Barry the Biscuit Boy splashes onto the scene in a slam-dunk spot for British dairy Cravendale, a cautionary tale from Wieden + Kennedy in London and production house Blinkink.
The heady mix of puppetry and computer animation milks every drop of self-conscious craziness from the script. Barry, literally a cookie-kid, swims in a creamy lake to illustrate how, if the spot's irritatingly addictive jingle can be believed, "you could lose your head over Cravendale." (In the real world, there's "Barry-flavored" Cravendale milk with bits of biscuit for fans who can't get enough.)
"Cravendale is the only branded milk in the U.K., and it needs to stand apart from the ubiquity of cheaper own-label milk in the supermarket," W+K creative director Sam Heath tells AdFreak. "So the spots need to cut through on a limited media spend and somehow lodge the thought in people's minds that Cravendale is superior in some way. The more memorably you do that, the more effective the work is."
The team strived to create "a beautifully detailed, incredibly crafted world that felt charmingly old school and yet quirky and modern at the same time," says Heath. "In the end, the whole thing was brought to life mostly in-camera using a combination of traditional techniques. So all the sets are real models with painted backdrops, and Barry is either puppeteered or animated stop-frame or sometimes a combination of both."
Unlike Chips Ahoy's recently unpacked ads starring cute and mischievous anthropomorphized treats, Barry's adventure has deliciously creepy overtones, as have past cartoon creations from W+K's Cravendale team. Speaking of which, the brand has apparently given those cats with thumbs the finger and sent them packing—at least for now. No doubt many fans will miss the fiendish felines, who clawed their way through some uber-popular ads.
Sorry, kitties. That's how the cookie crumbles.
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Cravendale Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, London Executive Creative Directors: Tony Davidson, Kim Papworth Creative Director: Sam Heath Creatives: Max Batten, Ben Shaffery Producer: Lou Hake Production Company: Blinkink Directors: Andrew Thomas Huang, Joseph Mann Puppetry: Jonny Sabbagh, Will Harper Executive Producer: James Stevenson Bretton Producer: Benjamin Lole Director of Photography: Matt Day
Thinking of storing your stuff in the cloud? Well, if you aren't sure what the cloud is, Public Storage would like a word. Want to hang on to the perfect scale dollhouse in your backyard? You'd better make sure an equally scale man isn't living in it. Moving back home? You should call ahead. Your dad might be sweatin' to the oldies in your old room.
These wacky ads from The Phelps Group for Public Storage take relatively normal conundrums and give them a purple nurple.
Take a look below at these amusing little gems of absurdity.
This year, all the usual brand suspects are joined by a host of tech companies and startups in trying to throw you for a loop—a near impossibility these days. And in an odd move, American Eagle Outfitters pranked us an entire week early.
Stay tuned. We'll be updating this list throughout the day.
UPDATE (4:37 p.m. ET): Here are still more. Scroll down to see the earlier ones.
• Lego The toy brand is delivering its new Ninja Turtles set via live turtles.
• Honda The automaker creates the world's first DIY car.
• Sam Adams The brewer releases HeliYum, the world's first helium-carbonated beer.
• Lil BUB The celebrity cat introduces her twin.
• Moshi The computer accessory maker has invented MouseBolt, the first live-mouse-based charger.
• House of Cards The Netflix show gave everyone a sneak peak of Season 3 with a script page on Facebook.
• Netflix Watch Bacon sizzle with Netflix's new original series, Sizzling Bacon. If it's half as popular as Fireplace for Your Home, they've got a winner:
UPDATE (2:59 p.m. ET): Here are a bunch more. Scroll down to see the earlier ones.
• Bonobos The apparel company created TechStyle—wearable tech-clothing that connects you socially to a psychopathic artificial intelligence.
• Denny's In a surprising, press-getting twist, the restaurant opted out of April Fools' Day altogether.
• WestJet The airline is converting to "metric time" to be even more Canadian.
• RedBox The DVD rental company created Mood Match, which lets you auto-match your movie selection to your mood. Dissapointed that it's fake? Get 50 cents off today with the code Aprilfools.
