(TrendHunter.com) Trees are often planted in memory of a lost loved one, so it is only natural that a company would create a series of burial pods that would make this even more of a common practice. These burial…
A source tells us that Doug Wojciechowski, who spent well over a decade working on the Ford and Lincoln accounts for JWT and Team One, has left his executive creative director position at Detroit’s Embark Digital.
Embark, which is the digital wing of communications agency Duffey Petrosky, only announced Wojciechowski’s hiring last October — though it would seem that he worked with the agency for some time before that date after leaving Team Detroit in January of 2014.
Wojciechowski has a fairly extensive agency history: he was senior art director on the Ford account at JWT Detroit for more than six years before it became Team Detroit in 2007, and he was promoted to the VP/creative director position on the UX side in 2011. (He’s also a professional photographer.)
It’s not clear at the moment why Wojciechowski left or whether Embark is searching for a replacement. The agency — which lists Chrysler, the Pistons, and several area healthcare organizations among its clients — has not responded to our request for comment.
In barely related news, Team Detroit’s most memorable recent campaigns that did not star Matthew McConaughey involved a Ford Mustang hidden camera “speed dating” stunt and a Christmas campaign for the Ford Fusion.
The third season of Netflix’s government drama House of Cards will officially be available to stream on Friday. And (spoiler alert) Frank Underwood has consolidated his power. Apparently, lots of scheming, backstabbing and murdering pays off.
What better way to celebrate the Underwood’s success than to imagine what his presidential campaign posters would have looked like, had he taken a more traditional route? That’s exactly what Mashable did, taking inspiration from real presidential posters from Obama, Kennedy, Johnson, Taft and more.
Oh, and for good measure, there are a few touting Claire’s rise, too.
You’ve got a social media war room during the Super Bowl to generate that genius real-time tweet. But what about when llamas are suddenly, unexpectedly on the loose and the Internet is going insane? How do you respond?!
As it happens, this exact thing happened today. And as office productivity turned to mush, the brands’ mettle was tested as everyone gawked at the spectacle on the Internet.
So, how did they do? Hit and miss. See below.
FACT: Llamas don’t need that extra “l”. They just want it.
— Skittles (@Skittles) February 26, 2015
The llamas clearly just #WannaGetAway… #LlamaGetAway?
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) February 26, 2015
“we are chill, we mean no harm. give us some fries.” -llamas, probably
— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) February 26, 2015
Our #MarvelCharacterOfTheDay is CLEARLY Black Lama. #llamawatch pic.twitter.com/3IqDFoBhdp
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) February 26, 2015
The #AZCardinals have agreed to one-year deals with the #llamasontheloose. Each llama will earn 2,340 lbs of hay. Steve Keim does it again.
— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) February 26, 2015
Llama drama. pic.twitter.com/lt6RZNURWZ
— Disney (@Disney) February 26, 2015
The work day has officially come to a stand still. Beers and the #llamachase officially pair well. #Llama pic.twitter.com/9v0hTie5sA
— New Belgium Brewing (@newbelgium) February 26, 2015
OH THANK GOD LLAMA WE WERE SO WORRIED ABOUT U. #LlamaWatch2015 #llamadrama pic.twitter.com/R9Jvl6RWoA
— Pete Zaroll (@totinos) February 26, 2015
Better #Llamas than bears, right? #TeamLlama…. #tweetfromtheseat
— Charmin (@Charmin) February 26, 2015
For the record, we are officially #TeamLlama.
— Fireball Whisky (@FireballWhisky) February 26, 2015
The book will explore the challenges that traditional media organizations face in the digital age.
The NBCUniversal cable network’s deal with the Kardashian family is said to cover three years.
BBH Los Angeles worked with Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh in the latest installment for Google Play’s “California Inspires Me” series, a collaboration with California Sunday magazine featuring interviews with notable Californians set to animation.
Mothersbaugh describes growing up legally blind and how he wasn’t really interested in music until he saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. The animation, directed by Madrid-based duo Manson, works really well to bring the interview to life. Between the dreamy animation and the always interesting Mothersbaugh, it makes for a very enjoyable viewing experience (especially if you’re a Devo fan), not dragging at all while clocking in at over three minutes.
“We wanted to get across the surprising way the state of California can be this great, unexpected haven for creativity—a place for dreamers and misfits,” Josh Webman, creative director at BBH LA, told Adweek. “There’s a certain allure there, and an ideal that feeds right into a dreamy fantasy. To that end, we do always ask the illustrators to give us a bit of a surreal/fantasy vibe. That’s the great thing about animation: You can open it up and tell a person’s story in a less formal way.”
