Dean Winters is into year seven of his gig as Allstate's "Mayhem" character, but this time—for the first time—he's playing a real-life person whose dangerous ineptitude could have ended really, really badly.

During the Allstate Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day, the insurance company (via ad agency Leo Burnett) issued a call for real-life DIY disasters. It then posted a bunch of them online and invited people to vote for their favorite—promising to turn the winner's story into a new 30-second commercial.

That spot aired Monday night during the College Football National Championship Game.

Check it out here:



Yes, Caleb Gauff is the winner of the Mayhem DIY campaign, having earned 33.5 percent of the online votes. In the winning ad, the Mayhem character humorously re-enacts Caleb and his father's spectacular DIY fail.

Voters were entered into a sweepstakes, with one winner getting a $25,000 Lowe's gift card. 

CREDITS
Client: Allstate
Agency: Leo Burnett Chicago
Ad or Campaign: Mayhem DIY
Executive Creative Director: Charley Wickman
Creative Directors: Mikal Pittman, Britt Nolan
Associate Creative Directors: Pete Lefebvre, Mike Costello
Art Director: Derek Heinze
Group Executive Producer: Veronica Puc
Producer: Leah Karabenick
Account Directors: Dave Macey, Jon Linton
Director Sweepstakes, Games and Contests: Amanda McKinney

Production Company: Anonymous Content
Director: Tim Godsall
Editorial: Arcade Edit

Promotion Company: PrizeLogic

The idea of dreaming has always been central to motion pictures. For moviegoers, seeing a film is a dreamlike experience: You sit in a darkened theater and enter a dream world of the imagination. For actors, making it in Hollywood is a dream in a different sense: It's a personal dream come true.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences folds both kinds of dreams into one message in its new ads, released Tuesday, for the 2016 Academy Awards. 

The tagline, written by Academy creative director Ford Oelman, is "We all dream in gold." That line is written in scripted gold on a series of print ads featuring black-and-white photos of Hollywood stars holding their trophies at recent Oscars shows.



The ads, executed by agency L.A. from the Academy's concept, celebrate the actors and their Oscar victories. But they're also intended to salute the power of movies to inspire moviegoers to achieve their dreams as well.

"We talk a lot internally about what the Oscars are about, and what they represent. And it's about a symbol of excellence but also this idea of 'If you can dream it, you can achieve it,' " Christina Kounelias, the Academy's CMO, tells Adweek. 

"It's relatable in a number of different ways," she said of the campaign. "This was their dream—the dream of acting. But it applies to other people and other facets of their work, how they live their lives. It boils down to two things: excellence in your particular area, and dream realization." 

For the print ads, the Academy chose actors who are "recognizable and relatable," Kounelias said. The photos themselves are ones most people haven't seen before, she added.

The Academy also unveiled a 30-second commercial on Tuesday featuring footage from some movies expected to be nominated, as well as a 15-second spot showing this year's Oscars host, Chris Rock, sprinkling powder on his hands like he's getting ready for a gymnastics routine. 

The spots were cut by ABC, which will air the Oscars on Feb. 28. 

"I think he's terrific," Kounelias said of Rock. "There's tremendous anticipation to see him. He's smart and funny, topical, edgy, and I think people want to see what he will say and do." 

Check out more of the print work below. 

Squarespace goes full aspirational in its first campaign from Anomaly, telling anyone consumed by a passion but wondering if they should commit to it: "You should."

That tagline is featured in a new 60-second manifesto and a handful of print ads. The new brand campaign encourages those with an idea to act on it—to do the thing they really care about, to share their passion with the world, on Squarespace of course.

The design-centric website maker's :60, directed by Radical's Derek Cianfrance, is as beautifully made as usual, with the camera moving slowly in on a figure skater, musician, artist and others practicing their craft. This cleverly builds a sense of anticipation for something about to happen. That something, of course, is meant to be the Squarespace customer finally following his or her dream.



The integrated campaign spans TV, out-of-home, print and digital.

"'You Should' is a provocation to the millions of people out there who sit on their ideas and don't know where to express them," says Mike Byrne, founding partner and global CCO of Anomaly. "Squarespace is an ideal platform for not just giving your ideas life but being able to celebrate them in their truest and most beautiful form. It's essentially the ultimate creative tool and platform for expressing them. In this work, we wanted to pinpoint the creative moment before self-doubt dissuades most of us from making our ideas a reality.​ Welcome to your stage."

"Much of our marketing is about connecting with creators that share our values," says Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Casalena. "2016 will be a big year for us, and we're excited to launch our new campaign that will inspire others to follow their passions and create something beautiful on Squarespace."