• Saatchi & Saatchi Thailand Ad agency creates an app to help clients fire their agency.
• Samsung and HTC Bothbrands have made fake wearable tech gloves. HTC won this battle.
• American Well The telehealth firm has introduced Puppy Connect, which lets you connect to puppies to improve your health. Aww, puppies.
• Captain Morgan Hopefully this Taco Rum is fake, although Chrissy Teigen says she's not opposed.
The original list is below: • Google Linked off the Google homepage this morning is the Auto Awesome Photobombs app for Google+, which lets you insert David Hasselhoff into any photo.
• American Eagle Outfitters Charging out of the gates last week, American Eagle announced American Beagle Outfitters, a new clothing line for dogs, complete with a dogumentary.
• Cheetos Spokescheetah Chester released his new fragrance, Cheeteau. They took it a step further by actually making a few bottles of the stuff, and sent one to AdFreak. It reeks, and not in a good way. In New York City today? Try it yourself on Madison Avenue between 59th and 61st Streets.
• YouTube The video site announces the absurd viral trends for the rest of the year.
• Reddit "Headdit" lets you navigate Reddit with your head. Includes special cat mode.
• Publicis Seattle The agency has created Brand Drops, the world's first branded aromatic rain. They turn a rainy day into the ultimate out-of-home, multisensory brand experience.
• Qless This startup has created Line Ringer, an app that scans for the cellphone numbers of the people ahead of you in line and calls them with fake emergencies that force them to sacrifice their place. I wish it was real.
• Fresh Direct The food-delivery company is offering eagle-caught salmon sustainably harvested in the wilds of upstate New York.
• Google Maps Compete to become the world's best Pokémon master and win a job at Google Maps. OK, the job doesn't exist, but you can download the app and find the missing Pokémon.
• Gmail Google's mail app has created "sharable selfie" themes for your Gmail inbox—or as they're calling them, Shelfies. And … they're claiming they invented the term "selfie." Again, it's not fully a joke, as you can now set your Gmail box to show other people's Shelfies.
• Orbotix Speaking of selfies, Orbotix, maker of the Sphero ball toy, has invented a tiny hovering drone called the selfie bot, so you can take selfies every second of the day.
• Google Japan Check out the Magic Hand, a joystick that replaces your hand with a robotic hand. Just another example of Chindogu.
• Nest The home automation company teams with Virgin America to create Total Temperature Control for every seat on Virgin, introduced by Tony Fadell and Sir Richard Branson.
• Virgin Active The Smarty Pants are underwear with a built-in meter to count your every glute flex and ensure your rump is in tip-top twerking shape.
• Waze How do I love thee? Count the ways with new WazeDates. Because honking only takes you so far.
• National Geographic Channel The channel will be running some of its classic programs with new audio courtesy of RiffTrax. This will probably seem more prank-like if you're flipping through and have no clue why the honeybadger is mouthing off again.
• The Pirate Bay A special device will embrace your entire mind and upload Pirate Bay's content directly into your brain.
• Ely, Minnesota The April Fools'-loving city is launching The Ely Channel, featuring great TLC-inspired shows like Sauna Wars, The Real Housewives of St. Louis County and Iron Range Chef.
• BMW Introducing the Ultimate Sleeping Machine. BMW is old hat at this, so hats off for another super cute prank.
• JetBlue In an anti-prank, JetBlue is again giving free fares to people whose birthdays are April 1.
• CafePress The site has launched CafePredict. In conjunction with the NSA, it'll ship you items before you order them.
• Reyka Vodka A lava rock drinking-water filter.
• Chili's The restaurant chain has put everything you love about Chili's in an ice cream. Try Nacho Queso Crunch, Baby Back Chunk and Buffalo Brownie Sundae. Because there's a pregnant lady somewhere.
• Life at Google Try out Google Resume Auto-Awesome (actually not that awesome).
• Rosetta Stone The language software company now lets you Learn to Speak Klingon. It's another product some people would actually buy. Plus, they got Worf himself, Michael Dorn, to star in the video.
Digital printing house MOO is run like one of those Acme factories from an old Warner Bros. cartoon in a fun new video from agency KesselsKramer.
