Hasta La Creative!

Mountain Dew's "Living Portraits" series is one of the most innovative and intricate short-form campaigns of the year. Who'd've thunk it, especially after the brand's high-profile ad missteps a few months ago? Created by BBDO and Psyop, each 30-second "Living Portrait" spotlights a different Dew endorser—Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., skateboarder Paul Rodriguez and snowboarder Danny Davis. Fun, freaky symbolism is used to capture the essence of each and, for lack of a better term, mythologize their lives. The spots all take a similar approach, with the endorsers seated on stylized thrones and the shot slowly pulling back to reveal bedazzling details.

Davis sits on ornately sculptured ice, slurping Dew and strumming a guitar. The camera pulls back to reveal a wintry jam session with members of his crew, the ice sculptor, birds of prey and wolves in attendance. A yeti plays drums. Snowboarders soar in a rainbow sky. A cute, briefcase-sized eyeball lounges by the fire, diggin' Danny's vibes.

Components move at different speeds, mixing 3-D layering and 2-D animation with live action and matte effects. Yet there's no discord, and the elements combine to create harmonious representations of the endorsers' lives and achievements.

Fans can visit Mountain Dew's website to unlock the secrets behind each portrait's imagery. The outsized eyeball in Davis's spot refers to FrendsVision, where the snowboarder and his crew share information about the Frends brand and disseminate clips of themselves "performing skits, snowboarding, playing music and entertaining the public the best way they know how." So, basically, the eye opens onto another ad. I didn't see that coming.

And we learn that the crew is jamming around a "peace fire," because "Danny lives his life preaching peace." That's a bit precious for me—sounds like an overblown piece of you know what—and I wonder if perhaps the symbols should have been left unexplained, adding to the mystery, allowing fans to debate their deeper meaning.

The yeti's presence isn't explained at all! Smelling a Pulitzer, I sent an email, and a rep for Mountain Dew parent PepsiCo explained: "The Yeti was included as it's part of mountain folklore." Rock on, noble yeti! That furry dude really keeps the beat.

See the other spots below.

A street artist named Plastic Jesus (picking an artsy pseudonym in 2013 is like picking an AOL screen name in 1997) stuck it to the man by leaving a fake product—complete with product tag—in five Best Buy stores around Los Angeles. The product is a useless plastic box, and is tagged as such. The product description includes gems like "will not work once you get it home," and "battery life too short to be of use." As an owner of a Dell laptop, I feel the sting of that second comment. The stunt is interesting and well designed, but going after Best Buy at this point is like kicking a dying mule. He or she should have done this in an Apple Store. Via Laughing Squid.

UPDATE: Jon Sandler, a spokesman for Best Buy, tells AdFreak in a statement: "A few stores were affected and the boxes were removed immediately. We are flattered that Best Buy is so top of mind for Mr. Plastic Jesus, and are happy that he presumably had the opportunity to witness our expert Blue Shirts and Geek Squad members in action during his visits. Hopefully he also had the chance to check out our fabulous back to school deals."

There's an old legend in advertising that goes like this: David Ogilvy was walking past a homeless man one day whose sign read: "I'm blind, please help." His cup was empty. Instead of giving him money, Ogilvy rewrote the sign to read: "I am blind, and it's spring." The cup soon overflowed with cash. Tada—a lesson in the power of storytelling.

Of course, stories that work in legend don't always work in reality, or so it seems when you try to apply the tricks of modern advertising to today's homeless signs. Writing team the Bilderbergers and director Ben Weinstein created a fictional project called Better Homeless Signs, bringing more compelling copy and design techniques to the traditional cardboard placard. Witness the sexy homeless sign, the meme-based homeless sign, and the prototype edible homeless sign (that's gotta be up for an award).

Of course, some real graphic designers have been doing this in an earnest manner since 2012. The way advertising is today, who knows how they afford the overhead. The takeout costs alone must be legendary. Full credits here.

Your grandpa was a svelte boss. You, by comparison, are a junk-gobbling slob, according to a slick new split-screen ad for Coca-Cola from agency David in Buenos Aires. The spot, part of a larger effort to position Coke as anti-obesity, is meant to compare granddad's modest approach to life with today's steady diet of too much everything: oversized sandwiches, lattes and pre-TV-dinner hot dogs. Don't cut out Coca-Cola, though. Sugar water is cool, so long as you're riding your bike to work and taking the stairs. Because no matter what, it's important to enjoy life, and sugar water—or maybe aspartame water—is clearly the key to happiness. 

