selfie lately? If the answer is yes, then you're the target audience for this new over-the-top parody PSA from Pizza Hut.

The brand wants to warn you about the dangers of the selfie stick—a device that creates the unfortunate illusion for the user that (gasp!) other people, places and objects exist.

The spot is delightfully cheeky, and the spokeswoman brings the right mixture of faux-fear and faux-anger—she almost seems to be doing a homage to the former host of Unsolved Mysteries. It isn't until the end that you realize it is, in fact, an ad.



There's very little branding, except for the pizza delivery guy. Pizza Hut spokesman Doug Terfehr said that's because it's meant to be entertaining first and branded second. 

The product being advertised, the two-foot-long Big Flavor Dipper pizza, "is so big that a regular out-stretched hand just won't do it. If you want to snap a photo of it, with you in it, you're going to need a bigger stick," Terfehr says. "It was a fun, lighthearted way to communicate that message."

The spot was created by Shareability, whose cofounder, Tim Staples, adds: "A lot of brands say they want to create shareable content but really what they want to do is make a traditional commercial go viral. That type of mind-set is a recipe for almost certain failure.

"Smart brands understand that you need to give the audience a valuable piece of content and then attach their brand in a clever and subtle way. Pizza Hut is a smart brand. The goal of this video is to start a conversation, not beat people over the head with a product message."

This Ikea Pop-Up Store Serves Breakfast in Bed to Lucky Londoners

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Last month, Ikea launched an online wedding service. Now, it's one step closer to offering the full honeymoon package, with a stunt that will bring breakfast in bed to guests of a temporary restaurant.

The furniture store is promoting its bedroom products with the Ikea Breakfast in Bed Cafe, operating this week in London. Reservations are available between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., and 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. each day, with a menu the brand describes as a "classic Scandinavian breakfast" (what exactly that means—and whether it includes caviar—isn't exactly clear).



Germaphobes can rest assured that Ikea's staff will change the sheets between each sitting. Guests can also choose from a selection of pillows (but have to pay for the food). Single beds are not available for those who aren't newlywed.

Via PFSK.

These 'Abused Emojis' Can Help Kids Tell Someone They're Being Hurt

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A children's helpline in Sweden just released an upsetting set of emojis showing kids being physically and verbal abused—in the hope that young victims of violence might use them to communicate their situation when words fail.

"A complex reality demands a complex set of symbols," says the nonprofit group, BRIS, which helps at-risk children and teenagers. "The Abused Emojis make it possible for kids and young people to talk about situations where they felt bad or wrongly treated without having to put words on the situation. If you or somebody you know have been hurt, mistreated or feel sad, Abused Emojis makes it easier to talk about."



Among the images are kids with bruises and cuts; a baby being struck; a child thinking about a skull (suicide); images of parents drinking; and a literal shithead (a boy who's presumably having thoughts of being ugly or worthless).

It's pretty fascinating and bleak. Would kids really use something like this?

Full set of images below.
 





Michael Jordan Waxes Poetic in Gatorade's New Paean to Sweat

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Gatorade really does love sweat.

Last year, the brand's hidden-camera ads with Peyton Manning and Cam Newton required customers at a convenience store to "sweat it to get it." If would-be consumers couldn't show visible signs of a workout, they couldn't buy Gatorade.

Now, an epic new spot—created by TBWA\Chiat\Day and voiced by Michael Jordan—makes it clear that "not all sweat is created equal." In other words, if your sweat isn't the intense kind, spilled in pursuit of sporting glory, then your sweat is pretty boring, and you should probably try harder. (That way, you'll sweat more, and need more Gatorade.)



It's a well put-together, if slightly obvious play—featuring celebrities like Serena Williams, April Ross and Usain Bolt, and released on the heels of the brand's revival of its famous "Be Like Mike" campaign. The new ad does have at least one YouTube commenter a little nervous about the contents of the sports drink, though.

