It’s been almost three years since the infamous racist backlash to the Cheerios commercial with the interracial family, and brands are still getting heat when they broadcast images of diversity. But these days, the brands always seem ready for the haters—and as often as not, they use their vitriol against them.
Virtual reality still has a lot to prove. And today it takes a big step toward demonstrating its potential everyday usefulness with a cool Samsung campaign that simulates one of the most intimate family traditions—the parent-child bedtime story.
With help from BBH London, Samsung Electronics has launched a live VR storytelling app called Bedtime VR Stories, which is designed to have a parent and child read together inside a VR world when they can’t be physically together. They each wear VR headsets and can talk to each other—and see a version of each other—inside the world as they read together. (The app uses a combination of VR and Voice over Internet Protocol—or VoIP—technology.”
Bedtime VR Stories launches with a single tale, titled “The Most Wonderful Place to Be.” Parent and child sit on a magical bed during the five-minute experience and visit three places—the Arctic, where they meet Jen the Penguin; a prehistoric world featuring Dan the Dinosaur; and outer space, where Robot Jo treats them to a musical finale.
First dates can be awkward, but this night-out scenario, created by agency DLV BBDO Milan for a charity in Portugal, might just leave you in tears.
In a darkened restaurant, with a folksy version of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” playing softly, a woman tells her male dinner companion all about her life. “My house is just two blocks away,” she says casually. “I live there with my two cats, and Bat, the dog.”
She continues, “He’s called that because he’s all black with pointy ears … Oh, and I’m a good dancer. When I was younger, I used to spend all my time dancing in my room on tiptoes. Shall we dance?”
Watch the minute-long clip below before reading further:
Canada’s climate includes harsh terrain and gnarly winters—which is why its athletes are so hardcore, says a new ad for the nation’s Olympics team.
The Canadian Olympic Committee and agency Cossette created the campaign, titled “Ice in Our Veins,” for this year’s Summer Games in Brazil. The :60 centerpiece commercial immediately draws a distinction between the frozen landscape onscreen, and Rio de Janeiro, the famous beach town where the 2016 competition will be held in August.
Playing on the double-sticked nature of the product, Twix in the Nordics pulled a modern—and more discomfiting—version of Doublemint’s “Double Your Pleasure.”
Patchwork Group in Denmark helped prep the campaign, which will run in all Nordic nations. In the video, unsuspecting café patrons sit down at a table and immediately start to notice something slightly off.
They are surrounded by various sets of twins.
Since the dawn of time, humans have been confounded by cats, those mystifyingly aloof creatures whose inner thoughts are famously inscrutable. But no longer! Temptations Cat Treats has invented a cat collar that lets your feline speak in a human voice—so you can finally understand (though probably not) exactly what she is trying to tell you.
The Temptations Catterbox, created by London ad agency adam&eveDDB, contains a microphone, speaker, Bluetooth technology and wifi. It captures the cat’s meows and translates them into human speech—words that may or may not actually be what they’re trying to say.
The Catterbox is the work of the new Temptations Lab, a scientific-sounding “research workstream dedicated to the future of fun times with your cat,” according to the Mars brand. It is 3-D printed, coated in rubber lacquer for the cat’s comfort and comes in four colors.
“You want lasagna for dinner?/Ricotta’s a winner/I’m thinking’ bout a little pasta with some sauce in the center.”
Speed rapper Mac Lethal busts out those lines and a whole lot more in this hidden-camera stunt from ad agency SuperHeroes touting the extended battery life of Asus’ Zenfone Max Android handset. (It lasts 38 days on a single charge, they claim!)
Allergy season is here, which means it’s time for a fun song about snot and sucky genes!
Set to Justin Bieber’s hit “Sorry,” pop-song parody artists Laughing Moms—aka Alisha Found Eden—croon about wheezing, antihistamines and hives, while apologizing to their kids for passing along the miserable immune response.
We’re not in “Like a Girl” territory anymore.
As one Adweek editor thoughtfully put it this week, “Female strength is the new female empowerment.” And while Always’ charming campaign may have begun that conversation, far more powerful elaborations on that message have appeared since, each improving on its predecessor in nuance, style and complexity. (Come on. Are you really going to say you weren’t blown away by Lemonade?)
This powerful new film from U.K. department store Selfridges, created in-house to promote its new Body Studio—as well as the fascinating variety of underpants from the shoot—hinges on the notion that contemporary women’s underwear is made with the male gaze in mind. (To wit: Victoria’s Secret’s big secret? It was founded by a dude.)
