This will be a particularly brief writeup, as it wouldn't be fair to spoil the ending of this ad. (The brand seems to know this, too, by keeping the video's title as vague as possible.) Yes, it's called "Unloved," but you'll love it plenty in the end.
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When we praised Facebook's new ad campaign the other day for being "down to earth," little did we know the best spot in the series would be anything but.
The social network's newest ad, "We Are Not Alone," is possibly its best ever. We see cosplayers preparing their over-the-top outfits for an upcoming gathering, then watch as they exit the baffled "real world" and arrive to bond with their fellow fans.
It's an ad for Facebook Groups, to be sure, but it's also a warm-hearted vignette that resists the popular urge to mock cosplayers as socially awkward ubergeeks. Just goes to show that sometimes the key to making an ad with mass appeal is to do justice by the right niche.
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In case you haven't experienced the surreal delight of being guided from slumber by the smoky allure of "the nostril's north star," then Oscar Mayer might have the alarm clock for you.
The brand's "Wake Up and Smell the Bacon" promotion will give out 4,700 bacon-scented smartphone attachments over the next month. Winners can use the gadget with a branded alarm app that wakes you with the aroma of sizzling bacon.
Oscar Mayer and agency 360i deserve bonus points for the self-indulgent and rather hilarious video below announcing the giveaway. "When imagination blossoms," the Scandinavian narrator intones, "only this scent will guide you to your greatest awakening."
Giving out 4,700 devices might sound generous, but it's a crafty long-term play for profitability. If you're going to wake up daily to the smell of bacon, you're going to make damn sure you always have bacon in the house.
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If you thought Olive Garden's logo couldn't get any worse, you were wrong.
On Monday, the Darden-owned restaurant chain unveiled a brand refresh. The perplexing cluster of grapes that graced Olive Garden's logo for a decade and a half has devolved into a twiggy branch that appears to be an unfortunate shade of chartreuse. The previous tacky pseudo-script laying out the chain's name has become a font that's even more half-baked.
The early feedback is not good. One Twitter commenter aptly describes the overall design as looking "like it was drawn with a breadstick." Another interprets the new logo, created with help from design shop Lippincott, as a sign that the restaurant will "now be a home decor company specializing in mid-priced hand towels."
John Brownlee at Fast Company offers a detailed takedown of the color scheme in a side-by-side comparison with the old logo.
Sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and logo redesigns can be a notoriously touchy business. But this could easily be on par with the notorious Gap crowdsourcing and Target drop-shadow debacles—or it would if people cared as much about Olive Garden as they do about Gap or Target.
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Ah, it's the old hollowed-out-book-with-a-phone-in-it trick!
FP7 in Dubai got smart by taking a novel approach to avoid hefty headhunter fees. The shop placed cellphones inside die-cut, faux ad industry books and mailed the volumes to creatives it wished to hire.
The volumes were impressively designed and personalized to match each recruit's interests. (The one using Coke's colors and type style, promising guidance for "Creating Campaigns for the Coolest Brands on the Planet," is especially impressive. The soft drink giant, always a good sport, should bring a lawsuit any day.)
The phone number for FP7's executive creative director was programmed into each of the handsets.
By using this "Poaching Phone" technique to poach talent, FP7 ultimately added four key staffers—an art director, a design chief and an award-winning creative team—and claims to have saved more than $80,000 in recruitment costs.
Clearly, the project shows the agency's fun, creative spirit. But $80K for recruitment? I know Dubai's a pricey place, but $80K, really? Even paying $1,600 to make the books seems a tad excessive. Why not just call potential recruits, invite them to the office, or take them out for dinner? I guess today's recruits need a little more excitement than that.
Ah well, what's the point of being in the ad biz if you can't execute a gloriously overproduced idea every now and then?