Ad of the Day: Delta Stuffs the Entire Internet Into Its Latest Brilliant Safety Video

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Delta claims to have made the "Internetest in-flight safety video on the Internet." And by Keyboard Cat, I think they're right. Where else, after all, will you see a cat in a shark suit on a Roomba on a plane?

The video, from Wieden + Kennedy in New York, will begin running on Delta's fleet starting May 25, but you can already witness this meme-sterpiece online with an impressive array of additional remixed content with the "Will It Blend?" guy from Blendtec.

In case you're worried you didn't catch all the cameos from Internet stars, there's a time-coded list in the comments on YouTube. And you can see even more uncredited faces at 1:43 when they all get up to do the meme-iest Harlem Shake ever filmed on a plane.

They even included Deltalina, the famous flight attendant from the 2008 Delta safety video who started this whole trend of goofy safety videos with nothing more than some sassy finger wagging and a carefully placed smile ding.



I can only imagine what future civilizations will think when they look back on these videos and wonder, in particular, what is happening with the Internetest one. In fact, I imagine there will be a number of present-day Delta flyers who will view this inexplicable collection of references to other references—divorced entirely from their original contexts and remade into a postmodern bricolage—as a strange and otherworldly piece of surrealist art that would have given Dali pause.

But for those of us who love the Internet in all its Internety goodness, this is the best thing we've seen today. It's like a double rainbow, all the way across the sky. So intense.

CREDITS
Client: Delta Air Lines

—Project: "Pay Attention": The Internetest Safety Video

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman, David Kolbusz, Jaime Robinson
Creative Directors: Sean McLaughlin, John Parker
Copywriter: Ian Hart
Art Director: Perry Morton
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Broadcast Producers: Cheryl Warbook, Luiza Naritomi
Interactive Producer: Jen Vladimirsky
Brand Strategists: Sam Matthews, Meranne Behrends
Account Team: Liz Taylor, Meghan Mullen, Lauren Smith
Project Manager: Lauren Amato
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Keri Rommel
Traffic: Sonia Bisono, Rylee Millerd

Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Director: Matt Aselton
Managing Director: Mal Ward
Executive Producer: Marc Marrie
Producer: Zoe Odlum
Director of Photography: Corey Walter

Editing Company: Final Cut
Editors: J.D. Smyth, Jeff Buchanan
Post Producer: Mackenzie Alexander
Executive Post Producer: Lauren Bleiweiss
Editing Assistant: Betty Jo

Visual Effects Company: MPC
Visual Effects Lead Flame: Marcus Wood
Visual Effects Supervisor: Marcus Wood
Compositors: Jonathan McKee, Eric Conception, Carl Fong, Marcus White
Computer Graphics Artists: Bill Dorais, Andres Weber, Angela Carafas, Charlotte Bae, Grae Revell, Jacob Fradkin, Michael Nieves, Ty Coyle
Art Director: Diana Park
Designers, Animators: Colin Hess, Denis Moran, Leland Goodman, Tyler Gibb, Kim Dulane
Senior Producer: Matthew Loranger

Telecine Company: Company 3
Colorist: Tim Masick

Mix Company: Heard City
Mixer: Cory Melious
Producer: Natasha Alden

Music Company: Black Iris
Song: Clean Teef

—Project: "Pay Attention": The Internetest Safety Video – "Will It Blend" videos

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: David Kolbusz, Jaime Robinson
Creative Directors: Sean McLaughlin, John Parker
Copywriter: Ian Hart
Art Director: Perry Morton
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Broadcast Producer: Luiza Naritomi
Interactive Producer: Jen Vladimirsky
Brand Strategist: Sam Matthews
Account Team: Liz Taylor, Meghan Mullen, Lauren Smith, Cait Collette
Project Manager: Lauren Amato
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Keri Rommel

Production Company: Joint
Director of Photography: Chris Teague
Second Camera: Zelmira Gainz
Line Producer: Mahalia Cohen

Editing Company: Final Cut
Editor: Betty Jo Moore

Visual Effects Company: Significant Others
Motion Graphic Designer: Phil Brooks
Flame Artist: Betty Cameron

Mix Company: Significant Others
Mixer: Terressa Tate

Hang On, Did Olive Garden Just Make a Really Good Commercial?

