Hasta La Creative!

Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners launched an extension of its “Defy Labels” campaign for BMW’s Mini ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, which opens this Friday. 

The Olympic push is centered around a broadcast spot featuring Olympians such as Serena Williams, fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, rugby player Carlin Isles, weightlifter Morghan King, boxers Carlos Balderas and Claressa Shields, beach volleyball player Jake Gibb and swimmer Cullen Jones. Each of the athletes announces a label they’ve had applied to them reductively, such as “poor,” “black,” “immigrant” “Muslim,” and “cancer patient” (Gibb is a two-time cancer survivor), before Williams concludes, “The only label that matters is Olympian.” 

It’s a nice extension of the larger “Defy Labels” campaign and the different message helps the brand stand apart from the large pack of Olympics spots, most of which had debuts preceding this effort. The mix of Williams’ star power with relatively lesser-known Olympians is a nice touch as well, as is the decision to let Williams deliver the concluding line. A series of online interviews with individual athletes from the broadcast spot rounds out the effort.

“The campaign targets the Mini mind-set,” Tom Noble, head of marketing for the brand, told Adweek. “It’s about people who think independently. Our fans are people who appreciate design and also appreciate individuality. What we do know is that the Olympics indexes highly with our fans. They appreciate sports, and there are a lot of sports during these Games which are unique and different, only coming around every four years, and so this is a good platform to reach our audience.”

“We have a message that is topical if you look at what’s going on in today’s world, and you get a real, authentic view of what people’s struggles are and what they have overcome,” he added. “We believe having a relevant, inspiring message with a topical theme should cut through.” 

Credits:
Client: Mini
Agency: Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners
Chief Creative Officer: John Butler
Creative Director: Mark Krajan
Senior Art Director: Sinan Dagli
Senior Copywriter: Luke Zehner
Senior Producer: Lori Pisani
Head of Integrated Production: Adrienne Cummins
Account Director: Danny Peters
Account Supervisor: Michelle Finelli
Business Manager: Nihad Peavler
Director: Matt Baron
Company: All Day Every Day
Editor (TV):Pete Koob
Editor: Christopher Kasper
Editor: Andy Berner
Editorial Company: Cut & Run
Music: Joaby Deal
Music Company: One Union
Color Grading: Shane Reed
Color Grading Company: Apache
Finish: Jogger

Sony is taking a page from the new retail handbook and opening a shop that is more about branding than selling. On Aug. 4, the electronics giant will debut Sony Square NYC, a store at the base of its new Manhattan headquarters that functions as a testing ground for consumers to try new products, play with potential products and attend events.

“With this space, we’re trying to give consumers an emotional connection with the brand,” said Steven Fuld, senior VP-corporate marketing at Sony Corp. of America, noting that the store pulls many pieces together to tell one single brand story. The site will be staffed with a half-dozen employees, and though consumers will be able to buy from a sole cash registertucked away in a recessed cornerthe goal will be product interaction.

With eight cinema projectors, the front portion of the store will serve as an event space for classes and demonstrations. Product prototypes, like futuristic headphones worn on the neck and shirts with changing colors and patterns, will also be featured in this section. In the “living room” section of the store, Sony plans to make the Internet of Things more accessible by displaying items like a table lamp with a built-in speaker, and a portable short-throw projector. Consumers can also try out new Playstation systems and see the work from photographers on a wall of rotating display.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

After extending its lead over Apple in the global smartphone market with the Galaxy S7, Samsung Electronics is now trying to keep that spirit alive before a new iPhone arrives.

The South Korean company announced the latest iteration of its large-screen smartphone with the 5.7-inch Note 7 that can be unlocked with an iris-scanning camera. Sporting a display that curves down both sides, Samsung’s successor to the Note 5 skipped a number to synchronize its name with the technology used for its top-selling Galaxy S7.

With consumers putting greater emphasis on multimedia when choosing devices, the Note 7 also supports so-called high-dynamic range video content and the company partnered with Amazon.com to make such streaming content available in selected regions in time for the launch. HDR is seen as one of the next big advances in television and movie picture quality, alongside 4K Ultra HD and virtual reality.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

(TrendHunter.com) Some of the most standout August 2016 marketing ideas include brands taking over an unexpected space, or taking to the road in order to share fun experiences with as many consumers as possible while…

(TrendHunter.com) Whether it is a donut filled with creamy gelato or a cereal-covered cookie stuffed with soft serve, these tasty treats provide the perfect way to celebrate National Ice Cream Day.

