Hasta La Creative!

Unilever’s Dove has what it hopes will be a major follow up to last year’s viral mega hit “Real Beauty Sketches” with today’s 65-country introduction of “Patches,” a 4-minute video following women who are given fake pharmaceutical “beauty patches” to test.

Perhaps predictably, given the 10-year-old Dove Campaign for Real Beauty genre, the placebo patches make women in the mock clinical trial feel more beautiful. Then they’re surprised, in some cases tearfully, when they discover the mysterious and convincingly packaged “RB-X” patch contained no active ingredient other than their own increased confidence.

Actually, in the early going, most of the women report no difference at all. Then, over the course of the following weeks, when they notice themselves looking good or get compliments from others, most of them attribute it to the effects of the RB-X patch.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

GoldieBlox are back with another ad taking on gender stereotypes in children’s toys. You may remember GoldieBlox from their Beastie Boys parodying ad that subsequently led to a lawsuit.

This time around, GoldieBlox riffs on the classic “This Your Brain on Drugs” PSA with their own “This Is Your Brain on Engineering.” “This is your brain on princess,” says a girl in a white lab coat and fairy wings who dolls up an egg which she sends through a conveyer belt. The spot shares facts and statistics about girls’ math/science performance and body perception and women in engineering, such as “At age 7, girls begin to lose confidence in math and science,” “At age 13, over half of all girls are unhappy with their bodies,” and “Only 13% of engineers are women.” Mixed in with this are positive numbers about the increasing importance of engineering jobs in America. It’s an important message, delivered in a fun way, that should get parents thinking about how what toys their girls play with now might impact their future. And that, of course, could lead them to purchase GoldieBlox.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dare has created Ryanair’s first pan-European advertising campaign, as the budget airline seeks to soften its image among consumers.

Grey New York and its client, States United to Prevent Gun Violence, won a silver Lion in Film at Cannes last year for "Ed," their brutal spot about gun violence, set in a workplace.

The sequel, released today, titled "The Monster Is Real," takes place in a family home. Directed by Hornet's Yves Geleyn, the spot may be a cartoon, but that makes it no less devastating. We won't give away the plot, though the conclusion doesn't exactly come as a surprise. But again, that doesn't dull the impact much.

Critics will say that the kid wouldn't play with the gun if he was this afraid of it, though of course children aren't known for tempering their curiosity, either.

"In the wake of so many tragic mass shootings, the nation's focus has been on strengthening gun laws," says Sue Hornik, executive director of States United to Prevent Gun Violence. "But one preventable threat to children's safety is unlocked and loaded guns found around the house … the proverbial 'monster in the closet' of our new public service announcement."

In a release, the group also offered these sobering statistics:

• 1.5 million American children live in homes with unlocked and loaded firearms.
• Every day at least six children 18 and under are injured in an unintentional shooting.
• 75 percent of gun shot injuries to children under 10 that are serious enough to require hospitalization are due to unintentional shootings.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: States United to Prevent Gun Violence
Spot: "The Monster Is Real"
Agency: Grey
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Tor Myhren
Deputy Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Per Pedersen
Executive Creative Directors: Rob Perillo, Rob Lenois
Art Director: Evan Ortolani
Copywriter: Daniel Alvarez
Director of Broadcast: Bennett McCarroll
Agency Executive Producer: James McPherson
Agency Producer: Zach Fleming
Account Director: Elizabeth Gilchrist
Account Executive: John Nelson
Production Company: Hornet
Director: Yves Geleyn
Executive Producer: Jan Stebbins
Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh
Music Company: Mutato Muzika
Music Producer: Natalie Montgomery
Music Engineer: Bradley Denniston
Music Supervision: Zach Pollakoff
Music, Sound Design: Dante Desole (Vision Post)
Principal Talent: Samantha Mathis, Anthony Arkin

ISBA, the advertising trade body, has welcomed the appointment of Sajid Javid as secretary of state for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and praised his “strong business background”.

Which digital media will matter in 2026?

I wound up in some spirited conversations about this topic with my wife after we welcomed our first-born in February. It was only after our daughter was born, and we were fully committed to her name, that we started to discuss which digital identities we would reserve for her.

The focus of our conversations quickly shifted to 2026. That’s when our daughter will turn 12. She will be legally eligible to sign up for a host of media properties and digital services herself. By then, she’ll also be well past the age at which she’ll have strong opinions about which media properties matter to her.

Continue reading at AdAge.com