The campaign broke on the Golden Globes and will continue on the Super Bowl. The creators featured in the campaign include the following:

• Music - Lazer Cake
• Food/Small Biz - Van Leeuwen Ice Cream
• Interior Design/Small Biz - Liza Laserow
• Art/Design - Craig Ward
• Design/Small Biz - Carlos Naude
• Wedding - Jackie & LP
• Athlete - Kevin Shum
• Music - Steph Barker
• Fashion - Chelsea Bravo
• Food - North Brooklyn Farms
• Photography - Alex Strohl

Check out the print work here: 

CREDITS

Client: Squarespace
Founder and CEO: Anthony Casalena
CCO: David Lee
Director of Brand Marketing: Amory Wooden
Art Director: Andre do Amaral

Agency: Anomaly

Print:
Photographer: Dustin Aksland
Cinemagraphs: Josh Rothstein
Production Company: Fill in the Blank

Film:
Production Company: Radical Media
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Director of Photography: Sean Bobbitt
Executive Producer: Frank Scherma
Executive Producer: Greg Carlesimo
Head of Production: Frank Dituri
Producer: Cody Ryder
1st Asst. Director: Dave Backus
Wardrobe Stylist: Choo Choo Kim
Hair/Makeup: Michelle Beck
Production Designer: Jade Healey

Editorial/VFX/End Titles: Arcade
Editor: Jeff Feruzzo
Assistant Editor: Sam Barden
Producer: Gavin Carroll
Animator Scott Pallo
Flame Artist Tristian Wake
Flame Assistant Mark Popham
Executive Producer: Sila Soyer

In the best news my 7-year-old has heard all day, Pokémon has announced it will air a commercial on Super Bowl 50 to celebrate the brand's 20th anniversary.

Details were scant about what the commercial will entail. The Pokémon Company said only that that it will encourage fans to "Train On." That refers to the competitive gameplay aspect of Pokémon, in which the owners of Pokémon video games and trading cards are considered "trainers," preparing Pokémon creatures for battle.

It is not known how long the ad is, or when it will air on the game.

Pokémon also revealed plans for a larger #Pokemon20 campaign, in which fans will be encouraged to share their favorite Pokémon memories on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

On Feb. 27, which is Pokémon Day, fans can attend special anniversary events at retailers. That same day, Nintendo will make some of its best-selling Pokémon amiibo interactive figures available again—in particular, Charizard, Jigglypuff, Greninja, and Lucario.

Fans can follow Pokemon.com/20 for more. 

• For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.

If you hear voices beckoning you to take a luxury cruise—or you feel an indescribable urge to whisper "Polo" into your coffee cup—Celebrity Cruises might be calling to you.

Venables Bell & Partners' first ad for the brand peddles the ship trips with an unusual globe-spanning game of Marco Polo: Crew members yell the "Marco" call, while confused potential customers—miles away, living their busy city lives—deliver the response, "Polo," without fully seeming to understand why.



It's not a terrible way to suggest adventure awaits, even if the actual product is a floating hotel. But the ad could just as easily be selling anti-psychosis medication—although if you start hallucinating, we don't suggest committing to a lengthy stay confined at sea with a couple thousand booze-guzzling humans. See a doctor instead. 

Celebrity is billing its services as modern luxury, promising savings of up to $2,150—which makes a viewer wonder how much the trip could possibly cost to begin with. (A quick search shows a seven-night cruise to Bermuda, leaving from Cape Liberty, N.J., starts at about $709. By comparison, a similar nine-night cruise to Bermuda leaving from Baltimore on Royal Caribbean—which owns Celebrity—starts from about $846.) 

Meanwhile, print ads—shown below—promise fine wine, chocolate and grass (the kind that grows in lawns, that is, in case you care for a game of bocce ball, or a picnic). The visuals make use of the X that echoes the one in Celebrity's logo.

Overall, it's way mellower than the pumped-up, colorful montages Mullen launched this past fall to lure millennials to Royal Caribbean. A more reserved, soothing approach may be appropriate, since Celebrity owns the dubious reputation of an outsized number of on-board stomach illnesses. But it also needn't worry—the threat of barfing your brains out is actually fairly low, statistically speaking, and was, according to estimates last year, not enough to stop the overall industry from growing in 2015.

CREDITS

—TV
Client: Celebrity Cruises
Spot: "Marco Polo"
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Founder, Chairman: Paul Venables
Partner, Executive Creative Director: Will McGinness
Creative Director: Erich Pfeifer
Senior Art Director: Rich North
Senior Copywriter: Ryan Hoercher
Director of Integrated Production: Craig Allen
Executive Producer: Mandi Holdorf
Agency Producer: Ryan Wilson
Director of Art Production: Jacqueline Fodor
Executive Strategy Director: Lucy Farey-Jones
Senior Brand Strategist: Mike Riley
Motion Designers: Victor Bivol, Zac Wollons
Production Company: Humble
Directors: Samuel and Gunnar
Director of Photography: Carlos Veron
Executive Producer: Mark Kovaks
Editing Company: Exile
Editor: Elliot Graham
Sound Design: 740 Sound
Sound Designers: Scott Ganary, Jeff Martin
Music: South
Mix: Lime
Visual Effects: The Mill
Visual Effects Producer: Antonio Hardy
Graphic Effects: Lumberyard
Graphic Effects Artists: Victor Bivol, Zac Wollons
Business Lead: Colleen McGee
Account Supervisor: Krista Muir
Account Manager: Ariel Rosen
Assistant Account Manager: Francesca Robertson
Project Managers: Talya Fisher, Leah Murphy
Director of Business Affairs: Susan Conklin
Proofreader: Michael Rosenthal
Studio Manager: Jennifer Trull
Studio: Will Larsen, Natalie Cowan

