Hasta La Creative!

-Even Odell Beckham can’t make this McCann New York Verizon FiOS ad interesting. (We blame the client.)

-Enough with the memes and side projects: freelancer Rich Siegel proposes a “call in sick (of Trump) day.” But will Lee Clow respond to this call out?

-Ogilvy is all about that “new space economy.” And their colors are already red like Mars!

–Dave Trott argues that awards aren’t everything. They’re the only thing.

-Can we please finally admit it’s advertisers and Zuckerbergs driving the “pivot to video” rather than young readers?

-Sir Martin loves his teams, and now he’s got another one for Italian spirits company Gruppo Campari.

-The Ad Council is launching a mobile geo-location game called “The League of Extraordinary Humans” as part of its “Love Has No Labels” campaign.

-Accenture dips into the agency well again, naming Wunderman Brazil’s Eduardo Bicudo to lead its Latin American operations.

Former advertising veteran Stuart Trott, died on June 29 at his Manhasset Hills, New York home. The cause of death was lymphoma. He was 85 years old.

A Harvard Business School graduate, Trott served as vice president, group head at Benton & Bowles from 1958-1969, working with clients including Procter & Gamble, Texaco, General Foods and Vick Chemical. At the beginning of 1970 he was appointed senior vice president, creative director at Normal, Craig & Kummel and stayed with the agency for nearly a decade, overseeing work for clients such as Colgate Palmolive, Dow Chemical and Liggett & Meyers. Many of those clients stayed with Trott when he formed his own marketing consultancy in 1979.

Trott’s son-in-law, Mike Nagle, called him “Don Draper in the actual era in which Mad Men was set,” and added that the show referenced his position at Benton & Bowles. Stuart is survived by Phyllis, his wife of 58 years, brother Donald, children Jodi Nagle, Jessica Denton and Barri Trott, and grandchildren Emily and Jack Nagle.

It’s hard out there being a dad—especially when your son is a little sociopath in training.

That’s the lesson we take from Barton F. Graf’s latest campaign for Little Caesars, in which the agency does that thing they do with the super awkward and amusing but not quite immediately funny situation.

Rough one, pops. And are we the only people getting a sort of Twin Peaks vibe from that spot?

The campaign also includes a few other ads, like this next one aimed right at the Adult Swim crowd.

There were a couple of good twists in that one!

Finally, for those stoned enough to catch the subtle subliminal messaging…

For some reason, we now want to see a Godfather’s Pizza campaign by BFG starring Herman Cain. What would their copywriters tell him to say?

Also, let’s see them do 6-second spots.

CREDITS

Client: Little Caesars
Agency: Barton F. Graf
Campaign: “ExtraMostBestest”

Chief Marketing Officer: Ed Gleich
Senior Director of Advertising: Walt Frederiksen

CCO/Founder – Gerry Graf
Creative Director – Matt Moore
Creative Director – Jonathan Vingiano
Copywriter/Art Director – Sara Carr
Copywriter/Art Director – Jesse Brown
Head of Integrated Production – Josh Morse
Producer – Liz Shook
Account Director: Kate Callander
Account Supervisor: Marla McCormick Domergue
Head of Business Affairs – Jennifer Pannent

Production Company – Arts & Sciences
Director – Mike Warzin
Line Producer – Andrew Denyer
Executive Producer – John Benson
Head of Production – Christa Skotland

Director of Photography – Tim Hudson
Editorial: EXILE
Editor: Matt Murphy
Assistant Editor: Stephania Dulowski
Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld
Post Producer: Lauren Pullano

Finishing: Method/CO3
Audio: Heard City

Australia: it’s a different kind of place! The country has something approaching universal health coverage, and it’s one of the few places in the world with compulsory voting.

But unlike the U.S., it still doesn’t allow same-sex partners to legally marry.

The country’s government is about to vote on that issue, and shit is getting quite real in the meantime. You probably remember the related debates in this country, and it all seems every bit as intense down under. The New York Times recently reported that anti-gay flyers reading “Stop the Fags” have begun to appear, with some particularly targeting the Chinese community.

Interestingly, Australia’s AdNews reports that some local news outlets admitted to exacerbating/exaggerating the problem by “photoshopp[ing] the poster into a Melbourne laneway.”

This week, the first official ad in the anti-SSM campaign from the Australian Christian Lobby aired, and it is something else.

So, what have parents lost their rights to choose? Whether to send their kids to school with teh gheyz? Extreme Park Slope Parents aside, that’s a pretty tired non-argument. The idea that a school’s policies are going to turn your son gay is even more ridiculous, but we’ve heard worse.

The fact that the video has 2K likes and 14K downvotes might tell us something about how effective the campaign will be, but then no one trusts digital metrics.

And we’re most interested in the agency angle, a la this line from the writeup in AdNews: “The Marriage Coalition declined to reveal the agency behind the ad.”

That’s probably because none of the big names would agree to do it. Earlier this month, several shops including Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, DDB and many more signed on to the “Say No To No” initiative saying they would refuse to work on this (well-paid) project.

The latter point is the most interesting thing about the whole story to us as Americans, because the government has to allocate a certain amount of money any time a big vote or “plebiscite” goes down. An earlier HuffPo story estimated that each competing campaign could have up to $10 million in funding.

Here’s what Nick Cummins, creative partner at The Royals, told HuffPo:

“I’ve been in ads for over 30 years and it’s a great community. Sometimes we have to make messages or ads for things we don’t necessarily believe in 100 percent, but when it comes to these sorts of issues, it’s an opportunity for us to have an impact. …It’s like refusing to work on tobacco advertising, I see it as similar.”

Hmmm. Even Meghan Trainor got into it when someone used her unauthorized image for a “No” flyer.

Now someone please help us figure out which agency made this ad. And feel free to correct our admittedly poor understanding of the Australian legal system.

Two squadrons of little Star Wars drones fly through the air in a Brooklyn, N.Y., event space, blasting each other with lasers within the net-lined battle zone. The scoreboard keeps a tally as pro-pilots whip their X-Wings and TIE Fighters around, tagging each other between barrel rolls.

Propel, the company behind the toys, was showing off its flying machines in the run-up to “Force Friday,” the recurring shopping spectacle for Walt Disney Co.’s prized sci-fi franchise on Sept. 1. The merchandising machine will be in full gear, unveiling new toys and collectibles to begin hyping its products for the holiday rush and the theatrical release of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” in December. In recent years, Star Wars has held special event days for merchandise before an upcoming big-budget movie, such as “The Force Awakens” and “Rogue One.”

Disney has planned events with dozens of retailers clamoring to capitalize on the franchise’s might, from Wal-Mart and Amazon.com to Toys R Us and Target. Smaller retailers, such as Build-A-Bear Workshop, Hot Topic, and even Pottery Barn Kids, got a piece of the action too. Brookstone and Staples will hawk gadgets; Bed Bath & Beyond will sell Star Wars bedding, waffle makers, and alarm clocks. Even Apple stores are taking part in the party.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Smuggler has signed director Ben Tricklebank for global commercial representation. Tricklebank won an Emmy for his interactive documentary “Clouds Over Cuba,” one of the most-awarded digital projects in the U.S. in 2013. His commercial work includes campaigns for Hennessy, Sony Bravia, Mini Cooper, Nationwide, PlayStation and an experimental series for Glenfiddich Whisky. His film for the Converse “Made By You” campaign was shortlisted in two categories at the 2016 One Show. So far in 2017, he has created a film for Sony and directed spots for Microsoft, Toyota, Audible and Lexus.

Continue reading at AdAge.com