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Olive Garden's advertising has long been distinguished by its unlimited blandness, which some might argue is a decent representation of the food there. But during NBC's Red Nose Day telethon Thursday night, viewers will get a very different look at the Olive Garden brand promise, via this 60-second spot from Grey New York.

It's about as far from your typical Olive Garden spot as you could get. Instead of the overly produced, food-shot-heavy clip, we get a montage of home-movie footage all based around the idea of family.

The restaurant chain has used the line "We're all family here" since 2013, but its communication of the concept has been far from inspired. Here, though, there's real life and real emotion. And it's hard to imagine a brand that could use a jolt like that more urgently.



Focusing on real moments is quite a leap for Olive Garden. And whether or not people buy into it—an emotionally rich ad isn't going to change the food, after all—it does suggest the marketer is willing to go outside its comfort zone and loosen its grip on the kind of safe but forgettable messaging for which it's known.

Even the in-restaurant footage at the end is remarkably low-fi and unadorned. That's impressive for such a manicured brand, and suggests that Olive Garden knows something about real families and real moments, not just TV ones—and hosts them daily.

The amateur version of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros track "Home" pulls it all together—a song full of emotion, rendered simply. That's the vibe of the whole ad. Whether it signals a real change for Olive Garden remains to be seen. (Grey New York has been churning out the more genetic stuff—like this, just a couple of weeks ago—for Olive Garden since 1984.) But this could be a pleasantly surprising first step.

CREDITS
Client: Olive Garden
Spot: "Home"
Agency: Grey NY
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Tor Myhren
Chief Creative Officer: Andreas Dahlqvist
Chief Marketing Officer: Jane Reiss
President, Grey Activation/PR: Amy Tunick
Executive Creative Director: Ari Halper
Executive Creative Director: Stephen Krauss
Executive Creative Director: Jan Egan
Executive Creative Director: Ron Castillo
Creative Director: Brad Mancuso
Creative Director: Susan LaScala Wood
Art Director: Jonathan Hsu
Copywriter: Gail Barlow & Paul Elicker
VP Executive Producers (Agency): Seth Gorenstein & Adam Seely
SVP Account Director: Nadine Falco
VP Account Directors: Christina Pantina & Jamie Shiembob
Strategy: Dominic Hanley
Editor (person & company): Cindy Nielsen & Charlie Cusumano, Vision Post
Assistant Casting Director: Brian Safuto
EVP Director of Music (Agency): Josh Rabinowitz
VP Director of Music Licensing (Agency): Amy Rosen
Project Manager: Jasmine Mangana


Darkly Comic Ads for ZocDoc Illustrate the Utter Hell of Calling Your Doctor

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ZocDoc knows how much it sucks trying to deal with doctors over the phone. Now, the online medical-care scheduling service positions itself as the cure for such headaches in a pair of humorous spots from Goodby Silverstein & Partners in New York.

In one ad, an office worker whispers her embarrassing symptoms  into a handset at her desk, hoping not to be overheard by her colleagues. The other commercial presents a different woman, seeking an appointment ASAP, who might be overstating her condition ever so slightly.



"Get better better" is the tagline. The campaign also includes radio, print, out-of-home and digital elements. It's the first major ad push for the 7-year-old service, and it follows Richard Fine's arrival as marketing chief as the year began.

"We're all at the mercy of a broken healthcare system in which many of us can relate to an experience that is absurd and Kafka-esque," he tells Fast Company.

"Our campaign finds humor in that shared experience. It makes light of these unnecessarily painful parts of the healthcare system. Technology has changed every part of our lives. How about—finally—healthcare?"



The campaign reunites Fine with Goodby's Nathan Frank, who serves as creative director. In 2008, the pair co-founded OTC drug company Help Remedies, which is known for its own crazy ads. David Shane directed the ZocDoc commercials.