—Print/ Outdoor
Client: Celebrity Cruises
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Executive Creative Directors: Paul Venables, Will McGinness
Creative Director: Erich Pfeifer
Senior Art Director: Rich North
Senior Copywriter: Ryan Hoercher
Design Director: Cris Logan
Designer: Blake Johnston
Studio Manager: Jennifer Trull
Studio: Will Larsen, Natalie Cowan
Director of Integrated Production: Craig Allen
Production House: Pacific Digital Image
Director of Art Production: Jacqueline Fodor
Print Producers: Michelle Wells, Shelly Amin
Art Buyers: Shelly Amin, Renee Hodges
Photographer: Maren Caruso
Senior Brand Strategist: Mike Riley
Business Lead: Colleen McGee
Account Supervisor: Krista Muir
Account Manager: Ariel Rosen
Assistant Account Manager: Francesca Robertson
Senior Project Manager: Talya Fisher
Project Manager: Leah Murphy
Director of Business Affairs: Susan Conklin
Proofreader: Michael Rosenthal

—Digital
Client: Celebrity Cruises
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Executive Creative Directors: Paul Venables, Will McGinness
Creative Director: Erich Pfeifer
Senior Art Director: Rich North
Senior Copywriter: Ryan Hoercher
Senior Brand Strategist: Mike Riley
Director of Integrated Production: Craig Allen
Director of Art Production: Jacqueline Fodor
Design Director: Cris Logan
Designers: Blake Johnston, Nicola Broderick
Studio Manager: Jennifer Trull
Studio: Will Larsen, Natalie Cowan
Digital Development: StangaOne
Producer: Adela Chung
Business Lead: Colleen McGee
Account Supervisor: Krista Muir
Account Manager: Ariel Rosen
Assistant Account Manager: Francesca Robertson
Senior Project Manager: Talya Fisher
Project Manager: Leah Murphy
Director of Business Affairs: Susan Conklin
Proofreader: Michael Rosenthal

Let's imagine a world without engineers. What does that look and feel like?

It's upon this thought experiment that BBDO New York embarks in "Be an Engineer," an effort by Exxon Mobil to motivate young people to ... well, use your engineering prowess to complete this sentence.

Five spots so far imagine how we'd work around various staples of leisure, transport and safety if an engineer hadn't been around to give life to what's missing. Meant to capture the fluttering attentions of a tween in the first few seconds, each follows a dead-simple formula: Familiar scenario. Something's off about it. What's off about it? Punch line. 

The most straightforward example is "Helmet," starring a boy preparing, with some trepidation, to try a new skateboarding ramp. Why so nervous, kid? Then his mother pops her head out of the house and shouts, "Put his melon on if he's going off that ramp!" You can imagine what happens next, almost as if you've seen the ad before.

 
Another example that likely came out of the "first ideas" pile is this scenario between a car buyer and a dealer. Hey, what's the horsepower on that model?

Drat, we've already said too much.

 
The work gets more interesting when it explores how we'd replace the leisure conveniences that so effortlessly fill our time, as with these two staring at not much at all:

 
Or this one of a runner, who substitutes a Fitbit—and Facebook—for a boy with big lungs: 

 
The best spot features carrier pigeons and some deliciously underhanded copy, delivered in perfect deadpan: "You seriously need to upgrade your pigeons."

 
What we've got here is classic, passable fodder: A first-brainstorm kind of idea that takes a low-hanging premise and carries it to an improbable extreme, the excuse being that that's what makes it funny! Dry, matter-of-fact style and restrained punch-line music, brought to you by PULL, holds it all together. 

The real question is whether it actually motivates kids to pursue a future in engineering, and that's where the weakness of its foundations really show. The punch lines are neither deeply imaginative nor all that funny; once you've seen and understood one, you can live without seeing the rest. Or worse, seeing the others, even for the first time, might feel like irritating repetition.

What's disappointing is the work's failure to capture the real pleasures of engineering: the sense of discovery—the spark!—you feel when you've conceived of something that solves an everyday problem, and the consequent pleasure in imagining how it would look, feel and function in a world full of people who somehow manage to be both habit-driven and utterly unpredictable in their end uses.

Because the quality that truly defines a nascent engineer is exactly the opposite of the assumption that "Be an Engineer" makes about kids: It's curiosity, not boredom. 

CREDITS
Client: Exxon Mobil
Project: "Be an Engineer"

Agency: BBDO, New York
Creative Group Heads: Greg Ketchum, Tom Godici
Producer: Brad Powell
Creative Directors: Mark Girand, Paul Laffy
Copywriter: Ryan Lawrence
Art Director: James Kuczynski
BBDO Music Producer: Rani Vaz
Account Persons: Jill Kramer, David Ritter, John Chleborad

Production Company: Radical Media, New York
Director: Steve Miller
Director of Photography: Eric Schultz

Music: PULL, New York
Composer: Mitch Davis
Executive Producer: Scott Brittingham

Editorial: Friendshop!, New York
Editor: Tim Wilson

Online: Co3, New York
Colorist: Tom Poole

Audio Post: Heard City, New York
Engineer: Eric Warzecha

A new spot for the Volvo V40 R-Design by Grey London focuses on the details, with a more soft-spoken tone than the usual false confidence we've come to expect from car ads.