Who can argue that bombastic 1980s power ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart" isn't the single greatest piece of music in human history? That's right: no one. Its appearance in a MasterCard spot a while back, with brand-centric lyrics performed by its original singer, Bonnie Tyler, was priceless. And these days, "Total Eclipse" has resurfaced with a vengeance. Diva impressionist Christina Bianco's performance of the song in the style of Adele, Cher, Streisand and others is approaching 2 million YouTube views since being posted earlier this week.

Now, Fiber One gets in on the act with a pair of amusing 30-second spots from Saatchi & Saatchi. As with MasterCard, the words have been altered to fit the brand profile. The "Turn around, bright eyes" chorus morphs into "Turn around, Barry" in one spot and "Turn around, Barbara" in the other as we watch various Barrys and Barbaras, deprived of the tasty-yet-unhealthy snacks they crave, discover the joys of Fiber One. 

"Finally I have a manly chocolatey snack and fiber so my wife won't give me any more flak," wails Barry. Amen, brother, amen. "Forever I've been praying for a snack in my life, and now I have a brownie ending all of my strife," wails Barbara. True that, sister, true that.

While exaggerated, the humor is never so outrageous that it seems cartoonish or stupid, which could have thrown the spots out of whack. So I applaud Fiber One for finding the perfect balance and keeping things more or less … regular.

CREDITS:

Client: General Mills
Brand: Fiber One Bars/Brownies

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
Chief Creative Officer: Con Williamson
Creative Directors: Peter Smith, Johnnie Ingram
Art Director: Katherine Kuni                                  
Copywriter: Chris Stevenson
Head of Broadcast Production: John Doris
Senior Producer: Nicole Gabrielle Ogborn
Music Producer: Eric Korte
Business Manager: Christina Mattson

Production Company: Little Minx
Director: Nico Perez Veiga of Nico & Martin
Director of Photography: Nanu Segal
Executive Producer: Rhea Scott
Line Producer: Deb Tietjen

Editing House: Rock, Paper, Scissors
Editor: Carlos Arias
Assistant Editor: Maria Lee
Flame Artist: Edward Reina
Producer: Helena Lee
Executive Producer: Eve Kornblum

Music Company: Butter Music and Sound
Executive Producer: Ian Jeffreys
Producer: Annick Mayer
Composition and Arrangement: David Quattrini and Andrew Sherman

Mix Company: Mr. Bronx Audio Post
Engineer: David Wolfe
Producer: Jaya Oleksnianski

Toshiba targets the college-guy demo with sophomoric humor in a trio of Canadian spots from Capital C. All of the action takes place in dorm rooms, and the ads seek to show how the client's computers can improve the school experience.

"Chicken Prank" focuses on a dude who can't peck away with his fingers on a keyboard or touchscreen because he's been wrapped in plastic and tied to his bed. Oh, and the room's filled with clucking chickens, naturally. He wiggles his toe to operate an All-in-One desktop with gesture control. Presumably, he summons assistance. (Dude, why not just scream "help!" at the top of your lungs? Maybe someone's in the room next door. Clearly no Ivy Leaguer.)

"Black Light" touts the ability of Satellite P-series laptops to power and charge USB devices even when the laptop is closed. Two roommates just moving in are horrified when a USB-powered black-light wand reveals unsavory streaks, smears and smudges soiling just about every inch of their walls and ceilings. (I guess the pervious occupants hosted some all-night, um, study sessions.)

The third spot, "Math Notes," showcases the Excite Write tablet's ability to convert handwritten notes and sketches into sharable files. A guy asks his roommate for calculus notes, and looks extremely dismayed, almost repulsed, when he instead receives a drawing of himself reimagined by his roommate as a hunky centaur. 

All three spots are cheeky, just a tad naughty and probably in tune with the teen and young-adult audience. I wonder, though, if some viewers won't find "Math Notes" borderline homophobic, since the punch line falls back on what Glaad has dubbed the "homo-queasy" ad cliché of showing a guy looking disgusted that another man might be attracted to him. "Toshiba would never intentionally set out to offend our customers," Sherry Lyons, vp of corporate and marketing communications at Toshiba of Canada, tells AdFreak. "We do not feel that the 'Math Notes' video is offensive or cliché."

