Hasta La Creative!

Santa Cruz Bicycles launched the 5010, their new do-it-all mountain bike today, and celebrated in a launch campaign created and produced by Cut Media. The campaign, originally planned as a road trip through Greece starring some of Santa Cruz’s top athletes including Danny MacAskill and Josh Lewis, was reimagined as a result of the Covid 19 lockdown to become a project realised by two brothers and a toy bike in a back garden in Glasgow, Scotland. Cut Media have shown again that a small, creative team can deliver big work, fast – even when faced with a global pandemic. Their film, featuring a miniature replica model of the 5010 bicycle, celebrates the product’s unique technical capabilities and versatility, whilst also making considered and authentic nods to several Santa Cruz athletes’ riding styles and personalities. Whilst in the midst of the global Covid 19 Pandemic and lockdown, Cut Media inhouse creative Jonny Ashworth designed and created the props and sets in his back garden. He then filmed the project along with his brother Andy Ashworth all while the rest of the creative, production and edit team worked remotely to help realise the campaign. Featuring bespoke sound design and a backing track by 90’s dance music legends, Bomb the Bass, the end result is a product launch campaign like nothing ever seen before. In addition to the 2 minute film, Cut Media has also created a suite of shorter platform specific edits and stills images to run across web and social media channels.. Scott Marshal, Creative Director at Cut Media Said: “The playful creativity and versatility of the 5010 bike has been at the heart of this project from the very beginning. What started as a film focused around athletes quickly turned into something far more ambitious. Through the difficulties of the pandemic we challenged ourselves to find the creative positives and rose to the occasion- making a film that had us hand-crafting bikes, props and sets to create an adventurous and heart-warming film that will keep viewers watching time and time again.” Will Ockelton, Chief Marketing Officer at Santa Cruz Bicycles, said: “What started off as a punchy riding feature in an exotic location, ended up in a Glaswegian back garden. And all the better for it. The pandemic forced everyone to suddenly rethink their strategy. Cut Media’s ability to swiftly react to the continually changing situation and pull this concept and execution together rescued the entire launch from Zoom-meeting obscurity. And thanks to the dexterity of the lead rider/hand, we still got an exotic looking riding piece that is mind-blowingly watchable for bike and non-bike fans alike!

A poster and a digital banner for yoga studios, delivering the health message that relevant for Covid times.

“Million Piece Mission” is free to play and can be accessed on AirForcePuzzle.com by desktop and mobile devices.

The U.S. Air Force is launching the largest virtual multiplayer puzzle for the entire world to solve together. The puzzle, dubbed “Million Piece Mission” for its unheard of one million pieces, taps into the recent demand for jigsaw puzzles, while enabling people around the globe to get a sense of the challenge, camaraderie and purpose Airmen experience every day, all from the comfort and safety of their home.

“Million Piece Mission” was created with a 1.03 gigapixel image of the fourth building at the National Museum of the United States Air ForceTM, taken shortly after the building’s opening in 2016 by photographer John Opie.

“We are always looking for innovative ways to inspire and engage with the American public,” said Major Ross McKnight, Chief, National Events Branch. “The ‘Million Piece Mission’ is a challenging and interactive way to experience the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force while learning about careers and opportunities in the Air Force. The mission will require highly motivated, independent, and mentally tough individuals with attention to detail in order to complete. Those are the exact same traits we need in the next generation Airmen and, just like the puzzle, we want the best qualified applicant with the right job at the right time.”

To make the massive puzzle manageable for solving, it is divided into thousands of separate tile rooms, where points are earned by individual players and updated in real time to a universal leaderboard, creating friendly global competition.

To encourage users to tackle harder, less-defined sections of the puzzle, the tile rooms vary in level of difficulty. As users complete a tile room, they earn points based on the number of pieces they assemble, the amount of time spent on the section and the complexity of the image. Users have the option to play as a guest or create a username and password to save their progress and enjoy other benefits, including unlocking content, and interesting facts that, until now, could only be seen by visiting the museum in person.

As users enter the puzzle, they’ll view the full gigapixel image of the fourth building and see the cursors of other players working on the puzzle in real time. Users can work alone or with other players to complete a section of the puzzle and can even invite friends into a tile room to help complete the section.

“With school out, many camps closed, and not a lot of places to go outside yet, we hope this puzzle provides families and friends with something fun to do together. From across their living room or from across the country. Leave it to the U.S. Air Force to make the most technologically advanced jigsaw puzzle in the world,” said Jeff Maki, Senior VP, Group Creative Director, GSD&M.

In 2014 blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in Saudi Arabia, 1000 floggings and a heavy fine. He was punished for making critical statements about the government and allegedly insulting Islam. On 9 January 2015 Raif underwent the first fifty floggings. Fortunately, international protest was able to prevent Saudi Arabia from carrying out the remaining 950 floggings. On 16 June 2020 Raif Badawi will be in prison for exactly 8 years. And Amnesty International doesn’t want to let that go by just like that. Amnesty International demands his release. Prophets therefore sets this date with impact. In an inspiring online video, Mario Goossens, drummer of Triggerfinger, makes it rain – 1000, to be precise. This video leaves no doubt about it: caning comes hard. Time now for the release of Raif. Time for action on amnesty-international.be