Highlighting the versatility of the company's new Printfinity technology, which allows you to order a wide range of customized business cards, the spot was also reminiscent of Santa's workshop—mostly because I'm 90 percent sure that guy beasting a huge roll of printer paper by himself was Santa Claus.
Honestly, I wish MOO's setup was really like this. Digital printing is cool and all, but the process doesn't have as much visual pizazz as huge, Bond villain-style machinery. That the color scheme is all chic pastels just makes it cooler.
Subaru is going for the lowest common denominator of dudes with this new grindhouse-style trailer for a movie that hopefully will never really exist.
The title, The Ride of Her Life, is only slightly more clever than a Beavis and Butt-head joke—which might actually make it less funny, according to the inverse stupid-to-laughter ratio that rules the testosterone-addled-teen genre of comedy.
Starring skater Bucky Lasek as "the mysterious drifter," the ad redeems itself with some one-liners that are so exaggeratedly dumb, they're good enough to render the whole thing convincing as a parody—instead of just painfully bad in the same manner it means to mock. Regardless, model-hyphenate Kayslee Colins, playing "the girl," shows enough skin to hold the attention of the flick's target audience—making it a win for the brand.
The trailer, created by Carmichael Lynch, is a million miles from the agency's mostly sentimental "Love" campaign for the automaker, although true to form, it does have a rich father-daughter story at its core. It's just a negative one this time.
Agency: Carmichael Lynch Chief Creative Officer: Dave Damman Executive Creative Director: Randy Hughes Writer, Creative Director: Ryan Peck Art Director, Creative Director: Scott O’Leary Head of Production: Joe Grundhoefer Senior Content Producer: Jon Mielke Producer: Jennifer David Director of Business Affairs: Vicki Oachs Product Information Manager: Rob Ar Account Service Team: David Eiben, Krista Kelly, Eva Anderson, Greta Hughes Senior Project Manager: Lisa Brody
Production Company: DoubleURXXX Productions XXXecutive Executives: Scott O'Leary, Ryan Peck XXXecutive Producer: Jon Mielke XXXecutive Technology Executive: Rich McGeheren XXXecutive Design Executive: Andrew Wetzel XXXecutive Responsible Adult: Lisa Brody Special XXXecutive in Charge of General XXXellence: Bucky Lasek
Production Company: Cavira Director: Ruben Fleischer Executive Producer: Jasper Thomlinson Line Producer: Luke Ricci Director of Photography: Matthew Libatique
Editing House: Mark Woollen Editorial Producer: Jeremy Greene Editors: Daniel Lee, Zach Pentoney
Visual Effects House: Volt Online Artist: Pete Olson
Most cancer charities want to highlight how easy it is to check yourself for lumps or other danger signs, but Testicular Cancer Canada decided to grab some attention by getting guys to do it the hard way.
BBDO Toronto and video production house Crush threw a party at which 20 young men were challenged to have their balls waxed while their reactions were filmed. The results are about what you'd expect, with red-faced screaming and a myriad of facial contortions. And like half the ads on earth, it's set to the increasingly frenetic tune of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg.
So is it a good idea to associate extreme pain with a simple and painless preventative ritual like feeling your testicles? A spokesperson for Crush sent AdFreak this response: "Given that the target audience (young guys) don't ever think about cancer, or checking themselves out, we wanted a light-hearted way to get them thinking about their own groins."
On the bright side, if you decide to go for a full wax instead of simply cupping your crotch after a shower, I'm pretty sure it unlocks an achievement for completing the challenge in Nightmare Mode.
From the folks who brought you "Mandible," perhaps the most twisted film-festival promo in history, comes a sequel that's also messed up—if less visually gruesome.
RPA and Tool's new spot for the 15th anniversary of the Newport Beach Film Festival (taking place April 24 to May 1) tells the memorably off-kilter tale of a father who tells his daughter an extremely disturbing betime story.
The two-minute-plus clip takes place entirely in her bedroom, and David Theune excels in his role—with his animated, increasingly intense storytelling, rather than movie clips, carrying the day.