Ever wonder exactly which messaging service Katy Perry uses to chat about being a champion while she’s taking a dump? Well, mystery solved: It’s WhatsApp. In just a few days, millions have already watched the lyric video for Perry’s new single, "Roar," which is told through a rapid-fire group chat on Perry’s iPhone. The video’s popularity, while no real surprise, has definitely been an unexpected boost for WhatsApp, the mobile messaging service that’s featured throughout the video—despite not paying Perry a dime for the endorsement. According to Forbes, a WhatsApp spokesman confirmed the company’s app was definitely the one used in the video, but he said it was not part of any paid arrangement. Perry is reportedly a fan of the app and uses it to stay in touch with her entourage, so this concept might have been drawn from real life. Which makes it pretty entertaining to watch the video with the sound off and imagine what an incredibly strange and arguably psychotic conversation this would actually be. 

So, San Pellegrino will let folks remotely control robots on the ground and in the air over Italy … but NOT for the purpose of Dalek-like mass destruction? Where's the fun in that? To help bring the sparkling water's "Three Minutes in Italy" promotion to life, Ogilvy & Mather in New York partnered with Deeplocal to create five robots that Facebook users can control romotely to take in the sights of Italy. Four ground-gliding units and one skybot perched on a 40-foot pole allow users to take virtual tours of Taormina, a picturesque village in Sicily. San Pellegrino's Facebook fans can sign up to drive the ground-bots for 180 seconds, viewing the town in real time. The robots are equipped with tablets displaying users' Facebook profile pics, and a translation program allows participants to talk with local residents. Brand ambassadors are on the ground to facilitate engagement, or thwart any attempts to use the robots for evil ends, whichever comes first. Actually, the bots don't look very threatening, especially equipped with umbrellas to protect their components from the sun. (After the jump, watch one robotic romeo chat up an unsuspecting passerby named Christin; That's amore!) The campaign runs through Aug. 17, with virtual tours from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern. It's a novel approach, and it seems only fitting that as robots take more of our jobs, they get to replace us on vacation, too. Via PSFK.

If you ever run across a marketer offering you an impromptu adventure overseas, you might first want to clarify whether it will entail you being kidnapped by clowns and dropped from an airplane. That was the terrifying fate of South African graphic designer Clint Jacobs, the final latest of four participants in Heineken's "Dropped" campaign from Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam. As you may have guessed, the campaign (which got a lot of buzz from the related Departure Roulette stunt in JFK) literally drops real people into remote destinations to film their adventures. In the campaign's last installment, a group of Heineklowns tosses the affable Jacobs into rural Poland and makes him hitchhike and tandem-bike his way to Germany, where he must host his own circus. This seems like the sort of proposition you'd have to be drunk to accept, so it works as a long-form beer commercial even if it seems like a total non sequitur. Watch how the story plays out after the jump.

Call out the cat herders! A bunch of kitties stampede down the streets of Croydon, England, in Mother's new spot for MoneySuperMarket. "Bill here just saved £304 on his car insurance at MoneySuperMarket and now feels so good he thinks he can run with wolves,” the narrator explains, before noting almost apologetically, “There are no wolves in Croydon." So, the guy runs with the neighborhood cats instead. That's about it. The client tells The Drum it was seeking to maintain "a more British look and feel to the campaign," which certainly holds true for the visuals, though it makes the choice of music, the very American "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," from Oklahoma, feel out of place. The concept starts strong but doesn’t prove to be particularly memorable in its payoff, especially when there are so many feline-themed ads—and spots with swarming creatures of all sorts—it'd take nine lives just to watch them all. Credits after the jump.

CREDITS:

CLIENT:  Money Supermarket

AGENCY:  Mother London

CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Larry Seftel and David Day

TV PRODUCER: James Turnham

PRODUCTION CO & CITY:  Biscuit UK (London)

MD: Shawn Lacy

EXEC PRODUCER:  Orlando Wood, Colleen O’ Donnell

HEAD OF PRODUCTION: Rachel Glaub

PRODUCER: Kwok Man Yau

DIRECTOR: Jeff Low

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:  Angus Hudson

EDITING COMPANY:  Final Cut

EDITOR (OFF LINE):  Ed Cheesman

POST PRODUCTION: The Mill