The visuals focus on the car's features, like diamond-cut alloy wheels, adaptive digital display and illuminated gearshift, while the narrator, Swedish conductor Marie Rosenmir, goes on about details and how important they are to a finished product. We also get shots of her driving over a bridge and through what looks like the set from a Walter Hill film.

The tone and pace are refreshing, and the interplay between the vehicle's interior and predictable car-in-motion footage really works. But unless you know who she is, Rosenmir's narrative doesn't add much beyond exposition we don't really need and a sense of who Volvo is targeting with this model.

In fact, she's a bit like the voiceover from Blade Runner, which explains why we were reminded of Walter Hill. 

"It's the combination of many different factors—some of which you are conscious of, but many of which you aren't—which make driving a car unique or pleasurable," says Andy Lockley, creative director at Grey London.

"The V40 boasts lots of lovely, intricate design details, which in isolation may not seem particularly significant but when combined create an incredibly satisfying overall experience. We likened this to a really moving piece of music performed by an orchestra—each small component playing an important part in the overall piece. In this respect, the role of a conductor and of an automotive designer aren't that different," says Lockley.

The ad was shot on location in and around Gothenburg, Sweden, the home of Volvo. It's Grey London's second spot with a female driver in a traditionally male dominated category—following 2014's "The Swell" for the XC60, starring a female night surfer.

"The 'Life Is in the Details' campaign continues to leverage our Swedish provenance and design philosophy which is proving so successful for our business and brand in the U.K.," says Georgina Williams, head of marketing for Volvo Car U.K. "In the TV execution this is delivered via the musings of Marie Rosenmir's craft. Set against the Swedish landscape and crafted design features of the V40, the complete piece aims to establish the V40 R-Design as a car for the discerning eye."

CREDITS
Client: Volvo
Creative Agency: Grey, London
Chief Creative Officer: Nils Leonard
Creative Director: Andy Lockley
Copywriter: Erik Uvhagen
Art Director: Johan Leandersson
Strategic Design Director: Wiktor Skoog
Business Director: Cristyn Bevan
Account Director: Tim Rogowski
Account Manager: Alex Nixon
Account Executive: Dominic Kolodziejski
Producers: Amy Cracknell, Mandy Saunders, Elaine Coyle
Directors: Leila and Damien de Blinkk
Production Company: Wanda Productions
Producer: Jane Lloyd
Director of Photography: Jakob Ire
Editor: Ben Campbell @ Cut and Run
Colorist: Jean Clement @ MPC
Sound: Jack Sedgewick @ Wave
Composer: Tom Player
CGI, Flame: Jamie Russell @ Gramercy Park Studios

If you're a Chinese goose who runs a noodle shop in an animated film franchise, you could really use Wix.com to help with your small business.

The Tel Aviv-based web development platform unveiled the first teaser in its 2016 Super Bowl campaign Wednesday, and it features characters from DreamWorks Animation's upcoming movie Kung Fu Panda 3. The campaign, developed by DreamWorks (without ad agency involvement), features the characters trying various silly "out-of-the-box" marketing ideas to advertise Mr. Ping's Noodles, the restaurant in the film. 

In the end, of course, they realize they should just whip up a cool website with Wix. "Create your stunning website today," says the end line. The campaign hashtag is #StartStunning. 



Wix has create a microsite at startstunning.com, where the whole Super Bowl campaign will play out. Three more teasers are expected before the 30-second Super Bowl ad itself airs on Feb. 7. A final video in the campaign will break three days after the Super Bowl, on Feb. 10.

"The Super Bowl is a huge stage, and all brands play offense to score big and win viewers' attention. Collaborating with a creative leader like DreamWorks Animation enabled us to develop a fun and effective campaign that will give us an edge come Super Bowl Sunday," Wix CMO Omer Shai said in a statement. "Even if you're not a Dragon Warrior, with Wix you can effectively use the web to grow your business or brand. And that all starts with a stunning website." 

Shai told Adweek in December that Wix was thrilled with its Super Bowl debut in 2015, which starred football legends Terrell Owens, Emmitt Smith and Brett Favre. The company also cranked out 50 pieces of online content using 16 different social accounts for that campaign.

"We're really happy with what we achieved last year—we did a great campaign, not just a spot,"  Shai said. "This year was almost a no-brainer." 

"[DreamWorks] approached us after the success of last year, and they said that they would like to do something together," Shai added. "Because there are so many values of the brand that combine, it was easy to work together, and we're happy with what we created. They know how to tell the story in a lovely way."

• For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.

Pepsi is returning for its fourth year as title sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show. And on Wednesday it launched a new online video series called "Camp Halftime," comprised of weekly clips starring actor/comedian Donald Faison, who schools counselors on how to produce a flawless halftime spectacle on the big day.

Each of four spots, created in partnership with The Kicker—Above Average's sports comedy site—will roll out on Wednesdays leading up to the Super Bowl on Pepsi.com and YouTube.

Check out the first video below. As revealed in December, Coldplay will be the headline act at this year's Super Bowl—so it's unclear whether this young camp counselor's energetic moves will be much in demand during this particular band's set.

