Adobe always likes to unveil a comical new spot for Advertising Week. This year is no exception, and this time we get a James Bond-style spot in which a secret agent easily handles almost everything that's thrown at him—but is completely undone by some bad customer service.

The spot, created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, was shot on location in Budapest and directed by Biscuit Filmworks/Revolver Film's Steve Rogers. It focuses on the woes of cross-channel marketing and features an amusing scenario of a suave hero assaulted by that most evil of villains—a hotel check-in experience gone wrong. 

Attendees at Advertising Week in New York will be seeing the ad quite a bit. It will run before more than 75 sessions beginning Monday. It will also be served up through addressable TV ads in select markets to Comcast and DirecTV subscribers. Adobe is also planning targeted online placements for the cinematic spot, aiming to reach marketers who are searching for movie content on YouTube.

Check out the spot here:

"Our latest Adobe Marketing Cloud campaign highlights how a very common problem for brands—the lack of connection between their different communication channels—can translate to a very serious problem for customers," says Alex Amado, vp of experience marketing at Adobe.

"When cross-channel marketing goes wrong, it's bad news for businesses and consumers alike," adds Will Elliott, creative director at GS&P. "We wanted to show that all the bad guys in the world couldn't defeat a secret agent, but a bad customer experience could."

Adobe will have an accompanying social media activation on site at Advertising Week. The company will be hosting a mobile "Think Tank" (or "Street Tank") near the Advertising Week hub in Midtown and inviting event attendees to come inside and share their views on camera about the "future of digital experiences."

The footage will be live streamed through Adobe's social media channels.

CREDITS
Client/Company: Adobe
Title of Creative Work: "Secret Agent"

Agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Creative
Co-Chairmen: Rich Silverstein and Jeff Goodby
Chief Creative Officer: Margaret Johnson
Creative Director: Will Elliott
Creative Director: Patrick Knowlton
ACD/Art Director: Andrew Livingston
ACD/Copywriter: Simon Bruyn
Production
Director of Production: Tod Puckett
Senior Producer: Benton Roman
Account Services
Managing Partner: Brian McPherson
Account Director: Theo Abel
Account Manager: Chelsea Bruzzone
Assistant Account Manager: Zack Piánko
Brand and Communication Strategy
Director of Brand Strategy: Bonnie Wan
Brand Strategist: Etienne Ma, Andrew Mak
Director of Communication Strategy: Christine Chen
Communication Strategy Deputy Director: Dong Kim
Senior Communication Strategist: Victoria Barbatelli
Communication Strategist: Tara Hughes
Junior Communication Strategist: Nicole Bruno, Catherine Kim
Business Affairs
Business Affairs Manager: Heidi Kileen

Production Company
Company name: Biscuit Filmworks / Revolver
Director: Steve Rogers
Managing Director: Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Producer: Kathy Rhodes
Head of Production: Mercedes Allen Sarria
Head of Production: Rachel Glaub
Director of Photography: Nicolas Karakatsanis
Production Designer: Tunde Csaki

Editorial Company
Company name: Arcade Edit
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
EP: Crissy DeSimone
HOP: Kirsten Thon-Webb
Editor: Geoff Hounsell
Assistant Editor: Laura Sanford
Producer: Alexa Atkin

Telecine
Company name: The Mill NYC
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Senior Colour Producer: Natalie Westerfield

VFX/Finishing
Executive Producer: Leighton Greer
Senior VFX Producer: Will Unterreiner
Production Coordinator: Alex Benavente
Shoot Supervisor: Chris Mortimer
Creative Director: Tim Davies
2D Lead Artist: Tim Davies
2D Artists: Edward Black, Kelsey Napier

Music
Company name: Woodwork Music

Sound Design
Company name: Barking Owl
Sound Designer: Michael Anastasi
Creative Director: Kelly Bayett
Producer: Ashley Benton

Mix
Company name: Barking Owl
Mixer: Morgan Johnson

The first trip a person makes to Ikea is often with his or her parents. Buzzman Paris brings that bittersweet visit to life in "My Son," an ad that opens on a mom strolling the store with a boy who can't be more than 10 years old. 

For someone so young, the kid proves oddly precocious. He makes a beeline for a kitchen island, admiring the surface material. He lauds the practicality of slide-out drawers, and measures furniture while his mother wistfully observes. 

It's pretty clear where this is going, but it's still sad to watch.



Between friends, we like to joke about how our parents still see us as children, even though we increasingly see them as children themselves. Back home, I engage in heated arguments with my dad about whether it was smart for him to buy a boat he can't pilot. I shout about responsibility while he sputters and sulks in this reversal of roles ... but when I go to bed, he'll still sneak in to plug in a night light. 

It's difficult to imagine how this transition from child to adult happens for the people who raise us, but it plays out beautifully here: There's the moment when the son has an Ikea employee enter his own name into her database, and even flirts with her a little. When the time comes to pay, he puts a hand over his mother's wallet and tells her he's fine. 

He loads the truck on his own, then climbs into the driver's seat. As his mother gazes lovingly at him, the boy transforms into the twentysomething he actually is, before reminding her, "I'm only moving around the corner." 

The spot concludes, "If only we could keep some things small forever," before inevitably reminding us of its commercial interests: "At Ikea, prices remain small all year." But that pitch is beside the point. The real message is about Ikea's role in a rite of passage that's as meaningful for the parent as it is for the progeny. 

This isn't new ground in advertising. Subaru's touching "Baby Driver" ad from 2011 explored the moment a dad first passes the car keys to his daughter, who appears as a squirmy little kid playing with the seatbelt before transforming into a perfectly capable teen. That ad, which was an Emmy nominee, was faster-moving and more stoic, but it conveyed the same flying-the-coop pathos that you find here. 

It's an old story, but it still grabs heartstrings. As we race eagerly toward adulthood, parents mourn the loss of our dependence. We grow older and forget we were ever so needful as we establish careers, make families and grow busy. But for the people who raised us, we remain the tiny people who grabbed their hands when crossing the street. It's perhaps crucial for them to believe we'll always need them this way. 

This is why, well into our 30s, we say nothing when our dads plug in the night light ... even though, truth be told, we haven't been afraid of the dark in over two decades.

