After six years of infancy, the E*Trade baby is finally moving on with his life.
This week, the online brokerage began airiring what is said to be the last ad featuring the longtime spokeschild, a Super Bowl staple since 2008. As a bit of an admission that the campaign has started to get stale, the spot shows the baby being subjected to a new sidekick. In true 2014 Internet style, it's a zany cat.
The campaign's end was somewhat inevitable, given that the agency behind it, Grey, resigned the E*Trade account in 2013. Just a month later, the account was handed to fellow WPP Group agency Ogilvy & Mather.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, well known for its naked celebrity spokespeople and shockvertising, takes a slightly less controversial approach in a new campaign breaking this week.
In video and print ads, PETA tells a story of animal cruelty entirely in emoji, with hammers, hypodermics and handguns making short work of adorable bunnies, monkeys and tigers. Semi-spoiler alert: They turn into skeletons at the end, but there's no actual carnage depicted. Still, it's a PETA ad, so there will be blood, albeit cartoonish this time.
The nonprofit group said it went the iconic route because this campaign is aimed at the young, a demo who likely wouldn't be able to identify Pamela Anderson, clothed or not. The ads come from Los Angeles agency BPG with an assist from Waterfall Mobile for an emoji-based texting feature that allows people to donate money to the cause.
The campaign is running in national magazines and on PETA's blog and website, YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram accounts. What do you think, readers? Thumbs up or face punch?
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: PETA
Agency: BPG Agency Chief Creative Officer: Steph Sebbag Group Creative Director, Art Director: Frank Dattalo Copywriter: Kevin Samuels Creative Director: Ryan Hunnewell
Editing Company: Cut+Run Editors: Steve Gandolfi, Sean Fazende Managing Director: Michelle Eskin Executive Producer: Carr Schilling Senior Producer: Amburr Farls
Visual Effects: David Parker, Cut+Run Senior Producer: Liz Lydecker
Beginning today, and every Friday, we're going to be slipping on our crampons, grabbing our pickaxe and carabiners and descending into the foreboding caves of Deep YouTube in search of the world's weirdest commercials.
Below, check out this week's collection—seven solid-gold ads that will make you laugh, cry, run for cover, or all of the above.
Logo lovers, here's your Friday roll in the hay—an infographic charting the evolution of 18 big-company logos, beginning with Coca-Cola in 1886 and Pepsi a decade later, and continuing through the Yahoos and Googles of the late 20th century. As a bonus, there's a section at the bottom called "Did You Mean to Do That?"—showing some unfortunate logos, most of which seem to evoke images of pedophilia. Via Adrants.
Treating Coca-Cola like it's high-end wine is ridiculous—the stuff of parody. And yet the world's most popular sugar-water brand has graciously partnered with luxury glassware maker Riedel for your smirking amusement.
The product of their collaboration, a $20 glass that the brands claim is specially designed to favor Coke's flavor profile, may in fact make your $1 soda seem to taste better.
Or, for free, you can enjoy the surreal experience of hearing Riedel CEO Georg Riedel talk about Coke as if it were just like a rare wine for which his company also produces special crystal. "This glass starts with the introduction of the aromas, beautiful lemon, citrus, lime character, malt characteristics, the mouth feel, the effervescence," he tells Fast Company. "The glass orchestrates the sweetness on the palate."
In theory, the campaign is a clever nod to the lore that says Coke is better in its classic glass bottles. Over on Coke's website, in the brand's interview with itself, Riedel also spins a yarn harkening back to his youth, when he rationed a 12-pack of the soda as a rare treat in the midst of post-WWII scarcity. That is a nice story. It is no longer the 1950s. Coca-Cola does not want you to ration soda. It wants you to buy more. Lots more.
In reality, Coca-Cola isn't snobbish or even fancy. Coca-Cola is populist. It's accessible. Pretending otherwise comes across as a bizarre form of self-mockery. Unless the whole exercise is a form of trollish performance art—in which case, Coca-Cola has already won.
