Hasta La Creative!

Montreal-based agency N/A launched a campaign for McDonald’s, introducing a new brand positioning and tagline, “Welcome to McDonald’s.”

The campaign marks the first repositioning of the brand in Canada since 2012’s “Our Food, Your Questions” and the first major brand campaign under chief marketing officer Antoinette Benoit, who entered into that role roughly a year ago. Like the brand’s stateside campaign, “Welcome to McDonald’s” deals in cheery, unbridled positivity.

In a new 30-second spot entitled “Nicknames,” a McDonald’s worker asks viewers, “Have you met last-minute Pete, or first-thing Sally, story-telling Mary?” before answering “I have.” The spot emphasizes the diversity of the chain’s customers, showing patrons of all ages and backgrounds. It’s quite the sidestep from “Our Food, Your Questions” and the brand’s typical approach in Canada, which may explain the decision to work with N/A rather than agency of record Cosette. Tribal Worldwide also worked on digital content for the campaign, which includes print and OOH.

According to Benoit, these were real customers captured in the ad, who were later asked for consent to use the footage, culled from over 115 hours of filming. “It’s a different way to go behind the golden arches,” she told Marketing.

Everyone loves to complain about the weatherman messing up the forecast, but Toyota decided to actually do something about it.

At least, that’s the premise of this new reality-style ad for the automaker’s Aygo model (sold in Europe). In the two-minute spot, three television forecasters are given special versions of the car to drive, with a sunroof rigged to stay closed when he or she predicts rain, and open when he or she expects it to shine—regardless of what actually comes out of the skies.

Cue obvious footage of one weather anchor cursing as a small mountain of snow dumps onto her head (did she not see it, or did the rules bar her from sweeping it off before she got in?), and another hilariously pleading for mercy as he gets drenched in a downpour.

It’s all framed as an experiment, if tongue in cheek, so the results aren’t surprising— the world’s favorite rhetorical punching bags get the weather right some of the time. And as with most documentary marketing, it should probably be taken with more than one grain of salt.

In other words, Toyota isn’t exactly taking much of a risk by piling on. But it’s fun enough to watch, in a revenge-schadenfreude kind of way. For all those times you got caught in a thunderstorm without an umbrella, sit back and grab some popcorn, because it sure beats blaming the atmosphere.

Agency: Del Campo Saatchi and Saatchi Spain.

Google has a timely message for consumers: Hey, we’ve got a smartwatch too.

In the hours before the highly-anticipated Apple event for its Watch on Monday, Google released a fifteen-second ad for Android Wear, its competing connected-device software. The 15-second spot continues Android’s “Be Together. Not the Same” campaign introduced last fall.

Android Wear, which partners with four hardware makers, has sold poorly thus far, shipping only 720,000 devices in six months last year. Apple is expected to sell upwards of 3 million Apple Watch devices in its first quarter, once it goes on sale.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

After several months’ worth of anonymous tips and nearly as many cases of obfuscation, FCA (FIAT Chrysler Automobiles) finally confirmed this weekend that Global Hue will no longer work on the Jeep account in any capacity.

From Chrysler’s corporate communications office:

“Global Hue’s position as the agency of record (AOR) for the Jeep brand has ended.”

This news may come as something of a surprise to you.

Global Hue first won global project work for the Jeep brand back in September 2009; prior to that date, the agency handled multicultural assignments and the launch of Jeep Compass. At the time, our own Matt Van Hoven saw the win as “a litmus test for future assignments and, possibly, AOR responsibility.”

His guess was accurate; the agency officially announced its AOR status in January 2010 after launching the “I live. I ride. I am. Jeep.” campaign and created work for the brand for nearly five years — a period that culminated with Bob Dylan asking Super Bowl XLVIII viewers, “Is there anything more American than America?” (Other recent work included a campaign built around the posthumous Michael Jackson single “Love Never Felt So Good.”)

In early 2014, Crain’s Detroit and others saw the Super Bowl ad as an entry into the world of larger accounts, but we began receiving anonymous tips about tension between client and agency at least six months ago.

