Here's a clever little gimmick. Australia's Cascade Brewery recently made a limited-edition batch of beer with special "experimental" hops from a secret garden in Tasmania's Derwent Valley. There was only enough for 5,000 cases, and so the brewer—with help from Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne—made an ad for it that can only be watched 5,000 times. Check it out below. The special embed code (which can take some time to load) includes a ticker that's counting down to zero. "Whether you caught the film in time or not, make sure you don't miss the beer," the brewer says on its website. Come on, people, we can make this thing obsolete within the hour if we put our minds to it. Via The Denver Egotist.
UPDATE: Video has been having trouble loading—either that or it hit 5,000 and ran.
Lego has unveiled a life-size Star Wars X-Wing fighter jet made entirely of Legos in Times Square. It promotes an upcoming Cartoon Network show called The Yoda Chronicles. You can also see a life-size Lego Chewy, Vader, R2-D2, C-3PO and Boba Fett in the promo for the show. But the X-Wing has the distinction of being the largest Lego structure built to date. At 11 feet tall, 43 feet long, 44 feet wide and almost 46,000 pounds, it's made of 5,335,200 individual Lego bricks. It took 32 people four months just to put it together. And you can climb into the cockpit for a photo. Which means all you Star Wars and Lego fans must make a pilgrimage to this, the largest and most awesome Lego thing ever made, and get a picture of your child sitting in the cockpit shouting "Pew! Pew!" See lots more photos at Gizmodo.
This Chevy Volt ad, titled "Silent Anthem," is an extended version of the Volt footage we saw in the "Find New Roads" launch spot in February. Visually, it's interesting, although it's as much an ad for wind farms and iPads and robot dogs as it is for the Volt. The deer/dog moment at the end is pretty barfy, too, but at least this campaign reaches for something beyond the norm. The Volt bookended the launch spot, which made it feel like the focus of it. But the other vehicles in it have been getting their own individual :60s as well. Check out three of those after the jump.
Young & Rubicam is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a fun project in New York that, fittingly, brings old and new together. It's a billboard in Times Square that will feature—from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon—a giant mosaic of tweets and Facebook posts from everyone who has posted a message with the hashtag #advertisingis. Thus, you still have a little while to get your social-media account up in lights with a post on that topic. The company doing the mosaic is Hyperactivate, which is part of Y&R's Spark Plug incubator program, which we wrote about last year. We'll have a photo of the billboard later this afternoon. For now, check out Y&R's 90th anniversary reel, featuring the work the agency is most proud of through the years.
#Advertisingis "…yes mom, we make commercials, like the ones you see on TV. No, mom, I didn't make that one."
Kmart's "Ship My Pants" ad was a major success, to the tune of 17 million YouTube views and counting. But can Draftfcb turn almost-profanity into a running gag for the retailer? It attempts to do so with this follow-up spot, "Big Gas Savings," which features some big-gas humor indeed. It even features the same family from "Ship My Pants," and once again the kid gets the best line. (In the earlier spot, he blurted out, "I can't wait to ship my pants, Dad." Here, he shouts, "Dad, look at that big gas truck!") It's not quite as funny as the original, perhaps, but it seems destined to get similarly big-gas numbers on YouTube. And if nothing else, the #biggassavings hashtag clinches it. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Kmart Chief Marketing Officer: Andrew Stein Vice President, Creative: Mark Andeer
Agency: Draftfcb Chief Creative Officer: Todd Tilford Executive Creative Director: Jon Flannery Creative Director, Copywriter: Berk Wasserman Creative Director: Todd Durston Group Executive Producer, Agency Producer: Chris Bing
Production Company: Bob Industries Executive Producers: T.K. Knowles, John O'Grady, Chuck Ryant Producer: Brian Etting Director: Zach Math
French tennis star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is preparing to play against a robot. Surprisingly, it's not Roger Federer, renowned for his robotically stiff commercial acting and machine-like winning ways (including those 17 Grand Slam singles titles). Today at 11 a.m. ET, at a practice session for the French Open, Tsonga will take on an actual automaton, which will try to hit shots past the world's eighth-ranked player based on tweets supplied by fans as part of a promotion for banking giant BNP Paribas (and agency We Are Social).
