Hasta La Creative!

The father is a human in a dog's body (for reasons "you're too young to understand," he once barked at his daughter), the son is a black American, and their maid is an alien incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones. They are “The White Family,” a staple of telecom Softbank’s marketing, and they have become the most popular recurring commercial characters in Japan. The family is made up of a father (Otosan), a son (Kojiro), a mom (Masako) and a daughter (Aya). Telling you much more about their family dynamic would require me actually knowing Japanese, since few of the many YouTube clips from the campaign have been subtitled, though you can read a great profile on the Whites' commercial success in The Japan Times. Like me, you may have stumbled across their ads before and been too distracted by the craziness of their antics to actually recognize it as an ongoing campaign—one that has been tallied as the nation’s favorite for six years running. The sprawling series of more than 130 spots, credited with vaulting SoftBank from industry newcomer to one of Japan's top mobile providers, have even featured cameos from Quentin Tarantino, Tommy Lee Jones and a real Japanese astronaut filming his appearances in space. For my fellow uninitiated, I’ve compiled some of the more interesting clips from the campaign after the jump. Disclaimer: Seeing more of these ads doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll understand them any more. Hat tip to WTF Japan Seriously.   

Unyielding butter is the worst. It ruins toast, and tween girls' relationships with mothers, and mothers' relationships with new husbands. So says this cheeky new :30 spot from DDB Melbourne for Devondale, an Australian dairy brand. The ad follows a set from earlier this year, in which soy-milk-aftertaste face (the evil twin of pudding face) makes one unwitting man's daughter cry, and sends another's wife off on a tirade about having children. Of course, even if they all bought Devondale's soft butter spread or cow milk products, they'd still be living with a bunch of crazy people. All three videos after the jump. (Via Mumbrella) 

Venables Bell & Partners is launching another campaign for Google Fiber, and it's already a little more interesting than 72andSunny's recent Google Chromecast work, which was basically watching people watch television. Dubbed “Un-Technically Speaking,” the new Venables push is taking the classic Star Trek approach of explaining a complicated thing with a simple analogy. In the case of the first spot, an extremely articulate little girl uses birdwatching as a metaphor for the Nexus Tablet's vocal command feature. I think that girl might be some kind of beta-level Google contraption, too. Her elocution definitely puts her on my “could be a robot” list. Credits after the jump.

Brand: Google Fiber
Spot: Bird Watcher
Air Date: August 5
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Executive Creative Director: Paul Venables and Will McGinness
Creative Director:  Lee Einhorn
Art Director: Ezra Paulekas
Copywriter: Rob Calabro
Director of Integrated Production: Craig Allen 
Agency Producers: Joyce Chen and Adam Battista
Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Director: Matt Aselton
Director of Photography: Masa Takayanagi
Executive Producer: Mal Ward and Marc Marrie
Producer: Zoe Odlum
Editing Company: Final Cut
Editor: Matt Murphy
Music: Beacon Street
Mix: Loren Silber at Lime Studios
Visual Effects: The Mill
Visual Effects Producer: Kiana Bicoy

The San Diego Culinary Institute has a trio of talking food ads that are funny, albeit in a dumb way, but also a lot more sexually charged than this kind of ad tends to be. The “Napoleon” ad at least tries to be a little seductive (and who among us hasn't been seduced by dessert before? Don't lie to yourselves), but the “Ducks” ad borders on flat-out inappropriate. I mean, I'm okay with it, but I hope the Institute knows what they're getting into. Some of their incoming applications might get pretty strange. Created by San Francisco agency Muh-tay-zik | Hoff-fer. See all three spots, and full credits, after the jump. 

CREDITS
Agency & Production Company: Muh-tay-zik | Hof-fer
Executive Creative Director: John Matejczyk
Creative Director/Director: Diko Daghlian
Executive Producer: Michelle Spear
Senior Copywriter: Josh Bogdan
Art Director: John Soto
Producer: Michelle Spear, Kelli Bratvold
Account Supervisor: Carolina Cruz-Letelier
Director of Photography: Eric Noren
Art Director: Art Wilinski
Prop Stylist: Jonathan Nicholson
Food Stylist: Katie Christ

Editorial: Barbary Post
Executive Producer: Kristin Jenkins
Editor: Matt O’Donnell
Assistant Editor: Nick Haynes
Colorist: Steve McEuen
Smoke Artist: Greg Gilmore

Audio: One Union
Senior Engineer: Eben Carr [ISDN patch via POP Studios, Santa Monica]
 
On Camera Principals
"Salmon:" Bonnie Sarlette
"Napoleon:" Sterling King (SDCI student)
"Ducks L'Orange:" Brian Karpel (SDCI student)

Voice Actors
"Salmon:" Nathan Lowe, Matt O'Donnell
"Napoleon: Jeremy Wirth
"Ducks L'Orange:" Nathan Lane, Christopher Alex via Voicecaster
END TAG: Nathan Lowe

Add FaceTime video chat to the list of features covered by Apple and TBWA\Media Arts Lab in their "Every Day" spots for the iPhone 5. This new clip is similar in execution to earlier series entries about the device's music and photo functions, with copious product-use shots and a subdued, moody score setting the tone. (Nokia had the cheek to parody "Photos Every Day," and fairly effectively, though when rivals choose to define themselves in relation to Apple, it says more about the latter's enduring brand equity and continued presence of mind among consumers than anything else.) These "Every Day" ads do a fine job of showing us the role iPhone technologies play in people's lives, and they resonate better than the client's widely panned "Designed by Apple" campaign, which spends too much time telling us about the company's mind-set and philosophy. The human interface, after all, is where technology truly comes alive, and in its most successful advertising, Apple taps into that connection to reveal the soul of its machines.

