Just a day after we learned that Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear in one of Bud Light's Super Bowl ads, Anheuser-Busch InBev has released six teaser clips for the celebrity-stacked spots.
The ads appear to be the results of a massive stunt organized by the brand and agency BBDO, which used 412 actors and a lot of hidden cameras to create an unforgettable night for one unsuspecting beer drinker. Schwarzenegger, Don Cheadle and innovative musician Reggie Watts all make appearances in the evening's events, as does an as-yet-unnamed female celebrity. Oh, and a llama.
Check out the previews below, and be sure to check Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker for ongoing updates about this year's game-day spots.
Next time you're caught driving in a winter storm, Nissan Canada wants you to be grateful you're only dealing with the natural elements and not a supernatural mob of malicious snowmen who are hell bent on destroying everything around them.
Unless you're driving a Nissan Rogue, in which case be happy knowing that if the evil snowmen do magically appear, you can use your all-wheel drive to plow through them like you're playing a less twisted version of Carmageddon, and save all the poor rubes driving other makes and models by letting them pile into the back of your roomy interior.
The creatures in this new spot, from TBWA Toronto, may happily remind Calvin and Hobbes fans of The Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons. More generally, it's a neat, fresh way for Nissan to dramatize the product's suitability for harsh weather conditions—full of entertaining moments like the angry snowmen beating the crap out of a snow blower with snow shovels, and the perfectly creepy head cock one offers right before getting pancaked.
Now all we want to know is where we can get one to keep as a pet.
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Nissan Canada Agency: TBWA, Toronto Executive Creative Director: Allen Oke Creative Director: Rodger Eyre Associate Creative Director, Art Director: Susie Lee Copywriter: Jonah Flynn Head of Broadcast: Nadya Macneil Production House: Sons and Daughters Director: Mark Zibert Director of Photography: Chris Soos Executive Producer: Liane Thomas Line Producer: Neil Bartley Editing: Poster Boy Executive Producer: Michelle Rich Editor: Mark Paiva Editing Assistant: Johnny Okkerse Transfer: Alter Ego Colorist: Wade Odlum Effects: Legacy Effects Effects Technicians: Shane Mahan, Mark Killingsworth Postproduction: The Mill Producer: Jeremy Moore Compositing Lead, Visual Effects Supervisor: Kyle Cody Computer Graphics Lead: Jeff Dates Visual Effects Supervisor: Andreas Berner Executive Producer: Melanie Wickham Audio House: Eggplant Head of Production: Nicola Treadgold Director: Adam Damelin Engineer: Nathan Handy
Steely-eyed, crossbow-wielding Daryl Dixon never loses his cool in a zombie attack, but the actor who plays him, Norman Reedus? He might just jump out of his skin if set upon by the undead. The Walking Dead star got an unexpected visit from a superfan, transformed into a brain-eating monster by the show's special effects guru Greg Nicotero, during a promo tour for the mega-hit AMC TV series. He reacted in a very un-Daryl-like way.
See the video below, which joyfully (for us) and embarrassingly (for Reedus) replays his jump/yelp in slow motion. Walking Dead fan Nick Santonastasso, 17, has pulled this prank before on unsuspecting grocery shoppers, who defended themselves with bulk paper towels and party supplies. Reedus had only his endearing personality to shield him.
AMC, meanwhile, has just released the newest trailer for the Feb. 9 return of the zombiepocalypse drama. (See that below as well.) The prison is lost, the survivors are scattered and on the move, and everybody, it seems, is losing it. Reedus can relate.
Sometimes, parody posters actually make you want to see a movie more than the real ads do. That's definitely the case with a few of these "honest" Photoshop recasts of Acadamy Award Best Picture nominees from College Humor.
Specifically, American Hustle might have done even better at the box office if it were really called "Jennifer Lawrence" and featured the tagline "wigs, tans, boobs."
Website design service Squarespace has posted a teaser for its Super Bowl ad, which paints a pretty dreary picture of today's Internet.