And in a step toward releasing women from the nonstop bullshit party they submit to from gendered birth onward, that’s something we can change right now, beginning with the brands pushing the panties.
“It makes great cocktail napkins, bookmarks, facial tissues. But you know what’s best to do with it!” Yes, Durham, N.C., agency McKinney knows where its home state’s controversial House Bill 2 belongs—in the toilet.
The Charlotte City Council passed a nondiscrimination ordinance in February that included a rule allowing transgender people to use public restrooms assigned to the gender with which they identify. Furious opposition groups supported by Gov. Pat McCrory then ran ads arguing that the ordinance would make it easier for male sexual predators to get closer to victims by posing as women.
The state legislature later called a special session to pass “HB2,” which requires all North Carolina residents to use the public restrooms associated with their birth gender. The move has enraged civil liberties groups nationwide, and North Carolina has been the focus of plenty of backlash over HB2.
McKinney proposes a solution to the HB2 problem: Flush it. And they mean this quite literally, as you’ll see in the video below.
Yeah, they hit that. Want to hear the deets?
Some swaggering cartoon pandas sing a slightly more animalistic version of Lonely Island’s viral blockbuster “I Just Had Sex” in a new campaign about endangered wildlife. Those bears aren’t looking for back slaps just because they got lucky, though. They’re propagating the species. So it’s OK if they tell the world about their adventures in shagging, even if they admit their partner ate bamboo the whole time. (Doesn’t matter, had sex!)
Livestreaming brand stunts are getting more and more popular—one of our recent favorites being the Waitrose campaign from the U.K. that showed live feeds from the grocery chain’s farms. Here’s a more gimmicky one from Portugal that tries to combine livestreaming with GIFs—or rather, a live-action imitation of GIFs.
With less than 100 days to go before the Rio Olympics, Lacoste builds on its “Life is a beautiful sport” campaign with a chic new video called “Support with Style.”
Created by BETC and its music subsidiary BETC Pop, “Support with Style” follows a troupe of “beautiful supporters” through Paris, whose landscape has been transformed into an eerily empty (and clean!) playground for Rio 2016 stadium seats.
The clip reinforces Lacoste’s relationship with the French National Olympic Committee (CNOSF), for whom it will outfit all French Olympic teams. The partnership was born in 2013, and will conclude this year (barring an extension of the contract).
The latest installment of MTV’s “Look Different” anti-bias campaign looks a whole lot different than last month’s showing, an over-the-top, multichannel satire about a Geek Squad-style team of uber-white corporate consultants eager to help people of color hail cabs, rent apartments and handle courtroom appearances.
Now, fresh PSAs and digital assets tackle gender bias in starker, more straightforward terms. They invite viewers to consider the unintended consequences of various preconceptions and misconceptions that may, to some people, appear benign, but can actually cause a great deal of harm.
In series of 30-second ads, phrases in blue flash across a canary-yellow screen. They include: “This is a man’s job,” “She’ll hook up with anyone,” “You’d look prettier if you smiled,” “She’s built like a man,” and “Boys don’t cry.”
We’ve all heard, and probably even used, at least some of this language in casual conversation. In that context, the biased nature of the words can easily be ignored or, at times, not even register. But strung together over a half-minute ad with no storyline, splashy visuals and special effects as distractions, the cumulative effect hits home.
MTV has also beefed up its online tools, adding an “Implicit Bias Quiz.” The quiz was designed with Harvard’s Project Implicit and features images of Emma Watson, Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling and others. At first, the test seems ridiculously simple, but it took about 20 seconds for my own bias to seep through. There’s also a “Gender Bias Cleanse,” developed with the Kirwan Institute, that suggests activities like setting nonstereotypical images as screensavers.
“The majority of millennials are aware of gender bias throughout society,” explains MTV public affairs chief Ronnie Cho. “But many do not recognize how pervasive and insidious it truly is and need support in identifying ways to tackle it.”
(A new national study touted by MTV found that three-quarters of young people believe openly discussing gender bias would be helpful, but only one-quarter know where to turn for information about the subject or tools to help them deal with such issues.)
This new initiative makes inroads by prompting viewers to contemplate their own biases and consider the cues that perpetuate stereotypes and allow prejudice to fester. After all, self-awareness is the first step on the road to enlightenment. Here, the network challenges viewers to take that journey without seeming heavy-handed or judgmental.
