Hasta La Creative!

“Maybe it’s a new chapter in my life.”

That’s how Amit (aka, “Mook”), a 44-year-old dude who’s had a thick beard for 14 years, describes the experience of shaving it off in “My New Face,” a remarkbaly three-minute online film by Israeli agency BBR Saatchi & Saatchi for Super-Pharm’s private label line of Life M6 razorblades.

Since the M6 competes with better-funded brands such as Gillette, “traditional messaging promoting efficiency due to number of blades” would likely have proven “majorly ineffective,” says BBR’s Eva Hasson. “That’s why we decided to follow a different approach.”

The idea for the film originated with an agency staffer who recalled that as a child, he did not immediately recognize his father after he shaved off his trademark beard. Much to the agency’s surprise, the client proved eager to give the offbeat idea a try.

“We were offering to shoot a documentary, which is not your regular advertising format where things are scripted,” Hasson says. “This format is a lot riskier, and we warned our client that we may ultimately go through all the motions and end up with nothing. Truth be told, we actually shot three documentaries—only one worked out. This was a gutsy decision by the client, who rolled with us, and so far, the movie has garnered over 430,000 views in under a week.”

Agency creatives were also surprised to learn “the volume and sheer power of the emotional attachment men have developed toward their beards,” says Hasson. “Some of the topics uncovered were the fact people like to hide behind their beard. It gives them a sense of security. It is an exteriorization of their virility. They believe it is a source of authority.”

Indeed, in the video, Amit admits that he “can’t remember being so nervous,” and frets about “loss of virility, loss of intimidation power.” Once the six-bladed cartridge has done its work, Amit looks at least 10 years younger and—in my estimation, at any rate—more friendly and approachable than he had before.

The reactions of his family are priceless. And in the end, the special people in Amit’s life heartily approve of the change, and our hero embraces his “new self,” reveling in the nearly forgotten tactile sensations he can once again enjoy. It’s almost as if he’s cut through a barrier he didn’t know existed. “It’s amazing,” he says.

“It’s about the simple pleasures that come from being clean shaven,” says Hasson. “Little things like the ability to feel a gentle breeze and the sunshine on your face, to kiss without tickling, to look younger.”

Few consumers will undergo such an intense sensation of renewal by using M6 blades. Still, the film does a fine job of boosting the brand by transforming a basic consumer good into an almost mystical agent of change.

CREDITS
Client: Super-Pharm
Brand: Life Private Label Brand
Product: M6 Razorblades
Agency: BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Tel Aviv
CEO: Yossi Lubaton
Executive Creative Director: Nadav Pressman
Creative Director: Idan Levy
Art Director: Michal Gonen
Copywriter: Yair Zisser
Digital Creative Director: Maayan Dar
VP Production: Dorit Gvili
Producer: Odelia Nachmias Freifeld
VP Client Services: Shani Vengosh Shaul
Supervisor: Noa Sharf
Account Executive: Stav Hershkovitz
VP Strategic Planning: Shai Nissenboim
Strategic Planner: Roni Arisson
Planning Information Specialist: Eva Hasson
Traffic: Ronit Doanis, Yael Kaufman
Production Company: T GO Tom Sofer
Director: Oded Binun
Postproduction: Broadcast

U.K. integrated marketing agency Life has appointed ex-MEC, Mother and KesselsKramer creative Maurice Van De Ven as executive creative director. Reporting to managing directors Ian Humphris and David Poole, he will take the lead on the agency’s new “Create Consequence” philosophy, which, according to a statement “puts strategic and creative leadership at the top of the agenda with its decision-making judged by the brand’s P&L”. Prior to joining Life, Van De Ven was ECD at MEC Global London, and before that was global creative director at StawberryFrog Amsterdam working on Procter & Gamble among other clients. He also did stints as a creative director at Mother London, at brand consultants The Chase and Amsterdam agency KesselsKramer.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

It was just one Facebook/Instagram post among many, but Bugaboo’s pairing of a running stroller and a bikini-clad fashion model has sparked plenty of laughter and derision from its target market.

In the photo, 23-year-old Dutch model Ymre Stiekema is seen running with her 2-year-old daughter while wearing what appears to be a black-and-white bikini—you know, the sort of thing moms always go running about the neighborhood in.

Immediately after it was posted, the photo became a flashpoint, as (mostly) moms began attacking and defending the model, along with the outfit they put her in. The debate is mostly about how women’s bodies are portrayed in advertising—and actually, it’s the subgenre of the conversation, about unrealistic expectations surrounding post-partum figures where the goal is to look like you’ve never been pregnant at all.