CREDITS

Client: Ikea France
Country Marketing Director : Stépanie Jourdan
External Communication Manager : Carole Feleppa
House-Design Consultant: Karin Aubertin

Agency: Buzzman
President and Creative Director:
Georges Mohammed-Cherif
Vice-President : Thomas Granger
Associate Director : Julien Levilain
Artistic Director: Philippe Boucheron
Copywriter : Patrice Lucet
Account Managers : Liliane Richard, Émilie Pellicer
Head of TV Production : Vanessa Barbel
Strategic Planner : Clément Scherrer
TV Production : Katya Violi
Director : Didier Barcelo
Production: Henry
Sound Production : Schmooze
Head of Communication and P.R.: Amélie Juillet
Communication and P.R. Manager : Clara Bascoul-Gauthier

If you don't know jack about the townsfolk of Lynchburg, Tenn., that's about to change.

Lynchburg's most famous resident, Brown-Forman brand Jack Daniel's, puts the spotlight on some of its less-renowned neighbors in new ads from Arnold Worldwide created for the distillery's 150th anniversary.

An anthem spot breaking today opens on a sun-kissed field of tall grass, with locals popping in and out of the frame as a Southern-fried fiddle plays in the background.

We briefly meet, among others, a young woman who immigrated to Lynchburg from Taiwan; a gray-haired lady named Hiawatha Kitty McGee; and a burly dude who can heft 500-pound barrels of whiskey:



Jack's no stranger to invoking its heritage, and this latest push, labeled "Our Town" (Thornton Wilder would be proud), marks a roots return for the brand after recent promos focused on Frank Sinatra. In fact, the "postcards" bit near the anthem's close harkens back to Jack's Lynchburg-themed print campaigns that began in the 1950s.

This edit brings that idea into sharper focus:



Just don't try to actually send bottles of Jack Daniels through the mail, because at the USPS, Prohibition never ended.

No worries, though, because that barrel guy can haul plenty of product:



"We filmed everybody we could, doing our best to get as many of these real people as possible," says Arnold executive creative director Wade Devers. Quick clips featuring the woman from Taiwan, Hiawatha Kitty McGee and other quirky Lynchburg characters will break in due course.

"There was a 104-year-old woman who came to the shoot," recalls Devers. "She got her hair done the day before. We kept her in an air conditioned car until we were ready to roll because it was fairly hot out there. When the car door opened and she came across the field toward the crowd, the entire town gave her a standing ovation."

Luckily, one group of troublemaking locals stayed away. "We were freaked out about chigger bites, which are supposedly both terrible and common if you happen to be in standing in tall grass in Tennessee in July," Devers says. "Thankfully, no chigger bites."

Yeah, that would be a plus.

Tapping into its origins and evoking whiskey-soaked Americana is a safe, intuitive strategy for Jack.

"It's rare that a brand as universally recognized and respected as Jack Daniel's is only made in one place," says Devers. "This is a small, tightly knit community that pretty much does things their own way. They've grown up together for generations, and they have a great respect for the work they do. When you have a community like that making whiskey, they're really making it with purpose. And people respond to that."

This tried-and-true approach feels authentic because, after all these years, the brand still calls a picturesque Tennessee town of 600 souls home. That said, this sort of thing can get cloying, so it's best consumed in moderation. 

CREDITS

Client: Brown-Forman / Jack Daniel's
Mark McCallum - Executive Vice President, and President, Jack Daniel's Brands
Philip Epps - VP, Global Brand Director - Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey

Agency: Arnold Worldwide
Global Chief Creative Officer: Jim Elliott
Managing Partner ECD: Wade Devers
Art Director: Chris Valencius
Copywriters: Jonathan Graham and Greg Farley
SVP Broadcast Producer: William Near
Assistant Broadcast Producer: Alissa Feldbau
Managing Director: Paul Nelson
Senior Marketing Manager: Mallory Brannan
VP, Brand Strategy Director: Vaughn Allen
Senior Brand Strategist: Ellis Reavy
EVP Director of Business Affairs: Anne Joynt

Production Company: Radical Media LLC
Director: Steve Miller
Executive Producer: Gregg Carlesimo
Producer: Laura Heflin
Head of Production: Frank Dituri

Editorial Company / VFX: Lost Planet & Black Hole
Editor(s): Hank Corwin & Charlie Johnston
Executive Producer: Krystn Wagenberg
Producer: Casey Cayko

Sound: Sound Lounge NYC
Engineer: Tom Jucarone

Tecate thinks building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico is a great idea—as long as it's 3 feet tall and is used as a meeting place for guys from both sides of the border (and all sides of the political spectrum) to get together and have beers.

The spot below, from Saatchi & Saatchi New York, will get a perfect media placement, too. It will debut Monday night on Fox News, Univision and Telemundo during the presidential debate between Donald Trump—who has proposed a much higher, less beer-friendly wall separating the nations—and Hillary Clinton.

See the ad here: 

The ad was filmed near the border town of Tecate, Mexico, where the Mexican beer originated. This is the brand's first work targeting the general market; it usually focuses its efforts on a core Hispanic target.

"This is a tremendous idea for Tecate. It really is the best idea. We worked with the best clients and hired the best people to work on it. Only the best. It's terrific," Jay Benjamin, former CCO at Saatchi New York, said in a statement (possibly after a few Tecates).

"Building on the insight that the wall issue is extremely important to our millennial target consumers, whether leaning more liberal or more conservative, we knew people would be watching the first presidential debate to hear each candidate's side of this important issue. We couldn't think of a better stage to serve Tecate's message of unity," said Jennifer Weiss, vp and director at Mediavest | Spark, which handled media. "We're also hyper-focused on social to ensure we're reaching legal-drinking-age adults 21+ interested in politics on both sides of the aisle to drive conversation for #TecateBeerWall efficiently."

"Tecate is using beer as the great unifier in developing a fun, lighthearted and clever commercial where friends from two bordering countries share a couple of Tecates over a wall," said Felix Palau, vp at Tecate. "With this spot, Tecate is acknowledging an ongoing conversation, while raising a glass to beer's uncanny ability to bring people together in a positive way." 

There's one thing almost everyone watching Monday night's first presidential debate will be able to agree on—that this new Audi commercial, "Duel," airing during the telecast, is a brilliant bit of perfectly timed entertainment.