The children of Syria don’t have a voice, so rock star physicist Stephen Hawking is lending them his.
Hawking is a man who knows what it's like to live without a literal voice. And in case you missed his op-ed in the Washington Post and elsewhere, he feels passionately that the youth of Syria need people to speak about the injustice they're suffering.
On this, the third anniversary of the conflict, with both sides escalating the violence and targeting civilians, Save the Children U.K. is pushing hard for more international attention. Earlier this month, the group struck publicity gold with its gut-wrenching "Most Shocking Second a Day" from Don’t Panic, which has been viewed more than 27 million times.
Created by agency adam&eveDDB, the new spot below featuring Hawking isn't as visually stunning as the nonprofit's viral hit, but it is conceptually perfect.
Unlike the earlier video, we aren't seeing a fiction. We are seeing the real children of Syria whose lives have been torn apart. As we contemplate their portraits and realize these kids could be any kids from our block, Hawking's unmistakable speech synthesizer gives voice to their words. It is a voice that is no less moving for the lack of inflection. And this time, the call to action is explicit.
"The children of Syria have no voice. That is why I'm giving them mine. What will you give?" he says. We're prompted to enter an SMS code to automatically donate to Save the Children U.K. And we'd better listen. If we don't, says Professor Hawking, our apathy could mean the very downfall of our humanity, for without the universal principle of justice, "before long, human beings will surely cease to exist."
CREDITS Agency: adam&eveDDB Executive Creative Directors: Ben Priest, Ben Tollett, Emer Stamp Copywriter: Michael Burke Art Director: Ben Tollett Media Agency: JAA Media Planner: Nick Smith Production Company: Pulse Director: Matt Hougton Editing: Work Post Editor: Rachel Spann Postproduction: MPC Audio Postproduction: Clearcut Sound
The folks at Cypress Entertainment, a film production and local-advertising shop in Louisiana, produced this digestif of a commercial to convince you to dump that crappy agency you're working with.
With a deadpan expression, Kyle Gilmore, Cypress founder and "professional stirrer," stirs a beverage and delivers quite a memorable pitch. Without spoiling it, let's just say Gilmore believes his agency is the shit—or more accurately, is not the shit.
He finishes stirring, takes a sip and nods at the camera. I don't know about you guys, but I've never heard a more compelling argument.
So pull up a stool, and sample this little nugget.
Cadbury's latest video spot for its Ritz and Lu bars features a dancing passport officer who, from the looks of it, might have been a better fit at the Ministry of Silly Walks.
In a continuation of the brand's recent dance-centric ads like "Yes Sir I Will Boogie in the Office" and James Corden's city-spanning lip sync, this new installment brings us an airport employee dancing up the world's longest escalator and striking a pose on a courtesy cart that appears to be driving itself. For once those aren't completely unbelievable situations; the monotonous drudgery of air travel does this sort of thing to people's minds. You saw his office. It looked like I Am Legend in there until he cracked open that Cadbury bar.
In this new spot for paint brand Dulux, BBH London creates a charming, vibrant fantasy where colors, rather than alcohol, are outlawed during America's Prohibition days.
Everyone's feeling as glum and washed out as their drab surroundings as our heroine mopes around, oblivious to a potential suitor. The bit where a cop on the beat crushes a golden flower beneath his boot as a little girl looks on is a cute, tongue-in-cheek touch.
Directors Christian & Patrick of Park Pictures don't rely on black-and-white photography, which can, in some instances, look nostalgic and inviting. Rather, the film's palette is gray and faded, its colors barely perceptible, an effective technique that adds a splash of realism and enhances the downbeat vibe.
Suddenly, bullets fly, cans and barrels are punctured and smashed—and some lucky folks start seeing the world in different hues. (Maybe they just needed a few shots of bathtub gin.)
"The spillage was all done on a pre-prepared canvas so that we didn't get any on the roads," BBH creative Martha Riley tells AdFreak. "The production designer created a massive sort of jigsaw of the canvas which was laid on top of the road and the edges were taken out in post. We were very lucky with the weather that day as there were looming rain clouds, but we managed to shoot the scene before the daily downpour."