 
Below, check out two other Pepsi videos heralding Coldplay as the halftime performers. 

• For more Super Bowl 50 news, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker, an up-to-date list of the brands running Super Bowl spots and the agencies involved in creating them.

Hill Holliday channels West Side Story in this inventive ad for LG that broke on the Golden Globes—staging an impressively choreographed street fight between two rival clothing gangs, the delicates and the regulars.

There are no humans inside the clothes. Instead, pants, dresses, shirts, blouses and jackets grapple furiously in an alley, with kicks! punches! ducks! and spins! (I think that little white number with the sash has been putting in extra time at the dojo.)

A voiceover explains: "Since the beginning, delicates and regulars have never gotten along. But now, with the new LG TwinWash, they can live peacefully separate, but washed at the same time," because the unit has dual compartments.



"The TwinWash is a very big launch for LG, so the spot needed to feel equally as big," Hill Holliday group creative director Kevin Daley tells AdFreak. "We also wanted a story that could resonate globally. While it may feel very different from the rest of the category, at the heart of the spot is a simple product demonstration, and for that reason the client was able to really get behind it."

Disembodied clothing is something of an advertising sub-genre, and permutations of the basic idea have graced everything from Gap commercials to gun-violence PSAs.

For LG, the creative team—including MJZ director Carl Erik Rinsch and effects wizards at Digital Domain—added the stylized fight element, drawing inspiration from Hollywood imagery.

"We thought about quite a few film references: Rumble Fish, West Side Story and even Michael Jackson's 'Bad' video," Daley says. "We wanted to create a fight that was a mix of street brawl, martial arts and dance. Think Crouching Tiger meets Rumble Fish with a touch of ballet mixed in."

The frenetic action was crafted over four months, initially using motion-capture footage of dancers and martial artists. The alley was a 3-D scan of an actual New York City location recreated by computer animation. "There were many stages in the process where we were asking our client to take a leap of faith and trust us," says Daley. (Judging from the final product, we suppose those LG honchos were more than just empty suits looking to stick with the predictable.)

In addition to the minute-long spot, LG took the show on the road a few weeks back, with performances in Times Square staged by Broadway choreographer Joshua Bergass and Jim Henson Workshop puppeteer Michael Schupbach. These live epic battles between delicates and regulars featured a troupe of dancers and 16-foot-tall puppets. Oh, and a 20-foot-high TwinWash machine was on hand, naturally.

CREDITS

Client: LG
Vice President of Marketing, LG Electronics U.S.: David VanderWaal
Director, Brand Marketing & Communications, LG Electronics U.S.: Angela Smith
Agency: Hill Holliday
Chief Creative Officer: Lance Jensen
Group Creative Director: Kevin Daley
Creative Director: Rick McHugh
Agency Executive Producer: Paul Shannon
Agency Assistant Producer: Jill Wyman
Account Team: Kerry Benson, Scott Adler, Jacqueline Doherty
Planner: Baysie Wightman
Production Company: MJZ
Executive Producer: Kate Leahy
Producer: Nathaniel Greene
Director: Carl Erik Rinsch
Cinematographer: Cory Geryak
Line Producer: Nathaniel Greene
Steadicam Operator: Ross Coscia
Digital Production Company: Home VFX with Digital Domain, Alt VFX, + Framestore LA
Digital Effects Supervisor: Eric Barba
Edit House: Stitch Editorial
Editor: Dan Swietlik
Music/Sound Design House: SOUTH Music & Sound Design
Music Producer: Ann Haugen
Post Production: Home VFX with Digital Domain, Alt VFX, + Framestore LA
Executive Post Producer: Nathaniel Greene
Post Producer: Elizabeth Knovick
VFX Company: Home VFX
Product CG Company: Alt VFX

Everyone knows the shower is the ultimate generator of great creative ideas. So, why are there so few showers in agency meeting rooms?

The folks at Providence, R.I., ad agency Nail had the bright idea, probably while in the shower, of rectifying this problem by (allegedly) building a so-called "(b)rainstorm" room in the office—so the water and the creativity could both flow freely.

There were just a few unforeseen problems with that idea, as you can see below. 



CREDITS
Directed and filmed by Animus Studios
Editor: Roy Power
Director of Photography: Scott Beer
Camera Operator: Andrew Drachman
Producers: Arty Goldstein, Justin Andrews

Nail Credits
Designer: Robert Troutman
Art Directors: Brian Gross, Robert Troutman
Copywriter: Alec Beckett
Producer: Naomi Simmers
Production Assistant: Alison Purwins

On-Screen Talent (in order of appearance):
Brian Gross
Alec Beckett
Colin Gillespie
Dana Haddad
Mary Kate Byrne
Jaki Selwyn
Naomi Simmers
Jack McKenna
Mathiew Madeiros

Twentieth Century Fox is determined not to take its marketing for Deadpool at all seriously. And it's making for one of the more entertaining movie campaigns in a while.

The most recent development happened Wednesday, when Patton Oswald posted a photo of a Deadpool billboard in Los Angeles with a skull emoji, poop emoji and a blocky letter L. So simple, so dumb—yet hilarious. (And no, the movie is not called Skullshittle.)