Fans visiting the Tweet & Shoot site can log in with Twitter and drag and drop tennis-ball icons to set up virtual shots, which are then encoded as hashtagged tweets which the on-court bionic Borg will decipher—and then spit out a real ball for Tsonga to hit. Users are also encouraged to include messages of encouragement to Jo-Wilfried, who has never won a Grand Slam event. Forty fans chosen by BNP's social communities are guaranteed to have their shots included at Tsonga's session with the robot. The rest will be picked at random from among the tweets. Folks with no lives whatsoever can check out Tweet & Shoot's streaming coverage of the event at the link above. Maybe the bot will blow a fuse, leap over the net and swat Tsonga like a fly.
Droga5 and publisher Hachette Australia recently bestowed upon Qantas frequent fliers an anachronistic little gift that will come in handy aboard Qantas flights when approved electronic devices must be completely turned off.
The agency's Sydney office packaged together a 10-book box set of previously published paperbacks "specifically edited to last just as long as each of Qantas's key routes." It's a fun idea, and Droga is playing the nostalgia factor to the hilt. "In this world of Kindles and iPads, it seems that the last bastion of the humble paperback novel is actually at 40,000 feet," says David Nobay, creative chairman of Droga5 Sydney. "You only need to look at the bulging shelves at any airport bookstore. Maybe it's the fact that everything seems so far removed from the real world up there."
All 10 books are by Australian authors: James Castrission, Tony Cavanaugh, Sean Fewster, Kimberley Freeman, Lian Hearn, William McInnes, Peter FitzSimons, Jack Marx, Rob Mundle and Roland Perry. The collection spans adventure, crime, women's fiction, literary, history and romance. The books are meant to correspond to the lengths of 10 popular Qantas flights (Sydney to Dubai, Melbourne to London, Perth to Singapore, etc.), with meals and other breaks factored in. Designer Paul Belford created a unique cover for each book.
"One of the greatest challenges in publishing is to remind people of the pleasure that reading brings, and that even though the online world is growing, there is still a romance in the printed page," says Fiona Hazard, publishing director of Hachette Australia. "At Hachette, we are always looking for new ways to bring stories and voices to life, so when Droga5 approached us to discuss this idea we jumped straight in. It's been great fun working with them to get this project off the ground."
One of the better Playboy ads of recent years was last year's "Elevator" spot from DDB Paris and directors The Perlorian Brothers. Here are two more ads done in the same style. The earlier spot sold shower gel for men; these are for Playboy's VIP fragrances for men and women. Playboy is at its best when it's not taking itself too seriously. That's (mostly) true here, plus there's the added bonus of a nice structure that keeps things lively. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Playboy Fragrances Advertising Agency: DDB, Paris Executive Creative Director: Alexandre Hervé Copywriter: Alexis Benoit Art Director: Paul Kreitmann Production Company: Les Télécréateurs Director: The Perlorian Brothers Account Director: Xavier Mendiola Planner: Fabien Leroux Sound: THE Client Team Director: Jurgen Scharfenstein Agency Producers: Emilie Talpaert, Sophie Megrous Account Team: Julie Garguillo, Timothee Desruelles
Illinois and Wisconsin are currently overrun with pregnant teenage boys, thanks to the Chicago Department of Public Health. Man, that's fun to say. The CDPH's Office of Adolescent and School Health has rolled out a new teen-pregnancy prevention campaign that features pictures of pregnant teenage boys, and the accompanying text reads "Unexpected? Most teen pregnancies are." The intended impact is twofold. Along with the initial shock of seeing a pregnant boy, the ads hope to communicate that pregnancy prevention isn't just the girl's responsibility. They're risky images to run with, but I'm glad that the CDPH didn't try to make a joke out of it. If Junior taught us anything, it's that male pregnancy is no laughing matter. More images below.