The narrative defines happiness in broad strokes, which seems entirely appropriate for a paint commercial. Ultimately, the film does a fine job of blending color and mood, and its message isn't easily brushed aside.
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Dulux Agency: BBH, London Creative Team: Martha Riley, Richard Glendenning Creative Director: Nick Allsop Team Manager: Hannah Madden Team Director: Tracey McIntosh Strategy Director: Tom Roach Strategic Business Lead: Ann-Marie Costelloe Producers: Georgina Kent, Ruben Mercadal Assistant Producers: Phil Cross, David Lynch Production Company: Park Pictures Director: Christian & Patrick Executive Producer: Stephen Brierley Producer: Richard Fenton Director of Photography: Benoit Delhomme Postproduction: Electric Theatre Collective Producer: Matt Williams Shoot Supervisor: Yourick Van Impe Lead Flame Artist: Giles Cheetham Flame: Andrew Stewart, Yourick Van Impe Nuke: James Belch Lead 3-D Artists: Remi Dessange, Gerard Dunleavy 3-D: Dan Marum, Laury Guintrand Matte Painting, Gerard Dunleavy, Dave Gibbons Grading: Aubrey Woodiwiss Editing House: Peepshow Post Editors: Andrea Macarthur, Lizzie Graham Sound: Raja Sehgal, Grand Central Sound Studios
Out of nowhere, we're suddenly seeing some pretty incredible ads for guide dogs.
In January, we had the Norwegian Association of the Blind's amusing PSA with the menagerie of nondog guide animals. Now, we swing in the other direction completely with this intense ad for Holland's Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation. We won't spoil it, but this remarkable ad will leave you with even more appreciation for dogs and the skills they bring in communicating with humans.
The spot is by ad agency Selmore Amsterdam and Caviar director Rogier Hesp.
There's an ad blog called Creative Criminals, but here's the real thing—federal prison inmates who are trying their hand at copywriting and art directing thanks to a program called Concepting With Convicts, launched by two interns at DigitasLBi in San Francisco.
Ben Pfutzenreuter and Pat Davis used prison pen-pal websites to contact the inmates and get them involved in the program. The inmates provide either the copywriting or the art direction on each ad. "We realized that if we could contact convicts themselves, maybe we could also show them that their creative talents can translate into a real career on the outside," Davis tells PSFK.
On the website, Pfutzenreuter and Davis say of the initiative: "We hope it proves two things: that creativity can be a career, and that good ideas can come from anywhere."
Chips Ahoy delivers with a series of spots from The Martin Agency featuring an animated cookie prone to minor, entertaining mischief. The 30- and 15-second shorts get all the key details right—the pauses, and the simple but absurd expressions.
It's a good play for the kids who'll clamor after the product. The moms who do the grocery shopping may not be so thrilled that the brand is egging on their little angels.
Then again, who could stay mad at a face like that?
As we saw in our December roundup, there's no shortage of sexist ads—the vast majority of which are degrading to women rather than men. But what if the tables were turned?
BuzzFeed's new video, "If Women's Roles in Ads Were Played by Men," swaps the genders in three commercials—for GoDaddy, Hardee's/Carl's Jr. and Doritos. (Only the first two were approvedads, however. The Doritos ad was a fan-made entry into the 2011 Crash the Super Bowl contest, and didn't advance to the finals—though it has gotten more than 2 million views on the director's YouTube channel.)
BuzzFeed recreates each ad and plays them side by side with the originals. The GoDaddy spot reverses the Bar Rafaeli/Jesse Heiman setup and features a good-looking guy having to make out with a nerdy girl. Instead of Nina Agdal oiling up her cleavage for Hardee's/Carl's Jr., we see an average-looking guy … oiling up his cleavage for Hardee's/Carl's Jr. And in the Doritos ad, it's the guy, not his girlfriend, who's naked in bed and covered in Doritos. (Maybe this version would have been a finalist after all.)