It would give away too much to reveal the identities of the couple who first appear, exhausted and disheveled, on the floor of a ballroom—having apparently crashed through the skylight above and on to a giant seafood buffet. The action then proceeds all in reverse, showing the man and woman's War of the Roses-like battles, scene by scene—hurtling headlong toward the initial moment of conflict.

Before reading further, check out the spot, by Venables Bell & Partners, here:



It's the perfect spot for what's been a brutal political season—it's violent and unrelenting and (literally) backwards. Yet it's also the opposite of this election, in that the ultimate payoff is well worth the wait and something everyone can love. Its gender-opposite foes are equally matched, and they both want the same thing. And it very cleverly positions the Audi RS 7 itself as the ultimate candidate—the thing worth choosing, no matter who you are.

The onscreen copy at the end reads, "Beautiful things are worth fighting for. Choose the next driver wisely." Those lines are pointed but also pretty bipartisan, likely to resonate with Clinton and Trump supporters alike. In fact, the only group that seems likely to uniformly oppose the spot are lobsters. 

The spot really is shot like a Hollywood-blockbuster, too, and that's largely down to the stocked talent in the production team. The ad was directed by Ringan Ledwidge, one of the industry's best (whose credits include the Guardian's famous "Three Little Pigs" spot); the cinematography is by Greig Fraser, with stunt choreography by Robert Alonzo; and the production designer was the Oscar-nominated K.K. Barrett (Her, Where the Wild Things Are, Lost in Translation and Adaptation).

The spot will air during all three presidential debates, starting tonight.

Audi has been on a roll lately, with VB&P having also made the very fun "Desolation" spot with Airbnb a few weeks back and Razorfish crafting the amusing T-Rex ad as well.

CREDITS
Client Name: Audi of America
Brand: Audi
Spot Name: Duel
Air Dates: 9/26/16, 10/9/16, 10/19/16
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Founder, Chairman: Paul Venables
Partner, Executive Creative Director: Will McGinness
Creative Director: Justin Moore
Creative Director: Erich Pfeifer
ACD/Copywriter: Matt Keats
ACD/Art Director: Matt Miller
Director Of Integrated Production: Craig Allen
Senior Producer: Matt Flaker
Producer: Gabby Gardner
Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Ringan Ledwidge
Director of Photography: Greig Fraser
Head of Production: Richard McIntosh
Executive Producer: Joe Biggins
Executive Producer: Jeff Shupe
Line Producer: Greg Haggart
Stunt Coordinator: Robert Alonzo
Production Designer: K.K. Barrett
Editing Company: Work Editorial
Editor: Rich Orrick
Assistant Editor: Mike Horan
Executive Producer: Marlo Baird
Producer: Brandee Probasco
Music Company: Woodwork Music
Music Composer: Philip Kay
Music Coordinator: Andy Oskwarek
Sound Design/Final Mix: The Sound Lab at Technicolor
Executive Producer: Debbie Gonzalez
Lead Sound Designer/Mix Engineer: Scott Gershin
Sound Designer: Johannes Hammers
VFX: The Mill
Executive Creative Director: Phil Crowe
VFX Supervisor: John Shirley
CG Lead: David Lawson
VFX Senior Producer: Anastasia von Rahl
VFX Associate Producer: Karina Slater
Colorist: Greg Reese
Head Of Brand Management: David Corns
Brand Director: Chris Bergen
Brand Supervisor: Justin Wang
Brand Manager: Abu Ngauja
Project Managers: Talya Fisher, Leah Murphy

If you're looking for a low-calorie dessert that mixes avocados and chocolate, then Oreos has a video for you.

To promote new special-edition mint and strawberry-cheesecake flavors of the classic sandwich cookie, packaged-foods conglomerate Mondelez is now making its own versions of the BuzzFeed Tasty-style, hands-and-ingredients recipe shorts that have exploded across Facebook feeds in recent years—because clearly, there weren't enough already.

Oreo turned to Twisted, the food-themed social media channel of U.K. content production outfit Jungle Creations, for help putting together the clips, which feature concoctions like Mint Oreo Dirt Desserts (a pudding that relies on mashing up the aforementioned green fruit) and No Bake Strawberry Oreo Cheesecake (which requires, unsurprisingly, globs of low fat cream cheese).

All told, there will be six recipe videos. Other items on the menu include Strawberry Cheesecake Oreo Icebox Cake and Mint Chocolate Chip Oreo Lasagna (relax, there's no tomato sauce). Other elements in the campaign include two branded video articles and a live stream featuring Vine supermarket prankster Aaron Crascall, all created by Twisted for Oreo.

Objectively speaking, it's a questionable moral strategy to contribute in any way to the proliferation of a format that, at its heart, has been shamelessly bombarding innocents with an endless stream of supposedly easy-to-make dishes that are also usually dripping with hypnotic globs of melted cheese.

Enough people, though, seem to like the general approach (that is to say, it's been wildly successful, in an apparent abdication of all reason—the point seems more to be sedated by the recipes than to actually make them) that it's hard to fault Oreo for wanting to jump on the bandwagon. And the brand is, to its credit, making an effort to be health conscious, promising that a serving of each of its souped-up treats contains less than 250 calories.

Whether they're anything worth making, or eating, is another question—perhaps the kind of cooking a college or high school student might want to undertake for kicks on a weekday afternoon (and to be fair, there are worse ways to get into trouble).

Good sense dictates that scraping out the filling from the number of cookies required for each recipe seems awfully tedious, and everyone's time would be better spent just eating them out of the package, without all the extra steps.

Then again, that's not a bad takeaway for the brand, in the end. 

Prostitution has always been fraught with the risk of violence, but today the internet provides broader scope and anonymity. Alongside the sense of entitlement that some people get when they pay for something, this both strengthens the industry while making it harder to see its victims.

That's why French organization Le Mouvement du Nid launched its own escort website, with help from McCann Paris.

Wait, what...? 

At first glance, Girls of Paradise looks like a basic escort service. You can check out profiles and pictures, and opt to chat or call the women you're interested in before arranging a date. 

But the site's goal is to show clients that, by financing the industry, they're accomplices in the violence these women face. That's easy to forget behind a computer screen—until you start engaging the girls themselves: True to its name (if you believe in an afterlife, anyway), each woman featured in Girls of Paradise is already dead. 