You may also recall that The Richards Group produced this year’s Jeep Super Bowl ad, another meditation on the United States set to the words of noted socialist Woody Guthrie (Adweek compared that campaign unfavorably to recent work by Mekanism for The North Face).

According to Chrysler, this pivot from one shop to another reflects FCA CMO Olivier Francois‘ desire to make use all of the agencies on his roster when he sees fit: The Richards Group also created the “Blue Pill” Super Bowl spot for FIAT this year, and Doner created the Diddy-starring ad “Mirage” from early 2014 while Wieden + Kennedy remains global agency of record for the larger Chrysler brand.

This news casts all recent stories about Global Hue in a different light: in January we reported that the agency was “in negotiations” with FCA regarding the Jeep account, and that may have been technically true — assuming that the contract had not yet expired on that date. When another source told us that A to Si — a multi-lingual agency tied to GH — had lost the English-to-French translation work for Jeep, a spokesperson again implied, incorrectly, that GlobalHue would retain its creative role.

Last week’s post about the agency’s plans to relocate from Detroit to New York City was filled with half-truths as well: the reason Global Hue had to fire “quite a few” people in its Detroit office was because it had just lost its largest account, but the source who confirmed the staffing changes did not mention that fact. The agency claims to have begun moving executives to New York City several months ago, which strongly implies that the Jeep loss did not come as a complete surprise.

Will the Detroit office stay open? Does the agency actually plan to hire employees in New York to replace those it laid off in Detroit? We have no idea. We also don’t know why parties close to Global Hue chose to repeatedly and intentionally mislead us about this business — both directly and by omission.

Most importantly, what will FIAT Chrysler do next regarding the Jeep account? Since the company already works with W+K, Martin, and others, it does not necessarily need to look outside its own roster to find a new creative AOR for Jeep.

Here’s a statement from a company spokesperson:

“Olivier Francois and his team are currently working in partnership with the company’s dedicated roster of agencies on behalf of all brand advertising and marketing initiatives, including Jeep brand campaigns. The Company currently works in partnership with multicultural advertising agencies including Lopez-Negrete and Richards Lerma, and is actively reviewing agencies that specialize in African-American marketing and advertising.”

Expect more agency news to come from Chrysler.

Le photographe Navid Baraty a pensé la série Wander dans laquelle il s’amuse à créer des petites scènes imaginaires de l’espace à partir de nourriture, d’épices et d’objets du quotidien tels que du maquillage, du talc et de la craie. Les nébuleuses, planètes, satellites naturels, trous noirs, étoiles et galaxies sont faits de farine, huile, eau, sel, divers colorants alimentaires, cannelle, sésame, sucre, lait et cumin.

Nebula – makeup, olive oil, chalk, baby powder, salt, water.

Planet – bottom of a glass containing half and half, water, food coloring.
Stars – salt, cinnamon, baking powder.

Planet – bottom of a glass containing half and half, water, food coloring.
Moons – bottom of a glass containing coconut milk, water, food coloring.
Stars – salt, cinnamon, baking powder, tums.

Nebula with gas streams – cat fur, garlic powder, salt, flour, cumin, turmeric.

Black Hole – Bottom of a glass of coffee, salt, sugar, corn starch, cinnamon.

Distant galaxy – olive oil, sesame oil, water, cumin, cinnamon, flour.

Globular cluster – baking soda, salt, sugar, curry powder, cinnamon.

Icy Planet – bottom of a glass containing half and half, water, food coloring.
Moons – silica gel, food coloring.
Stars – sugar, cinnamon, cumin.

Spiral galaxy – baking soda, curry powder, chalk, salt, sugar, cinnamon.