For something proposed as a peace offering, this McWhopper idea from Burger King sure seems to be escalating the burger wars.
Last night, Denny’s blitzed its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts with the proposal to partner with Burger King on creating “a Slampper© or a Whammper© or a Whoppaslamus-rex© or something.”
The diner chain is volunteering as tribute in these hunger games to take the place of McDonald’s, which meekishly declined Burger King’s invitation this week to create a McWhopper in honor of Peace Day.
hey @burgerking how about a Slampper© or a Whammper© or a Whoppaslamus-rex© or something? pic.twitter.com/zWHXfgIPYV
— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) August 27, 2015
(As of this morning, Burger King hadn’t responded, but you can bet the socially irrepressible chain has something in the works.)
As we at AdFreak discovered by assembling our own McWhopper, the not-so-subtle goal of Burger King’s proposal likely was to show how much larger and generally dominant the Whopper is when paired alongside a Big Mac.
Denny’s seems to be supplanting that strategy by offering to put its even beefier burgers into the mix, potentially dwarfing the Whopper’s flavor profile. Denny’s fans, like this one on Facebook, don’t seem to think they’d get much out of the deal: “C’mon Denny’s… don’t stoop to their level. Ever since you changed your burgers a couple of years ago, Denny’s is light years ahead of any of the junk Burger King or McDonald’s sells!”
PS: Boss, please don’t make me go create and try this myself. I promised my kids I’d live to see them graduate middle school.
Sometimes an ad idea just doesn’t get the reach it deserves, and this is certainly one of those times.
Polish agency The Digitals created a little-seen banner/pop-up ad last year that asked site visitors, “Do you want to dissolve the government?” Hovering over the response button would then lock the user’s cursor into the ad, which displays the message, “In Belarus, you would go to prison for that.”
The ad then released the cursor and asked the viewer to sign a petition to similarly release human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, who eventually walked free last summer.
Amnesty from The Digitals Sp. z o.o. on Vimeo.
(For the technically minded among you, Amnesty’s case study explains, “We used two formats: double billboard [750 px by 200 px] and a transparent top layer, which runs it when you hover over the banner, hiding the cursor when outside.)
Despite the limited scope of the ad, its click-through rate was impressive.
“It was kind of an experiment,” Micha? Kobierzewski, creative director for The Digitals, told the Epica Awards. “We only got about 450 impressions, but out of those, 50 people signed a petition.”
Kobierzewski will be a juror in the international award show, which is currently accepting entries.
This is the soundtrack of our dry-weather lives in Southern California: TLC’s “Waterfalls,” Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” and about 100 more H2O-themed ditties playing on an endless loop. That should remind us to take shorter showers and stop washing the cars at home. Or just make us very, very thirsty.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has launched a Pandora channel of carefully selected songs as part of an ongoing $5.5 million ad campaign to boost water conservation and recycling. The music is supposed to help keep conservation top of mind in the wake of mandated statewide water reductions. It can also be used as a 5-minute shower timer.
Cue the playlist and start scrubbing up to the Phil Collins tune, “I Wish It Would Rain Down”, for instance. By the time it’s finished, those of us living in Los Angeles and surrounding areas should already be toweling off.
The Water Lover’s Station, also available on the Pandora app, has curated everything from classics like Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and, Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California,” to contemporary pop hit “Set Fire to the Rain” from Adele.
Up next: another music-streaming playlist on Spanish-language service Uforia. Also, frequent bathroom breaks for listeners.
Dark chocolate? Yuck.
That’s the verdict of the kids who try the confection for the first time in this exceptionally cute, straightforward, and effective Israeli spot for Strauss Group’s Splendid brand.
The youngsters’ reactions are priceless. Heck, the moppet’s eye-roll at the 20-second mark almost made my head explode.
BBR Saatchi & Saatchi created the ad. “Most Israeli moms actually keep a full drawer stocked with goodies, which by the end of the week is bound to need serous refurbishing,” says agency rep Eva Hasson. “But curiously, often enough, the only pack left half eaten in the drawer is the dark chocolate. This got us thinking, and we realized Splendid chocolate—being as dark and bitter a chocolate as you can get—probably lacked the sweetness kids were after.”
While the grown-up treat may offend immature palates, we’re assured at the spot’s conclusion that the candy will sweeten adult dispositions. (The effect on adult waistlines, however, may not be to everyone’s taste.)