Opening on a face-swapped baby, which is creepy enough, the ad cuts quickly from real-life incarnations of the Joseph Ducreux meme to annoying banner ads to chat requests from "hot local singles." We then see the ad's jaded protagonist turning to find something that gives him hope, a light in the dark alleys of digital debauchery. But what is it?
Spoiler alert: It's probably Squarespace.
Squarespace is a first-time Super Bowl advertiser and one of the smallest companies to buy a national spot in the game. The ad was created in-house and directed by Malcolm Venville. For many more details on this year's game-day ads, be sure to check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker.
And speaking of Subaru, here's another new spot from Carmichael Lynch for the automaker, and it's a whole lot more sobering than that snogging-dogs one.
This one's about safety, and it boldly shows something you rarely see in car commercials—the twisted wreckage of what's left of one of the automaker's vehicles after a horrendous accident. The wrecked Subaru Outback here is not a prop—it's a real car that really got totaled. But the driver survived, and that's the point of the ad (directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures). "They lived," the characters say—from the policeman at the crash site to the workers at the junkyard. "Subaru. Five 2014 IIHS top safety picks," says the on-screen copy at the end.
Extending the reality theme, a companion website features actual letters from Subaru owners explaining how the vehicles helped save their lives.
Safety spots almost always imply danger rather than graphically showing the effects of it. And indeed, it's a bold move to leave viewers pondering a pile of your own disfigured steel. What do you think—good move, or over the top?
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Subaru of America Spot: "They Lived"
Agency: Carmichael Lynch Chief Creative Officer: Dave Damman Executive Creative Director: Randy Hughes Writer, Associate Creative Director: Conn Newton Art Director, Associate Creative Director: Michael Rogers Head of Production: Joe Grundhoefer Executive Producer: Brynn Hausmann Business Manager: Vicki Oachs Account Service Team: David Eiben, Krista Kelly, Kate Moret
Production Company: Park Pictures Director: Lance Acord Executive Producer: MaryAnn Marino Line Producer: Aristides McGarry Director of Photography: Lance Acord
Editing House: Whitehouse Post Editor: Stephen Jess Assistant Editor: Tim Quackenbush Visual Effects: Steve Medin, Volt Telecine: Sean Coleman, Company 3 Audio Mix, Sound Design: Carl White, BWN Music
"Clear Moment" Composer: Miles Hankins, scoreAscore Music Supervisor: Jonathan Hecht
On-camera talent: Tim Lane, Diane Luby Lane, Millie Lane, Charlie Burrows, Aaron Norwell, Frederick Lawrence, Stephen Taylor, Kevin Bowers Voiceover Talent: Tim Lane, Justin Beere (announcer)
IFC just released the key art for Season 4 of Portlandia, and the photos are fantastic. Not only did the network get the great young photographer Alex Prager on board—she decided to shoot the ads in the style of her "Face in the Crowd" photos (many of which are on display through March 9 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and at Lehmann Maupin in New York through Feb. 22). It's almost like getting a couple of non-advertising Prager originals as gift.
AdFreak spoke on Thursday with Blake Callaway, IFC's svp of marketing, about how Prager got involved, and how the two photos will be used differently in the media buy.
How did Alex get involved with this? We always collaborate early on in the creative process for each new season with Fred [Armisen] and Carrie [Brownstein]. In the ads for past seasons, we've always focused solely on them. And so much of the show is about the community of Portlandia and their observations about the bigger world. So we thought, Let's put them in the bigger world. And then it became a fun conversation about who could do that in a unique way. We at IFC had always been a fan of Alex, Fred and Carrie had been a fan of Alex, and we just reached out. She's a hot artist right now, and she was a fan of the show and said she'd love to do it.
The ads are just like her "Face in the Crowd" photos. That's pretty special. So much of it is directly from the work she's putting out there right now. We just said, Alex, what do you want to do? It was Fred and Carrie and Alex working through some ideas, and it's just pure Prager. Some of her same extras are in these photos. Her sister's in there; her mother's in there. And we have nine Portlandia extras that she actually cast into this world as well. And so they're sprinkled throughout. Portlandia fans will be able to pick out, Oh that's the girl from the thrift shop. Or that's someone I've seen in the feminist bookstore. So it works on a couple of different levels.