The reveal is made when clients initiate a chat or a phone call. They're shown photos of the woman, beat up and bloody, or simply told that she isn't available tonight because she was killed in a manner most grisly. In the case study video, you can actually hear the reaction of one potential client, who's only able to say "NO!" while a voice calmly explains that the girl he wanted was found dead in her apartment with 53 stab wounds. 

Over 600 calls were taken in the first week, not to mention thousands of chat messages. Le Mouvement du Nid, which seeks to help women victimized by the sex trade, believes the campaign woke France's moral indignation—on April 6, the country made paying for sex illegal. 

This isn't the first time we've encountered a surprise reveal that uses online habits as its lever: In 2013, The Walking Dead used Tinder to promote its upcoming season, with pretty girls progressively transforming into zombies as men chatted with them. But if Mouvement du Nid's work is powerful, it's for the opposite reason: The Walking Dead slid fantasy into the everyday. Girls of Paradise brutally breaks the fourth wall of fantasy and drives cold, ugly reality into clients' faces. 

That job is less simple. But while the 'net has made many crimes a lot murkier, it's also made it far easier for nonprofit organizations to get their messages out there in ways as impactful as any big-budget brand. 

As a tribute to its resonance, Girls of Paradise will score a gold Clio this Wednesday.

CREDITS

Company: McCann Paris
Agency Network: McCann Worldgroup
Production Company: Medialab Technology, Paris
Creative Agency: McCann Paris, Clichy
Executive Creative Director: Riccardo Fregoso
Executive Creative Director: Julien Chiapolini
Art Director: Christophe Rambaux
Copywriter: Gilles Ollier
CEO: Bruno Tallent
Account Coordinator: Coline Déchelette
Worldwide Account Director: Fiona Ferrier-Weil
Digital Account Manager: Selim Boukhanef
Strategic Planner: Shadi Razavi
Art Buyer: Véronique Leblanc
Art Buyer: Delphine Devaux
Producer: Isabelle Créchet
Producer: Caroline de Génis
Chief technology officer: Dragan Kontic
Technical Project Manager: Vianney de Villier
Technical Project Manager: Clément Hardouin
Front End Developer: Pierre-Yves Chassaigne
Managing Director: Agnieszka Kozbial
Sound Producer: Capitaine Plouf

Can the advertising industry "change the conversation" to things that really matter, like gender, diversity, client/agency distrust, transparency and more? Advertising Week made that the theme of the ad campaign for this year's New York event—and called out agencies by name with digital billboards all around the country, placed near those shops and urging them to join the movement.

The campaign, created by New York agency Barker, features lines like "Let's Change the Conversation," Let's Influence the Influencer," "Smarter in a New York Minute," Know What Your Clients Are Kvetching About," "Invest 1 Week in the 51 Others" and "Let's Make Shit Matter."

The targeted billboards—a total of 44 placements in all—were placed in six cities near large agencies such as BBDO, Havas, The Richards Group, PHD and others. Many, including Colle+McVoy in Minneapolis, responded to the provocation with their own posts in social media.

"The problems we face in our industry are a perfect microcosm of whats happening in our nation and the world. And Advertising Week is the forum where these issues can be part of the conversation," John Barker, founder and chief idea officer at Barker, tells Adweek.

"What makes this the leading conference in the business is that it's much more than people fawning over the latest media tech. It's people bravely addressing the issues that all of us face—a lack of minority voices; fair, respectful and progressive advancement of women; the ongoing issue of transparency with our clients; and the seismic changes happening in the cultural zeitgeist of America and the world. That's why Barker developed #changetheconversation as the rallying cry for this year's Advertising Week."

See more creative executions below. 

The lottery may not have much to do with fate, but it's a lot like love—if you don't play, you won't win, says a new ad from Spain.

The three-and-a-half minute commercial for EuroMillions, the country's national cash raffle, offers a twist on a classic romance—boy meets girl, boy chases girl, boy and girl win gigantic sum of money in long-shot gamble, boy and girl live happily ever after.

It's beautifully told, deliberately out of order, by agency Shackleton. The scene opens on a man sitting on the floor in his hallway in the early morning hours, staring at a piece of paper. Eventually, he gets up and walks into the bedroom, where is wife is still sleeping. He hesitates so long it seems the spot might take a darkly comic twist, and see him stuff a few clothes into a duffel bag and flee with his winnings before she even wakes up.

But it's not that kind of story. He gently rouses her. She checks the numbers too. It turns out he's not dreaming—they've won.



Cue a lengthy flashback to when they first met. She's standing several spots ahead of him at an airport check-in line. She catches his eye, but doesn't seem to notice him. Once he reaches the desk, he asks to be seated next to her. A reasonably hesitant flight attendant ultimately obliges.

Once he boards the plane, and takes his spot, he quickly peels the price tag off the book he's just bought—it's a copy of the same one he noticed her reading. After proceeding to make an utter fool of himself, he comes clean, attempting to salvage a presumptuous gambit that could just as easily be awkwardly creepy as goofily cute. Lucky for him, she laughs and blushes.

"Do you believe in destiny?" he asks her. "Do you?" she replies, without answering. "I believe in chasing your destiny," he says, with a little smile. She beams in return. The ad cuts back to the present, where, still grinning, she's crying with joy over their newfound, literal fortune.

"So what do we do now?" she asks. "Everything," he replies.

In other words, the EuroMillions are like your soulmate. They're right there in front of you, waiting to be yours, but you have to roll the dice.

Meant to promote drawings like a Sept. 30 pot starting at the equivalent of about $145 million, it doesn't actually mention the prize until the final seconds of the commercial. Instead, it manages to be surprisingly engaging for such a long spot, earning its success largely through the writing's laser focus on the characters and their credible—or at least plausible—emotions, plus the solid acting from the two leads, and the generally gorgeous production values.

The art-film overtones, the heartfelt—if gooey—melodrama, and the absence of any of the garish jingles, stings or humor that are common in lottery advertising, make it feel somewhat fresh for the genre. Rather than taking the usual route of relying on gaudy, fantastical absurdity to implicitly admit and simultaneously distance itself from the improbability of anyone watching ever actually winning the game, the ad is embracing not just the possibility of making your wildest material dreams come true, but the promise to fulfill your deep emotional need for close human connection as well—free from the tedious constraints of having to earn a living.

From a real-world perspective, the whole thing is, naturally, ridiculous. In an intriguing nod to the ad's target demographic, its scenery suggests the happy couple really isn't doing that poorly to begin with. Their home seems spacious, warm and well-appointed. The opening shot suggests there's probably at least one kid in the picture, by catching a child's bedroom in the corner of the frame.

