Hasta La Creative!

Nature Valley Canada shouts “You kids, get off my lawn!” in a curmudgeonly new ad from Cossette that contrasts the childhood memories of three generations of families.

The brand yearns for the good old days of fishin’, fort buildin’, and granola eatin’ in the great outdoors. And it argues that newfangled tablets and video games are just ruinin’ childhoods left and right, leaving parents with tears and fears for the future.

So, are they just engaging in intergenerational hate mongering here, or do they have a legit point? It probably depends on the generation you’re from, and whether you feel like you actually fit the technology stereotypes of that generation.

Boomers who’ve learned to stop worrying and love their tablets will feel just as criticized as millennials or Gen Z members who go hiking every weekend. And stuck in between are the poor parents in this video, shamed in front of Grandpa and Grandma for failing to provide a robust childhood of wilderness adventures for their technology-addicted kids.

Just watch the response this hot topic has generated as all three generations ironically fight it out in the comments section of the YouTube video. (Pro-tip for old people: Shouting down a sassy 14-year-old in the comments section of a brand page with ad hominem attacks does not make you a nature crusader.)

The tagline is, “Rediscover the joys of nature.” So, how is Nature Valley Canada helping people do that? Well, they’ve got a website that tells you where the National Parks are, gives 10 suggestions for what to do in nature, and lets you donate to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. In other words: nothing, really.

Of course, it’s possible that changing the trajectory of the entire technological revolution is beyond the abilities of a granola company’s Canadian marketing division. Which begs the question: Is it enough for a brand to stand for something, if it doesn’t actually do anything?

It would probably have been easier for the brand to champion nature and donate a ton of money to National Parks cleanup without pissing on technology at the same time. But it wouldn’t have generated nearly as many angry old people shouting, “Back in my day!”

And that truly would have been a tragedy.

Shoplifters get their comeuppance in adam&eveDDB’s latest work for Harvey Nichols, which promotes the chain’s Rewards App with the tagline, “Love freebies? Get them legally.”

The 90-second spot uses “100% genuine actual real honest footage” from security cameras in the retailer’s flagship Knightsbridge, London, store, agency executive creative director Ben Tollett tells AdFreak. “We got to sit in the Harvey Nichols CCTV control suite with all the store detectives, toggling the cameras around,” he says. “It did feel pretty cool.”

The perps are particularly brazen, pinching clothes, jewelry, perfume and more, often with patrons and staff standing close by. (The department store shouldn’t be surprised by such behavior. Its best-known campaign urges folks to drop by and selfishly pick up stuff for themselves—though payment was strongly suggested.)

For the new commercial, the crooks’ faces are obscured by emoji-like “robber” animations, complete with black masks and, in one case, a knitted ski-cap with slits for the eyes and mouth. Created by the Layzell Brothers at Blink, these effects give the spot an oddly memorable creepy/cheeky vibe.

Ultimately, it doesn’t end well for the baddies. “Don’t bother shoplifting in Harvey Nichols,” warns Tollett. “The only free thing you’ll get is a day trip to the local police station.”

True enough. Knocking over a Reserva store in the dead of night is a better bet.

Coming up with fun ad ideas for a show like Dating Naked isn’t exactly Pluto-level rocket science. You think of fun things naked people can do besides dating, and you film them doing it. Then you blur their privates and watch the YouTube count rise.

Last year, VH1 got Los Angeles agency Mistress to make a Dating Naked ad with people dancing naked. Now, agency and client have followed that up with an ad showing people jumping naked. The twist: It was filmed in super slow motion at 1,000 frames per second.

Check out the spot below, which the agency describes as “a graphic visualization of the insight that it is all about our true selves, finding true love—without all the bullshit.”