Here is Geico's latest commercial from The Martin Agency. Uploaded on hump day, it's all about hump day. And it stars a certain mammal that hails from the Middle East and Africa. You can see where this is going. Part of the insurance company's ongoing "Happier Than" campaign. Silliness at its best. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Geico
Agency: The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va. Chief Creative Officer: Joe Alexander Group Creative Director: Steve Bassett Creative Director: Wade Alger Creative Director, Art Director: Sean Riley Senior Copywriter: Ken Marcus Executive Broadcast Producer: Molly Souter Producer: Samantha Tucker Junior Producer: Emily Taylor Strategic Planner: Melissa Cabral Group Account Director: Chris Mumford Account Director: Liz Toms Account Supervisor Parker Collins Account Coordinator: Carter Crenshaw Project Manager: Susan Karns
Group Talent Director: Suzanne Wieringo Production Business Manager: Amy Trenz
Production Company: Hungry Man Director: Wayne McClammy Director of Photography: Tim Ives Executive Producer, Managing Partner: Kevin Byrne Producer: Nate Young Production Supervisor: Steve Ruggieri
Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler Editor: Ian MacKenzie Editor: Dave Koza Assistant Editor: Carmen Hu Editorial Producer: Evan Meeker Director of Operations: Biz Lunskey
Visual Effects: The Mill Executive Producer: Jo Arghiris Producer: Colin Blaney Shoot Supervisor: Tony Robins 2-D Lead Artist: Randy McEntee 2-D Artists: Tony Robins, Paul Downes, Jamin Clutcher Art Support: Rob Meade 3-D Lead Artist: Kevin Ives 3-D Artists: Billy Dangyoon Jang, Olivier Varteressian, Laurent Giaume, Justin Diamond, Sean Dooley, Joshua Merck, Hassan Taimur, Wyatt Savarese, Samuel Crees, Ross Scroble
Audio Post, Sound Design: Rainmaker Studios Engineer: Jeff McManus Music: "Happier Than" theme song by Adam Schlesinger
Principal Actors in Spot: "Ronny" – Alex Harvey "Jimmy" – Timothy Cole Musical Duo in all spots
"Hump Day" "Mike" – Michael Clark "Julie" – Lindsay Stoddart "Leslie" – Leslie Tsina "Camel VO" – Chris Sulivan Voiceover announcer: Andrew Anthony
The Puma Dance Dictionary, created by Grey London to push the brand's new Sync fragrances (yes, Puma makes fragrances), allows users to select words and phrases which are then translated into dance moves by freestyle performers. These "moving" messages can be shared via social media or emailed to friends. You start with various templates and then shift a few words in and out to create sentences. The pre-set "I love women with heart," for example, can be changed to "I love women with popcorn." Or "I love guys with muscles." Or even "I love women with nuts," if you're into that. Manipulating other templates yields sentiments like "Money makes me want to get naked," "Hey bro, your face is crazy" and "Will you stroke my girlfriend?" This can be amusing, but not very, as the vocabulary is too limited. I understand the dancers could interpret only so many words, and Puma naturally wants to avoid potential hate speech or outright vulgarity. But the enterprise seems hamstrung by a lack of true interaction. The dancing on display is self-consciously goofy: "Women" is signified by hip wiggles and boob gestures, and "nuts" is communicated by pointing to one's head with accompanying eye rolls. Plus, the brand message is ill defined. Maybe Puma should've sat this one out.
This new ad for Samsung televisions is precipitating foul rumblings across the cyberverse for depicting men as gassy, unkempt, couch-bound louts. Sounds like truth in advertising to me. Especially the flatulence. The spot touts the Evolution Kit, which turns any Samsung television into a smart TV. A young wife saddled with a sorry spouse decides he needs a similar upgrade, and plugs the kits into his back. Suddenly the dude's cooking, cleaning and styling her hair with a vacuum. (Don't try that last one at home! But if you do, let me know how it works out.) The complaints generally follow this example from Reddit: "I find this advert quite sexist. The idea of an 'evolved man' is basically making him the stereotype of a woman. This isn't evolution rather than devolution. If this advert had the women being attached to some machine to make her better equipped to clean/cook/look after children/make her loving to her spouse/partner, there would be an outcry from feminists about equality." Sure, Samsung squeezed out some questionable material. But the clip is nearing 10 million YouTube views in just a week, and generating gobs of attention for the product, so I'd hardly call it a total stinker. Agency: To be determined; CHI & Partners, global agency for Samsung TVs, says it wasn't them.