Odds are decent, even if they did win the lottery, they might finally have the financial leeway to give up on their marriage, sooner or later—assuming they didn't mismanage and burn through the winnings in the blink of an eye. (A 2015 ad from the same "Is there anything bigger than this?" campaign offers a glimpse of how a single person might spend all that money.) That is also assuming the young woman wouldn't just get really uncomfortable at having to spend who knows how many hours sitting in close proximity at 30,000 feet to the young man who pseudo-stalked her back at the airport, rather than just melting into a happy puddle of rom-com meet-cute sentiment.

Then again, it's still an insidiously brilliant angle, mostly because it shamelessly drives at a fundamental truth. Nobody wants to die broke, or alone.

Travel can be rough on animals. So, to celebrate National Dog Week (Sept. 19-25) and promote its 600,000 pet-friendly homes, Airbnb shined a light on social media star Marnie the Dog, a senior pet who just moved from New York to sun-soaked Beverly Hills.

Fame is packed with perks ... even for dogs. To ease her transition, Airbnb checked her into a luxurious $5000-a-night mansion, where she spent a pampered stay under the care of her "hosts," Hugo the Butler and Teddy the Dog. 

Watch her try on outfits, lounge poolside and sip water out of jewel-encrusted bowls below.



This is a warm statement about caring for older pets. As a tribute to the hardworking canine, Airbnb made a donation to Muttville, a San Francisco-based charity working to improve the lives of older dogs through rescue, foster care, adoption and hospice services. (In case you wondered, there are also growing numbers of pet retirement homes, where they are perhaps better treated than many such places for people.)

And it's a contagious way for Airbnb to promote its many pet-friendly listings. The brand even provided stats for those on the go with a carrier cage: West Virginia is the pet-friendliest state, with nearly 40 percent of active listings that welcome them, and Italy is the most pet-friendly country, featuring nearly 110,000 pro-pet Airbnbs. (The U.S. comes second, with 92,000 listings.)

Lastly, it may comfort pet owners to know that many pet-friendly Airbnbs also have resident pets: Almost 34 percent of hosts in Longmont, Colo. have dogs, while in Captain Cook, Hawaii, over 30 percent have cats. So if you're on the move with furry friends, there's a good chance you'll find amenities for them, too. 

More photos of Marnie, lapping up the luxe treatment, appear below.

It remains the most notorious night in advertising history—June 13, 1991.

The Clio Awards were scheduled to hand out their radio and print awards. But as Adweek later told the story,"what ensued was less an ad-award show than a tawdry circus, an event so grossly mismanaged that its trajectory from embarrassing to appalling seemed, in retrospect, almost destined—'beyond the beyond-o,' as Ruth Ayres of DDB Needham put it.

"The ceremony started late, was hosted largely by the caterer, featured presenters who (when they weren't singing Irish lullabies) tried to guess the agency winners since they had no list, and was aborted when fevered, greedy ad types rushed the stage in a mad grab for Clios they hadn't won."

It was quite the shameful scene indeed. But now, at least, Clio can laugh about it. 

On this 25th anniversary of the 1991 debacle, Clio got Funny Or Die to re-enact that fateful night in an amusing video starring Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman—the latter acting as host of a fictitious show called Unresolved Mysteries.

Check it out here:

It's a fun, self-deprecating bit from Clio, a great way to remember a not-so-great night.

One attendee told Adweek at the time that the mad Clio grab was "like watching piranhas eat the flesh off a cow in the river." Another added: "If anybody enters the Clios after this, they've got to be out of their minds." 

But of course, the Clios did recover, which is the happy ending to this whole saga. The Clio Awards will host its latest ceremony in New York this Wednesday night, where everyone will presumably be, at least relatively speaking, well behaved. 

See Adweek's cover from June 17, 1991, below. 

It's not every day that an automaker launches a new, brightly colored car based on social media demand. Or names the model after the hashtag that helped bear it.

The 2017 Special Edition Volkswagen #PinkBeetle (its official name) hits showrooms this fall, and the brand is celebrating with a blatantly magenta ad from agency ISL, running exclusively through marketer-owned channels like Facebook.

A small army of garishly, monochromatically clad performers parades through the streets of Washington, D.C., in the 50-second spot. There are pink suits, pink shoes, pink neckties and glasses, pink dresses, pink balloons, pink posters, pink bicycles, pink flags and pink flag-bearers, pink fedoras atop a pink New Orleans-style brass-band, pink signs reading "The Hue for You," pink ball caps, pink pom-poms, pink flower crowns and pink confetti.

There's even a man in a pink turban, because all races and creeds are welcome at this party—so long as they're wearing pink. And naturally, there is a pink VW Beetle.

"Live a little brighter," reads the tagline.

It's an unapologetically upbeat blitz, and viewers would have to really dislike fun, or the color pink, or generally overbearing displays of either, to reject it. (Luckily, this is America, so haters, fire away.) The car's technical color, according to VW, is actually "Fresh Fuchsia Metallic," which probably should have been obvious who really stopped to think about it, except that nobody talks that way, except when they're selling paint.

The model itself was introduced as a concept car—named, much more prosaically, the Pink Color Edition—in 2015 at the New York Auto Show. But ISL says it was inspired by fans taking it upon themselves to paint other versions of the car pink, and suggests that online lobbying from consumers resulted in a factory model coming to market, crediting its ultimately pithy and willfully of-the-times (if perhaps still a bit on the nose, and grammar-defying) moniker to those same advocates.

The campaign will include GIFs and photos, also presumably featuring pink.

CREDITS
Client: Volkswagen U.S.
Agency: ISL
Director: Zach Goodwin

U.S. Cellular sets a new standard for tedium with this preroll ad that lasts seven hours.

It's about as exciting as watching grass grow. In fact, that's mostly what happens during its 420-minute running time: Grass grows ... and grows ... and grows. Imperceptibly. As grass is wont to do.

Crafted by MullenLowe, the ad opens with brand spokesman Darien riding a lawnmower across an expansive green field. "Switch to U.S. Cellular," he says, "and get seven gigs of data for just $49 per month. You'll have so much data, you can stream almost anything. Even hours and hours of grass growing. Enjoy!"