Allow me to summarize the arguments against:
1. This woman’s body looks unrealistic. We want realistic depictions of women.
2. She is also posed/behaving in an unrealistic manner.
3. How can you expect women to buy your product if they can’t relate to the images you’re displaying?

And the arguments for:
1. You are all just jealous haters.
2. It is too a realistic depiction for the target marketing of women who are avid runners and can afford an $800 (yes) stroller.

I just gave birth to my second child a couple of weeks ago, and yeah, I understand the feels—from intense personal pressure to bona-fide self-loathing—you can have when you look at a Prada model running in a bikini behind a stroller. As an advertiser, I could also recognize why you’d hire the most attractive person you could find to hawk your goodies and sex up the pictures to whatever socially acceptable amount you can get away with.

So, it comes down to deciding which makes your brand happier: a plethora of negative attention, or a smattering of positive. Because people pay a lot less attention when you give them an ordinary, realistic depiction of anything.

Of course, these sorts of images are so everyday, it can be hard to even muster a frustrated comment. And when you see yet another difficult-to-obtain image, maybe the only thing you can do is laugh. Which is probably why the comments with the most likes are the jokes, including the highest-ranking one: “I prefer running naked with my children.”

Check out more from the Facebook thread below. And yes, it seems Bugaboo only replied to the person who asked about the stroller’s suspension system.

After publishing an article featuring interviews with 35 women who said they were sexually abused by the comedian Bill Cosby, the magazine was offline on Monday.

Era com muita régua, estilete e cola, meu amigo

> LEIA MAIS: Como era o “photoshop” antes de existir o Photoshop

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Category: Beyond Madison Avenue
Summary: The fallout from the leaked audio of Hulk Hogan’s “pillow talk” with his mistress is absolutely incredible. From being almost Mr. WWE to even existing in record books, stores, or even Vince MacMahon’s diary is a feat that, to our knowledge, has never been done.

Even the late and ill-fated Benoit gets mentioned from time to time.

This Hero to Zero story could have some interesting advertising implications…

It’s tempting to credit a sale to the last thing a customer saw or heard before it happened, even though the reason is often far more complex. Even direct marketers with full access to their sales data aren’t immune to this tendency, called the “last-click attribution” fallacy in digital marketing analytics.

But now Facebook’s Atlas ad serving and analytics unit has some proof it can share from one of the biggest direct marketers Guthy-Renker’s Proactiv that just because someone completed a sale after clicking a search ad, the search ad doesn’t necessarily deserve all the credit.

In a study of 12,000 online Proactiv purchases tracked back to the first contact with online advertising, Atlas found that 16% of the online buyers clicked on search ads after first being served an online display ad.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Taking a page from those addictive online quizzes, Target is making back-to-school shopping personal with its “Made for U College Styler.”

The design quiz tool selects dorm room essentials meant to fit your personality by drawing on your Facebook and Instagram engagement. From “chic geek” to “earthy explorer,” each personality type leads to an interactive dorm design followed by a curated list of recommendations for bedding, storage and decorations.

“This tool is really a result of thinking ‘College students, they live online, they’re digitally engaged and so how can we bring a tool that helps them create this personalized dorm room experience that delivers both the dcor but also the small-space living solutions?'” said Lee Henderson, public relations manager for Target.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Last week, AT&T and BBDO New York shook viewers in their seats when they unveiled the latest film for the “It Can Wait” campaign, which cautions cellphone owners about the dangers of mobile-phone use and driving.

“Close to Home,” starts out quietly depicting six different people going about their day. A boy takes a spin on his bike, a father stops to get gas and purchases a lottery ticket on a whim, a woman rallies herself and her daughter as they prepare to go out on an errand. All is normal and uneventful until the mother, while driving with her child in the back seat, quickly checks a social-media post on her phone. The fleeting distraction leads to devastating consequences — a fatal car crash that leaves onlookers — and viewers agasp. The film is difficult and disturbing to watch — who among us hasn’t chanced a quick glance at our phones? The campaign drives the point home even further with an online virtual-reality simulator that throws the viewer directly into a cellphone-related crash.

In the campaign’s five-year history, AT&T hasn’t been shy about communicating the horrifying reality of mobile-phone use and driving accidents. Two years ago, the agency worked with BBDO and director Werner Herzog to create a frightening documentary that showed how texting-and-driving accidents damage the lives not just of the victims, but also the perpretrators.

Continue reading at AdAge.com