Shane's expert comic touch—he directed HBO Go's "Awkward Family Viewing" ads, and won an Emmy a few years back for Bud Light's "Swear Jar"—is just what the doctor ordered. Here, his approach is appealingly offbeat, but also upbeat and empowering. That's probably the perfect prescription for a healthcare platform reaching out in ads for the first time.

Coca-Cola Shows You How to Get 6 Million Views on an Ad Without Even Trying

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Coca-Cola unveiled its first work from Ogilvy Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago—a rousing, visually rich pan-European anthem that tried to raise some political issues and surely cost a ton to make. It did OK, with about 400,000 views on YouTube.

But if you really want to make a splash, you have to go simpler. You find an esoteric stat about babies, gather up some UGC footage of them smiling and laughing, shoot a bit of new footage, record a cute song to go with it, and boom—6 million views. See, making a Coke ad isn't as much of a slog as it's made out to be. (And let's agree to forget about kids, soda and childhood obesity for a minute or so.)



Volkwagen did something similar a couple of years ago, with both kids and adults. You'll probably recognize many of the kids in the Coke commercial—particularly the boy at the end, Micah, whose original 2011 YouTube video, "Baby Laughing Hysterically at Ripping Paper (Original)," has 78 million views of its own.

Check out the behind-the-scenes below.

Adweek's Top 5 Commercials of the Week: May 15-22

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We've certainly never had Olive Garden on our weekly list of best spots, but Grey New York changed that this week with a soulful ode to family. Pizza Hut and Coca-Cola also join this week's list, along with sunglasses brand Tens and Delta for its latest loony safety video. See all the spots below, and vote for your favorite.

Leo Burnett, Droga5 Take Top D&AD Awards for 'Like a Girl' and 'This Is Wholesome'

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Leo Burnett and Droga5 were among the top North American winners at Thursday's 2015 D&AD Awards ceremony in London—with Burnett winning both a Black Pencil and a White Pencil for its Always "Like a Girl" campaign, and Droga taking home a White Pencil for Honey Maid "This Is Wholesome."

The Black Pencil is the ad awards show's ultimate creative accolade, given to work that is ground-breaking in its field. Only a few are given out each year. The White Pencil, also a rare prize, is awarded to work that demonstrates the power to affect real and positive change in the world through creative thinking.

Five Black Pencils were given out Thursday:

• The "#LikeAGirl" campaign for P&G's Always by Leo Burnett Toronto, London, Chicago, and Holler (Canada, U.S., U.K.)
• 4creative's "Film4 Idents" for Channel 4 in the U.K.
• Made Thought's branding identity scheme for G.F. Smith in the U.K.
• Marcel Worldwide's "Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables" for Intermarché in France
• Colenso BBDO's "K9FM" radio campaign for Mars in New Zealand



Five White Pencils were awarded:

• The "#LikeAGirl" campaign for P&G's Always by Leo Burnett Toronto, London, Chicago, and Holler (Canada, U.S., U.K.)
• Don't Panic's "LEGO: Everything is NOT awesome" campaign for Greenpeace
• Droga5's "This Is Wholesome" campaign for Honey Maid
• Constanze Spross's "Nazis Against Nazis—Germany's Most Involuntary Charity Walk" campaign for ZDK Gesellschaft Demokratische Kultur
• Lowe China's "Human Traffic Sign" campaign for Shanghai General Motors



R/GA was the most awarded agency, with two Yellow Pencils (equivalent of a gold award) for Hammerhead Navigation and a number of Graphite and Wood Pencils (aka, silver and bronze) for Beats By Dre, Google, Hammerhead and Equinox, among other clients.

By country, the U.K. topped the list with 229 Pencils, including seven Yellow Pencils and two Black Pencils. The U.S. was second place, including one Black Pencil and seven Yellows.

Lea Brisell of Droga5 with the White Pencil for "This Is Wholesome"

See all the 2015 winners here.