His pitch lasts about 15 seconds. Then he drives off, and the grass grows, as the sun tracks its inexorable path across the sky. Check it out here:



Did you hang in all the way to the end? Will anyone? Who cares. It's potent publicity!

"When the concept was originally pitched, we had a couple other ideas to visualize the deal, like watching paint dry, finding out if a watched pot ever boils, and watching as we wait to see if the cows ever come home," agency creative director John Kearse tells AdFreak. "Grass growing was always our first choice because it was a universal concept and offered a fun environment to showcase some entertaining Easter eggs."

Easter eggs in a grassy field—perfect! Here, they include Darien playing croquet (around 1:29), flying a kite (3:09), fending off bees (3:36) and ordering a pizza (4:13). Oh, and there's a UFO sighting near the very end, of course.

Congrats to U.S. Cellular and MullenLowe for besting, by a full hour, Virgin America's brilliantly boring 2014 preroll from ad shop Eleven. That earlier video—likely the previous record holder for the world's longest preroll—had creepy mannequins, but no UFOs.

"Yeah, always bummed when someone beats a record you might hold," says Bryan Houlette, currently a creative director at Roundhouse, and a member of the Eleven team behind the Virgin spot.

Chin up, Bryan. Maybe you can stuff all your friends and family into a phone booth (if you can still fine one), or come up with the world's shortest preroll or something.

"When we originally concepted the idea, we were not aware of Virgin's six-hour spot," says MullenLowe creative director Rob Kottkamp. "However, when it was brought to our attention, we'd be lying if we said we didn't want to officially make our preroll ad the longest."

Darien's 15-second opening segment appears as a preroll on AOL, CBS and Hulu. The full-length affair runs exclusively as a preroll on YouTube, and those viewing it as such may be retargeted later with a bumper ad that picks up where they left off—with that grass still s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y growing. Awesome!

In case you were wondering, the ad was shot in one continuous take.

"We went into it prepared for as much as possible and agreed to let the day play out," Kottkamp says, "but we were very purposeful to not put the camera near any tree," lest a falling branch at the six-and-a-half-hour mark ruin a lot of extremely monotonous work.

"Throughout the day, we brainstormed activities for Darien, timed out intervals for those actions, and built the day around that," says Kottkamp. "When Darien was performing these different actions on camera, movements and direction were communicated to him from the director and MullenLowe creatives via a hidden headset. The goal was to get a seamless visual payoff by keeping any cheats to a minimum."

"If you watch the entire piece," he says, "you will also see small, organic moments like butterflies passing through the frame and the sky changing from day to the dark of night. In our minds, this made the overall piece more interesting than just looping footage."

CREDITS
Agency: MullenLowe, Boston
Client: U.S. Cellular—Randy Klodz, Digital Marketing Manager
Chief Creative Officer: Mark Wenneker
Executive Creative Directors: Tim Vaccarino, David Weist
Creative Directors: Rob Kottkamp, John Kearse
Senior Art Director: Pier Madonia
Copywriter: Macie Soler-Sala
Group Account Director: Gillian Casey
Account Director: Mike Casey
Account Supervisor:Elissa Adler
Assistant Account Executive: Eloise O'Connor
Senior Digital Strategist: Lucia Corso
Executive Director of Integrated Production: Liza Near
Director of Broadcast Production: Zeke Bowman
Executive Producer: Josh Litwhiler
Assistant Broadcast Producer: Ashley Donovan
Senior Business Affairs Manager: Vanessa Fazio
Project Manager: Caroline Hulin
Director: David Gray
Producer: Rachel Perkins
EditbarProducer: Maggie Flatley
Editbar Editor: Charlie Coffou
Brickyard Producer: Ellen Schmitt
Abrams Artists Agency Endorsements Assistant: Susie Dunner

What does Starburst's classic "Bus Station" commercial, with the Little Lad, have in common with the famous Wheat Thins Family Guy spot? Lots and lots of mentions of the product name—a gag that Lisa Topol used to great effect in crafting the latter spot when she was a creative director at Being in 2012.

Now an executive creative director at Grey New York, Topol sat down with Adweek during Advertising Week to tell us about her three favorite ads of all time, what she's been doing lately that she's proud of, when she first knew she had a creative mind, and what advice she would give creatives coming into the business today.

We'll be doing more of these mini creative profiles in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for those. And if you'd like to tell us your #3favoriteads, drop us a line.

One December day at the International Scene of Contemporary Dance in Stockholm, Sweden, a man named Olle, one of the best air acrobats in the world, did a triple-somersault jump. It was a jump like hundreds of others he'd done before, but this time was different. 

He fell on his head. 

"Within that second I heard my neck break. A moment devoid of time," Olle writes."The sound of the neck break echoed in my head, itself an endless, dark, spherical space in which I was hovering weightlessly." 

Olle crushed several cervical vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord. He was paralyzed from the neck down. The doctors couldn't say how much brain functioning he'd regain, or even whether he would walk again. One thing was sure: He'd never jump again.

It's been 10 years since then. Olle has miraculously recovered. Many people like him would count their blessings, move to a quiet town and take up gardening. But in what's being dubbed "the most irresponsible circus performance ever," Olle is gearing up to repeat the same jump, with just one difference. This time, he'll do it from up to 12,000 feet in the sky.



Seriously.

The potentially suicidal stunt is brought to you by the same team that, in 2012, dropped free-speech teddy bears from an unlicensed airplane in Belarus airspace—an act that got people arrested and a bunch of others fired, including two generals, air defense and heads of the Belarus border guard, who all failed to intercept the plane.

The guy who led that caper was Tomas Mazetti of Studio Total, who has since created his own agency, Mazetti, dedicated to creating "beautiful sponsored performances," according to Mazetti graphic designer Helena Melander.

Sponsored by bicycle café Wheelys and produced by Radical Circus, Mazetti and Sweden's Cirkus Cirkör, the so-called "Broken Neck Jump" is Olle's comeback show. The jump will take place on a platform hanging from a hot air balloon, over Berlin at an as-yet-undefined time. For every Facebook share the story gets, Olle will jump one foot higher.

The current count is 1,030 feet, and the jump's final height will be determined by the height of the clouds on the chosen day. The final drop could be anywhere between 4,000 and 12,000 feet. "The jump will be made this autumn, as soon as the weather allows and we're completely done with the technical preparations," says co-founder Sara de Vylder of Radical Circus.