Creating what’s essentially a PSA disguised as an art-house short film, Saatchi & Saatchi Italy recently unveiled this 90-second clip for Dompe, a Milan-based biopharmaceutical company that focuses on rare diseases.
The aptly titled “The Rarest Ones” campaign uses the behaviors of animals ranging from bats to wolves to seals as metaphors to evoke the emotions of our male nude protagonist. The well-produced, beautifully shot short (directed by Roberto Saku Cinardi ) takes us through various landscapes in the Canary Islands and other destinations as our character waxes philosophical and indulges his animalistic side. The basic goal of the short is to highlight how actual wildlife facing possible extinction like the ones mentioned above garner much more attention than humans with rare, often untreatable diseases.
Regarding the film, which was launched to raise awareness of World Rare Disease Day on Feb. 28, star Tommaso Galluppi — a 22-year-old suffering from a medical condition known as Hyperphenylalaninemia — says, “I was looking for a ‘solid’ way of giving voice to people like me who struggle every day – and I found it in this project.”
He continues, “I had no hesitation in agreeing to take part in this film. It was not easy because I had to bare not only my body, but also my soul, my personal experience with the world of rare diseases. I found myself shooting in the desert, in the snow, in caves and in water.”
Tommaso’s dedication and the short’s imagery is certainly eye-opening.
Agency – Saatchi & Saatchi
Regional Creative Director EMEA – John Pallant
Executive Creative Director – Agostino Toscana
Creative Director – Alessandro Orlandi, Manuel Musilli
Art Director – Alessandro Orlandi, Manuel Musilli
Copywriter – Antonio Di Battista, Leonardo Cotti
Account manager – Francesca Bertocco
Senior Digital Strategist – Stefano Caridi
TV Producer – Erica Lora–Lamia
Production Company – Al One Srl
Director – Roberto Saku Cinardi
Dop – Luca Esposito
Executive Producer – Alan Vele
Editor – Marcello Saurino
Music – Guido Smider, Michele Caiati
Sound design – Guido Smider
PR Agency – MSL Group
Social Media Agency – Ambito5
Victoria’s Secret and People magazine have hooked up on Snapchat.
An ad promoting the “Victoria’s Secret Swim Special,” a new TV special tonight on CBS, appeared after People magazine articles published to the Snapchat Discover platform on Thursday afternoon.
It marks the first time People has run ads on Snapchat Discover, according to a spokeswoman for the magazine.
Mort Zuckerman, owner of the New York Daily News, is exploring a sale of the newspaper.
In an email to Daily News staff Thursday, Mr. Zuckerman said he was approached a few weeks ago and asked about his potential interest in selling the paper. “Although there were no immediate plans to consider a sale, we thought it would be prudent to explore the possibility and talk to potential buyers and/or investors,” he wrote in the email.
“I have not come to this decision easily,” added Mr. Zuckerman, who bought the Daily News in 1993. “But I believe the immense hard work in turning the business around in an extremely challenging period for the industry, has put the Daily News in as strong a position than it has ever been, particularly online.”
Every weekday, we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new and trending TV commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, a company that catalogs, tags and measures activity around TV ads in real time. The New Releases here ran on TV for the first time yesterday. The Most Engaging ads are showing sustained social heat, ranked by SpotShare scores reflecting the percent of digital activity associated with each one over the past week. See the methodology here.
Among the new releases, Walmart touts its Straight Talk wireless plan, a partnership with pre-paid carrier Tracfone, which covers FaceTime chat, music streaming and — OMG — “blasting.” Clorox gets cutesy in a spot for its bleach cleaner. And Victoria’s Secret and Kohl’s promote limited time deals on bags and dresses, respectively.
Saatchi & Saatchi + Duke teamed up with production company Wanda to celebrate France in its spot for the new Toyota Yaris France model.
To illustrate the “Frenchness” of the car, they craft a version of La Marseillaise (the French national anthem) from the sound of machinery at the Toyota factory in Valenciennes, France. While creating music out of found sounds for the purpose of advertising is certainly nothing new, here it functions as a simple and direct way to deliver the spot’s message. The ad ends by informing viewers that “Toyota Yaris is the most manufactured car in France.”
The campaign rolls out in broadcast, digital and radio beginning on March 1st. Its digital component will include a site where visitors can attempt to re-create La Marseillaise for a chance to win a stay in a prestigious French chateau.