Clinic Puts Boring Preroll on Popular Videos Because It Doesn't Want Anything 'Going Viral'

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Advertisers have been doing clever stuff with preroll ads for a while. We had Geico's unstoppable prerolls. And now, we have a health clinic that made incredibly boring preroll ads—in an effort to stop the videos after them from going viral.

What's the point? MedExpress stops viral infections at its urgent-care clinics. So, it wants to stop popular videos from going viral on the Internet, too. Yes, it's a bit of a stretch—but a fun enough idea from ad agency Fitzgerald & Co.

Check out the case study below to see how it worked—along with some of the prerolls themselves. The only downside, of course, is that people might not take too kindly to boring, irritating ads—however clever the concept might be.

The case study:

Adweek responsive video player used on /video.

 

The prerolls:

CREDITS
Client: MedExpress
CMO: Julie Penn
VP Marketing: Steven Sarfin
Brand Manager: Belinda Carter

Agency: Fitzgerald & CO
CCO: Noel Cottrell
GCD/CW: Mitch Bennett
GCD/AD: Wes Whitener
Director of Production: Christine Sigety
Account Director: Helen Bautista

Production Company: Holiday Films /Arts & Sciences/ Nimble Content
Directors: Adam & Dave
Executive Producer: Mal Ward
Executive Producer: Derek Sewell
Producer: Andrew Lynch
DP: Vinit Borison

Editorial: 83 Pictures
Editor: Matt Kloske
Producer: Andrew Lynch
Assistant Editor: Peter Hatch
Colorist: Brett Blackwell

How This Interactive Subway Ad Got Everybody Yawning, and Wanting Coffee

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This interactive outdoor campaign by Lew'Lara\TBWA is a real yawner—which is exactly what the Brazilian agency intended.

The shop set up a digital panel equipped with a motion sensor at São Paulo's busy Fradique Coutinho subway station at morning rush hour. When commuters approached the sign, the face on the panel would yawn. Naturally, many of the commuters themselves also began yawning—yawning being notoriously contagious, after all—at which point the screen made a product pitch.

In case the sign wasn't enough of a wake-up call, perky glamor gals arrive on the scene with some product samples. (Watch the clip to savor the big reveal.)



That last bit—the glamor gals—might strike some viewers as gratuitous, but otherwise this a prime example of what prankverising has been morphing into over the past few years.

Shocking stunts have by and large been replaced by a fusion of technology and street theater as brands create positive real-world experiences designed for subsequent media consumption. Of late, they've run the gamut from fun to moving to doggone adorable.

As long as such campaigns remain clever and inclusive, it will be along time before the public tires of this approach.

Via Ads of the World.

CREDITS
Client: Café Pelé
Agency: Lew'Lara\TBWA, Brazil
Chief Creative Officer: Manir Fadel
Executive Chief Creative: Felipe Luchi
Copywriter: Lucas Veloso
Art directors: André Mezzomo, Digo Souto

Ad of the Day: Everything's Upside Down and Backwards in GE's Delightful New Spot

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GE claims to look at the world askew, turning it on its head in search of new perspectives that hopefully lead to new solutions. So, its latest commercial from BBDO, titled "Time Upon a Once," does the same.

Much of the spot—from the visuals to the narration—is upside down, backwards and generally topsy-turvy. This approach embodies the ad's claim that GE operates very much that way—innovating through creative thinking. And it makes for a pretty delightful and very rewatchable ad.

"Time upon a once, people approached problems the way same—always start at the starting, and questions the same asking," says our protagonist as he float-walks through a surreal version of GE's offices—and wisely leaving us a few seconds between lines to process what we've heard.

"But that only resulted in improvements small. So we step a took back, and problems turned these inside up down to approach them newly. And that's when we it solved."



It's a pleasantly offbeat journey, and must have been fun to write. And it's getting an inspired media placement, too. It will run break this weekend in cinemas ahead of showings of Tomorrowland—a movie that's also about imagination and surprise—continuing through the end of June. It will also run on TV and online from now until next year.

