Hasta La Creative!

Forget about those famous Internet felines in Friskies' Christmas spot. The real holiday supergroup is in this campaign from Forsman & Bodenfors for Unicef Sweden.

I'm talking about Jesus, Gandhi and Mother Teresa—dubbed "The Good Guys"—who get together to discuss the sacrifices they made to benefit humanity. They're joined by a typical party dude, who gets to hang with the hallowed do-gooders simply because he clicked on a Unicef banner to help save kids' lives.

The three spots in the series strike just the right tone. They're mildly irreverent and amusingly low-key, with lots of cute exchanges and details. You've gotta love Gandhi's mod yoga mat; the slacker complaining that Jesus's story, while possibly the greatest ever told, drags on a bit; and Christ accidentally clicking through to an ab-blasting offer when He initially tries the Internet.

It's a good thing Jesus is on board, since it usually takes a miracle to get folks to click on banner ads, even for a good cause.

CREDITS
Client: Unicef
Director of Communication: Petra Hallebrant
Senior Marketing Officer: Jim Carlberg
Marketing Officer: Åsa Lee

Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors
Art Directors: Johanna Hofman-Bang, Agnes Stenberg-Schentz
Copywriter: Marcus Hägglöf
Account Supervisor: Jacob Nelson
Account Manager: Lena Birnik
Agency Producers: Magnus Kennhed, Helena Wård
Public Relations: Desirée Maurd
Designer: Nina Andersson
Original: F&B Factory

ACNE Production
Directors: Torbjörn Martin, Tomas Skoging
Executive Producer: Petur Mogensen
Producer: Fredrik Skoglund
Account Manager: Jacob Englund
Director of Photography: Christian Haag
Costume: Patrik Hedin
Makeup: Sanna Riley
Set Designer: Cian Bournebusch

Special Thanks during the film production
Postproduction: Chimney Pot
Camera and Lights: Ljud & Bildmedia
Casting, London: Aston Hinkingson
Casting, Los Angeles: Stone
Casting and Location, Sweden: Röster (voices, places, faces)

Stills
Photographer: Pelle Bergström, Skarp Agent
Stylist: Lotta Agaton, Link Deco
Retouch: Bildinstitutet

Radio
Production Company and Casting: Flickorna Larsson

Focus sur le projet « Em Table » qui est un objet expérimental imaginé par le designer français Florian Dussopt. En effet, cette table est capable de produire un champ électromagnétique localisé. Une création très intéressante et visuellement forte, à découvrir dans une série d’images.

Airbnb has been doing some creative marketing lately, despite its relative youth (and legal issues). First it, and Mullen, asked consumers to submit video clips that would be stitched into what Airbnb called the first film shot entirely on Vine. Now agency of record Pereira & O’Dell has introduced its first work for the brand — and it’s all about birds. Working from the insight that nobody travels the world like birds do, the agency commissioned a team of artists to turn 50 Airbnb listings into birdhouses — creating super-adorable miniatures of dream destinations.

From Dec. 16 to Dec. 22, the site will exhibit the birdhouses in New Orleans’ Audubon Park.

The birdhouses, their listings, and the installations are all seen in a short film directed by Alma Har’el. And at BirdBnB.com, people can find out more about the artists, ornithologists and miniature experts that worked on the project.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

It's agency holiday-card season, and we're going to start posting some of the more interesting and amusing examples—beginning with this one from Victors & Spoils. It's a parody of Tim Piper's "Body Evolution" video showing a model being airbrushed within an inch of her life. (Piper also did Dove's earlier "Evolution" video.) The results of the parody are not as attractive—but are undeniably more festive. Via The Denver Egotist.

The original "Body Evolution" video:

So, we received a few tips this morning that Barkley cut some staff last week and after some inquiry, we received a bit of clarification on the matter from the Kansas City-based agency. Barkley CEO Jeff King tells us, “The staff adjustment affected a few different departments, related to a combination of account loss and, in some cases, existing clients spending less.” No word, though on numbers, as King replies, “Out of respect for those that will be leaving, we will not confirm the number–it would diminish the very real value they have brought to the agency. We will continue to protect them whether they are at Barkley or not.” If that wasn’t admirable enough, the Barkley chief exec adds that the agency will be “employing everyone who was notified through the holiday season” and “will be supporting their job search efforts in the coming weeks and through to the New Year.”