CREDITS
Client: VH1
Agency: Mistress
Production Company: Bastard
Director: Bob Hope
Editorial: Bastard
Editors: Kyle Stebbins and Ian Kalmbaugh
VFX: Kyle Stebbins
Sound Design: Lime Studios
Engineer: Sam Casas
Partner/CD: Damien
Art Director: Rachel Guest
Copywriter: Celine Faledam
Producer: Kay Lynn Dutcher
Brand Director: Tor Edwards
Brand Manager: Kylie Wu
Project Manager: Alex Clewell 

Volkswagen wants you to feel like a kid again.

A new campaign from the automaker and agency Deutsch LA cleverly invites you to create your own virtual test drive of a Golf R—by making car noises into your computer.

“Unleash Your Rrr” lets you record video of yourself imitating revving engines and squealing breaks—then analyzes the audio to string together clips into a personalized video of the VW model in action, racing down a track or drifting through turns.

Professional driver Tanner Foust performed the stunts, and also stars in one of two excellent teaser vids—in which he delivers some killer sounds, and perfectly sums up the experience at the end, with a slightly horrified, “Good God.” While his facial contortions are nothing to sneeze at, actor Michael Winslow (aka, the Man of 10,000 Sound Effects) blows Foust out of the water with priceless looks and bottomless panache.

In short, it’s an exceptionally fun and simple idea. Head over to rrr.vw.com for some more samples, or to create your own—so long as you’re willing to forever and completely grant VW rights to the footage of you puckering up while you say “Vroom.”

For the past two weeks, metro and subway riders throughout Western Europe looked up from their phones to find enormous close-up posters of toddlers whose expressions can only be described with words the Bible used for newbies to hell: There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth. These images are explained with little more than a hashtag: #MakeAChildCry.

Created by DDB Paris for Doctors of the World, the campaign aims to raise funds for pediatric medical supplies for developing countries. Over 4 million kids a year die of diseases that could be avoided. The creative stems from a simple truth that many parents cringe to consider: Sometimes inducing your child to tears is proof of love.

In phase two, follow-up ads will pull away from the children’s faces to reveal more context (like a needle closing in), coupled with the words: “Make a child cry. Save his/her life.”

We’re on board with the idea that proper parenting is not about tiptoeing around pain or fear; sometimes it’s about facing it head-on for a long-term benefit that children can’t immediately understand.

The teaser phase, which has lasted two weeks so far, is uncondescending and simple: To understand what it’s all about, surprised commuters must remember the hashtag and look it up. It’s like a call to research before raging—an idea that’s especially compelling in the context of the anti-vaxxers movement (which has now crossed the Atlantic! Good job, celebrities!).

Whatever side of that conversation you’re on, this subject is so sensitive that many people will scream out of their necks without considering, or researching, what those other, crazy parents are trying to say. (It turns out many anti-vaxxers are middle-class professionals who don’t consider themselves anti-science. They think vaccinations should be researched more closely before being fast-tracked into the mainstream—which is a fair point, especially if you scaled it beyond pediatric medicine to, say, TSA body-scans. I’ll also seize the moment to say I’m pro-vaccination, was thrilled to never have rubella or polio, and practically peed myself with glee when I heard chicken pox was finally avoidable.

You can find the #MakeAChildCry campaign in Germany, Argentina, Canada, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and the U.K.. It’s supported by TV, print and outdoor.
 

 

Anyone else seen this vaccinatio campaign in the metro ? Kinda funny #makeachildcry #imevil

A photo posted by Roxanne Varza (@rvarza) on Jul 7, 2015 at 2:50am PDT

 
CREDITS
Client: Doctors of the World
Account Directors: Luc Evrard, Alexandre Jalbert, Justine Roche
Agency: DDB Paris
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Kalchev
Creatives: Gautier Fage, Sébastien Henras, Julien Bon, Benoit Oulhen
TV Producer & Achat d’Art: Marine Rolland
Sound: Studio 5
Digital Producer: Alice Kraft
Account Management: Matthieu de Lesseux, Marine Hakim, Sophie Colus
PR: Anne-Marie Gibert
Director – Photograph: Achim Lippoth
Production: Magali Films

Beautiful design is at the heart of the Squarespace brand, and so its ads must have a high aesthetic value as well. For this latest round, the website maker again calls on ad agency SpecialGuest, which this time showed up with a Phantom Flex4K camera and a plan to really slow things down.

