Wongdoody Adds CD Adam Nowak

Wongdoody announced the addition of creative director Adam Nowak to its Seattle office, where he will be responsible for driving creative on the agency’s Amazon account.

Nowak arrives from FCB West, where he served as senior vice president and group creative director, working on accounts such as Taco Bell, Levi’s, Dockers, Air New Zealand, KMart and PetCo. Before joining FCB West nearly six years ago, Nowak spent a year as a senior copywriter with TBWAChiatDay, working on accounts including Gatorade, Visa and Nissan. Prior to that, he spent around two and a half years in the same position with FCB, where he worked with clients such as Taco Bell, KFC, Coors and Qwest. That followed a stint as a copywriter for roughly the same duration with DDB, working with clients like McDonald’s, Dell and Captial One.

“Adam’s body of work and resume speak for themselves,” said Wongdoody chairman and co-founder Tracy Wong. “He has wielded a mighty creative hammer and with it changed the shape of iconic brands. He will have a huge impact on the agency and our creative output.”

FCB West, MJZ Tell Levi’s Fans to Get Personal (But Not Boring)

The latest spot for Levi’s, created by FCB West/The House Worldwide and MJZ, imagines a personal relationship between each pair of denim pants and its owner.

Every pair tells a story, see…and all the jeans ask of you, consumer, is that you keep things interesting.

The pants-as-lifestyle-accessory theme marks a shift from the Wieden+Kennedy “Go Forth” campaign, which turned existential with the help of one Charles Bukowski.

You may recall that Levi’s announced an agency change back in February, and we can expect more in the vein of this spot to come. Yesterday Fast Company called the effort “more inclusive, and more mainstream”, and FCB CCO Eric Springer emphasized the break from the W+K aesthetic, saying:

“The first step was to get the brand voice back and make everyone know it’s their brand once again…It’s not a comeback tour. It’s a forever tour.”

The company’s own CMO emphasized the social components that will (hopefully) involve lots of people documenting the shared journey of themselves and their jeans.

Three words, then: User. Generated. Content.

(more…)

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Draftfcb LA Continues Full-Court Press for Nabi

Just two weeks ago, we were covering the first wave of Nabi spots from Draftfcb, a pair of 30-second ads that favorably compared kid-friendly Nabi tablets to Kindle devices a la Microsoft vs. Apple. Our Erik Oster found them to be informational and appealing. However, these two new spots, “Fear Not Question” and “Swagger,” drop the comparison technique for an unconvincing plea for Nabi to be a lifestyle brand.

“Fear No Question” presents the Nabi brand as classroom-friendly, going right after a parent’s sense of idealistic learning, so in turn, that parent will go right for his/her wallet. It’s a boring and safe play that may have worked out if Draftfcb hadn’t already launched the Kindle attacks that are much more memorable.

“Swagger” goes straight after the kids. Promoting Nabi headphones – think Beats for kids – the spot shows a little kid walking down a school hallway in slow-motion as he gives headnods to his friends and long stares to the girl he probably has a crush on. This is more Fubu than Fuhu. This is also just a bad commercial, corny and overdone, even for a children’s market. The tagline of “Everyone Needs a Theme Song” actually has a nice ring to it, but the visual execution is too silly. The clip almost plays like a mocking comedy skit of itself.

At 30 seconds, both ads are easy to watch and easy to forget. ”Swagger” and credits after the jump.

continued…

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Draftfcb LA Pushes Nabi in First Campaign as AOR for Fuhu

Draftcb has unveiled two new spots for the Nabi, its first campaign for Fuhu since becoming their agency of record in September.

Fuhu has done incredibly well for themselves with the Nabi, a soft-edged tablet designed for children, even being named “the fastest growing company in America” by Inc. There’s certainly no change in strategy from Draftcb for these two new spots. “Good Morning” and “Glow in the Dark” tout the Nabi’s kid-friendly features via comparison with the Kindle, which comes out looking sorely lacking in the kid-friendly department.

If you are going to buy your kids a tablet, I suppose it should be one that’s made for them, right? These spots do a good job extolling the Nabi as the perfect option for children. In “Good Morning” (featured above) that means talking about the Nabi’s “time controls” — in this case, a good morning song to wake up to. The Nabi does its thing before asking a silent Kindle what its good morning song is.

“Glow in the Dark,” meanwhile, highlights Nabi’s glow in the dark feature. No surprise there. Also not a surprise: the Kindle does not glow in the dark. Score: Nabi 2, Kindle 0. Plus, the Nabi just looks like something a kid would want to play with. So make that Nabi 3, Kindle 0.

We see plenty of these “direct comparison to our biggest competitor” ads with tech gadgets, but few seem to take the wind out of the competition the way these ads sucker punch the Kindle. At least for the Nabi’s target audience. If I were shopping around for a tablet for a child, this campaign would have me convinced that the Nabi is the way to go. Thankfully, I won’t find myself in that situation any time soon. Credits and “Glow in the Dark” after the jump.  continued…

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