CREDITS
Executive Creative Director: Paul Banham
Creative Directors: Ali Mokdad, Paul Banham, Husen Baba
Art Director: Joseph Alipio, Ali Mokdad, Husen Baba, Paul Banham
Copywriter: Ali Mokdad, Paul Banham
Head of Design: Ryan Atkinson
Design Director: Erol Salcinovic
Junior Graphic Designer: Laila Mokdad
Agency Producer: Khalid Hamza
Other Credits: Jacques Mulder, Ashraf Muhammad Unnay, Adam Browning Hill
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We've seen plenty of women get makeovers in advertising lately—either in pursuit of some market-driven ideal of beauty, or in critique of same. In this video, though, a woman is transformed for a different purpose.
Annelie Nordström, chairwoman of Kommunal, Sweden's biggest union, was made over as a man to protest unequal salaries between men and women in the country. It's all a stunt for International Women's Day this Saturday. At the website, BeAMan.se, women can also connect to a Facebook app and become men themselves through some photo manipulation.
The campaign is by ad agency Volontaire, which won the Grand Prix in the Cyber Lions at Cannes in 2012 for its "Curators of Sweden" campaign—a fascinating experiment in which ordinary Swedes took turns running the country's official Twitter account.
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What's being billed as network TV's first medical marijuana commercial is running in New Jersey this month, and soon this sad little ad will reach Chicago and Massachusetts as well.
The spot is for Marijuana Doctors, a medical Marijuana provider that links patients with doctors who are able to prescribe it. (Although Colorado has legalized pot for recreational use, the law forbids retail advertising, so don't expect ads about smoking for fun any time soon.)
The ad, only airing from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and not on children's networks, is poorly shot, looks like it was edited back in the '80s and has atrocious background sound. Then there's the concept, which is probably even worse.
We meet a shady gentleman by a trash bin who offers to sell us shady street sushi. He's got tuna, sweet shrimp, and a coat full of rolls. The voice over says, "you wouldn’t buy sushi from this guy, so why would you buy marijuana from him?" If this was a play for legitimacy, shouldn't the advertiser have created a spot that doesn't look like it was purchased on a street corner too?
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For PSA campaigns aimed at getting people to help the children of Syria, job one is making the crisis feel immediate rather than remote.
Last month's hidden-camera stunt in Norway, in which a child sat freezing without a coat at a bus stop in winter, did just that. Now, Save the Children has released its own U.K. campaign to make the horror in Syria feel real—the 90-second video below, which does so to devastating effect.
The ad, by creative agency Don't Panic, imagines if what has happened in Syria were to happen in London. Amazingly shot, it uses the structure of the popular one-second-a-day videos to show an ordinary girl's world falling apart over a period of a year (from birthday to birthday)—as her comfortable middle-class existence evaporates and she finds herself a homeless and fatherless refugee amid the horrors of war.
The video coincides with the buildup to the third anniversary of the Syrian crisis, which has left 100,000 people dead and 2 million more as refugees. On-screen text at the end reads: "Just because it isn't happening here doesn't mean it isn't happening."
"It's easy to forget that Syria was a middle income country, where children enjoyed the benefits of education, healthcare and the other basic rights our children take for granted—not to mention Facebook accounts, video games and youth culture," says Jack Lundie, director of brand and communications at Save the Children.
"We hope the video will resonate with the public, particularly those who don't know much about the situation in Syria, and offer a new perspective on the devastating impact this conflict is having on innocent Syrian children."
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Hey bros, you already get your razors and pomade through a monthly subscription service. Now you can get right to the point and buy your rubbers through one too.
A new startup called The Cocksman Club will mail members condoms in discreet packages, sparing you the awkwardness of making a responsible purchase in public.
The service and its promo video owe a lot to Dollar Shave Club which, sadly for The Cocksman Club, already laid claim to billing its own wares as "f***ing great." Instead, the newcomer's sales pitch, which naturally includes a rooster in a top hat, focuses on promoting safe sex. Or, in its final summary of why you should join, "Do it for your d*ck."
The service even has different price levels—and fratty monikers—for light and heavy users. Though anyone who actually calls himself "The Legend" is probably going to end up with a lot of product somewhere collecting dust.