He begins predictably enough—"One upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who lived in a magical castle far far away"—but quickly changes gears. Weaving together plot points from indie classics Her, Memento and Pulp Fiction—and they mesh pretty seamlessly—his narrative peaks with an enthusiastic riff on the wood-chipper scene from Fargo. (The reason for his obsession is revealed in the final frames.)
The girl's out like a light. Probably fainted. Sweet dreams!
Craigslist personals haven't been the same since the spambots and professional escorts moved in, but now there's Collective Love, a service that can help us remember the site's glorious, incomprehensibly written past.
Once users enter their location info, Collective Love uses a Markov chain algorithm to generate text from local personal ads seeking casual sex. More often than not, this results in total gibberish, which isn't out of character for the kind of desperation one often saw on the Craigslist of yore.
Collective Love challenges users to "see if you can find your own reflection in this carnival of refracted flirtation." So I gave it a shot, and this is what came out:
I am looking times DD's. Im a man who is searching for a freaky bbw.
And real and interest favorite curiosities of a your private parts as well endowed black male, looking I am blonde, hazel eyes Respect your hard nipples. Pictures a woman is real.
I'm a good looking look: No STRINGS Attached.
Race let Me know what happens let his fifties looking for a year old white, adult fun live in the subject mind and d free; or if you play safe adult fun.
I want and like and play for mature, Wm looking for a man subject line so if so You Must have body, is in the side and Emails or public somewhere and Like to take care of me know if you prefer: you like in decent good time with.
Lastly don't let you see an older Women.
Hm. Well, it's still better than the terrible maudlin poetry on Missed Connections today.
Energy BBDO's new ad for King's Hawaiian bread rolls is sucky, though not in a bad way. The rolls are so light and fluffy, you see, you don't even have to reach for one with your hands—you just breathe in with a quick sucking motion, and presto!
It's a memorable first spot for the bakery brand from Energy BBDO, which won the account in December and is now working to double brand awareness and significantly grow brand penetration following the client's opening of state-of-the art bakeries in Southern California and Georgia.
The ad closes with the line, "People go pupule for King's Hawaiian." Pupule is Hawaiian for crazy. Just don't try the sucking thing at a real dinner table. People will really think you're pupule.
Forget about kids and teens, how to do cats feel about watching other felines online?
In a bit of branded self-satire, YouTube megaproducers The Fine Bros. partnered with Friskies to create Cats React to Viral Videos, an April Fools' version of their highly popular Kids React, YouTubers React and Elders React Web series. But, instead of naive kids and teens talking about pop culture events, the duo interviewed kittens, cats and some fellow YouTube stars in cat costumes about famous cat videos.
(Apparently, cats don't love the clips as much as their human servants do.)
"The Friskies team has been a great collaborative partner," Benny and Rafi Fine tell AdFreak in an email. "Our fans have always been asking us to make a spinoff of our popular React franchise, but with cats instead."
The Fine Bros. have a history of working with brands, so the spoof didn’t feel unnatural.
"The Fine Bros are some of the top video creators in the world today and have never integrated a brand partner into their 'React' franchise before. With a video like ‘Cats React,’ however, it felt like the perfect opportunity for Friskies and the Fine Brothers to collaborate,” Shaun Belongie, senior brand manager for Friskies, said in an email.
The product that Friskies is trying to promote, Friskies SauceSations, isn't featured heavily in the video. It only appears in a few small scenes and in the title card at the end of the video.
Reach Entertainment's head of digital, Marc Hustvedt, whose agency produced the ad, explained that in order for a video to go viral, it needs to feel organic. Brand sponsors can't litter the ad with their logos, or people will be turned off and won't feel the need to share it.
In case you thought April Fools' was only about fake products and glaringly obvious gags, here's a nice palate cleanser. The adorable, ill-fated blobs from Dumb Ways to Die are back with an April 1 greeting, courtesy of agency McCann Melbourne.
Hopefully such holiday one-offs will become an ongoing way for Metro Trains Melbourne and McCann to keep creating new stories based on the original 2012 video, which won a bevy of industry awards and now boasts a killer view count of 76.5 million on YouTube.
