Hasta La Creative!

Speedo delivers a bit of a surprise package in its latest advertising.

Meet 91-year-old Masters swimmer Jurgen Schmidt, one star of the brand’s “Fueled by Water” campaign, which focuses on the joy and freedom people experience by participating in aquatic activities. Schmidt hits the pool at 5 a.m. most days, has competed for 40 years, and is a bit reminisenct of Walt Stack, the 80-year-old jogger who starred in Nike’s very first “Just do it” ad.

A whole bunch of web videos in the two- to three-minute range present personal stories. In addition to Schmidt, the Speedo campaign introduces more than a dozen other swimmers, surfers and divers, as well as a paddleboarder and a lifeguard.

The brand is often associated with elite competitors like Olympians Ryan Lochte and Natalie Coughlin, and they’re in the campaign, too. (It’s also frequently mocked for its snug-fitting men’s swimsuits. Note my predictable quip above.) But this push aims to broaden Speedo’s appeal and “start a new conversation about why people love the water and celebrate their passions,” says David Lai, CEO and creative director at Hello Design, which created the campaign. “Our strategy is to resonate with a wider audience and have people think about Speedo a little differently.”

Schmidt symbolizes swimming as a lifelong sport. “Many fitness swimmers tell us they’re inspired to see octo- and even nanogenarians at the pool and at meets,” says Lai, “so we set out to find a story of a senior swimmer. Poring over articles in magazines and online that featured Masters swimmers, we [selected] Jurgen because he just exuded the love of swimming and loved to talk about all aspects of it.”

Speedo is smart to present everyday athletes and folks just having fun. We know we’ll never win gold in the 50-meter freestyle, but everyone can relate to Schmidt’s enthusiasm and heartfelt vow to “compete until the end.” What’s more, brands like Speedo and Beagle Street deserve praise for using seniors as more than props or the butt of jokes.

“As we were setting up one of our shots, Jurgen asked if it was OK if he kept swimming his workout even though we weren’t shooting,” recalls Lai. “We were worried he would get tired, but he just kept going and going. It was truly impressive, and I think the entire crew was inspired by his positive energy.”

Check out the anthem spot below.

Apple’s newest gadget has a shipping date.

During Apple’s first quarter earnings call, on Tuesday, CEO Tim Cook gave the most specific timeline for the connected wristwatch. “Development for Apple Watch is right on schedule, and we expect to begin shipping in April,” he said. Apple had said the device would land in early 2015 when it was unveiled in September.

The other device introduced then, the iPhone 6, did quite well for the company. Apple posted a record-shattering holiday quarter, shipping 74.5 million iPhones and netting $74.6 billion in revenue, a 30% annual increase. Sales in China, which grew 70% year on year, drove much of the quarter’s success. Apple debuted its first ad for the Watch in China.

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Google Glass may be pivoting toward business uses but consumers remain fascinated by the potential of virtual reality in their near future, as the Viral Video Chart shows this week.

Curiosity about Microsoft’s planned HoloLens virtual reality headset helped generate nearly 14 million views in the week ending Sunday for a video showing the company’s vision for the product, which it revealed in a surprise announcement last Wednesday.

But viral-video power Dove nearly topped that mark with its latest effort, “Love Your Curls,” which scored nearly 13 million views during the same week, according to Visible Measures.

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New York was supposed to be the city dealing with a scary winter visitor on Tuesday, but instead it was London that was thrown off-kilter—by a giant polar bear wandering around.

The eight-foot male bear was first spotted in the Underground before walking across Hampstead Heath and along the South Bank. The beast drew quite the shocked reaction, with people posting all sorts of frightened and bemused notes to social media. They were happy to learn, in the end, that it was simply a very advanced fake bear—promoting Sky Atlantic’s new TV crime drama Fortitude, which is set in a small Arctic town.

The bear was created by special effects company Millennium FX and operated by puppeteers Tom Wilton and Derek Arnold, who worked on the theater production War Horse. The stunt was orchestrated by Taylor Herring, which has a history of doing fun outdoor stuff like this—including the brilliant beached dragon head skull for Game of Thrones in 2013.

“It is made of a semi-rigid foam, as it had to be light,” Millennium FX principal Rob Mayor said of the bear. “The head was difficult, too, as we wanted the hair to look right. So each hair was put into place individually. Then we used an electrostatic current to make the hairs to stand up on end. … We are actually going to miss the bear when it’s gone. It sounds silly, but we have got quite attached to it.”

This isn’t the first polar bear spotted in London, though the last one was homeless because of climate change in an from Greenpeace. Check out another photo of today’s bear below.

Snapchat unveiled its new publishing portal called Discover on Tuesday. Through Discover, publishers like CNN, ESPN and Yahoo can distribute their news coverage to Snapchat’s audience of Millennials and teens. So Ad Age took a look at how those publishers covered the biggest news story at launch: winter storm Juno.

Continue reading at AdAge.com