Hasta La Creative!

American Pharoah may have taken the Triple Crown this weekend, but Burger King was also a winner at the Belmont Stakes.

The chain’s King character made an appearance at the race over the weekend, spending time with American Pharoah trainer Bob Baffert, who Sports Illustrated reported allowed the King into his box.

From SI: “Baffert likewise made a deal to allow a man in a Burger King costume to stand in his box during the race. (Baffert told me after the Preakness that he had been offered $150,000 to let the Burger King man near him for that race; the Belmont brought an undisclosed payment.)”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

There are three calls in this business that no one wants to get from a client: “Sorry, we’ve decided to go in a different direction.” “The budget has been cut.” “I’ll be retiring at the end of the year.” Not long ago, I got the last one from Joe, the CEO of a prominent community bank in Cambridge, Mass., where we’re located. At a time when we pursue global dreams and fly 3,000 miles at the drop of a dime to pitch new business, it feels almost anachronistic to have a client in your own backyard.

In fact, proximity defined the relationship from the start. Following the roller coaster of a review and a suspenseful wait for a decision, I got a call from Joe, who asked if he could drop by to talk with me. I told him that I’m happy to walk the four blocks to the bank, but he insisted on coming over.

Running through the superstitious logic that we all do when we’re trying to predict the outcome of a pitch, I decided that we must have lost. Joe was too nice of a guy to tell me over the phone, or to make me walk to him for bad news. Sitting in our lobby in his grey banker’s suit, Joe graciously said that his team would like to work with us. That kicked off a ten-year relationship and set a tone that can best be described as that of good neighbors.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Honda’s new HR-V came about thanks to an extended trial-and-error process, and RPA emphasizes that fact in its new campaign.

The work, which so far consists of two TV spots, plays on the idea that the new models are a mishmash of ideas that come as close as possible to “[getting] everything just right.”

Here’s “Give and Take,” which illustrates its titular concept via a Photoshop-esque remodeling of actors’ faces:

We do like the leading lady’s Madonna-worthy gap there at the end to remind us that nothing’s perfect…not even an economy SUV.

The next ad, “Great Thinking Inside,” dispenses with the faces metaphor and gives us an illustration of the many models that eventually merged to form the HR-V:

The release tells us that the campaign was created to appeal to Honda fans’ sense of nostalgia by demonstrating the process via the power of CG illustrated in “Russian-nested-doll fashion” to create the newest, shiniest version of the car you’ve known and loved, etc. It’s like Transformers without the fun.

The campaign’s print ads also play off the change theme, using a classic Mad magazine-style fold-in to demonstrate the new models’ “versatility.”

In addition to the work posted here, Honda will also “[sponsor] the brand new Amazon 3D printing store,” “[collaborate] with Thrillist on a Culinary Road Trip event,” work on “the National Geographic Wanderlust Instagram contest” and, most importantly, run “a personalized interactive post on Buzzfeed.”

Title: “Great Thinking Inside” :60 and “Give and Take” :50
First air: June 8, 2015
Client: American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

Agency: RPA
EVP, CCO: Joe Baratelli
SVP, ECD: Jason Sperling
VP, CD Copywriter: Ken Pappandurous
VP, CD Art Director: Chuck Blackwell
Sr. Copywriter: Paul Fung
Sr. Art Director: Marcella Coad
Copywriter (for “Great Thinking Inside”): Audrey Attal
Copywriter (for “Great Thinking Inside”): Forrest Boleyn
Copywriter (for “Give and Take”): Adam Gothelf
Art Director (for “Give and Take”): Michael Enriquez
SVP, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff
VP, Executive Producer: Isadora Chesler
Producer: Matthew Magsaysay

VP, Director of Business Affairs: Maria Del Homme
SVP, Management Account Director: Brett Bender
VP, Account Director, National/Corporate Advertising: Jeff Moohr
VP, Management Supervisor: Cathy O’Gorman
Management Supervisor: Rose McRitchie
Account Supervisor: Patty Mira

Production Company: Nexus Productions
Director: Smith + Foulkes
EP: Tracey Cooper
EP (for “Give and Take”): Jeremy Smith
Line Producer (for “Give and Take”): Max Fink
Production Manager (for “Great Thinking Inside”): Fernanda Garcia Lopez

Post Production (for “Great Thinking Inside”): Time Based Arts
Animators: Chris Wood and Sam Osbourne
Flame Artists: Mike Skrgatic, James Allen and Sheldon Gardner
3D Artists: Ben Cantor, Mike Battcock, Kristoffer Andersson, Poul Resen Steenstrup, Eva Kuehlmann and Simon Goodchild
Additional Grade: Simone Grattarola

Post Production (for “Give and Take”): MPC
VFX Supervisor/Lead Flame: Benoit Mannequin
Flame: Vincent Blin
CG Lead/Lighting: Dameon O’Boyle
CG Lighter: Tim Kafta
CG artist: Clement Renaudin
Offline Editor: Billy Sacdalan
EP: Jo Arghiris
Senior Producer: Juliet Tierney
Producer: Jake Fenkse

Vehicle Scanning & Modeling: ACME Digital Content
Kevin Malling, Brandon Acree, Tyson Hill and John Wang

Music Supervision (for “Great Thinking Inside”): Squeak E Clean Productions, Inc.
Music Composer (for “Give and Take”): Squeak E Clean Productions, Inc.