Another day, another resume billboard. Earlier this year, 24-year-old Adam Pacitti landed a job in media—which he describes as an “ultra competitive, cutthroat and slightly vacuous industry"—by spending some $770 on a billboard directing potential employers to a website about himself. It worked. After 60 offers, Adam accepted a position at KEO Digital. AOL Jobs caught up with him this week and parsed the strategy. Is this really a useful template for people looking for work? I mean, no one should have to spend that much money to get a company to look at his resume. 

This playfully memorable campaign for Israel's Steimatzky Books chain via ACW Grey in Tel Aviv does a fine job of communicating the intense, often transcendent relationship that can develop between readers and material on the printed page.

The series is headlined "The right book will always keep you company." Ads show folks fast asleep, the books they've been reading still in their hands, on night tables or nearby, with lifesize characters from the volumes sharing their beds.

The approach is in keeping with this advertiser's past oddball efforts, and it succeeds because the visuals, impressively realized with amazing attention to detail, compellingly illustrate and reinforce the campaign's theme. Of course, many people read as they drift off, but the bed imagery seems especially apt because books can help us think, wonder and dream in new, exciting ways. 

Some commenters find the notion of "sleeping" with Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes, Gandalf and especially Joseph Stalin, the subject of Robert Service's acclaimed biography, unnerving or creepy. They might have a point, but nothing untoward is ever suggested here. Actually, avid readers often have "intimate," though presumably (and I'd add, thankfully) nonphysical relationships with books, and I suppose these ads do hint in that direction. Still, it's probably best not to read too much into it.

See more images from the campaign, and credits, after the jump. (Via Copyranter)

CREDITS:
Agency: ACW Grey Tel-Aviv, Israel
Executive Creative Director: Tal Riven
‎‏?Client Manager: Elad Hermel?
‎‏?Creative Director: Idan Regev?
Art Director: Daphne Orner
Copywriter: Kobi Cohen
‎‏?Planning: Noa Dekel?
‎‏?Supervisor: Mor Pesso?
‎‏?Account Manager: Nataly Rabinovich?
‎‏?Producer: Racheli Zatlawi?
‎‏?Production Company: We Do Production?
‎‏?Photographer: ?Shai Yehezkelli

In this visually stunning, Tron-inspired light show, Adidas Football is hawking its Lionel Messi line—specifically, the Adizero F50 Messi boot. If you don’t know who Messi is, you need to get out from under your rock. “He is the best player in the world,” according to Pedro, my partner, who is from Brazil, where people do know about these things. The brand attached hundreds of hand sewn LEDs to Adidas TechFit gear Messi was wearing, and then filmed him at 1000 frames per second with a phantom camera. Apparently, it's the sort of thing that makes football fans fall to their knees and drool. I guess the spot, titled "The New Speed of Light," is saying that he moves real good, or something. But who cares? It looks freaking rad. Credits after the jump. (Via The Inspiration Room)

Client: Adidas Football
Agency: Iris Worldwide, London
Creative: Adam Fish
Managing Partner: Henry Scotland
Agency Producer: Sophie Horner
Account Director: Simon Voxall
Adidas Global Brand Director: Thomas Van Schaik
Film Studio: ML Studio 
Producer: Phil Tidy
Post Producer: Mark Logue
Film Director: Marcus Lyall

Not sure what the endgame for this Vitamin Water subway "prank" was, since it's basically a comedy video onto which the brand rivet-gunned its "Make Boring Brilliant" tagline. Still, two things immediately caught my eye. First, all the regular commuters gritting their teeth when they hear “may I have your attention please,” because homelessness on public transit is something of a medicine show these days. Second, the subway bragger's shtick went on way too long, and his audience figured out what he was doing well before he finished up and left them alone. Hard to call this a prank, really—it's more of a stunt. Plus, maybe a sugar-water brand's energy would be better spent actually helping the homeless than making fun of them.

You might think Dos Equis' mind-bendingly classy pitchman was too busy saving supermodels on the far side of the world to spend any time answering to the dweebish hoi polloi on an Internet forum. Guess again. Jonathan Goldsmith, the actor who plays the brewer's "Most Interesting Man in the World," took to Reddit last week for an "Ask Me Anything" Q&A session with the site's community. While he's quick to point out he's had roles in some 350 movies and TV shows, he's also a crowd pleaser. The lion's share of his banter is very much in character. For example, what does he drink when he's not drinking beer? "A gin martini or almost anything from the Isle of Islay," of course. What are the seven words Eskimos use to call his beard? "Lovely, strong, ticklish, charming, mysterious, tasty, electric." How often does he get recognized? "Very often. A set of twins jumped out of a Rolls Royce to meet me in Hollywood traffic." His feelings toward fellow hyper-suave pitchman, Old Spice's Man Your Man Could Smell Like? "Isaiah [Mustafa] is a friend and a charming gentleman." But it's not all fun and games. Goldsmith did the Q&A to raise money for nonprofits Clear Path International and Mines Advisory Group, and their efforts to remove explosives from postwar zones like Vietnam. The actor's appearance has the masses clamoring for more, with one commenter challenging Dos Equis owner Heineken and Old Spice parent P&G to pair up Mustafa and Goldsmith for a "summer action blockbuster film," with part of the proceeds going to the mine-clearing cause. It's a great idea. Allow us to join in the pipe dreaming, and point out that the title more or less writes itself: "The Most Interesting Man Your Man Could Smell Like—in the World."