Warning: Video contains NSFW language.
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If you want to slide down a ski slope in your car, Porsche suggests the 911 Carrera 4S.
This new video for the brand, filmed at the Sugarbush Resort in Vermont, melds car porn with snow porn. Filled with explanation from instructors at the Porsche Driving School, it mostly consists of luxury sports cars drifting around slaloms, spraying powder. It's gorgeously shot. It's also surprisingly entertaining, as informational videos go.
"We're actually on the trail Cracker Jack, which has a lot of undulating terrain," says one teacher. "Just like you would carve a turn on your skis, you can do that with a 911 very effectively."
For anyone who's ever been stuck on a snowy New England road, that's probably an appealing proposition. In fact, it's actually refreshing to see a car ad that manages to be both engaging and straightforward (as opposed to totally fantastical).
Still, it's hard not to wonder how Porsche would fare against an army of monster snowmen.
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Prankvertising shifts into high gear for this elaborate X-Files-esque stunt from Crispin Porter + Bogusky promoting Scania's 2014 competition for professional truck and bus drivers.
Daniel Olsson, who has five years of experience behind the wheel, must come through in the clutch after he picks up a mysterious shipment and passenger at a warehouse. Horrifying sounds and visuals suggest that a hostile creature has been loaded aboard his truck as he navigates around crates in the cramped space.
"He did not expect anything strange would happen, and the whole setup was pretty normal," Gustav Martner, ecd at CP+B in Gothenburg, Sweden, tells AdFreak. "Then, he obviously thought it was a bit unusual that his passenger was an old, well-dressed English gentleman who insisted on riding with him down to the harbor to see that the crate was safely delivered."
In fact, Olsson looks fairly freaked out, but he still keeps his cool, as the weirdness intensifies, with his jittery cab-mate "Dr. Sullivan" (a professional actor) gesturing back toward the noisy payload and ominously muttering, "I think actually you've woken him up."
"I became increasingly nervous and stressed, but I had no thoughts of quitting," Olsson says.
The three-minute "Cargo Madness" clip serves as an entertaining invite to the competition, where drivers must "handle more than their trucks" as they test their skills to overcome various obstacles.
"The production was much more complicated than we thought," recalls Martner. Instead of switching Olsson's ordinary side-view mirror with LCD-implanted units as planned, "We had to project the monster onto the ordinary mirror from behind. It was extremely stressful to create this solution in a matter of hours, but we managed to pull it off."
Folks love debating if such stunts are genuine or if the participants were in on the gag. "We did the stunt with three different drivers, all of them being totally unaware," Martner says. "Daniel was the best."
Given prankvertising's continued popularity, Martner doesn't expect agencies or clients to slam on the brakes any time soon. "It seems like people love this kind of advertising, and what people love, they share," he says. "I choose prankvertising over a standard commercial any day … at least if everyone involved can laugh about it in the end."
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Business cards already seem pretty retro in the world of modern networking, but here's one that manages to be both cutting-edge and vintage at the same time.
Portland-based photographer Kevin Bates made a business card for himself that is also a playable Tetris game. Bates calls his creation the Arduboy, since it's a Game Boy clone built on a stripped-down Arduino board that only has room for the essentials: a four-direction digital control pad, two buttons and a tiny OLED screen.
It's not exactly something you can order in bulk from Vistaprint, what with all the soldering involved, so I don't think Bates will be passing these out at cocktail parties anytime soon. With a Kickstarter campaign in the works, Bates says his goal is to sell similar cards for $30 each, with a hand-designed version for $50 and a custom-skinned model for $100. He says he's also looking for a manufacturer to produce them in bulk to reduce the price even further.
He says he'll release the Arduboy's plans and source code publicly at some point though, which is just as good, and this project should kick up more business for him than traditional networking ever would anyway.
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Fake product demos are getting harder to spot, what with reality-bending products like NeverWet and Oakley's hovercraft golf cart. Here is the latest video in that vein—a hypnotizing four-minute demo for a real-life hoverboard made by a company called HUVr.