Warren Buffett is helping to pitch Dairy Queen just as Kansas City, Mo.-based agency Barkley is airing its first TV ad for the chain, five months after it landed the creative account. The godfather of DQ parent Berkshire Hathaway does not appear in the spot—although a lookalike does pop up in the middle of it. (Buffett has done ads before, as you'll surely recall his cringe-worthy star turn as Axl Rose in this crazy 2010 Geico video.) The DQ voiceover explains, "Here's to our fans. The local heroes … and local legends. The next in line … and the next generation. At DQ, we don't make fast food. We make fan food." Buffett is doing his part beyond the advertising, though. On Monday night, he and DQ CEO John Gainor visited an Omaha, Neb., DQ to test the first S'Mores Blizzard of the summer.
Most brand marketers can only dream of having a superfan who organizes a global holiday dedicated to their product. And then there's Nutella. The chocolate-hazelnut spread's parent company, Italy-based Ferrero has sent a cease-and-desist letter to World Nutella Day founder and organizer Sara Rosso. This Saturday, she plans to deactivate NutellaDay.com and the 7-year-old event's social-media channels in response to the legal notice from the company. "I've seen the event grow from a few hundred food bloggers posting recipes to thousands of people tweeting about it, pinning recipes on Pinterest, and posting their own contributions on Facebook," Rosso writes in a blog post about the cease and desist. "There have been songs sung about it, short films created for it, poems written for it, recipes tested for it, and photos taken for it. The cease-and-desist letter was a bit of a surprise and a disappointment, as over the years I've had contact and positive experiences with several employees of Ferrero, SpA, and with their public relations and brand strategy consultants." So far, the parent company has not responded to several media requests for comment and clarification. Via Consumerist and Neatorama. Photo via chaojikazu.
UPDATE: Rosso emailed AdFreak to tell us there's been a resolution in the matter. As reported this afternoon in Italy, Ferrero has stopped legal action against her, saying it was "a routine procedure in defense of trademarks." The company furthermore "would like to express its sincere gratitude to Sara Rosso for her passion for Nutella, which extends gratitude to all the fans of the World Nutella Day" and considers itself "lucky to have a fan of Nutella so devoted and loyal as Sara Rosso."
Are the guys from Lonely Island trying to say that marriage and kids are shortcuts to the grave? They sure don't seem too happy to be "grown-ass" men, maybe because they're starving for sex, wiping baby bums and visiting their own funeral plots in "Diaper Money," posted below. The video, released as part of YouTube's Comedy Week, also promotes the trio's latest musical effort, The Wack Album, due June 11. Look for more promos in the coming weeks.
Just when you thought you ran out of ways to mess with Sasquatch, someone comes along with lipstick and press-on nails. And as you'd guess, Sasquatch does not care for his glam makeover. In the ongoing saga for Jack Link's beef jerky, the hirsute man-beast gets punked yet again—three times, in fact, in new TV spots from longtime agency Carmichael Lynch. He's just come out of hibernation, so his back story goes, and roams too close to civilization, where he's an easy target for public humiliation. He gets "beautified," doused with slop and hosed. Who could resist? Retaliation, which has become a hallmark and creative flourish of these ads, ensues. Those folks will never learn. More spots and credits below.