The result is three new spots, directed by 1stAveMachine’s 1stAveMachine, that capture objects from real customers’ businesses in super slow motion—as they ultimately land as beautiful still images on Squarespace pages.

The tagline is, “Build It Beautiful.”

The selected Squarespace customers worked with SpecialGuest and the client team to show how the platform allowed them to create state-of-the-art online identities—presented here with what the brand called “the aesthetic purity of motion.”

“The campaign is a truly collaborative effort, working with these businesses to properly convey the passion and energy behind the Squarespace community,” says SpecialGuest creative director Aaron Duffy. “That’s part of what makes Squarespace great, both as a creative partner and as a platform: ultimately Squarespace is about more than just building websites. It’s also about helping to support and empower its community.”

As the moving images resolve to static ones on the website, a voice says, “Isn’t it beautiful when things just come together?”—in which ad watchers will surely hear an echo of the famous Honda “Cog” spot, which used the line, “Isn’t it nice when things just work?”

More spots and credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Squarespace
David Lee: Chief Creative Officer
Ness Higson: Creative Director
Jenn Grossman: Creative Partnerships
Donovan Mafnas: Designer
Luis Gonzalez: Designer
Michelle Liv: Designer

Creative Partner: SpecialGuest

Partner/ECD: Aaron Duffy
Business Director: Ashley McGee
Creative Director: Jonathan Emmerling
Producer: Barry Gilbert
Sr. Art Director: Morgan Harary
Jr. Art Director: Eddy Choi
Creative Development: Chloe Corner

Production Co: 1stAveMachine

Partner/Executive Producer: Sam Penfield
Director: Tim Brown
Head of Production: Lisanne McDonald
Visual Effects Supervisor: John Loughlin
Line Producer: Alec Sash
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Still Photographer: Dylan Griffin
Production Designer: Clement Price-Thomas
Editors: Karl Amdal, Jonathan Vitagliano
Compositors:  Michael Glen, Joseph Pistono, Gerald Mark Soto

Color Grading: Seth Ricart @Ricart & Co
Sound Design: Joseph Fraioli
Music Supervision: Brienne Rose @ NoiseRacket
Audio Mix: Gramercy Post
Music Composition: Apothecary: Sofia Hultquist / Greater Goods: M. Colton / Yield: Adam Arcuragi + Jonny Diina

“Everything’s changed, but nothing’s changed.” With this perfect summary, Mark Hamill introduces the new short film going behind the scenes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

For longtime fans who’ve remained skeptical of the upcoming sequel, the clip will likely do exactly what it was intended to do: reinvigorate their passion and childlike enthusiasm for the series. The video debuted Friday at San Diego Comic-Con, where some attendees were likely hoping for a new trailer but instead were treated to something even more fulfilling.

Most of the focus is on the film’s practical effects and meticulously constructed set pieces, with which J.J. Abrams brings a tactile realism to the film in a way that George Lucas’ 1990s prequels were noticeably lacking.

After checking out the clip, you’re sure to wish you could run out and watch the movie tomorrow, but you’ll also probably wish you could have been there on set to be part of something that was clearly special for everyone involved.

Here’s a fun stunt. To promote tourism, the rural Swiss region of Graubünden got an affable grey-bearded man to yell in real-time from a digital screen to passersby in Zurich’s main train station—trying to lure them with sweet yodeling and a free ticket to an impromptu vacation in a pastoral mountain town.

The take-it-now-or-leave-it twist is basically a local version of Heineken’s Departure Roullette campaign from a couple years back, which offered travelers already at the JFK airport a vacation to a unknown exotic location if they agreed to drop their existing plans.