Viral filmmaker Casey Neistat continues to milk brand marketers for a personal travel allowance in his new clip for J. Crew's Ludlow Traveler suit, which he wears around the globe while offering vague tips on "how to travel in style."
The video shows Neistat and his dorky haircut doing all sorts of fun stuff in the suit, from impressing local ladies with bike tire maintenance, surfing and snowboarding in business attire. He also digs some random holes in the ground at one point.
This time Neistat plays it a bit more straight, though he does try really hard to be quirky. (Look at his tiny skateboard! Isn't he just precious?) , but the video's all in good fun, and he's not wrong about dressing up for travel. It really does make the whole experience more pleasant. The only way to make it even better is to have someone else foot the bill.
YouTube is going all out for April Fools' Day today, revealing which outlandish trends will go viral for the remainder of the year—based on the premise that YouTube itself masterminds the site's biggest viral videos, trends and memes, like Gangnam Style, the Harlem Shake and Rebecca Black's "Friday."
"Here at YouTube HQ, we write, shoot, and upload all of the world's most popular viral videos. Here's a sneak peek at what you'll be watching in 2014," the site says.
The trends include:
• Clocking: The new planking! Hold your arms in the shape of the time in a public place. The longer you tick the cooler it is.
• Glub Glub Water Dance: An originally produced and choreographed song and dance, the Glub Glub Water Dance involves pouring water on yourself while flapping your arms and spitting out the water.
• Kissing Dad: Catch your dad's reaction on camera after you give him a smooch on the cheek or head. Celebrate kissing your dad once you're done!
YouTube is also inviting people to submit their viral trend ideas. It will pick three of them and create videos in real time for those trends from the YouTube Space LA.
Actually, Clocking probably will go viral after this.
With their organic reach plummeting, many brands worry that Facebook is becoming indifferent to their wants and needs. Well, that fear seems justified, based on a catty comment from Facebook's PR chief.
Food site Eat24 cooked up a lot of buzz with its "breakup letter" to Facebook, in which it said it was closing down its page (which has 70,000 likes)—saying Facebook is becoming a pay-for-play service instead of a true social network. Such criticisms are nothing new. What is new is that a Facebook executive responded with a big middle finger.
In a snarky response on Eat24's page, Brandon McCormick, Facebook's director of global communications/monetization, said the site's "food porn" content simply isn't that interesting to Facebook users who would rather hear about breaking news and see photos shared by their friends.
"There is some serious stuff happening in the world and one of my best friends just had a baby and another one just took the best photo of his homemade cupcakes," McCormick wrote. "What we have come to realize is people care about those things more than sushi porn (but if we are in the mood for it, we know where to find it Eat24!)."
Clearly McCormick was imitating Eat24's snarky tone, and his response is commendably candid. But for many brand marketers, it will also come off as confirmation that Facebook sees organic brand content as something its users want phased out.
UPDATE: As promised, Eat24 appears to have deleted its page from Facebook as of April 1.
ESPN has Major League Baseball's Opening Day covered today with a new "This Is SportsCenter" spot starring the reigning National League MVP, Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The commercial, running online and on ESPN properties, shows a breakfast meeting for the SportsCenter anchors going awry when McCutchen and a band of Pirate mascots (Pittsburgh's Pirate Parrot, East Carolina's Pee Dee, Seton Hall's Pirate and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Captain Fear) break in and loot the breakfast spread.
The ad, by Wieden + Kennedy in New York, breaks this afternoon during ESPN's broadcast of the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Chicago Cubs.
Some of society's most talented and valuable individuals work in the advertising and design industry. They are regularly—and rightly—showered with accolades. But the quality of those awards can vary dramatically. From one-of-a-kind gold-plated sculptures to shabby laser-printed certificates.
In an effort to push and inspire the makers of these awards to elevate their craft, we are launching The Awardees.
Yes, despite the impressive panel of judges, the Awardees are almost certainly fake. The first Awardees ceremony is scheduled for Advertising Week in New York in October—where, if not before, the reason for the ruse will be revealed.
Not since Alice Cooper ran for governor of Arizona under the slogan "A troubled man for troubled times" have we seen such refreshingly honest political advertising.