CREDITS Client: Jack Link's Agency: Carmichael Lynch Chief Creative Officer: Dave Damman Associate Creative Director, Art Director: Brad Harrison Senior Copywriters: Tim Blevins, William Bloomfield Director of Integrated Production: Joe Grundhoefer Senior Content Producer: Freddie Richards Content Producer: Tara Mulholland Director of Business Affairs: Vicki Oachs Director of Account Management: Andrew Dauska Account Director: Holly Wheeler Account Manager: Sofya Guterman Account Leader: Andrew Pautz Senior Project Manager: Elizabeth Charron
Production Company: MJZ Director: Rocky Morton Senior Executive Producer: Scott Howard Producer: Donald Taylor Director of Photography: Mattias Rudh
Editing House: HutchCo Technologies Editor: Jim Hutchins Assistant Editor: Joaquin Machado Executive Producer: Jane Hutchins
Postproduction, Special Effects: Rabbit Content Creative Director: Nick Losq Executive Producer: Joby Barnhart Producer: Lloyd Dsouza Music House: Black Iris
I'm not sure which is more disturbing—the hirsute images that adorn the Beardvertising site from Kentucky ad agency Cornett-IMS, or creative Whit Hiler's use of the work "mancessory" to describe such facial hair. You might recall Hiler from past wacky ventures such as conquering Reddit with fake fliers (including a meetup to recreate scenes from Human Centipede—"Guys only") and crafting a tourism campaign that was presumably too "kick-ass" for the Bluegrass State. Here's his latest pitch: "Do you wanna get paid for having an epic beard? Of course you do. Join the world's first Beardvertising network. Get paid. It's simple—turn your beard into a business. Just like Duck Dynasty. Hang a BeardBoard (Patent Pending) in your beard. Sit back and get paid up to $5 per day." So far, A&W Restaurants and Eagle One Automotive have slapped their messages on Beardvertising mini-billboard clips. Maybe Schick, Gillette, Old Spice and DollarShaveClub.com should join in to cut through the clutter and carve out some unique ad space.
If you can ship your pants skillfully and creatively, you have a good chance of working at Kmart's ad agency, Draftfcb. The agency said today that it has brought in a new intern in large part because of his pants-shipping abilities. Alf Zapata shipped his actual pants and résumé to Draftfcb's recruiting department. That got him an interview; his "portfolio, witty humor and enthusiasm" got him the internship, the agency says. This raises the possibility that you could get an internship at Y&R in New York simply by apologizing and then acting superior. More images below.
"Every time you get drunk, you separate yourself from the things that matter most. Like your family." That's the voiceover in this weird anti-drinking ad from Spain, aimed at young adults. The girl in the ad is seen vomiting up what is apparently her father. The sound effects are nasty, and the metaphor isn't much better. Second spot after the jump, in which a guy gets "separated" from his girlfriend—by upchucking her on a bathroom floor. Agency: Bungalow 25. Via Ads of the World.
'Tis the season for male-grooming brand extensions. Old Spice introduced its shaving gel last week. And now, Axe has updated its range of hair products for men. It's advertising them with four new 20-second ads from BBH London that have launched in Europe and will reach North America this weekend. The creative idea is that well-styled hair is crucial when you meet someone for the first time. The spots present various quirky first-meeting scenarios—the most faux-provocative of which is probably the home-invasion scenario, in which burglar seduces buglee with his perfectly slicked 'do. "We wanted to capture a simple truth about guys and their grooming habits," says David Kolbusz, deputy executive creative director at BBH. "Whenever a man sees a woman he fancies, he tends to touch up his hair before making the initial approach. We dramatized this behavior by setting it in the most extreme of circumstances." More spots and credits below.
CREDITS Client: Lynx/Axe Agency: BBH London
BBH Creative Team: Matt Fitch & Mark Lewis and Harry Orton and Robin Warman BBH Creative Director: David Kolbusz BBH Producer: Charlie Dodd BBH Strategic Business Lead: Ngaio Pardon BBH Strategy Director: Dan Hauck BBH Strategist: Tim Jones BBH Team Director: Heather Cuss BBH Team Manager: Cressida Holmes Smith
Production Company: Outsider and Station Films Director: Harold Einstein Executive Producer: Eric Liney Producer: Jon Stopp/Richard Packer DoP: Danny Cohen Post Production: The Mill Editor/Editing House: The Mill Sound: Factory
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