Hasta La Creative!

Seattle-based agency Super Frog Saves Tokyo is behind the above hilarious and endearing video of three grandmothers smoking cannabis for the first time, followed by Jenga using “all your hands,” discussions about ironing and attempts at opening a bag of chips. The agency created the video, which has now surpassed the 12 million view mark on YouTube, as a side project, but told The Wall Street Journal it plans to host a whole series of “entertaining yet thought-provoking videos” on the new site Cut.com beginning next week.

“Cut.com is an experiment for us,” Mike Gaston, SFST’s creative director, told that publication. “BuzzFeed is really good at getting content spread, and Vice is good at creating really thought-provoking content, but I think there’s space in between. I think it’s possible for us to create culturally relevant videos that are also entertaining…”

Gaston stressed that the video “isn’t simply a marketing tool for the agency,” despite all the publicity afforded to Super Frog Saves Tokyo as a result of its viral success. “This isn’t a business development tool,” he said. “Right now I’m only really looking for long-term, strategic partners for SFST.” He did add, however, that the agency “would happily turn Cut.com into its own business.”

One of the more interesting (and funny) facts to emerge from the Wall Street Journal interview was an unexpected challenge in creating the video. “Surprisingly, the hardest part of the entire video was finding grandmas that haven’t smoked weed,” Gaston said.

SFST initially attempted to use their own grandmothers, only to discover that they’d all tried cannabis at least once — as had all their friends. Next they turned to a talent agency, but even then only managed to find two candidates who fit the bill. Funnily enough, they resorted to using the talent agent’s own grandmother as the third party. According to The Wall Street Journal, Cut.com has already recorded more content, which will be uploaded to the site and its corresponding YouTube channel in the coming weeks. Let’s hope they can live up to their initial success.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dish Network has reached an agreement to restore Turner Broadcasting channels including CNN and Cartoon Network to its satellite-TV service for several months while the two sides work toward a longer-term deal.

The extension with the Time Warner unit also reinstates Adult Swim, TruTV, TCM, Boomerang and CNN en Espanol to Dish’s service, the companies said in a statement. It ensures Dish’s 14 million customers won’t lose TNT and TBS when a separate deal for those channels expires on Dec. 5.

The extension means Dish’s rights to all Turner programming will expire at once, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be named. Under the old deals, Dish dropped some channels while keeping TNT and TBS, the most- watched Turner outlets. Some stations had been dark since Oct. 21, after an agreement expired.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

The Richards Group once again teamed up with Sugar Film Production and director Chris Smith for a lighthearted series of ads starring the San Antonio Spurs.

The new ads — “Toga,” “Slogans,” “Barbie” and “Wise” follow much the same formula as last year’s campaign, employing lighthearted, self-depreciating humor. In “Toga,” Tim Duncan returns to find Tony Parker, Patty Mills, Kawhi Leonard and Manu Ginobili so enamored with H-E-B’s Greek yogurt that they’re all decked out in togas. ”Why is everyone Greek?” Duncan asks disdainfully upon seeing his teammates, before singling out Kawhi as looking particularly ridiculous. Other spots find different ways to poke fun at one or more of the Spurs players, whether its Patty Mills‘ accent in “Barbie” or Kawhi reprising a line from last year in “Slogans.” Spurs fans already know what kind of goofiness to expect from the annual campaign, and The Richards Group doesn’t disappoint.

“Working with these guys, you can really tell what makes them world champions”, said Chris Smith. “Their ability to go into a huddle, takes notes and run with them—while adding their own individual flavor—makes them a lot of fun to work with each year.” (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Six months after naming Tom Sewell as president, McGarryBowen New York has named Mark Koelfgen as its chief creative officer, a newly created position. Mr. Koelfgen will report to agency co-founder Gordon Bowen, who oversees the group’s global creative strategy.

Mr. Koelfgen began his career at DDB in 1994 and has worked on brands including Verizon, Pepsi, Microsoft, AT&T, Ikea, Snapple and American Airlines. He joined McGarryBowen from GSD&M in 2005 as a creative director, working on the Reebok and Brahma Beer accounts.

Mr. Koelfgen was named managing director and executive creative director in 2009. He helped introduce the “Droid” campaign for Verizon that same year, the agency said. The same team went on to pitch and win the Verizon Wireless account for the agency the following year.

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The time has come, yet again, to talk health care enrollment. The numbers are good, though they might not be as good as some claim…but the goal for the parties running various states’ healthcare exchanges will always be increased enrollment.

While The White House has turned to celebrities for promo purposes, President Obama’s home state of Illinois went with local agency DPC, which created TV/print/OOH/digital work for Get Covered Illinois, the group dedicated to teaching residents the ins and outs of insurance and convincing them to sign up.

Earlier this year, Get Covered went with The Onion for promo purposes, running “native ads” in the pub’s voice. DPC sticks with the satirical theme — here’s the TV spot, as embedded in the “Luck Plan” microsite:

Images and credits after the jump.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Pete Favat recently marked his first anniversary as chief creative officer at Deutsch Los Angeles, which handles creative for major marketers including Taco Bell, VW and Dr. Pepper. This year it added Pizza Hut to the list and looks like the frontrunner to win the review for a lead creative shop on Sprint. Mr. Favat came from Arnold, where he had worked on large accounts including Progressive Insurance. He shared a few fun facts about himself with Ad Age for this week’s edition of “Six Things”

1. He has a devil tattoo on one shoulder an angel on the other. “I was at a crossroads in my first marriage, I was in L.A. and, being in a poor mood, opted to get a devil,” explained Mr. Favat. He spent the next couple of years in “solo devil” mode, before meeting his current wife, Amy. Only then did he get the angel done to balance things out. “On any given day, I’ll defer to one or the other,” he said.

2. He took a career aptitude test in school, got “floral arranger” and it kind of made sense. “I was so depressed, at first,” he said. As a young boy in New Jersey — the Garden State — Mr. Favat asked his parents if he could take control of half of their yard to grow vegetables in. “When I was 14, I did,” he said. Since then, he has had two perennial gardens, and grows much of his own food in California. “Now I make also make a lot of our furniture,” he said, “including the desk in my office.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

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Analysts said Gao Yu’s case was aimed at silencing a voice that gave the world rare glimpses into internal Communist Party politics.

The 1 percent truly get everything catered to them.

Sex toy maker Lelo has launched Pino, a vibrator especially made for bankers. The device itself is your standard stretchable vibrating silicon ring, but the devil is in the packaging details. It comes with matching Lelo silver cufflinks, a money clip engraved with “Always Be Closing” and a pinstripe shirt inlay—all for the price of $159.

Lelo claims it made the product after realizing that 6 percent of its online sales in 2014 were delivered directly to financial offices and stock exchanges, and that 71 percent of people you make $200,000 a year or more who responded to its global sex survey owned more than five of its products.

Why “the ultimate stimulus package” is catered to those employed in the financial sector, and wouldn’t work for the rest of us folks, doesn’t really make any sense. But if you’re in the market to buy something for the banker who has more money than he or she can spend, here’s something that might be missing from their briefcase that you can afford.

Heineken will be named creative marketer of the year at next year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The brewer “lives and breathes creativity throughout its organization, and has a superb framework that allows its marketing teams the freedom to experiment while retaining the core essence of their many brands,” Philip Thomas, CEO of Lions Festivals, said in a statement.

“The purpose of Heineken is to continually wow the world with our brands, people and performance,” said Alexis Nasard, Heineken’s president for Western Europe and global chief marketing officer, in a statement. “This award shows that we are doing just that.”

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