I suppose if any TV show is going to reference high art in its advertising, it would be Portlandia. I always kind of get excited when we get coverage off of the TV page, when we're in the arts and culture section. And I agree, I think we sort of have permission to play in that space. And the reason it works is because so many people in that world are also fans of the show. Portlandia gently sends up that world as well, and Fred and Carrie's projects beyond Portlandia cross-pollinate with that world.
Creatively, we like to look not just at what's going on at other networks but what's going on in pop culture, or art references, or other things we can be inspired by. And for this project, all the stars aligned. And the more time you spend with it, you see different little elements in each picture. There's just a lot to take in.
Was it always the idea to have two photos? One seems a bit more dressed-up than the other. Alex wanted to get two different shots. And we thought maybe at one point we'd pick a favorite. But we think they're both pretty interesting. What you'll probably see is the one we're calling "Going to Work" (below); you may see that on midtown subway platforms. And then we may put the other one in a different environment that's maybe a little less office focused. We've also tried to pick media placements that are bigger, like Interview magazine, The Hollywood Reporter—things that are bigger scale, so you can see the art.
I see—because it reads better at a bigger size. Yeah. We decided this isn't the thing you put on the side of a bus as it zooms past you.
Horrified by this depiction of a real-life emoji? Well good, that's the idea.
French child advocacy group Innocence en Danger created this ad campaign, bringing Internet chat icons into creeptastic human form, to warn parents and young people about the adult predators who might be behind online conversations. Headlines ask, "Who's really talking with your child on the Internet?"
The results are definitely unnerving, which is exactly what Parisian agency Rosapark was going for. Via Gizmodo.
In Starburst's "Miniminneapolis" spot, a construction worker tries to explain the robust fruit flavor of the candy's new Minis by theorizing that the candy gets shrunk down in a miniature factory. The cutaway scenes of factory workers bonking their heads on low ceilings, struggling with miniature controls and stooping to get through tiny doorways are pretty funny, as is the exasperated question of "Why is this factory so small?" It's not unlike watching Calvin's dad explain that the sun is actually the size of a quarter, and it crumbles under scrutiny with the same charm.
To help promote the Jan. 26 telecast of the Grammy Awards, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis treated (or perhaps subjected) some Bronx, N.Y., bus riders to a taste of their No. 1 hit "Can't Hold Us." The duo is nominated for seven honors this year, including album of the year.
Commuters dance and clap along to the beat and seem to be admirably enthusiastic, considering how few were likely Macklemore fans. You'd have to go all the way to Denmark to find a happier bus! Some commenters rightly question just how "impromptu" the transit performance, part of the "Music Unleashes Us" Grammys campaign, really was, especially given the natty camerawork on display.
Staged or not, it's practically life-affirming compared to some recent ads that involve the (presumably) unsuspecting public. Like a certain vomiting devil baby.
Check out the performance below and a related promo clip featuring an impressively flexible geriatric dancer after the jump.
Even lawyers not named Scott Hoy tend to have trouble coming up with good advertising. Here's an exception—a clever new campaign from Rockville, Md., law firm Esteban Gergely from Grey's Hispanic agency, Wing. The three spots advertise the firm's divorce services through a pretty awesome use of YouTube. Just make sure you let the videos run.
Credits below. (And thanks to @irenyofirene for the headline help.)
Note: Don't be fooled by the message that the videos have been removed. Keep watching.
CREDITS Agency: Wing Chief Creative Officer: Favio Ucedo Senior Copywriter: Facundo Paglia Copywriter: Marc Duran Senior Copywriter: Facundo Paglia, Copywriter: Marc Duran Brian Novoa, Art Director Producer Keyla Hernandez Editor: Alejandro Ussa Director of Business Development: Daniel Gergely AAE of Business Development: Andrés Tello
If you like bizarre flavors, talking food and generally feeling like you're having an acid flashback, Lay's is happy to oblige. A new spot from the snack brand features animated dishes like hoagies, meat loaf and sushi, singing about how delicious they could be in potato chip form.