"I've been going through this a thousand times in my head," Olle tells us in the video. "It always ends the same way: That I crash. This time I have to change that."



Why would he attempt something that even his doctor calls unadvisable? For Olle, it's a tribute, "dedicated to all circus artists who landed three millimeters further to the left than me and are no longer with us." 

But the goal is loftier still. The circus used to be a highly anticipated community event, second only to Christmas, according to Tim Tegge, himself a modern circus performer. But let's face it: The circus is over. It was big from about 1890 to 1965, after which it sputtered and began dying out. Today it's little more than the stuff of nostalgia, fodder for another Ryan Murphy show, or something to watch half-heartedly while waiting for the Ferris wheel line to shorten.

The groups involved in the Broken Neck Jump hope to "re-establish the circus as the place where society laughs, cries and battles with the hardest questions of life and death. The place of mystery and dreams. We have therefore established 10 principles to guide us in our desire to again circusify the world." 

You can read the Radical Circus Manifesto on the website. Its first principle? "Circus is everything." In the meantime, share Olle's comeback tale and keep your eyes peeled on the sky over Berlin. If he makes it, it'll be a miracle. But that's what the circus is all about. 

"A circus artist is always testing limits," says de Vylder. "Most circus artists define limits by what they have tested. Not Olle. Also, there is a deep personal importance for him to this—to moving into a new life after the accident." 

When Major League Soccer began play in 1996, those of us who lived in New York City had only one team to root for—the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. But despite their odd hybrid name, they were pretty solidly a New Jersey team. They played out at Giants Stadium, and those of us coming from Manhattan would often arrive late to games, as they never scheduled enough buses from Port Authority. Intentional or not, the indifference to fans east of the Hudson was palpable. 

That franchise has since cleaned up its act, and become the formidable New York Red Bulls. They still play in Jersey, though, at the Red Bull Arena in Harrison (which is, admittedly, a lovely stadium). But luckily for New York City fans, there's been another option over the past two seasons—New York City Football Club, a new MLS franchise that plays its home games at Yankee Stadium. 

NYCFC clinched its first-ever MLS Cup playoff berth this past weekend, and is celebrating with a gritty new spot from Johannes Leonardo, its first-ever brand commercial.

The poetic spot, called "Along These Lines," is as much a tribute to the city as the team—rallying New Yorkers to get behind their soccer team, using a theme of connection that's both literal (the subway system connects everyone, and of course stops at Yankee Stadium) and figurative.

Check out the spot here:



We spoke to Leo Premutico, chief creative officer of Johannes Leonardo, about the work.

AdFreak: Why break a new campaign now, with the season almost over?
Leo Premutico: New York City FC is only in their second year as a club. Johannes Leonardo was appointed AOR duties at the beginning of the season. We launched "Support Your City," which represents the bond between the players on the pitch and the crowd in the stands, and kicked it off with a very unique jersey launch where key players surprised unsuspecting fans, giving them the chance to see the jersey first before media or anyone else.

Over the weekend, New York City FC clinched its first-ever MLS Cup playoff berth, so we wanted to build on the energy that's there among the team and the fans for this historic moment and inspire people to get behind their city when it matters most.

Where did the idea for this visual metaphor, "Along These Lines," come from?
As the only MLS team to play in the five boroughs, New York City FC is a club that belongs to the city's football community, but also New Yorkers at large. There's a lot of potential to attract supporters based not only on their love for the game but for their love of New York City. "Along These Lines" is an acknowledgement that the world's greatest city defies description and its club plays with the same values as those instilled in the people who live here.

We wanted to make both a brand piece and a call to arms at the same time. Yankee Stadium is very easy to access using the subway. So depicting the city through its lines felt like the perfect way to inspire people to turn up and support the club. Not only did it feel like a new way to interpret the world's most depicted city, it taps into its connectedness, its grit and how ultimately we can all unite through its subway lines.

It's a very poetic piece. How will that appeal to sports fans, and soccer fans in particular?
Soccer is the fastest growing sport in the U.S., so it's important that the piece talks to die-hard soccer fans but also the broader New York public. And the thing all New Yorkers share is the grit it takes to live here, and the love they have for their city. The words try to tap into that to create an emotion that makes people realize that even if they're not a soccer fan per se, this is a club that they can belong to and is one that belongs to them. Everything in the piece was shot, written and performed by New Yorkers. 

Has the brand voice always been this gritty?
New York City FC has New York in its name, plays home games in the Bronx, and as a result is the only MLS club truly representative of New York's five boroughs. So while technically this is the first piece of brand advertising for New York City FC, we're not setting out to invent a voice for the club. The city already has a storied history and an established tone of voice. And with the club and the city so interwoven—and increasingly so through the club's community work, currently serving 4,000 kids per week through the club's partner foundation 'City in the Community'—the tone of the play on the field, the brand's communication and the tone of the city itself have quickly become one and the same.

What was it like shooting this spot around city? What was most challenging?
This interpretation of the city has never been done before. So you're working in an unknown territory. Can the city's lines, those we see every day, be rendered into something interesting in the edit? Can we abstract them? Make the feel new again so they reignite the audience's love for their city?

Then in the edit it was about matching the images to the theme of the verse. Editing the script to build the right tempo and pacing. Reworking the words in the recording session so they felt right for the performer.

We also wanted to be inclusive of the entire city, so yes, we shot in and around Yankee Stadium, where the club plays, but it was important to capture as much of New York as possible. 

Who is the target of the piece? Existing fans of the team, or potential fans? Both?
The vast majority of people who come to a game for the first time love it and come back again. So while attendances have been very strong—the club averaged 29,000 fans at home games in its inaugural season—there's a real opportunity to grow the New York City FC fan base and membership even more. There's so much potential as there are lots of fans of the team and New Yorkers who haven't been to matches yet. So we want them to experience it because we're confident they'll enjoy themselves. And of course there are still people out there who don't know what New York City FC is, or what the MLS is, so we're trying to help the club and in turn the league become a true part of American sports culture.

Where will the spot be running?
Online and on New York City FC social channels, with :15 cut-downs running on TV. 