Still, the Swiss video is a clever enough use of media, with the live dynamic playing on the expectation that the billboard will be comparatively static (in other words, it’s also another take on the intelligent vending machine). Plus, the invitation for an afternoon snack is pretty tempting, and the pitchman gets points for enthusiasm—he even goes so far as to offer to speak with one prospect’s boss, and actually dials another’s school to inform them the kid will be missing a day.

Then again, at the moment he actually starts greeting and shaking hands with guests, it suddenly looks an awful lot like the whole thing is green-screened. The trip from Zurich to Vrin is about 2 hours and 45 minutes by rail, according to Google Maps. So, it’s pretty suspicious that there’s no footage of the actual magical train that whisked people there—or their super fun adventures along the way (assuming Swiss train rides feature dining cars and high-speed wifi).

In fact, it doesn’t even seem like the brand and agency Jung Von Matt (which did a high-profile Facebook stunt for the Graubünden area back in 2011) even bothered to try to make it particularly convincing. For logistical reasons alone, it’s probable that they hired actors to play commuters, and shot the rest in a studio somewhere.

No matter, though, the major point holds. “Get away from the city and head to a relaxed mountain village,” reads the tagline. “[Or maybe just a computerized facsimile of one].”

Like any good marketer, Pornhub is getting into product innovation with a new app-powered, virtual-reality sex toy that the video streaming site says will “provide the ultimate experience in interactive cyber passion.”

It’s called the TwerkingButt™. Created with adult novelty manufacturer Topco Sales, it features “multiple twerking patterns, customizable rhythms, massage speeds, sensual vibrations and simulated body heat, which can all be custom controlled with the included remote or via your smart phone/tablet (Android or iOS),” Pornhub says.

It includes virtual reality goggles and 3-D content, and the app controls everything from motion to music. (You can sync the device’s movements to your playlist, for example.) It also has patented “CyberSkin” technology, which warms to a body temperature of 98.6 degrees, while “providing ideal levels of friction, elasticity and softness that’s as near to the human sexual experience as possible,” says the brand.

If that sounds scientific, the commercial for the thing is much more (sorry) tongue-in-cheek, featuring the kind of lighthearted, absurdist comedy for which the world’s most mainstream porn brand has become known.

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“We can barely contain our excitement for the new TwerkingButt,” says Corey Price, vice president of Pornhub. “I think we can honestly say that the release of our new product will mark a new benchmark in the convergence of emerging technology and immersive pleasure to deliver one of the most lifelike sexual simulation experiences on the market today.”

It will put a dent in your wallet, though. When it hits retail shelves in August, it will cost $699 for the regular version and $999 for the deluxe.

Oh, and it has kind of a cute logo:

Jane swing through jungle on vine. Where Tarzan?

Jane Lynch, so awesome as the cheerleading coach on Glee, wrote and stars in a new series of ads for Vita Coco coconut water. “Stupidly simple” is the tagline, and that pretty much describes her shenanigans in the campaign.

Along with vining on a cheesy rainforest set, Lynch tries to sneak coconuts through airport security (she really milks it), disrupts a marathon (guess why the runners stumble) and takes the stand at a trial (how she escapes the death penalty for perpetrating such silliness, I’ll never know). In the best bit, she struggles to fit a coconut in her car’s clearly inadequate cup holder. (C’mon, just one more try should do it…)

Oh, and some Hawaiian-shirted dude named Eduardo keeps handing Lynch sippy-boxes of Vita Coco. At one point, he brandishes a machete, and in the cup-holder spot, pops up in the back seat of her car. (Run, Jane, run!)

Cannes won’t be calling, but Lynch’s self-aware, deadpan approach is spot on, and the ads are, perhaps, just different enough to break through.

The only thing missing is a coconut slushie to the face. Add that to your playbook for next time, coach!