Hasta La Creative!

Continuing a rather ambitious storyline that kicked off late last year, Samsung, with the aid of Cheil Worldwide and Psyop, has unveiled the next installment of its soccer stars vs. aliens saga to promote the Galaxy. While not technically a World Cup tie-in, “The Training” (nearly 42 million views and counting–yeah, we know it’s been out for a bit) features two of the event’s biggest (and best) participants, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who have also been making the rounds in spots for Nike and Adidas, respectively, that are officially attached to the event. In this campaign, though, real-life Ken doll Ronaldo and his archrival Messi, along with other notable footballers like Wayne Rooney,  join forces and evolve from mere athletes to sci-fi superheroes in order to combat an alien invasion…with their Galaxy S5s in tow, of course.

Psyop director Laurent Ledru, who shot this four-minute short in two months across cities including London, Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Prague and Manchester, explains the process of working with the stars.  “Because of the athlete’s varying schedules we had to shoot each player separately. It was very important that each performance felt authentic to that athlete yet interacted seamlessly with the others.” Ledru, who met the players in the varying aforementioned locales, where they would execute the acrobatic stunts and moves for the real shot, adds, “Each player was given instructions and guidance but we needed to capture them acting as naturally as possible in front of the green screen despite the CG elements that were to come later.”

Like the previous clips that have encompassed this campaign, the Samsung Galaxy branding is kept to a minimum, save for the occasional highlighting of a feature (heat sensor! fast auto focus!). It’s the stars, story and special effects that take center stage here, and now, with training said and done, we’ve only the big final showdown to look forward to. Consider us involved. Game on.

Credits after the jump.

continued…

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We’ve been had. It turns out that one man’s heroic billboard crusade to prevent celebrity divorce was actually a hoax by WEtv to advertise its new show Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars.

We caught up with WEtv President Marc Juris to find out how he hit the zeitgeist and tricked media outlets across the nation:

AdFreak: Is there a real J. Robert Butler?
Mark Juris: You’re speaking to him. No, he’s a fictional character we invented, played by a real actor.

Whom you made up a whole backstory for about his daughter’s divorce…
Because the most important thing you have to remember, is that the audience in incredibly smart. We created a whole character, a persona, and a motivation. Thought about why he would do this, what he expected would be the response. I think the inclination is to have him say some outrageous stuff, and we pulled all that back and had him be more realistic.

How did you hatch the hoax?
We went through a couple of ideas. We thought, “Could we make these billboards poking fun at celebrity couples who had divorced?” But it just felt too much like an overt ad campaign. And that’s the problem with overt campaigns; people just drive by them and just keep going. So we thought, “How can we really do this?” What if we made an organization that seemed ridiculous, but could be real and serious?

It seemed real and serious. You fooled us. Did you get anyone else behind the movement?
We had quite a few requests for interviews from some major broadcasters and some broadcasters who were upset because we weren’t getting back to them. Some got lightly pushy, saying things like, “We’re going to go to press without your comments.” But it got a lot of pickups because it was thought provoking. What it was saying kinda made sense, and by the end it was even making sense to me.

I think you could have actually started a movement.
I think you might be right. Some of those lines really resonated because marriage isn’t a sponsorship opportunity. I think the general population is a little sick of it. The Kim and Kanye wedding happened recently, and we weren’t invited, but when you see this sort of thing where everything is sponsored, all the brands there, and people are tired of it. The best messaging is what really resonates with people. People are getting smarter and smarter, and they don’t want to be played. I mean, when you see something like “consciously uncoupled,” it really seems like they [Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin] went to the same company that comes up with things like “Obamacare” to come up with the name!

The new banner across the signs says “help stop celebrity divorce,” and suggests tuning in for Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars. Do you think a show like this will really help prevent celebrity divorce?
No, I don’t think so. At this point we’re having a little fun.  But we wanted to make people think and link it to our show in a more meaningful way.

