From price gouging to tax evasion, the pharmaceutical industry has made some pretty hefty missteps in recent history, leaving many Americans with a bad taste in their mouths—one that can’t be washed down with a tall glass of water.
So, drug maker Pfizer has set out to repair the industry’s crumbling reputation, without even naming a single product.
Jonathan Goldsmith’s Most Interesting Man in the World might have said adios (and flown off to Mars), but Dos Equis is hardly finished with its “Most Interesting” theme.
As if self-checkout and bagging our own groceries at the supermarket weren’t humiliating enough, now we’re expected to harvest our own vegetables in the produce section!
Supermarket chain Zona Sul recently transformed shelves at its Rio de Janeiro-based flagship store into vegetable gardens, encouraging customers to dig into the soil to pick lettuce, basil, peppers and scallions.
“We mainly wanted to reach Zona Sul customers who shop for vegetables in other locations, such as street markets or vegetable-specific stores,” Fábio Onofre, creative director at agency WMcCann Rio, tells AdFreak. “Those are the customers that still think they can find fresher food elsewhere. This way, we could truly show them that at Zona Sul, everything is really, really fresh.”
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Absolut Vodka’s #AbsolutNights campaign centers on archetypes that don’t get much attention in traditional advertising—including a widow, a woman attracted to other women and now a transgender person.
Most people don’t like running. That’s OK. We can’t all be masochists, pining to destroy our knees before their time. But to incentivize would-be runners, sneaker brand Kalenji found a motivating carrot on a stick—a lush dinner, paid for in miles.
Organized by Paris agency Rosapark, the #EatYourRun campaign promoted a new collection of Eliorun shoes by sending spankin’ new pairs to journalists (including me) and inviting us to hit the dirt. A few weeks later, on May 24, they organized a dinner at the Bistro Paul Bert—known for its epic gastronomy—at which we could exchange our clocked miles (well, kilometers, since this is France) for ultra-fancy food.
The news is like the ocean. On the surface, everything might seem pretty, but the further down you go, the worse things look.
That, at least, is the metaphor behind a new ad from Veja, a popular right-leaning (if not right-wing) Brazilian magazine that featured President Obama as Che Guevara on its cover in 2014.
Imagine if you could explore Europe’s greatest cities without having to constantly look down at your phone to make sure you’re on course to your next destination.
U.K.-based regional airline easyJet is trying to solve that problem, at least in theory, with a new pair of internet-connected sneakers that signal to wearers when to turn left or right by vibrating underneath the respective foot. This way, sightseers’ heads can stay up, taking in the surroundings while they walk, without losing their way.
You thought Havas Worldwide’s giant mic drop was the end of the agency #postitwars down on Canal Street. But Getty Images and New York magazine picked up the mic and had the fat lady sing on the (probably not) final installation of #canalnotes.
Ahead of Father’s Day, Young & Rubicam Mexico launches a spot for the Special Olympics that follows an expectant dad in a frenzy of anticipation over an upcoming blessed event—the birth of his son.
“When I found out you were coming, it was the happiest day of my life,” the voiceover begins. “A boy. A boy that would love football as much as I did. I waited nine long months, and then you were born. And you gave me the most unexpected surprise.”
If you dig into the history of the cell phone, you’ll find that from roughly 2004 to 2006, the Moto Razr was king—this was after the Samsung Sidekick but before the launch of Apple’s iPhone. So it makes sense then that when it comes to marketing for the potential re-release of that very phone, the campaign would be steeped in mid-aughts nostalgia.
Every few months, a racially offensive advertisement emerges from Asia and makes the rounds in America, to howls of disgust. It’s happened again this week, as a Chinese laundry detergent brand called Qiaobi released a spot—airing on TV and in cinemas, according to Shanghaiist—in which a black man gets shoved in a washing machine and comes out looking … quite different.
Sick of your significant other skipping ahead and watching your favorite streaming shows without you? Lock them into a faithful TV-viewing relationship with a high-tech pair of series commitment rings, thanks to U.K. ice cream brand Cornetto.
The marketer, which tends to advertise around themes of teen love, created special rings that connect to streaming apps, and use near field communications to block access to TV shows you both watch unless your partner is nearby—thus putting an end to sneaking around with services like Netflix while feigning fidelity.
Tragically, the youngsters in this yearbook will never graduate from high school. In fact, they’ll never grow up at all to reach their potential, or experience the fullness of life. And that’s because each one was a victim of gun violence.
Can discordant screaming sell ice cream?
Snickers sure hopes so, because that’s the angle it’s going with this new spot for Snickers ice cream bars. Playing on the “I scream, you scream” rhyme, the ad shows a mom and son, a crab, a tattooed bodybuilder, his tattoo and the boardwalk caricature of a married couple all screaming at one of those ice cream trolleys you see around the beach.
Time was, McDonald’s put toys in their Happy Meals to promote movies. Now they just dye their burgers, we guess. McDonald’s China is making chicken and pork sandwiches with special red and green buns in advance of the Angry Birds Movie, and they’re hardly a welcoming sight.
Fashion futurists, rejoice! Google and Levi’s first smart garment has arrived, and it’s a jean jacket that connects to your smartphone.
The tech giant’s Project Jacquard, focused on developing touch-sensitive fabrics, has been publicly working with the storied denim brand for a year now. The concept video for their launch product, Levi’s Commuter x Jacquard, slated for beta this fall and to hit shelves more widely in 2017, promises variations on largely familiar functions.
Snickers has dreamed up one of the cooler online/offline advertising-meets-point-of-sale hybrid campaigns of the year, introducing a “Hungerithm” that gauges the mood of the Internet and adjusts the price of its candy bars in 7-Eleven stores accordingly, in real time.
The angrier the Internet, the cheaper the candy—to make everyone a bit happier.
In Thailand, 80 percent of people killed in road accidents are riding motorcycles. Now, one agency hopes its new invention could literally mean the difference between life and death.
The “Helpmet” was designed by BBDO Bangkok for the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (the same partnership that recently came up with the fat-reducing AbsorbPlate) to help address Thailand’s staggeringly high rate of motorcycle fatalities—the second highest in the world.
Google France has built an escape room to seamlessly unite online and offline worlds.
Created by We Are Social, Première Pièce will open at an undisclosed location in the heart of Paris. The campaign builds on the escape room trend, in which you and a bunch of friends pay to get locked in a room for an hour or two, left to solve puzzles and work in collaboration to find a way out. Last month, the Toronto Film Festival built an escape room that lives on Instagram. (Google’s is a physical room, but uses virtual tools as a central conceit.)
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