"Seeing men like this is ridiculous, so why isn't it with women?" the video says at the end. They picked three cringeworthy ads to replicate, but the question certainly holds merit. Sex and humor are effective for a lot of campaigns, but it'd be nice if that could be achieved without, you know, gratuitous crotch shots.
Sarah Silverman breaks off her romance with a walking, talking coffee cup in EnergyBBDO's snappy new spots for Orbit Gum.
As the comic pitches ideas to Hollywood producers ("My character can solve crimes, but she chooses not to."), the anthropomorphized container interrupts, and Silverman tells him their relationship is over.
While definitely more safe for prime time than Silverman's usual fare, the ads include a few sly double entendres, like the cup's announcement that "I have your lipstick all over my rim."
"Break up with lingering food" is the tag, used in January for a spot in which the cup has another uncomfortable public split. Speaking of breakups, "fabulous" Orbit spokeswoman Farris Patton is nowhere to be seen, but Sarah's mouth shines just as bright.
Will there be a sequel? The cup can be recycled, after all. Or maybe next time, Silverman can break up with a bowl of bulgogi because all the spice has gone out of their affair.
Be sure to check out our recent Q&A with Silverman if you're curious about her perspective on advertising, including her PSA co-starring a pro-choice Jesus.
Orbit has also created Spanish-language versions of the ads, sadly not featuring Silverman. Check out one after the jump.
Four months after it began, the legal battle between GoldieBlox and the Beastie Boys appears to be winding down, as the band has agreed to drop its lawsuit against the toy maker over the unauthorized use of the song "Girls" in a commercial—in exchange for an apology and a donation to charity.
We sincerely apologize for any negative impact our actions may have had on the Beastie Boys. We never intended to cast the band in a negative light and we regret putting them in a position to defend themselves when they had done nothing wrong.
As engineers and builders of intellectual property, we understand an artist's desire to have his or her work treated with respect. We should have reached out to the band before using their music in the video.
We know this is only one of the many mistakes we're bound to make as we grow our business. The great thing about mistakes is how much you can learn from them. As trying as this experience was, we have learned a valuable lesson. From now on, we will secure the proper rights and permissions in advance of any promotions, and we advise any other young company to do the same.
So, the company is claiming its actions were simply based on inexperience—which seems like a stretch considering how quickly GoldieBlox got the lawyers involved originally, but at least the apology is out there. The undisclosed revenue donation will go to a charity selected by the Beastie Boys that supports science, technology, engineering and mathematics education for girls—which the GoldieBlox products also promote.
The fight began after GoldieBlox featured a reworked version of the song in an empowering girl-power ad that went viral online in November. GoldieBlox preemptively filed a lawsuit hoping that the song would be ruled a fair-use parody. The Beastie Boys then countersued.
A little bit lost in all the legal wrangling, though in some ways the point of the whole mess, is one simple truth: music really can make or break an ad. The GoldieBlox commercial, "Princess Machine," soared with the "Girls" soundtrack, but became a shadow of itself with a different song.
Just when you thought you'd seen it all from Kiss, one of the most prolific brands in the history of rock 'n' roll, here we find the dynamic duo of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons prepping to deliver a baby.
Luckily it's just an oddly low-budget metaphor for the April 5 home-game debut of Los Angeles' new arena football team, the L.A. Kiss. For $99, you get season tickets and a Kiss concert!
Replete with cheerleaders, players, flames, a pregnant Kiss Army fan who literally gives birth to a football, and of course the doctors of schlock rock themselves, Stanley and Simmons, this might be the most ridiculous 30 seconds of video you'll watch today.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from something voted by our readers as one of the worst brand extensions of 2013, but it definitely didn't involve the sound effect these guys associate with a football emerging from a birth canal.
It's a wonder that cat-related brands don't already rule the Internet.
Cat-food brand and renowned jingle lover Meow Mix makes a move in that direction with an amusing and even potentially useful parody of Kickstarter—called Catstarter—envisioned as a way to crowdsource cool new cat-related inventions. Ad agency EVB conceived the site as a playful, feline-focused version of the well-known crowdfunding platform. But instead of actually backing Catstarter projects financially, you can just click on the ones you like, and Meow Mix will produce the most popular ones.