CREDITS
Client: New York City Football Club

Agency: Johannes Leonardo
Chief Creative Officers: Jan Jacobs & Leo Premutico
Creative Directors: Wes Phelan & Matt Edwards
Associate Creative Director: Joaquin Lynch-Garay & Federico Munichor
Account Supervisor: Adam Rubin
Producer: Dustin Grant
Strategist: Georgia Lindsay

Production Company: Greenpoint Pictures
Director: Logan Roos
Founding Partner: Michael Kuhn
Partner: Jacob Lincoln
Executive Producer: Tatiana Rudzinski
Executive Producer of Sales: Jordana Freydberg
Creative Director: Niles Roth
Producer: Willa Goldfeder
Post-Production Producer: Katrina Bayoneto

Editor: Logan Roos (Greenpoint Pictures)
Editor: Misha Spivack (Loroto)

Music Composer: Andy Park

Color: Company 3
Colorist: Tom Poole
Commercial Producer: Clare Movshon
Assistant Colorist: Kath Raisch

Sound Mix: Sonic Union
Sound Mixer: Owen Shearer
Studio Director: Justine Cortale
Scheduling Producer: Pat Sullivan

Voiceover Recording: GrooveGuild
Founder, Head of Music Supervision & Licensing: Al Risi
Partner, Creative Director: Paul Riggio
Head of Production: Janice Brown

Sooner or later, everyone's sausage needs some support.

If you find yourself in such straits between now and this Friday—say, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central time—go ahead and call Johnsonville HQ at (844) 9-SAUSAGE. Company employees will be serving up all manner of advice on pork-pipes and cow-casings as part of the marketer's "Sausage Support Center."

Live! Unscripted! Sausage talk! That number again: (844) 9-SAUSAGE.

This trailer dishes on the initiative:



As you might recall, previous phases of the "Made the Johnsonville Way" campaign had company staffers dream up Carl the Great Bratsgiver and appear in wacky commercials they helped create. Why launch a Support Center this time around?

"We've all been there—standing in a grocery store or kitchen, wishing someone would just tell us what to make for dinner," says Kevin Weir, associate creative director at Johnsonville ad agency Droga5. "So we thought, 'Who better to be that person than some certified sausage experts in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin?' Now, they're just a phone call away."

So, who could you wind up grilling for recipes and cooking tips? Well, company chairman and founder Ralph Stayer Jr. will be among the 30 or so folks on hand. Or you might get Bob, who stars in the clip below. Once, on a bet, he wrestled a bear at a county fair:



Based on that beast-fight reenactment, we're guessing Bob lost. "I was off camera pretending to be the bear," recalls Droga5 associate creative director Chris Colliton. "When Bob charged at me full speed, it was terrifying." (Hey, if you think advertising is a grind, try making sausage for a living!)

Also at the Support Center, Sheri is available to chat about spicy baked beans (and quilts):



And Mark's got the 411 on breakfast quesadillas. But don't dial 411. That number again: (844) 9-SAUSAGE:



Then there's Tammy. She's really into … sigh … sausages, what else?



Those Johnsonville sausage sages even dropped some beefy beats for Pandora and the brand's social sites:

Juicy jingles, meat masters! (Don't quit your day jobs.)

What makes a good TV title sequence?

YouTuber Ryan Hollinger of Screen Smart explores that question in a video of nearly seven minutes, using the starting sequences of American Horror Story, Twin Peaks, Stranger Things, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones and many more. What you'll learn here, though, can apply to any title sequence you watch—and will definitely up your geek cred at future binge-watching fests.

"The title sequence is the greatest source of identity for any television show," he begins. It's "the warm-up for the main act at a concert."

Most title sequences today start with a cold opening to hook viewers right away, but great sequences have invisible triggers that bind you emotionally to what the show's about.

Stranger Things invokes nostalgia with its music and typography; the letters progressively come together as if in a puzzle. Narcos uses newsy footage to emphasize its connection to real-life events. Meanwhile, The X Files used haunting music, coupled with enigmatic imagery, to put us in a mystery-solving mood. 

"Sometimes you're more likely to have vivid memories of the music than you have the actual contents of the show," Hollinger says. 



Title sequences, at their best, act as communication devices to convey information about the world you're about to enter, or about the character. Game of Thrones' epic gameboard sequence, with worlds rising and falling, emphasizes the constant evolution of its world and its stories. Twin Peaks' tranquil imagery establishes the friendly, small-town locality that beats at the heart of the show—but, laced with the weird music and bright green typography, you also feel elements of the surreal.

Mad Men's opening speaks to the sophistication of the 1960s and the era's pop-art playfulness. But it also revolves around Don Draper, whose world literally crumbles around him—and who, himself, begins to fall through its artifice. 

The Dexter title sequence is another masterful example of an intro that revolves around a main character. The music is mischievous, and Dexter's morning routine is highlighted in extreme closeups, which makes them feel strangely alien and sinister. Hollinger calls it "a master class in taking a simple activity completely out of context" to highlight the character's secret darkness. 

"You don't actually have to watch these shows or read their synopsis to understand what they're about," says Hollinger. 

In a way, a strong title sequence is a reflection of advertising at its best—it's instantaneous, orienting, and has to keep fresh with repeated watches. More than just a memento of a beloved show, "it's a mesmerizing blend of storytelling, technical proficiency and artistry that goes beyond merely drawing us in, but instead transcends into a unique spectacle that makes us feel emotionally connected and individually provoked by the entertainment that we love," Hollinger concludes.

He leaves us with a question that works just as well for title sequences as it does for the next campaign you'll proffer for a client: How does the title invite me into its world?

It's fitting that Joan Creative's first bit of finished advertising was this Netflix spot, unveiled in social media during the Emmys, all about powerful women—presented as a parody of '50s educational films.

The agency's co-founder and chief creative officer, Jaime Robinson, sat down with Adweek to talk about that spot, as well as her three favorite ads of all time, her advice for young creatives coming up and … the weird doll she wanted to bring to school as a kid.

Check out Jaime's video above. And if you want to be part of our #3favoriteads series, which will continue into the fall, shoot us an email.

Having moved from the agency world to become the global creative director of Facebook's Creative Shop, Andrew Keller is well positioned to work with creative agencies on optimizing and innovating their video content for the Facebook platform. 

Adweek caught up with Keller during Advertising Week to ask him about various Facebook video products, from Canvas to Facebook Live to Facebook 360, and how he plans to help agencies use those products to find new and engaging methods of storytelling.