Unfortunately, despite the video's insistence that the mind-boggling demonstrations "are completely real," the hoverboard does appear to be a fake. But that doesn't stop Tony Hawk, Moby, Terrell Owens, Agnes Bruckner and other celebs from pitching it fervently.
The question is: What real thing is this fake thing intended to promote? The HUVr website lists a "destination time" of December 2014, so it could be a movie or video game release. Some have suggested it could be for a new Tony Hawk skating (or hoverboarding) game.
Check out more on the HUVr site, where the testimonials include one from Mark Cuban, who opines: "This f**king thing is going to change the world!"
UPDATE: Tony Hawk has now come clean and apologized for the prank. See that video below as well.
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Wisconsin is doubling down on its Airplane! advertising strategy.
In recent years, the state has hired the classic comedy's directors, Badger state natives David and Jerry Zucker, to direct a handful of tourism ads, including one featuring Airplane! actor Robert Hays getting beat up by everything (including a large bass).
Unveiled this week, Travel Wisconsin's latest spot from Milwaukee agency Laughlin Constable is the first to explicitly reference the 1980 film. Set in a cockpit, it reunites Hays with his Airplane! co-star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—and was directed by the Zuckers and Airplane!'s third director, Jim Abrahams.
Abdul-Jabbar, a former NBA star who began his career with the Milwaukee Bucks, is making a nice little advertising career out of his Airplane! credit—he also just appeared in Delta's super 1980s flight-safety video.
The new Travel Wisconsin spot will probably tickle you if you're a huge Airplane! fan, or already love Wisconsin and associated trivia. For the rest of you, there's always that nice shot of the lake.
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There's something about roadside advertising, from Hasslehoff cutouts to giant headphones, that turns drunk morons into thieves. But every now and again, someone pulls off a heist that's so fantastic, it can only be a hoax.
Thus was the case with the stolen giant mango at the center of Australia's "MangoGate."
The 33-foot-tall mango was built 12 years ago at a cost of $90,000 to celebrate the city of Bowen's self-designation as the mango capital of Australia. When it mysteriously went missing a few weeks ago, a number of suspicious people immediately assumed it was a publicity stunt. The sudden appearance of a Facebook page seemed to justify their cynicism.
Journalists, however, covered the case breathlessly.
The 10 metre high Bowen 'Big Mango' has gone missing overnight! Culprits were spotted using heavy machinery to move the fruit around 2am.
— Jessica Nairn (@jessnairn) February 24, 2014
Then, last week, chicken restaurant chain Nando's just came out and admitted it had "borrowed" the mango, but refused to say why. (The chain also said Bowen Tourism was involved in the caper.) Well, this week it revealed the reason—it was all to plug a new mango-and-lime chicken menu item.
The video below shows the filched fruit sitting next to a big lime in Melbourne. Nando's later returned the mango to its hallowed roadside spot to tangle with drunk morons another day.
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Here's some more great out-of-home work.
German home-improvement chain OBI is advertising its renovation products by actually renovating homes. Well, parts of them. Ad agency Jung von Matt/Elbe measured out billboard-size sections of run-down buildings and fixed them up—creating visually delightful billboards that really show the difference between before and after on an improvement project.
Germany has something of a tradition of doing inventive ads for home-improvement stores, as seen in the rich, weird and often epic marketing done by OBI rival Hornbach.
Credits for the OBI work below.
CREDITS
Client: OBI
Advertising Agency: Jung von Matt/Elbe
Chief Creative Officers: Dörte Spengler-Ahrens, Jan Rexhausen
Creative Directors: Felix Fenz, Alexander Norvilas
Art Directors: Michael Wilde, Max Pilwat, Michael Hess
Copywriter: Felix Fenz
Creative Team: Michael Wilde, Max Pilwat
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If you've ever thought to yourself, "Man, choosing toppings for my pizza by talking to a waiter is so tedious and annoying—I sure wish I could smash my grimy hands all over this table to accomplish this insufferable task," well, you're in luck.