The goal? To get you excited and perhaps slightly freaked out by the return of Lay's crowd-sourced product-development promotion, Do Us a Flavor. Created by Deep Focus, the contest invites you, friendly consumer, to submit (or at least vote for) a potential new flavor of Lay's potato chips.
Over at the promotion microsite, the suggestions so far include Maple Bacon, Fluffernutter, Meatlover's Pizza, and Pumpkin Blood … whatever that is. If the promise of snack food fame isn't incentive enough, the dangling carrot of $1 million (a la Frito-Lay's better-known Crash the Super Bowl contest) might help encourage you to plug your Facebook profile into the campaign.
Overall, its a fun concept. It also gets a little dark when your pal the ice cream cone melts all over the table while moaning about needing the money, and the attention-grubbing hamburger clubs the halved tomato out of the frame.
Earlier this week, improv comedian Wayne Brady helped kick off the promotion by making up impromptu songs for 25 potential flavors suggested by Lay's social media fans. Check out some of his clips after the jump.
A cosmetics company telling its fans to focus on inner beauty? That sounds a bit like Krispy Kreme urging patrons to sign up for Pilates classes, but it seems to be working.
The "Inner Beauty Challenge" from California-based Benefit Cosmetics presents girls with a new daily challenge that celebrates, you guessed it, inner beauty. Challenges range from "Post Positivity" to "Lend a Hand," with video encouragement from a popular beauty vlogger or even a Hollywood celebrity like "Jessie" star Debby Ryan. The promotion is co-sponsored by actress Brittany Snow's nonprofit, Love Is Louder, dedicated to encouraging positivity among young women.
Participants post a photo on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #innerbeauties, and thanks to the brand's popularity and the star power it recruited, quite a few entries have been submitted. Prizes include cosmetic kits ranging in price from $200 to $600.
It's an interesting statement from a brand whose success is dependent on women purchasing cosmetics to enhance or improve their appearance. I like this approach from Benefit, especially for girls who are growing up in an era of Instagram selfies and pretty-people-on-the-Internet overload. It gives off a "makeup is important, but not that important" vibe, and applauding positivity should always be encouraged, especially among the high school set.
The BBC's official trailer for its coverage of next month's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, has its champions and detractors, with some applauding the 90-second clip's epic sweep and others lamenting its dark tone and dearth of emotional appeal.
Created by RKCR/Y&R and director Tomek Baginski, the film focuses on hyper-realistic winter desolation, its frames filled with frozen peaks, dagger-like ice formations and majestic pines toppling in plumes of snow. A booming narration by actor Charles Dance, as the voice of nature, begins: "I am the dreadful menace. The one whose will is done. The haunting chill upon your neck. I am the conundrum." And he gets even more intense, warning: "The ones that came before you. Stood strong and tall and brave. But I stole their dreams away. Those dreams could not be saved."
Athletes appear around the one-minute mark, trekking across a lonely mountain pass, like some lost party of explorers inexplicably hauling skis, skates and hockey sticks in a haze of hypothermic delirium.
Response has been decidedly mixed. Mostly I applaud the BBC for trying something a bit unexpected. If nothing else, the approach is sparking conversation and debate, fueling the promotional fires, while a more aspirational/feel-good spot, no matter how marvelously executed, would've been predictable and perhaps left some viewers (and reviewers) feeling a bit numb.
Yes, a focus on individual athletes or specific events might have been compelling, but the clip does well in positioning the Winter Games as an outsized, soul-stirring challenge, a war waged against almost mythic forces poised to smite us at every turn. The voiceover, from Tywin Lannister himself, drives home the point that the Olympics can be the ultimate game of thrones.
If you were to draw a Venn diagram of hipsters and the NFL, the circles would likely overlap in just one tiny spot: this oddly fascinating project from comic artist Dave Rappoccio.
"What if the NFL logos were hipsters?" That was the hypothetical question Rappoccio embraced with admirable intensity, redesigning all 32 team icons into celebrations of bearded, craft-beer-infused pseudo-intelligentsia.
Artistically, some are better than others. I'm specifically fond of the fedora-sporting Vikings, bow-tied Bears and embittered, sock-hatted Cardinals. The Starbucks-inspired Seahawks design is great, too, but since no hipster would be caught dead in a corporate chain, I assume it would be worn only ironically.
