Hasta La Creative!

Lots of Orangina’s marketing is about shaking up bottles of the stuff—to mix up the pulp, which makes the carbonated citrus beverage taste better.

“An advertising guy told me there was a weakness, and we’re going to make a strength out of this weakness by saying, ‘The bottle needs to be shaken,’ ” Orangina’s founder, Jean-Claude Beton, said in an interview a few years before his death in 2013. “Television offered an opportunity to shake things.”

Orangina’s most recent marketing coup, though, was not in TV but in packaging.

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Last November, Xbox celebrated the launch of Rise of the Tomb Raider in the U.K. with quite a sadistic stunt in London. It challenged eight Lara Croft fans stand on a billboard and get pummeled with harsh weather conditions, as voted for by the public watching online.

Last person standing would be the winner.

In the end, the McCann London stunt was a rousing success. And last week at Cannes, the work won 17 Lions, including five golds, becoming one of the most-awarded campaigns of the year.

We wanted to learn a little more about how McCann pulled off the stunt, which of course brought with it myriad logistical and medical concerns. Below, Lolly Thomson, co-president and chief creative officer at McCann London, tells us how it all came together—from the contestant who got hypotheriam to two others who found a love connection. 

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When it comes to sports, girls are often discouraged from continuing to play because of their gender. That’s a message that’s not worth listening to, says this new Olympic-themed spot from Procter & Gamble’s Always. 

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Cats have been known to wield an almost hypnotic power, controlling human behavior with a flick of the tail or the merest meow.

Case in point—the feline fiend in “What Cats Want,” BBDO’s latest campaign for Sheba cat food. With just a longing look, little Tabby lures a libidinous lunkhead away from his date mid-makeout so he can serve up some product, haute cuisine style: 

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When creatives judge their fellow creatives in awards shows, one might argue it’s a good way to ensure strong work is appreciated. Others might argue it gets a bit … incestuous. 

To promote the fact that the Epica Awards are the only major ad industry honors judged solely by journalists rather members of the creative industry, Epica has launched a new call-for-entries ad campaign that somewhat subtly satirizes the better-known events like the Cannes Lions, One Show and Clio Awards (the last of which, I should note by way of disclosure, is owned by Adweek’s parent company but operated independently of this magazine). 

In each ad—created by Paris-based agency Altmann+Pacreau—we see a text message being sent to a famous ad figure such as Wieden + Kennedy co-founder Dan Wieden or Leo Burnett global creative chief Mark Tutssel. The person sending the message is usually commenting on the ad star’s upcoming role on an awards juror, while subtly hinting at a bit of a quid pro quo arrangement that will help sway some votes. 

“When you serve on a jury, you receive lots of ‘friendly’ messages, trying to find out what’s going on and putting a gentle pressure on your judgment,” said one of the campaign’s creators, Altmann+Pacreau co-founder Olivier Altmann. “So we built on this insight to promote Epica, one of the few worldwide awards that most agencies support specifically because of its singularity.”

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Indian digital agency Chimp&z has figured out who each Game of Thrones character would be if they were advertising professionals. As a bonus, they even imagined who the clients are. With perfectly selected quotes and adorable vector graphics, they make the best case I’ve seen for a Mad Men GOT crossover series. I mean, I’d watch it.

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Father’s Day was very likely a tense affair for Salt Lake City resident Baron Brooks, whose dad Arthur made a full-page, $900 personals newspaper ad for him without his permission. Not only that, but the ad makes Baron sound like a total jerk, too.

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Not many people know that Burger King pulled out of France for 15 years between 1997 and 2012. Because it didn’t. But the fast-food chain gleefully imagines such a nightmare scenario in a new seven-minute mockumentary from agency Buzzman.

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Finnish probiotics brand Gefilus is so good at building up healthy bacteria in your gut—thereby strengthening your immune system—that you could lick a pay phone in Moscow and not get sick.

That’s the rough premise of a 22-minute (!) ad from dairy conglomerate Valio.

To illustrate the effectiveness of its product, the marketer hired travel television host Ian Wright, known for his willingness to eat just about anything, to bounce around the globe with a germ-measuring meter. 

Along the way, he slides his tongue across the filthiest surfaces he can find while maintaining a steady Gefilus diet to boost his body’s internal defenses.

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If the biggest extracurricular activity your agency has had time for lately is the yearly holiday card, prepare to have the bar hoisted higher than your T-rex arms can reach.

Los Angeles creative agency Omelet has released its first full-length documentary, a project that took three years to complete. The hook of “License to Operate” feels like a buddy-movie plot: It follows former gang leaders committed to improving their communities—partitioned into de facto war zones by subsets of gangs, sprung from the original Bloods and Crips—working with law enforcement when necessary. 

Along the way, we meet characters like founder Aquil Basheer of the LTO Movement and the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute (PCITI, which trains and certifies interventionists and other professionals), former Athens Park Blood Kenneth Jones, and Reynaldo “Whiz” Reaser, a former Raymond Crip. 

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