This idiotic/brilliant billboard is why I'm all in on the DEADPOOL movie. I'm an easy lay. pic.twitter.com/jSRorPvaCp

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) January 13, 2016

 
That followed a Deadpool tweet earlier this week showing a billboard-style ad positioning the Marvel movie as a romance flick (because it's being released around Valentine's Day).

This Valentine's Day, fall in love with #Deadpool. pic.twitter.com/ScQWrpXXmx

— Deadpool Movie (@deadpoolmovie) January 11, 2016

 
The movie's star, Ryan Reynolds, then posted an Instagram photo of the same image on an actual billboard, framed by Deadpool's hands making a heart shape. "In 32 days, let's cuddle the shit out of each other," he wrote in the caption. 

The tongue-in-cheek campaign has been a big hit with fans dating back to the character unveil—in that amusing Burt Reynolds/Cosmopolitan spoof—from last March. (It's well worth a look at the meta trailer as well.) 

The love-story stuff has been particularly popular, though, and has led to a number of fan-made spoofs, including the mock trailer below. 

For years, the Axe brand was pretty one-dimensional. It appealed to bros with comical, hyperbolic ads about how Axe would turn them into chick magnets. In the past few years, that cartoony single-mindedness has given way, here and there, to richer messaging that downplayed the bro aspect (most notably in BBH's "Susan Glenn" and last year's Axe Hair campaign).

Now, Axe takes another very big step toward more grown-up advertising thanks to 72andSunny in Amsterdam, which has crafted a new campaign for Axe grooming products, called "Find Your Magic." And it's all about shedding traditional notions of masculinity and embracing one's individual sense of how to be a man.

The result? An excellent first 60-second anthem that features one man in high heels, another in a wheelchair—and a general sense of giddy liberation from the brand's quite cringe-worthy baggage of yore (no matter how much of it was self-aware).



"Masculinity today is going through seismic changes. More than ever, guys are rejecting rigid male stereotypes," says Matthew McCarthy, senior director of Axe and men's grooming at Unilever. "We've been part of guys' lives for decades, and Axe champions real guys and the unique traits that make them attractive to the world around them."

Except the only trait that really made them attractive, in the brand's earlier philosophy, was use of the product. The new spot actually cycles through lots of individuals, and individual traits, and manages to bury the one-size-fits-all approach entirely.

The "Find Your Magic" line has a bit of a head-in-the-clouds feeling that doesn't quite match the brand's move toward a more grounded (if still energetic) messaging about manhood. But the campaign's heart is definitely in the right place. Masculinity is changing, and quickly—the brand clearly knew its days of stereotyping were numbered.

"Axe has always been at the forefront of culture," says 72andSunny Amsterdam executive creative director Carlo Cavallone. "With 'Find Your Magic,' we're out to liberate guys from pressure and bullshit, and empower them to be the most attractive men they can be—themselves."

CREDITS
Client: Axe
Agency: 72andSunny, Amsterdam
Director: François Rousselet, Division

If politicians alone controlled the flow of information to the public, war would be tantamount to entertainment, argues a gripping new PSA.

A new 80-second video from Paris agency BETC for nonprofit Reporters Without Borders deftly contrasts state propaganda with on-the-ground war-zone imagery to make the case for one of the organization's key missions: Assisting and protecting the journalists who report on conflicts around the world. 

It opens with a cheerful declaration from one TV commentator. "And now it's time, folks, to have a parade!" he cries, punctuating his enthusiasm with a punch in the air—a surreal frame-up for the jarring montage that follows.



Obscene spectacles of military power—marching battalions, convoys of truck-mounted missiles, rows of jet fighters—roll across the screen, celebrating nations of various stripes while leaders beam from their vantage points.

World history buffs could easily turn this into a game of Name That Despot: Faces include North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabia's King Salman and, for Americans in the audience, President George W. Bush in the context of his infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner from 2003, early in the Iraq War.

Other representations include troops from Great Britain, France, China and more. 

These grandiose displays of force suddenly give way to shots capturing actual atrocities—mass graves, wounded children, heartbreaking scars and soldiers bogged down in muck and misery. "Without independent reporters, war would just be a nice show," reads copy across the screen. "Support those that risk their lives to bring us the truth."

The ad concludes with a shot of photographers plastering themselves onto the ground in the middle of a war zone.

The call for donations makes a simple and effective argument for how brutality gets sanitized and glorified by governments, often spearheaded by officials far removed from the danger and damage they facilitate. It's equally important to point out that the number of war correspondents is dwindling as the job gets even more dangerous and traumatic.

But the emotional power of the spot comes from a place so obvious it almost goes without saying: The failure to bring violence to light makes it more likely to persist, unchecked, to the detriment of humanity. 

It's impossible to imagine a free society, and a free world, without a free press. And as long as one exists, people can at least choose to ignore genocide ... rather than just pleading ignorance.