Want to see a Muppets movie trailer that skewers illiterate Twitter spats? Of course you do. This new parody promo for the forthcoming feature Muppets Most Wanted does a double public service by also making fun of all the mass-media self-adulation that studios crank out during Hollywood awards season. It's good, classic, silly Muppets fun—and a familiar marketing strategy for the franchise. While a similar, recent trailer (also posted below) took aim at Twitter praise, the mean one is much better—everybody hates over-aggressive online commenters who can't spell. They're such a bear … Wakka wakka wakka.
Sorry, Bart. It looks like Butterfinger's first Super Bowl ad will have a theme better suited to those over 18.
The Super Bowl spot, by ad agency Dailey and director Clay Weiner of Biscuit Filmworks, will launch Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups. The Nestlé brand released a teaser on Tuesday showing peanut butter and chocolate going to couple's therapy in an effort to spice up their boring relationship (a not-so-subtle jab at peanut-butter cup market leader Reese's). The whole teaser is pretty suggestive, particularly when another couple, cheese and crackers, emerge from the therapist's office excitedly fondling a giant hard salami. Peanut butter and chocolate, meanwhile, begin to see the possibilities of a more satisfying union themselves by staring at the centerfold of a copy of Exotic Snacking magazine. "The cup is about to get crunchy," says the tagline.
The Super Bowl ad will be a different execution but with the same couple's therapy theme, the AP reports. For more, see the campaign site at www.butterfingercups.com.
Planet Fitness is back with the latest spot in its campaign against "gymtimidation."
This time, we peek in on an unnamed competitor, where an insanely pumped-up instructor is leading a class of "Pilatatumba," which appears to a combination of zumba-like jumping, twirling and dancing. A newbie can't keep up, and she later explains to a Planet Fitness employee: "And that's why I don't like gyms." The employee explains that Planet Fitness isn't a gym, and a voiceover takes over, promising "No gymtimidation. No lunks. Unlimited fitness training. Just $10 a month."
As was the case with Crunch's old "No Judgments" positioning, it's never fully clear (at least to me) quite how Planet Fitness is different from other fitness chains. But enough people must feel uncomfortable at gyms to be open to the mere suggestion that this place is somehow mellower. Three more national spots will break soon.
Here's one baby that no one's expecting. "Devil Baby Attack," a rather mean-spirited if grimly hilarious marketing stunt for the upcoming horror film Devil's Due, shows what happens when well-meaning New Yorkers try to check on an unattended baby carriage.
Here's what happens: They get screamed at by a horrific demon infant. And sometimes chased around by the horrific demon infant's remote-controlled stroller.
Sure, the prank—by Thinkmodo, which also did last year's super-viral Carrie coffee-shop spot—sparks some fun jump-screams from passersby. But watching the results, it's hard not to think of last year's spot-on parody by Canadian agency John St. about the cruel lengths to which advertisers now seem willing to go.
If we must be subjected to more prankvertising stunts, it would be nice to see ones that punish people for making poor moral choices rather than watch normal pedestrians get tormented because they tried to check on a screaming baby left alone in the snow.
The 2014 One Show Automobile Advertising of the Year awards are being presented today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. And Honda has grabbed the top prizes in both the TV and online video categories.
Fiat won in the print category, Hyundai in interactive, and BMW and Toyota shared the prize in experiential.
Check out all the winners (and the finalists) below. Some solid work here, but where oh where is the RAM "Farmer" spot?
Category: TV Commercials
Winner: Honda "Hands," Wieden + Kennedy, London
Other finalists: Dodge "It Comes Standard," Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Honda "Illusions," mcgarrybowen, London Daimler/Smart "Offroad," BBDO Germany, Dusseldorf Land Rover "Roam Free," Young & Rubicam, New York
Category: Online Video
Winner: Honda "Sound of Honda/Ayrton Senna 1989," Dentsu, Tokyo
Winner: Fiat "Letters," Leo Burnett Tailor Made, São Paulo, Brazil Fiat created its own typeface for posters warning people against texting and driving.
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