It's nice to see an inventive spot light this—which doesn't hold the viewer's hand—get green-lighted. But you will notice the sentences about GE solutions (from about 0:33 to 0:47) are the only ones that aren't garbled. Apparently that was the compromise.

CREDITS
Client: GE
Spot: "Time Upon a Once"

Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Michael Aimette
Creative Director/Copywriter: Tim Roan
Creative Director/Copywriter: Levi Slavin
Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe
Group Executive Producer: Diane Hill
Executive Producer: George Sholley
Head of Music Production: Rani Vaz

Worldwide Senior Director: Brandon Fowler
Senior Director: Peter McCallum
Account Director: Lindsey Conklin
Assistant Account Executive: Joslyn Dunn
Group Planning Director: Tom Naughton

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Executive Producer: Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer: Colleen O'Donnell
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Line Producer: Vincent Landay

Editorial: Rock Paper Scissors
Executive Producer: Eve Kornblum
Post Producer: Jen Milano
Editor: Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

Visual Effects: A52
Executive Producer: Patrick Nugent
Producer: Heather Johann
VFX Supervisor: Andy Rafael Barrios

Mix House: Heard City
Executive Producer: Gloria Pitagorsky
Producer: Sasha Awn
Sound Design/Mixer: Mike Vitacco
Mixer: Keith Reynaud

Music: The Ski Team
Composers: The Ski Team

Animation: Renegade Animation


Ads About Veteran Suicide Show Heartbreaking Photos of the Homes Where They Died

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With Memorial Day on Monday, here's a look at a sad and remarkable ad campaign from Crispin Porter + Bogusky for Mission 22, an initiative the agency started to raise awareness of veteran suicide.

Mission 22 is named after a horrible statistic—that 22 veterans commit suicide every day in the U.S., often in their own homes. This is a real war being waged far from the field of battle, and so CP+B enlisted war photographer David Guttenfelder for the new campaign—to take photos of the homes where veterans died.

The images are haunting and heartbreaking, and powerfully communicate the grief that comes from war. The photos are running on print ads in Fortune, Money and Esquire, and on outdoor boards in four of the cities that these veterans called home.



Also check out the website and the video above, which explains the project.

Mission 22's goal is to both raise awareness of the issue and to give veterans an idea of where to get help—with a list of vetted organizations on the website.

This Browser Extension Replaces Boring Old Preroll With the World's Best Ads

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Looking for a browser extension that approaches ad blocking a bit more creatively? D&AD and Paris agency BETC have just the thing.

The British ad organization, which just handed out its 2015 awards last week, has now released The Ad Filter, an extension for Chrome and Firefox that blocks regular preroll ads and automatically replaces them with D&AD winners from past years.

It might seem odd for an ad group and a famous agency to promote ad blocking, but D&AD and BETC say the plug-in is designed to "celebrate creativity by inspiring and stimulating people in the industry and beyond."



"We wanted to demonstrate that people don't hate advertising, they just hate bad advertising," says Olivier Apers, creative director at BETC Paris.

Check out the demo below, and download The Ad Filter here. It certainly works. I installed it, and quickly saw Vodafone's "The Kiss," Hahn SuperDry's "Pioneering Beering" and LG Kompressor Elite's "Somethings Lurking" spots.



CREDITS
Client: D&AD
Brand Management: Laura Kelly
Agency: BETC, BETC Digital
Agency Management: Niamh O'Connor, Anaïs Pirajean
Chief Creative Officer: Stéphane Xiberras
Executive Creative Director: Olivier Apers
Art Directors: Alphons Conzen, Jonathan Baudet-Botella
Copywriter: Adrian Skenderovic
Development: Cogit
Motion Design: Raphaël Benhamou

Ad of the Day: Scrabble Tells a Delightful Love Story Entirely in Anagrams

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When it comes to telling a brand story through anagrams, Lola Madrid's new Scrabble spot tops them all.