Credits:
Advertiser: Toyota
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi + Duke
Market: Automobile
Toyota Communications Team: Gilles Quetel, Carine Paris
Production house: Wanda
Producer: Claude Fayolle
Director: Wilfrid Brimo
Creative Director: Frederic Temin
Art Supervisor: Nicolas Chauvin
Artistic Director: Philippe Rachel – Carl Harborg
Copywriter: Carl Harborg – Philippe Rachel
Agency Account Team: Julie Ricart, Alexandre Guillot, Nicolas Fisz
TV Producer: PRODIGIOUS, Martine Joly
Post-Producer: PRODIGIOUS, Franck Hervé Marc
Sound Producer: PRODIGIOUS, Boris Nicou
Music:
Composer: DP
Author: DP
Title: La Marseillaise
Arrangements: Guillaume Le Guen & Yannis Dumoutiers
Sound studio: CAPITAINE PLOUF
Sélectionnée pour les A’Design Awards & Competition 2015, Vana est une installation immersive, directement inspirée de la nature. Suspendue au plafond, cette installation bleutée se déploie dans la pièce par des piliers rappelant des troncs d’arbres, illuminés par des Leds. Un projet signé Orproject, à découvrir.
The spot promotes the Broadway debut of LIVING ON LOVE at the Longacre Theatre. The creative team used photography shot for the key art to make an animated flip book type animation for the commercial.
Michelle Obama’s Partnership for a Healthier America is embracing old-school ad tactics in an attempt to push fruits and veggies.
The organization has formed an unlikely coalition of consumer packaged-goods companies, trade groups, nonprofits and the WWE to fund a new “brand” called FNV that will promote produce via a star-studded, multi-million-dollar ad campaign.
“FNV was inspired by big consumer brands, whose tactics are relentless, compelling, catchy and drive an emotional connection with their products,” PHA CEO Lawrence Soler said in a statement. “We want to do the same thing for fruits and veggies, which have never had an opportunity to act like a big brand. Until now.”
Fox’s musical drama “Empire” is a phenomenon, and as its ratings momentum continues to confound historical precedents, it has also re-written the network’s internal narrative.
According to Nielsen fast national data, “Empire” on Wednesday night delivered a staggering 13.8 million viewers and a 5.3 adults 18-49 rating, where each ratings point represents 1% of the 127 million Americans in the age bracket. As such, “Empire” last night reached some 6.72 million adults 18 to 49. It marked the show’s seventh consecutive week of growth among the advertiser-targeted demographic.
Bear in mind that the Feb. 18 episode was revised upward one-tenth of a ratings point, to a 5.2, upon application of live-same-day data, so there’s a chance that last night’s already gaudy preliminary number could get pushed up to a 5.4 in the final analysis. To put that number into context, the last time a broadcast drama did better than a 5.3 in the demo was May 2010, when ABC aired the series finale of “Lost.”
The Federal Communications Commission today adopted “net-neutrality” rules that would prohibit companies such as Verizon and Comcast from blocking or slowing online traffic and from offering faster service in return for payment.
Not surprisingly, Verizon wasn’t pleased. Sort of surprisingly, the nation’s second-largest phone company, went full smart-ass in its response.
The company issued a press release dated 1934 and partially headlined “‘Throwback Thursday’ Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet.”
In a memo to staff members, the owner of the newspaper said he was approached about a sale and has retained advisers on the matter.
Today Havas Worldwide’s Chicago office announced the hiring of Chris Gyorgy as group creative director.
Together with fellow GCD Kevin Kelly, Gyorgy will lead creative on the Citi account encompassing “credit cards, retail and above the line work” in addition to assisting in new business pitches and pro-bono work.
Gyorgy has yet to appear on this site (to his relief, we assume), but he brings 25 years of industry experience to the new role: he began his career as an art director at The Richards Group before spending time in the same role at DDB Dallas and The Martin Agency.
After leaving Martin, he went to GS&P for approximately four years before graduating to the CD level at Y&R, where he worked on the Sony and Land Rover accounts. During his subsequent three-year stint as ECD at FCB, he contributed to campaigns for SC Johnson, Kraft, and Isuzu, among others.
Gyorgy spent the last six years as a freelancer after leaving FCB in 2009. As one can see from his digital portfolio, that period included work for David&Goliath, Team Detroit, Boone/Oakley, Saatchi LA, and several more.
Havas CCO/Instagram superstar Jason Peterson cites Gyorgy’s “proven track record of creating groundbreaking work for a number of amazing brands” in explaining the hire, calling the new GCD an excellent addition “to our creative arsenal.”
Google Play has been running a great branded content series from BBH Los Angeles called “California Inspires Me,” featuring interviews—which are then set to animation—with famous Californians talking about their upbringing. It’s a collaboration with California Sunday magazine (the regional print offshoot of nonfiction event series Pop-Up Magazine), and the results have been fantastic.
The latest spot in the series breaks today, featuring Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, who explains how he grew up legally blind and initially wasn’t that interested in music. It’s a lovely way to tell these kinds of stories. Have a look here:
To get an idea of how this campaign works behind the scenes, AdFreak chatted with Josh Webman, creative director at BBH L.A.