Google has hired Lars Bastholm as global chief creative officer of The Zoo, its in-house agency team. Bastholm, who will report to Torrence Boone, head of global agency sales and services, was most recently global chief creative officer at Rosetta. Prior to that, he was the chief creative officer of Cheil USA. He has also worked as chief digital creative officer Ogilvy North America, at AKQA, where he was hired to open the New York office, and as the founder of Grey Interactive in Denmark. He is a three-time Cyber Lion Grand Prix winner at the Cannes Lions festival.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

WPP, the world’s largest communications group, reported 2014 revenue rose 4.6% to $17.4 billion and pre-tax profit grew 12% to $2.2 billion, with North America and the U.K. performing particularly well.

Organic growth (excluding acquisitions) was 3.3% in 2014, due to a slower second half, but rose to 3.9% in January 2015. Rival Omnicom’s organic growth for 2014 was 5.7%, while Publicis Groupe’s reached 2%.

Speaking to analysts in a webcast in London this morning, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell said that he expects 2015 to “improve a little bit” over last year. However, WPP’s statement about earnings was cautious about the year ahead, warning that it will be “demanding,” partly because there are no major events like the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup or a U.S. presidential election to boost marketing investment.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Film, Print
Coca-Cola

Advertising Agency:Ogilvy & Mather, Paris, France
Ceo:Philip Heimann
Executive Creative Director:Baptiste Clinet
Creative Director:Nicolas Lautier
Copywriter:Riccardo Fregoso
Art Director:Julien Chiapolini, Jeremy Bouchet
Strategic Director:Hadi Zabad
Tv Producer:Antoine Bagot
Art Buying Director:Laurence Nahmias
Business Director:Ben Messiaen
Account managers:Eloïse HAYE, Nicolas Boivin
Production Company:Hsi
Executive Producer:Rebecca Skinner
Director:David Lachapelle
Cinematographer:Paul Cameron
Line Producer:William Green

Never underestimate people’s power not to give a damn about what’s right in front of them.

We’ve seen this time and again in outdoor ad stunts, and this latest one from AMV BBDO in London is quite amusing to watch. It’s a PSA for Cancer Research U.K., which wanted to communicate that British people are missing the first signs of cancer. Well, no wonder they ignore small lumps in their bodies when they just walk right past weird giant lumps growing in the real world.

Model makers Artem built the lumps.

“The road lumps had to match the paving bricks of the street used for the shoot, and be distorted in such a way that made it appear as if a ‘tumor’ was growing in the road,” the company says. “The lumps had to be light enough to carry on and off set, but durable enough for a van to go over them; one of the lumps was reinforced in fiberglass to allow for a road sweeper to go over it.”

CREDITS
Client: Cancer Research U.K.
Agency: AMV BBDO, London
Creative Directors: Mike Crowe, Rob Messeter
Copywriter: Charlotte Adorjan
Art Director: Michael Jones
Agency Planners: Emily Harlock, Sarah Sternberg
Account: Gareth Collins, Emily Atkinson, Ally Humpherys
Agency Producer: Sophie Horner
Media Agency: Mediacom
Media Planner: Lucy Mitchell
Production Company: Rogue
Producer: Maddy Easton
Director: Sam Cadman
Sound: Gary Turnball / Grand Central Recording Studios
Post: Joseph Tang / The Mill
Editor: Kev Palmer / TenThree
Model Makers: Artem
Music: The Sound Works

McDonald’s Corp. posted a worse-than-predicted drop in February sales after competition grew fiercer in the U.S., a sign its new CEO will have a deeper hole to dig out of as he works on a comeback.

U.S. sales at stores open at least 13 months fell 4.0% in February, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said Monday. Analysts had estimated a 0.7% drop, according to Consensus Metrix. The sales decreased 1.7% globally, compared with a projection of a 0.3% dip.

The results underscore the challenges facing Steve Easterbrook, a McDonald’s veteran who took over as CEO this month. In Easterbrook’s first week on the job, McDonald’s announced plans to stop serving chicken raised with some antibiotics in its U.S. restaurants. The company also is revamping its U.S. operations as it tries to stem the exodus of customers to fast-casual chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Panera Bread Co.

Continue reading at AdAge.com