The site launches with three products; the top vote getter will go into production this spring. (The heated companion keyboard is an inspired one that I'll back right now.) It's also an R&D lab of sorts, as the brand also wants people to suggest ideas for making kitty lives better—something we can all get behind, yes?
Full credits below.
CREDITS Client: Meow Mix Campaign: Meow Mix Catstarter Agency: EVB Executive Creative Director: Steve Babcock Creative Directors: Patrick Maravilla (Copy), David Byrd (Art) Art Director: Tom Zukoski Copywriter: Nate Gagnon Designer: Markandeya Sendan Illustrator: Natalia Martinez Motion Graphics Designer: Kevin Brown Sound Designer: J. Michael Neal Director of Technology: Ken Goldfarb Lead Interactive Developer: Josh Kanner Interactive Developer: Ken Crosby Senior Producer: Kevin Turner Vice President, Director of Account Management: Kathleen Foutz Strategist: Neeti Newaskar Producer: Kevin Turner
Cable guys have been a staple of pop culture for years, but now it's time for their next-generation replacements to get some time in the spotlight.
Two new spots for AT&T from BBDO New York show the "Network Guys," a pair of techs working to improve wireless coverage for concert attendees and office drones alike.
They somewhat graciously shut down a rock 'n' roll fan's dreams of joining their club. They also make an office worker swoon, thanks to their l33t d4t4 sk1lls (elite data skills), which let them make posting to Instagram easier for all the n00bs (noobs).
With ads like this, it's always hard to tell if they're really supporting the "nerds rule" zeitgeist or just keeping up the age-old mockery of tech geeks as socially awkward losers who only excel at their jobs. And since AT&T's main representative in the ads barely regards their customers as worthy of conversation, it seems like the brand is essentially saying, "You don't understand everything we do for you, so just go back to Instagramming, you uneducated cretins."
That said, thanks to some great delivery by the actors, these spots are still pretty charming.
Here's an unpleasant if novel way to recommend the use of seat belts: Show people detailed instructions on dealing with injuries from not wearing one.
Gyro's Dubai office did just that in a new campaign to educate people about the importance of wearing seat belts in the backseat of cars. The campaign, for a charity called Buckle Up in the Back, takes the form of instructional guides—"How to Get Around in a Wheelchair," "How to Change Your Colostomy Bag"—for dealing with injuries you can sustain from not wearing a seat belt.
The guides are being tucked in the the seat pockets in the backs of taxis and rental cars in the UAE, where people will probably wish they didn't see them. The tagline is: "If you don't wear a seat belt, you're going to need all the help you can get."
"Instead of just telling people they are wrong for not buckling up, we decided to accept that people are ignoring these kinds of public health messages and give advice of how to deal with the day-to-day consequences of life without seat belts," said Gyro Dubai creative group head Neil Harrison. "These guides illustrate a very realistic and unfortunate future that can easily be avoided by buckling up."
Guides and credits below.
CREDITS Client: Buckle Up in the Back Agency: Gyro Dubai Executive Creative Director: Gui Rangel?Account Director: Anna Start?Planner: Mark Haycock?Group Head/Copywriter: Neil Harrison?Art Directors: Charlotte Morand and Moses Anthony?Illustrator: Moses Anthony
Activia managed to drag Shakira out of wherever she's been hiding and put her in the brand's new "Dare to Feel Good" ad, which gives us an interesting and cartoonishly idealized peek into the pop singer's digestive tract.
No wonder she's so perky all the time. It looks like Fern Gully in there. And here I thought Shakira felt good because she's beautiful and rich.
In any case, Activia's ads bother me in the sense that I can't take adults seriously when they say the word "tummy" and aren't talking to or about a child. Considering where a well-regulated digestive system inevitably leads, I get why they'd want to soften the language a bit, but it still weirds me out.
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.