CREDITS
Client: Reporters Sans Frontières
Client Management: Christophe Deloire, Perrine Daubas, Caroline Pastorelli, Thibaut Bruttin
Agency: BETC
Agency Management: Catherine Emprin, Guillaume Espinet, Jeremy Taffin
Creative Directors: Stéphane Xiberras, Jean-Michel Alirol, Dominique Marchand
Art Director: Jean-Michel Alirol
Assistant Art Director: Pierre Orizet
Copywriter: Dominique Marchand
Traffic: Alexandra Chini
TV Producer: David Brakha
Production Company: Stink
Producer: Gregory Panteix
Director: Owen Trevor
Sound: Brendan Woithe @ Klang
Flame Artist: FASA @ ETC
Monteur: Ryan Boucher @MSE

Without a doubt, Indeed.com is the best site on the planet for finding a job, especially if you're an aging '80s rocker in need of a gig: The company will be all too happy to put you in one of its commercials. 

Last year, Loverboy frontman Mike Reno second-guessed the lyrics of the band's hit "Working for the Weekend" in an amusing Indeed ad by Sleek Machine. This time around, the Boston agency transforms former Runaways singer/guitarist and solo star Lita Ford into a schoolteacher for the thrashing spot below: 



Whoa, is anyone else hot for teacher right now? (Because of her slammin' solo, obviously—which she performed live and sans postproduction edits on a no-frills guitar, chosen because it resembles the gear you'd typically find in a school music program.) 

Ford's spot is part of Indeed's new "Celebrations" campaign, which also features treadmill dancer Marcus Dorsey and professional BMX rider Bo Wade. In each spot, the subjects start out "disguised" as average workers, until their superior talents are revealed as they celebrate their blissful new employment. 

Because working all day is always a cause for celebration, right?



Actually, the cute campaign seeks to address the negative thinking that pervades the job-site category, Sleek Machine chief creative officer Tim Cawley tells AdFreak.

"While advertising for many other sites focuses on browbeaten workers who need to 'escape' their Orwellian jobs and grumpy bosses, Indeed focuses instead on all the bright, talented people out there looking for their next opportunity," he says. "They embrace the job seeker as someone who's looking to make a promising career even more promising ... thus, 'Celebrations.' " 



Fair enough, though it seems a bit odd that Ford—not a huge name these days, though still a draw owing to the nostalgia factor—isn't identified on screen. "I'd guess most folks won't even know it's her," Cawley concedes. "But the upside to using her is that there is a little PR/earned media angle, too." 

Naturally, Cawley hopes Ford's commercial follows Reno's up the charts. That earlier spot "was one of the most shared and liked videos Indeed has ever put in their social feed," he says. "People are massively interested in seeing their '80s rock heroes in a new context."

While Indeed has no specific plans for more such ads, "We've always dreamed of working with Skid Row or Ratt," says Cawley. "And Jon Bon Jovi is free to email us anytime." 

CREDITS
Client: Indeed
Agency: Sleek Machine
CCO: Tim Cawley
Senior Integrated Producer: Ben Ouellette
Senior Copywriter: Jeff Marois
Senior Art Director: Jessica Ruggieri
Music: Skyrmish ("Bike Technician" and "Physiologist")
Talent: Lita Ford, Bo Wade, Marcus Dorsey
Director: David Tindale
Production Company: Big Nest Creative
Editor: Nick Agri

Past winners of the prestigious D&AD Pencils freaked the hell out this week when they suddenly discovered their precious ornaments of self-worth had gone missing.

Some 75 Pencils from nearly 30 agencies—from Rio to Melbourne, from San Francisco to Cape Town—suffered disappeared on Monday. Among the victims: Jeff Goodby of Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Paul Brazier of AMV BBDO.

Many of them voiced their confusion and grief on Twitter.

How is it that 5,000 desk tchotchkes made the move to our new office but not our @dandad pencils. WTF #hadonejobpic.twitter.com/tQBwQuA6Xh

— R/GA (@RGA) January 12, 2016

Umm. Someone's nicked my D&AD president's pencil. It's quite distinctive. Anyone seen it?#dandad#missingpencilpic.twitter.com/6IW3vtDhY2

— Paul Brazier (@therealbraze) January 12, 2016

Who has stolen Feargal Ballance's @dandad pencil. WTF. @fergiebeepic.twitter.com/xCxRqeFlPR

— adam&eveDDB (@aandeddb) January 13, 2016

Mystery at Partizan, ABJ looks confused over the disappearance of his @dandad pencil. pic.twitter.com/1MdwIwoECo

— Partizan (@wearepartizan) January 13, 2016

Mysteriously empty shelf where ours used to sit too #dandadpic.twitter.com/5Bi5zx6FiC

— RKCR/Y&R (@RKCR_YR) January 13, 2016

#BreakingNews: Thief at large! @saatchilondon missing @dandad pencils. #pencilpoliceonthecase#dandadpencil

— Saatchi London (@saatchilondon) January 14, 2016

Has anyone seen our @dandad pencils? #mysterypic.twitter.com/Xi7y9Tx8f4

— Wave Studios (@WaveStudios) January 12, 2016

Well, relax. It was all just a coordinated heist by London agency Lucky Generals. The Pencils were returned on Thursday, with a note explaining that the stunt was meant to dramatize the precious nature of the awards.

"This experiment was based on the simple truth that, sometimes, we only realize the true value of things when they've been taken from us," said Lucky Generals creative founder Danny Brooke-Taylor.