AdFreak: Can you describe the collaboration between BBH, California Sunday and Google Play? Who’s responsible for what?
Josh Webman: Everyone at Google and BBH loved the Pop-Up Magazine series. It was an incredible, sort of, “happening,” where on one night different artists, journalists and filmmakers present their work on stage—and then it all goes away. Nothing is filmed or recorded. As it turned out, Pop-Up was starting a new magazine series called California Sunday, and they were really interested in story advertising. The timing was perfect.
We all worked together to create the “California Inspires Me” series of print ads and animated films. It’s been a true collaboration between the three partners, with everyone bringing value to the work. We’re fortunate to have a client like Google Play, who is a big believer in creating advertising that doesn’t feel like advertising and putting content out into the world that is authentic and inspiring.
How do you choose the interviewees?
We all kind of go around the room and try to think about who has a truly unique story. Whose story would be fun to bring to life? Everyone has a say.
What’s the process like for the interviews? Do you sit down and have a long chat and then pick the best part? Is it more structured than that?
The studios team at California Sunday is amazing at getting people to open up. They have a deep roster of producers and writers from This American Life and public radio, who have a knack for getting the most interesting morsels out of their subjects. We would then all pore over the interview and transcripts afterwards, pick out the nicest bits, and start carving out a narrative.
Is the audio edited a lot?
We usually have somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour and a half of unedited conversation. Then, we cut down—as is always the case, we end up having to kill a few of our babies for the sake of a nice, tight story.
Do you then find animators to put pictures to the words?
Actually, we are already researching animators well in advance of the interview. Sometimes, this is the hardest part of the whole process, because each one of us has this back-pocket, laundry list of animators we’ve been dying to work with. So we’re all kind of jockeying for our favorites. But it all becomes a little clearer when we finally land on an interview subject. There was always a “eureka” moment, where we knew the subject and the animator just belonged together. It’s matchmaking.
What led you to Mark Mothersbaugh?
Who doesn’t love Devo? We were all fans. But really, Mark is so much more than Devo. He has such a dynamic and varied body of work, and the trajectory of his career has taken so many fascinating and unexpected turns. It felt like, “Why wouldn’t we want to tell that story? It’s riveting.”
In many ways, he embodies what we think of when we think of a multidimensional artist. He just has so many tools in his belt. And his personal story—how he “made it,” how he became who he is—is just as interesting as the art he creates. Mark has influenced whole generations, and in different mediums, too. He just seemed perfect for this project.
You got Madrid-based directing duo Manson to direct this. Why them?
Because they’re amazing. That’s the short answer. The long answer is, our design director, Florencio Zavala, came across the work of street artist/illustrator SAWE—one half of Manson—and we were all blown away. After one viewing of Tomás’s work as well, we knew we had to work with this crew. Mark’s story is fascinating, and we knew these guys would really elevate it. And they did. Knocked it out of the park.
What other videos have you done?
We’ve done “California Inspires Me” profiles on director Mike Mills, and the indie singer Thao Nguyen. And of course, Jack Black. We are hard at work on the next few installments, and they are great, really interesting, inspiring people whose stories are told beautifully. The diversity of the subjects is key, so we are trying to surprise people. We really hope everyone likes them.
The whole series has a dreamy vibe. Was that the intent all along?
We think so. It’s the California way, right? We’re all based in California—BBH L.A., Google Play, and California Sunday—so we wanted to have that feeling come across in the films, but subtly—we didn’t want to be heavy handed about it.
We wanted to get across the surprising way the state of California can be this great, unexpected haven for creativity—a place for dreamers and misfits. There’s a certain allure there, and an ideal that feeds right into a dreamy fantasy. To that end, we do always ask the illustrators to give us a bit of a surreal/fantasy vibe. That’s the great thing about animation: You can open it up and tell a person’s story in a less formal way.
What is the series trying to say, deep down, about California?
California is thought of as a lot of different things. Thanks in part to the film industry, we know it’s a place where artists come to, but it’s also a place where artists come from. It is a creative mecca as rich and diverse as any in the world, from the beat scene in the ’50s, Haight-Ashbury, Beautiful Losers, Ray and Charles Eames to Compton, Silicon Valley, Sound City, the Sunset Strip, Disney, Pixar, CalArts and Grand Royal.
California is a place where people not only find their footing, but grow and bloom, developing as people and as artists. BBH, California Sunday and Google Play wanted to shine a light on that idea. It really is a magical place, and it’s cool to hear how California does in fact inspire people. We’re all hoping, in our own way, that the series inspires others as well.
See the previous videos from the series here:
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.