Actually, these new campaign ads, for decidedly unglamorous mayoral candidates in Toronto, are fake. But they're still pretty amusing. They were put up by a group called No Ford Nation, which is dedicated to getting anyone besides the crack-smoking Ford elected in October. And apparently they do mean anyone.
To that end, the website, NoFordNation.com, includes information about whoever else is running. "You don't want to say 'anyone but Ford' and then not give them any resources to make an informed decision," says Christina Robins, who started the site. "We want to get back to a mayor who doesn't embarrass us."
For the past few years, the Wu-Tang Clan has been recording an album in secret. Now, in a first for modern music, they plan to sell only one copy of The Wu—Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
It will be sold in an engraved silver and nickel box handcrafted by British-Moroccan artist Yahya, whose previous work has been commissioned by royal families. But before the band sells this ultimate collector's item for millions, the album will be taken on a grand tour where, for a price of about $50, the average pleb could attend a listening session of the 150-minute album—after undergoing an extensive check for audio recording devices.
More than a simple publicity stunt, it is a scream into the darkness of the marketplace for music to be respected as valuable, limited-edition art and yet another attempt, however extreme, in the decades-long search for a disruptive new recording industry business model.
Wu-Tang's unique attempt to stop the backslide in album revenues was announced last week as the music industry was collectively rejoicing over the first rise in sales since 1999. Since the rise was largely seen as the outcome of the music industry finally embracing digital distribution solutions, it will be interesting to see the success, or lack thereof, of the Wu's attempt to bring music's business model back to the actual dark ages by holding out for one wealthy patron. And hey, if it doesn’t work, the band's 20th anniversary album, A Better Tomorrow, will be out this summer … and available on iTunes.
Sheryl Sandberg's Ban Bossy campaign has sparked some interesting and often heated debate in recent weeks, practically swamping my Twitter feed with hashtags ranging from #bossy and #banbossy to #dontbanbossy and #banpeoplewhobanbossy.
Women's lifestyle site SheKnows, however, has found an interesting middle ground in the polarizing debate over whether the word "bossy" shouldn't be used to describe assertive girls. The site decided to simply ask young girls what they think "bossy" means and whether it's a good or bad word to use.
"We are inspired by Sheryl Sandberg's Ban Bossy mission to open up conversation with girls about their perceptions of leadership," says Samantha Skey at SheKnows. "This issue is endemic to SheKnows, which provides women with a platform where they can create and share content. While Sandberg's ad campaign has received criticism for banning the word 'bossy,' the SheKnows #BossyIs movement is picking up the torch to empower girls through frank discussion."
The resulting video captures what 9-year old girls think about the pros and cons of being "bossy." Their comments are particularly refreshing since all of the talk around this issue has been perpetuated by grown-ups.
One girl's comment does a great job summarizing both sides of the debate, in which Sandberg's critics say bossy behavior and leadership are too different to be lumped together: "People think that you're bossy, but you're actually just trying to lead … which can end up being bossy."
The interviews with the girls are—not surprisingly—a little more endearing than watching adults get hashtaggressive with each other on Facebook and Twitter.
A Danish travel agency wants the country's people to do the patriotic thing by getting out of town and getting busy.
A wry new campaign from Spies puts an unusually clever twist on using sex to sell, highlighting the country's fast-declining birth rate and packing in fun statistics and scientific claims to support what seems like an obvious fact—that people are more likely to copulate while on vacation.
It's opportunistic in the best possible way—rewarding for viewers, with at least the illusion of being genuinely concerned. For those of you who are serious about procreating, the brand even offers an "ovulation calendar" to help plan trips on a schedule that would improve your odds. Anyone who proves they succeeded could win three years' worth of baby supplies.
There have been similar campaigns in the past—notably, the hilarious baby-making anthem by Mentos in Singapore (also a country with a declining birth rate). Hell, even NPR has run ads encouraging baby making.
The Danish would be more creepy if it weren't so funny and practical at the same time. And while advertising certainly doesn't need any more puns-as-taglines or juvenile jokes, it's hard to be bothered by one that so perfectly fits the message: "Do it for Denmark."
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