Added Tim Lindsay, CEO of D&AD: "We loved the chutzpah of the Lucky Generals idea. It was a cheeky and good-humored way of reminding people that, when it comes to awards, nothing matters more than a D&AD Pencil. Thanks to everyone who took part, wittingly or unwittingly." 

The sequel to Zoolander is probably going to be terrible, but—let us finish—the marketing for it is actually pretty cool and inventive. 

Zoolander No. 2 continues the adventures and foibles of inexplicably famous male models Zoolander and Hansel (played by Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson). The film's marketing blitz began with the two actors walking in Valentino's fall 2015 show, and the most recent ad, created by Testa and Partners and described as a "mini-movie," debuted during the Golden Globes and features Zoolander as the new face of Fiat: 

 
Five print ads and a trailerette further bleed the lines between our world and Zoolander's, mixing the fictional models with actual ones. The video is probably the best, presenting clips from the upcoming movie recut to make an obtuse celebrity fragrance ad parody ... in this case for a perfume called No. 2 (you saw that coming, didn't you?):

 
It's a welcome break from the repetitive nature of modern movie trailers, most of which have the exact same pacing, beats and structure. A campaign produced in character is refreshing and serious work to pull off—if not entirely original—and Zoolander lends itself to an unconventional approach.

Because while I personally never want to see these characters in a movie again, I'd happily watch them interrupt real-world functions to annoy people I don't like.

Check out the print ads below.

Ad creep has reached practically all surfaces of the Earth and beyond, both physical and virtual spaces. The one exception is your dreams. Sure, brands can show up there, but they're not paid placements—yet.

In the video below, Dutch production company Studio Smack leaps forward a few years and envisions what branded dreams might look like. The company explains:

We see ads everyday and everywhere. They have become part of our life. While some people try to avoid seeing ads, advertisers keep finding new ways to reach us. However they are unable to reach us when we sleep. Our dreams are the last safe and add-free place, so it seems. But what happens when advertisers have the possibility to enter our dreams? Based on recent developments in brain science and technology this might be possible in the near future. This animated short is an impression of a dream infected by a brand we all know ...

And of course, it's perfect that Coca-Cola is the first brand in line. 

When it comes to automotive advertising, sometimes it pays to toss out the driver's manual, ignore the rules of the road and veer off in an unexpected direction.

Take Nissan, which scored a coup this week with "Shoulders of Giants," a surprising 90-second spot from TBWA\Chiat\Day that's generated considerable buzz in the industry and among consumers.

Launched during Monday's college football championship game, the ad savvily introduces the Titan XD pickup while paying homage to Nissan's competitors. 



"We have all had a giant," a child's voiceover begins, "someone who stood tall, who showed us how to be what we could become and how to get there." Dramatic footage of hero types—firefighters, football stars, astronauts—follows, intercut with scenes of youngsters running, climbing, exploring or just lying under the stars, dreaming. 

We catch glimpses of various pickups, all of the vintage variety—none of them Nissans—as the narration sums up: "To those who have gone before us—Chevy, Ford, Dodge—thank you. We see the way forward." At the end, the Titan XD appears, proud inheritor of an automotive legacy that spans several generations and nameplates.

The approach seems counterintuitive, but the strategy allows Nissan to take the high road, respectfully acknowledging its antecedents while laying claim to the future.

"This was about grabbing people's attention to claim our seat at the table," Jeremy Tucker, vice president of marketing communications and media at Nissan North America, tells Adweek. "It's a fact that our competitors are the category and responsible for driving industry and truck culture. With this fact, we aimed to give respect to get respect to start the conversation." 

That conversation has been especially animated. Nissan reports 4.2 million total impressions and nearly 4 million combined views across Facebook and YouTube, with sentiment on the latter running about 96 percent positive. 

Even some world-weary industry observers are impressed. "The spot is bold, different and clearly gets its message across: 'We have arrived,' " says Paul Eisenstein, editor and publisher of TheDetroitBureau.com.

George Peterson, president of AutoPacific, adds, "The ad goes counter to almost all automotive advertising ever done. Brave—and very cool."

Unorthodox maneuvers, meticulously planned and executed with care, can help canny brands pull away from the pack.

CREDITS
Client: Nissan
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day

The Clio Awards will be holding its second annual Super Clio contest during this year's Super Bowl, getting a handful of top creatives in the industry to vote for their favorite commercial from the game—and eventually crown a winning spot.

Below are a couple of tongue-in-cheek ads promoting this year's contest, comically suggesting that the makers of the Super Bowl spots badger and cajole the judges into voting for their work. Or as the ads themselves say: "Let the super ass-kissing begin."

Bold move to include the email addresses of the judges, who will probably now have to set up filters sending any emails with the word "Clio" to the trash. 

The ads were done by Fitzgerald & Co. Click to enlarge.

CREDITS

Agency: Fitzgerald & Co.
Chief Creative Officer: Noel Cottrell
Group Creative Directors: Ryan Boblett, Brad Harvey
Copywriter: Meredith Young
Network Creative Manager: Eric Monnet
Producer: Cris Tally
Account Supervisor: Rhanatah Griffith