Pizza Hut and Chaotic Moon Studios have teamed up to create a concept table that cuts out the terribly social process of customizing a pizza via your piehole. Instead, it allows you to design a masterpiece like you're a pizza Jedi or Tom Cruise in Minority Report. And after you're done "ordering," you can play something like "Flappy Stache" or "Dragon Academy" instead of having yet another awkward conversation with your life partner.
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What has Diet Coke been snorting?
In the way the tagline, "You're on," and logo are positioned, the brand's new ads seem to refer to drug use—appearing to spell out the phrase "You're on coke."
The campaign, by Droga5 in New York, has been building considerable, um, buzz in the media and from consumers flocking to social media with mocking comments. (Gothamist has collected some prime tweets along these, er, lines.) And while one imagines no such connection to cocaine is implied, you can understand the snarky reaction.
A commercial shows various people downing the product to get psyched up before speeches and performances. Taylor Swift takes a—how shall I put this?—hit backstage, then says, "Great. Let's go." Hey, that's nothing like drugs at all. In The New York Times, a Coca-Cola exec says the ads show how the drink provides "uplift for those moments when you really need to be on." Hey, that's nothing like drugs at all.
The campaign's wording is so obvious, I'd bet client and agency went this route on purpose. The ads are certainly getting extra attention, and it's not so offensive as to cause the brand harm. Plus, there's plausible deniability.
And here's a sobering thought: "Drogas" is Spanish for drugs!
I reached out to Coke and Droga5 for clarification. Oddly, they weren't on (no response yet), but I'll update this post with any uplifting comments they choose to provide.
UPDATE: Coca-Cola responds: "This advertising is one part of the new campaign for Diet Coke, which is called 'You're On.' It celebrates ambitious young achievers from all walks of life and reminds them that Diet Coke is there to support them in the moments when they are at their best. Every single day, young people around the world experience 'You're On' moments big and small. It could be a job interview or a national TV interview, a first date or a final exam, a presentation to your boss or a performance in front of thousands. The Diet Coke logo is the centerpiece of the ad campaign. Diet Coke in no way endorses or supports the use of any illegal substance."
Photo below: @david_j_roth
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Those who stayed up to the (figuratively) bitter end of Sunday's Academy Awards telecast were treated to one of the strongest ads of the night—this one-minute spot from Google celebrating storytelling.
The spot was all about young filmmakers learning the craft, but it was narrated by a master of the form—Pixar's Andrew Stanton, who knows a little something about stories, having written all three Toy Story movies, as well as Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, WALL-E and John Carter.
Yep. That was me on the Google ad. #TEDTalks
— andrew stanton (@andrewstanton) March 3, 2014
The voiceover came directly from bits and pieces of Stanton's 2012 TED talk (the more inspirational parts, that is, not the parts about people having sex with livestock).
The version of the spot on the Oscars broadcast actually had brief footage of Stanton accepting one of his Oscars. The online version omits that part.
Stanton tweeted about his cameo in the ad. And yes, he retweeted the Ellen selfie.
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Montreal agency lg2 found a goofy but practical use for all the snow this winter—it made it look like dandruff gone berkserk on outdoor ads for Selsun Blue. Pity the fool who had shoveling duty on this project, though.
"Dandruff flakes typically occur in winter," the agency says, "due to the use of heating sources such as electricity. Selsun Blue and lg2 thus decided to launch an offensive at a time when people are most in need of dandruff-fighting shampoo."
The headline, "Quand les pellicules vous prennent par surprise," translates to, "When flakes take you by surprise." Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Sanofi – Selsun Blue
Agency: lg2, Montreal
Creative Director: Marc Fortin
Creative Team: Mathieu Dufour, Marie-Ève Leclerc-Dion
Account Services: Julie Simon, David Legendre, Safia Dodard
Print Production: lg2fabrique
Media: Publicité Sauvage
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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.