As for the “account loss” part, Barkley wouldn’t get into specific names (foiled again), but we’ve been told that it involves three accounts, which aren’t being confirmed as “privacy was requested from the client.” A Barkley spokesperson adds that “as an employee-owned company, we continually provide state-of-the-business updates internally. Our employees were notified in advance about our client loss, why it happened, and what it means going forward.” On the plus side, of course, Barkley recently won the Spirit Airlines biz (first work to debut in Q1 of 2014) and picked up AOR duties for Vanity Fair lingerie.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Quick update on ESPN’s Fan Hall of Fame inductions – the three inductees were just announced for the second annual class. Sacramento Kings fan Barbara Rust, who is currently battling breast cancer, has attended every Kings home game since moving to Sacramento in 1985. Arkansas Razorbacks fan Canaan Sandy actually roots for more than one sport, since he is a devoted follower of multiple Arkansas teams. And Pierce Wallace, pictured above, is known as “The Georgia Joker,” and is a lifelong George Bulldogs fan. Judging by the picture, he’s also legally insane and wears a great green wig. People were able to vote for 15 finalists over a recent 10-day period for the project, which was again  produced by RED Interactive and 77 Ventures. Rust, Sandy, and Wallace – which sounds like a Nascar law firm –  will be formally inducted in 2014 and will receive permanent stadium chairs as honors on ESPN’s Bristol, Connecticut campus.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

OK so maybe this agency holiday card isn’t really that funny or scary but it does give a jolt to those who work at Baltimore-based Planit. For this year’s holiday card, the creatives decided “scare the cheer” out of fellow employees by tricking them into thinking they were just singing Christmas carols in front of a green screen…until a “monster” hops out of a box and “cares the cheer” out of them.

When marketers fully embrace the power of purposeful marketing — marketing that emphasizes the functional, emotional or societal benefits of a brand or product — they are laying a long-term foundation for brand success. It is the future of the industry.

Consumer demand for purpose-driven brands is increasing. Edelman’s excellent “GoodPurpose” study has indicated year-over-year growth in consumer acceptance and preference for purpose in the brands they buy. Marketers cannot ignore this — simply selling is not enough.

How can marketers leverage the core purpose of their brand to drive growth to their bottom line? At the 2013 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference in early October, the message was loud and clear: While purpose is the core of every great marketing organization, authenticity is crucial to its success.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

It will be a blue, piano-less Christmas in Toronto. We’re not sure how you lose a piano exactly, but the folks over at music/sound house Apollo Studios (which was founded in Montreal and also has space in LA) are facing sad times after misplacing theirs.

The above 5:05 mockumentary documents the studio’s beloved, lost piano and the sadness spread in its absence. It opens on Dave Douglass of Anomaly opining that there will be no emotive piano for their spot about “a kitten teaching a puppy to walk again after an accident falling down the stairs chasing a toilet paper roll.” You just can’t get the same kind of emotive, heartfelt track with woodwinds, he complains. Harry Knazan of Apollo can barely hold back the tears reminiscing of the piano’s use in tracks that were “so slow, so sensitive.” Tom Hutch opines that you “can’t replace a piano, just like that, it’s not a machine.”

So the Apollo team gets a forensic team in to look for any clues that can help lead to the piano’s whereabouts or a potential suspect, while other members of the team walk the city putting up fliers for the missing instrument. The team tries a slew of other instruments: harp, horns — but, as Jennifer Cursio puts it, “You can’t replace the piano with anything. Can you picture Elton John with a fucking marimba? It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.” The video references “The Marketer’s Anthem,” which we covered last week, and culminates with a smashed ukulele. Who doesn’t love watching a ukulele get smashed?

Apollo’s mockumentary is a nice, lighthearted piece of self-deprecating  humor. It does such a great job taking on the advertising industry’s overuse of piano, we almost wouldn’t be surprised if fewer tracks used the instrument in the coming year — almost. More importantly, it succeeds at being funny. And during one of the most stressful times of the year we could all use a few laughs, right? Good luck finding your piano, Apollo. Godspeed.

If you have any clues to the whereabouts of the piano in question, please let the folks at Apollo know immediately. We’re not sure how much longer they can hold out without it.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Schneider Electric joined forces with students at Miami University of Ohio to promote an electric-vehicle charging station and help those without electricity.