“We filmed quite a few kids,” Hasson says, “but, to be honest, none of the kids really liked it. Most of them begged us to stop and one even cried.”
The results may not be scientific—on repeat viewing, the reactions could easily look put-on. Nonetheless, BBR has excelled at whipping up spots that depend on facial responses as key components. Its work for Super-Pharm’s Wet Brush, with school-age girls guessing if mom or dad is brushing their hair, exudes pouty cuteness. And a poignant film for that client’s razor blades—gauging the reactions of family and friends to a 44-year-old man who shaves off his thick beard after 14 years—makes a bald-faced emotional appeal.
Of course, another office in the Saatchi network is well known for delivering its own prize-winning display of artistic expression—right into a pair of Pampers.
Here’s an unusual way to sell a consumer audio product: Stick a microphone inside an active beehive.
In this three-minute (headphones recommended) ad for Bowers & Wilkins, sound recordist Sam Nightingale captures audio of bees at work, and then plays it back to them through the brand’s T7 Bluetooth speaker, which features a honeycomb trim, to see how they respond.
Since bees communicate through sound and movement, the video suggests, this is a pretty good test of the speaker’s overall fidelity.
The first in a series of “field experiments” from Bowers and Wilkins, it’s beautifully shot—filmed by production company Shuffle Media at Stone Corner Farm, in Kent England. It’s also pretty nicely told, barring the inclusion of an Einstein quote that’s apocryphal at best.
And while the trick seems to work on the insects, it’s hard not to wonder if talking to—and about—bees is the best way to sell a speaker to humans.
As a wise Jeff Goldblum once put it, we were so busy wondering if we could, we didn’t ask if we should.
Well I’m here to tell you: No. No we should not.
Burger King deserves credit for its masterful PR move this morning of running full-page newspaper ads offering to partner with mega-rival McDonald’s on a McWhopper, created in celebration of Peace Day.
This beefy olive branch was described as “the tastiest bits of your Big Mac and our Whopper, united in one delicious, peace-loving burger.”
Sadly, the world will never know what such a combination might have looked or tasted like, because McDonald’s quickly declined the invitation.
But it was too late for those of us at Adweek, who were already obsessing over this mythological beast of a burger.
As for me, I’m a man of action. So I texted an accomplice, drove to Burger King and then headed across the street to McDonald’s. Bags in hand, we settled in at a nearby park and commenced with our foray into forbidden science.
Part 1: What we bought
For fairness, I matched up the Big Mac with the Double Whopper with Cheese. We got two of each, along with some Chicken Fries and McDonald’s fries, which are normally the only things I’d buy at either chain.
Finally, we were ready to unite them in body and spirit.
Part 2: How we assembled the meaty manticores
Here’s the challenge I put to myself and my laudably accommodating friend, Tanya:
“It’s like when two people in their 30s get married. They both have a lot of stuff, so you have to decide what gets kept and what gets tossed when they move in together. So what survives the Big Mac-Whopper marriage?”
My version:
Top bun: Whopper
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: Big Mac
Bottom meat: Whopper
Bonus meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Whopper
Tanya’s Version:
Top bun: Big Mac
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: The top bun from a Whopper
Bottom meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Big Mac
Part 3: How they tasted
Mine: Like way too much low-grade beef. Admittedly, I included a combined total of three patties, so the meat-to-not-meat ratio was regrettable. Also, with so much mayo slathered on the Whopper bun and special sauce on the Big Mac components, the texture was rather disturbingly … creamy. I ate half of it and then it basically just disintegrated into primordial muck.
Tanya’s: “The first thing you taste is the Whopper. The Whopper’s larger, and has more of a distinct taste regardless. No matter what, you just taste The Whopper.” So there you go, the McWhopper is basically just an overly expensive and logistically challenging-to-assemble Whopper.
Part 4: Our recommendation for those trying this at home
Well, for one: Don’t.
Nothing about this experiment felt worthwhile, other than the fact it was a good excuse to catch up with a friend on a lovely late-summer day. If the weather is crappy and you hate being around other people, I certainly don’t recommend trying this.
But if you must, we recommend Tanya’s approach:
Top bun: Big Mac
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: Whopper top bun
Bottom meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Big Mac
Part 5: Bonus creation – Chick ‘n’ Fries
Now this was a mashup we could get behind:
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