Luckily, the wordplay in this charming 80-second film is more clever and compelling than my little joke above. (Though spot tops is a palindrome as well as an anagram!) Anyway, the ad presents the stories of Agostina and Santiago. Though they've never met, anagrams link almost every aspect of their lives. She's a "cab driver," he's a "crab diver." She frets about being "forever alone," while his life seems as dull as "a veneer floor." Even their names, in case you hadn't noticed, are anagrams.



"The idea of using anagrams was a way to salute the intelligence of avid Scrabble players, but by using a love story, the spot became universal," Lola executive creative director Pancho Cassis tells Adweek. "This communication was aimed at opening up to a broader audience, specifically younger players and non-players who spend a lot of time online but are seeking out offline experiences."

The spot launched in English for the international community, he says, and will run in Europe this summer in French, Spanish, Italian and German.

At times, the anagrams seem like a bit of a stretch ("nasty old train" and "tiny slant road," for example), but they work in context and actually heighten the spot's quirky appeal. Though the story hinges on words, Rodrigo Saavedra's moody and whimsical direction also scores. (Note the impressive shots of Santiago sitting alone in the mist, burning ants with a magnifying glass as he mulls his unhappy existence.)

Millennial word nerds will surely enjoy the ride and share the ad with friends. That would be fitting, as the primary goal, according to Cassis, "is to convey that words are magical and powerful, and that they connect us with people."

Though maybe Agostina could do better than some guy who mopes around and fries ants. Plus, he's got crabs!

CREDITS
Client: Scrabble
Agency: Lola Madrid
Director: Rodrigo Saavedra

Lincoln Financial Eyes 3 Finalists for Its Creative Account

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Lincoln Financial Group is in the late stages of a creative search.

The company, which last year spent about $25 million in media, is weighing three finalists for its creative account, according to sources. The sources identified the shops as Grey, FCB and Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners.

The contenders have been briefed and are preparing for final presentations, which will take place in July, sources said. Each agency is pitching out of its New York office.

The winner will succeed Gyro as lead creative agency. Gyro is not defending.

Ark Advisors in New York is managing the search. Ark referred calls to Lincoln, which declined to comment. 

Lincoln Financial has been running its "Chief Life Officer" campaign, which reminds consumers that they're in control of their lives and that Lincoln offers the tools needed to navigate its various stages. TV spots use the tagline "You're In Charge," while print ads assert,  "You're the boss of your life.The Chief Life Officer."

Nikon Strapped a Camera to This Dog's Heart and Took Photos When He Got Excited

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Times are tough for camera companies. Humans are abandoning digital point-and-shoots in droves, thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets. And this has apparently forced Nikon to extreme measures, like marketing its cameras to dogs instead.

"Dogs?" you might say. "Dogs don't have thumbs." That's a good point, and probably the reason why this new ad (by J. Walter Thompson Singapore) claims Nikon rigged up a gadget that can measure a dog's heartbeat, and take a picture when its heartrate rises, triggering a camera strapped to the dog's neck.

The idea is to capture the dog Grizzler's perspective on things that excite him. That's a cool and sweet notion, even if Nikon probably ended up mostly with close-ups of puddles, empty food wrappers and other dogs' asses.



But if the selection of photos in the video seems a little too G-rated, Nikon admits in a comment on YouTube that "due to Grizzler's high energy and active movements, several shots were blurred, so we only picked the best shots to be featured in this video."

The company has also found itself answering to human skeptics, who are probably just jealous and don't want to believe Grizzler could be so talented, but definitely want to know why there is a reflection of a human holding a camera in one of Grizzler's photos (at 0:56).

"Our camera crew followed Grizzler around to film the process of how he went about capturing images using his heartbeat," the brand says. "There were also crew there to ensure his safety and well-being by providing ample hydration, food and other necessities. This is why you may be able to spot our crew members in the images that Grizzler took."

Regardless of whether Grizzler is a fraud just trying to exploit everyone's love for a charming, lolling-tongued dog, it's unfortunate that Nikon was unable to resist including the pun "phodographer" in the ad.

Plus, before long, someone will come up with version that works with a smartphone. Or, you know, people will just strap GoPros to their dogs, like they've been doing for years.

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