Although ice…

A trio of vets from the advertising, production and immersive theater worlds have opened Captain, billed as a “modern entertainment studio.” Creative Director Dan Morales, production veteran Douglas Howell and Immersive Theater Director Michael Counts have formed a company that under a single roof combines creative and strategy, tech, content, talent management, production, postproduction and experiential expertise.

While seemingly a tall order for a single shop, the partners have demonstrated such a skillset through their various backgrounds. Mr. Morales has nearly two decades of experience in advertising and previously worked at creative shops including Cliff Freeman & Partners, Mother, Leo Burnett, JWT and Y&R. He’s also an MTV vet and previously opened his own agency Especial Worldwide. Mr. Howell founded multi-platform production company Rabbit Content, which has created work for brands including Powerade, Samsung, Aldi and Southern Comfort.

Michael Counts is a theater and stage vet who’s been described by the New York Times as both a “Mad Genius” and a “Master of Immersive Theater.” He’s the creative mind behind ongoing events such as “The Walking Dead Experience” and “Paradiso: Chapter One,” an escape room experience that recently opened in NYC’s Koreatown.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

We’re pleased to announce that Garett Sloane has joined Ad Age to cover social platforms, ad tech and marketing tech.

Garett, who is based in New York, arrives from Digiday, where he was senior platforms reporter and broke exclusive news, wrote features and explained in precise and plain English the doings of players including Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. He also has extensive knowledge of ad technology and programmatic ad buying, which he will apply in his new role.

Garett was perviously a tech and media reporter at Adweek and earlier covered the same beat at The New York Post. He was also an assistant managing editor at The Berkshire Eagle, a business editor at amNew York and a copy editor at the Albany Times Union.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Back in April, W+K Portland launched a campaign for Booking.com celebrating the lead-up to “Jordan & Chelsea’s Booking Wedding.” Now it appears that Jordan Peele and Chelsea Peretti‘s big day has finally arrived.*

First, though, Jordan parties it up with his buddies at his bachelor party. Keegan-Michael Key and Bobby Lee (who have both starred in previous spots in the campaign) join Peele for the event, which is not your typical bachelor party. Hosted at some kind of medieval-themed hall, things take a turn for the even weirder when Peele complains that he always thought his bachelor party would be a little less G-rated. 

In “First Dance” the medieval weirdness extends to the wedding itself. Jordan and Chelsea’s first dance, as it turns out, is performed in full armor. “Thanks to Booking.com everything turned out perfect” the voiceover concludes, “Weird, but perfect.”

And with that, it would appear the long campaign has finally reached its conclusion. (Although it’s possible there’s still a wedding spot to to come). The campaign did indeed feature plenty of weirdness, but given the comedic talents involved, there were disappointingly few laughs.

SPOILER: Chelsea and Jordan got married IRL this April with Dog as their witness.

Credits:

Client: Booking.com
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy Portland
Creative Director: Micah Walker
Copywriter: Nick Morrissey, Mike Egan
Art Director: Jon Kubik, Meaghan Oikawa
Producer: Hayley Goggin Avila
Associate Producer:Nicole Kaptur
Business Affairs: Karen Roche
Account Service: Regina Keough, Tristan Harvin
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Randy Krallman
Executive Producer: Patrick Milling Smith
Executive Producer: Brian Carmody
Executive Producer: Shannon Jones
Head of Production: Andrew Colon
Line Producer: Ian Blaine
Director of Photography: Darko Suvac
Production Designer: Jason Schuster
Editorial: Cartel
Editor: Andy McGraw
Executive Producer: Lauren Bleiweiss
VFX: Joint
On Set Supervision: Brad Hayes
Lead Flame: Stephan Lectez
2D Artists: Leif Peterson, Noah Poole
VFX Producer: Gail Von Dedenroth
VFX Executive Producer: Alex Thiesen
MIX: Lime
Mixer: Sam Casas

A big increase in ad spending last quarter helped Procter & Gamble Co. beat analyst expectations for sales growth, though it left absolute spending roughly flat for the year and was fueled in part by cuts in agency and production fees.

The world’s biggest ad spender expects to grow ad spending ahead of sales again for the just-begun fiscal year, and keep cutting agency-related costs, executives said Tuesday.

Overall, P&G hiked reported ad spending, which covers mainly media and sampling costs, by 2.8 percentage points as a share of sales, or around $450 million in the fourth quarter. That accounted for most of what Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller said on a conference call with media was an increase of one percentage point in ad spending as a share of net sales for the full year ended June 30. But that was only enough to keep P&G spending in absolute terms roughly flat amid a currency-driven 8% decline in absolute sales to $65.3 billion.

Continue reading at AdAge.com