Well you got lots of people talking. Who was covering it?
There was a lot of online blog coverage. We had a very long piece on KPLA, we had an entire segment on Fox news referencing the billboards and talking about celebrity divorce.  We really had great coverage with just five billboards and a couple of buses. I love outdoor advertising because it really stands alone, and if it’s great you really see it. Outdoor can be really successful and very cost efficient. I also think you have to do city specific advertising when it’s appropriate.

It was definitely appropriate here.
Yeah, there’s really nowhere other than Hollywood you could have put those banners. But we also had banners running up and down Jersey Shore this weekend letting everyone know JWoww was going to be at the Jersey Shore this weekend, because she was at Marriage Boot Camp. And that got a lot of Twitter activity.

That’s great. Tell me a little about the design. How did you make it look so believable? Even the actor you chose…
I was very careful not to make it look like an ad campaign. It’s easy to go there, I really like to step back and be the cynical self that I am, and say, “Would I buy that that’s an ad campaign?” I will tell you this: We shot a video message from him, but I felt it didn’t ring true enough, so we didn’t use it. Because believability is key, and you can’t fall in love with your own stuff. I saw him on camera and I said, “I’m not buying it from him.” You would have to be De Niro to sell this stuff! You’d need an actor of that caliber to pull it off. I’d rather pull back in an effort to make it feel more real than to put it up.

And the design?
It was consciously done to make it seem like someone like him would think it was a good billboard, American values, low-fi. We placed him from Utah in our own heads. What would a guy from Utah who was a used car dealer use as his billboards? Right down to the logo, that’s the sort of logo he’d like. We knew we needed a website where he could say his piece. We even went so far to Google J. Robert Butler to see who would come up. You see, we did all our homework because we knew you’d be doing that.

Yeah, we looked through the site, and usually people don’t bother to hide the truth. The moment you get to the website the real advertiser is like, “Surprise! It was us all along!” And claims credit for the campaign.
That’s right. That was everyone’s inclination, but I didn’t want to do that. Because to be believable it simply can’t be connected to anything—no immediate messaging. You really have to be patient. I learned that from the Jimmy Kimmel twerking video, because that was, what? Two months they sat on their hands. I know our PR team was going crazy wanting to tell everyone about it. But you have to wait because that’s when things start to feel real—when you feel like there’s no ad message that’s behind it.

That’s a great point. Was there anything else surprising about the campaign besides the actual surprise at the end?
Well, J. Robert Butler, the actual actor we used, has been married four times. So that’s more than a little ironic. I’m wondering if he heard from any of his ex-wives about his billboard campaign.

Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars premieres tonight at 9/8 Central on WEtv.

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Put apart odors & flavors. Samsung Refrigerators with Twin Cooling System.

Advertising Agency:Cheil, Mexico City, Mexico
Creative Directors:Carlos Cantu, Oscar Godinez, Cesar Quiroz
Art Directors:Cesar Quiroz, Ulises Moreno, Braulio Saldaña
Copywriter:Oscar Godinez
Illustrator:Vasava

Angela Strassheim nous fait part de son incroyable expérience de photographe judiciaire. Une série de photographies qui dévoile l’intérieur des maisons où des homicides familiaux ont eu lieu. Les images en noir et blanc accentuent le sentiment d’inquiétude et de tristesse de ce qui a pu se passer dans ces pièces.

Daniel Craig stands alone, dressed simply in a light jumper and a leather jacket, while he recites the first line of William Earnest Henley’s poem ‘Invictus’.

Google’s decision to lay bare its lack of diversity ramps up the pressure on other Silicon Valley companies to increase the number of women and minorities among technology workers.

Women make up 30% of employees and 91% of staff are either white or Asian, the Mountain View, California- based company disclosed in a blog post Wednesday.

The dearth of female and minority engineers, startup founders and business leaders has long been a sore point for female executives including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg as well as activists such as Jesse Jackson. Google’s disclosure follows increasing calls from investors and activists for companies in the technology hub — which prides itself on being liberal and culturally inclusive — to embrace diversity.

Continue reading at AdAge.com