Licensed Music Track (for “Great Thinking Inside”): “Gonna Build A Mountain”
Composers: Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
Performed by: Sammy Davis Jr.
Label: Rhino Entertainment Company, A Warner Music Group Company

Sound Design: Factory
Sound Designer: Anthony Moore

Music For “Great Thinking Inside” :15’s: ANTFOOD
Mix & Sound Design: Lime Studios
Engineer: Mark Meyuhas
Assistant: Matt Miller
Executive Producer: Susie Boyajan

WaterAid wanted to draw attention to the 1.25 billion women worldwide who don’t have access to a toilet during their period. So, the charity made an ad suggesting if men had periods, they would need manpons.

When you figure out how those things are connected, you can let me know.

They made two other strange spots—one about how men having periods would change football (soccer to us Yanks), and another about how men having periods would change office interactions. But the true viral standout is the fake spot for ManPax Manpons, which people seem to be sharing because men using tampons is funny, and of course, they’d have to be super manly manpons designed by NASA.

Manpons are more advanced than your average feminine product, with their Kevlar skeleton and heated therma-core. The bait-and-switch appeal is also fairly advanced. Perhaps WaterAid was getting tired of no one giving a damn about the myriad of other videos on their channel—the heartfelt true stories of those living without clean water and the transformative effect that sanitation makes in their lives.

So, they made a spot about men needing tampons, and lo, the attention started to flow. Even more amusingly, they actually collected a bunch of speculative data about how people think the world would change if men did have periods, and created a press release out of it.

Charities, take note. If people don’t care about your cause, find something for them to care about, even if it’s a ridiculous hypothetical question. Now let’s hope they care enough about it to actually change something.

Here are the two other spots:

Le street-artiste anonyme 1010, spécialisé dans les trompe-l’oeil en 3D, a été commissionné par la galerie Itinerrances pour réaliser un portail sur le périphérique parisien, près du 13ème arrondissement. En 5 jours, l’artiste a utilisé 400 litres de peinture pour recouvrir 4500 mètre carré de surface d’un cratère coloré à coté de la circulation. Ce projet éphémère a été fait en partenariat avec la SEMAPA.

BodyArmor fields an impressive lineup in “This Is Now,” a cute commercial that positions the brand as an alternative to established players like Gatorade and Powerade.

Director Brian Ford and production company Schema Media strove “to make sure we had a unique creative approach to draw consumers in and hammer home that we are the sports drink for today’s athlete,” vp of marketing Michael Fedele tells AdFreak.

Quick cuts depict passé eras with which the brand would rather not be associated. The best bits include: Rockets guard James Harden, topped with a ‘fro, committing fashion fouls in obscenely high socks and dangerously short shorts; Angels outfielder Mike Trout rocking a blonde mullet and loud tennis garb (he looks like Bjorn Borg crossed with Farrah Fawcett); and Colts quarterback Andrew Luck pimped out ’70s-cop-show pimp style.

“That handlebar mustache on Andrew Luck was an impromptu shave that he actually did himself,” says Fedele. “Back then, many pro QBs were very flamboyant. They threw on the fur and hit Studio 54, and the next morning did a photo shoot by the pool.”

Richard Sherman, Buster Posey, Skylar Diggins and Rob Gronkowski also goof around in the ad. (Patriots’ tight-end Gronk doesn’t twerk, but he does dig in to a mountain of hot dogs.) “Filming the spot was a lot of fun,” Fedele says. “We had Rob Gronkowski and Richard Sherman together for the first time since the Pats beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Mike Trout and Buster Posey, both MVPs, spent time talking shop when we filmed them during [Major League Baseball’s] spring training.”

It’s a cool commercial, but can upstart BodyArmor (in which Kobe Bryant bought a stake last year) really make entrenched market leaders like Gatorade sweat?

“Young athletes, and the moms and dads who shop for them, compare BodyArmor to what’s out there, and the facts speak for themselves,” Fedele says of the brand’s mix of coconut water, vitamins and electrolytes. “A 15-year-old athlete today doesn’t want to drink the same sports drink their grandfather did.”