Hasta La Creative!

Finlandia is gunning hard for the title of most inspirational vodka commercial ever.

A new two-and-half-minute ad, “1,000 years of less ordinary wisdom,” features offbeat heroes like a drag wrestler and reindeer racer offering tips on how to make it in the world, like “Be nobody’s bitch but your own” and “You’re only as fast as your reindeer.” In other words, a lot of the advice is, in spirit, not really that different from standard motivational fare, even if it comes from unusual sources and their unconventional contexts (though fashion icon Iris Apfel is not exactly out of the spotlight these days).

As for the title, the 1,000 years refers to the sum of the ages of the people in the commercial. A number of them are long in the tooth, which is cool, because listening to one’s elders is generally a good thing—they’re often less boring and clueless than young people. But the spot also makes sure to feature more sprightly accomplished types, too, like a prima ballerina and volcanic scientist (because it can’t really exclude representing the money demo, too).

Created by Wieden + Kennedy London, the spot relies heavily on a driving (mostly) instrumental version of the song “Undeniable,” by Donnie Daydream featuring Richie Sosa. That strings together the disparate footage from director Siri Bunford (though it might be worth mentioning that Adidas also just used the record as a soundtrack for its own sports-themed montage-qua-anthem).

Game of Thrones fans might enjoy that, as Fast Company notes, the strong man—Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson—is also a actor on the show. (He’s the latest in a string to play “The Mountain” Gregor Clegane, largely absent this season but for the occasional twitch from under a blanket on a laboratory table, the pseudo-zombie experiment of some sinister wizard. P.S.: If that’s where drinking Finlandia leads, no thanks.)

In all seriousness, though, the concept is pretty moving—a nice snapshot of various walks of life, with some clever and charming moments. Overall, it might even be convincing, except what drinking vodka really makes people want to do is drink more vodka and then pass out hard and sleep in the next day—not a great way to tear through that bucket list.

CREDITS
Client: Finlandia
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy London
Creative directors: Scott Dungate, Graeme Douglas
Copywriter: Paddy Treacy
Art director: Mark Shanley
Executive creative directors: Tony Davidson, Iain Tait
Executive producer: Danielle Stewart
Group account director: Paulo Salomao
Account director: Matt Owen
Account manager: Sophie Lake
Head of planning: Beth Bentley
Planning director: Martin Beverley
TV producer: Michelle Brough
Production company: Knucklehead
Director: Siri Bunford
Executive producer: Matthew Brown
Director of photography: Ben Smithard
Editorial companies: Lucky Cat, Whitehouse Post
Editors: Xavier Perkins, Lucky Cat; Adam Marshall, Whitehouse Post
Post producer: Anandi Peiris
VFX company: MPC
VFX supervisor: Bill McNamara
Flame artist: Bill McNamara
VFX producer: Anandi Peiris
Grade: MPC
Colorist: Matthieu Toullet
Titles/graphics: Ryan Teixeira
Music/sound company: Factory
Sound designers: Anthony Moore, Phil Bollard
Song: Undeniable, Richie Sosa
Interactive producer: Dom Felton
Director of relations: Marta Bobic
PR manager: Charlotte Corbett

Here’s the moment when spec advertising finally digests its own tail.

The Open Collaboration (aka, OpenCo), a South African agency majority owned by TBWA, whipped up what it apparently considers a masterpiece of social-cause messaging—a print ad showing side-by-side photos of Hitler and Mandela in prison. Hitler served nine months, the copy explains, while Mandela served 27 years.

“People do not always get the justice they deserve,” says the copy below. “We’re doing everything we can to change that.”

Here’s the proposed ad. Click to enlarge:

As you can see, there is a blank space where the logo should go. That’s because it’s a spec ad, done without client approval—indeed, without a specific client in mind here. But OpenCo hoped some group devoted to righting unnamed injustices in the world would, after initially fainting at the ad’s brilliance, slap its logo on there.

That didn’t happen. So OpenCo, feeling offended, decided to do something even more solipsistic than regular spec work. It went and made another ad about the first ad, describing it in detail—to call attention to this fresh injustice, and hopefully get the spec ad in front of someone “brave enough to run it.”

Here’s that ad. Click to enlarge:

There’s so much that’s odd about this, even if you accept that it’s not just a cynical PR play (though the whole “This is not a print ad” thing does seem aimed at ad people).

First of all, the creative is provocative—it would be offensive to many—and might not align at all with any organization’s marketing needs. Not many people, after all, are all that fond of using Hitler in their ads.

Also, its internal logic is thorny at best. Hitler killed himself in disgrace, his dream destroyed, while Mandela was lionized. Focusing on the prison terms is a simplistic take on whether justice was served in either case. (Mandela’s family, by the way, would surely balk at seeing his image paired with Hitler’s under any circumstances—particularly when the message is how he got a raw deal compared to the Nazi leader.)

The bigger issue, though, is the arrogance. This is spec work. Getting indignant when no one buys it makes you look like a fool. And in this case, it’s worse than that. OpenCo isn’t just complaining about intransigent would-be clients rejecting its work. It’s flat-out calling them cowards. That’s a pretty rich point of view for an ad agency to take of nonprofits doing real social work.

Let’s assume this stunt was well meaning. (We emailed OpenCo a while back, but haven’t heard back yet.) Maybe next time, if they really want to fight injustice in the world, they can start by not publicly shaming organizations that do so every day.

Last year, Virgin Media in the U.K. introduced an ad character who’s literally a night owl, staying up late to binge-watch show after show on Netflix. Now, that owl—who goes by the name Ally McNab—is one step closer to her anti-heroes on Orange Is the New Black.

A new campaign from BBH London, pushing Netflix streaming on Virgin, actually sends Ally to Litchfield Penitentiary, where she becomes the latest orange-clad newbie inmate. And the show’s famous characters even filmed scenes with their freaky new cellmate. (Not surprisingly, Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren takes a shine to her new feathered friend—either because they have a similar stare, or because Crazy Eyes befriends everyone.)

The spot actually combines new and existing footage. It’s an interesting bit of film, considering all the players involved.

“It’s a piece of content involving an entertainment property, a subscription streaming service and a broadband provider,” says Jeremy Ettinghausen, innovation director at BBH and BBH Labs. “It stars characters from a TV show interacting with characters from an advertising campaign, in an advertising campaign for a TV show, a broadband provider and a subscription entertainment service. Is this a new content type? We don’t know. Is it interesting? We think so, maybe simply because we can’t put it in a box.”

The campaign is running online, on social media, in retail, and on video on demand. The third season of Orange Is the New Black hits Netflix on Friday.

CREDITS
Client: Virgin Media
Head of Brand Advertising & Sponsorship: Ellie Tory
Partnership Marketing Lead: Rob Cannon
Agency: BBH London
Creative Team: Dan Morris & Charlene Chandrasekaran
Creative Director: Tom Drew & Uche Ezugwu
Strategist: Elle Graham-Dixon
Account Team: Phil Lloyd
Production Company: Black Sheep Studios
Editing House: Black Sheep Studios
Post Production: OutpostVFX
Sound: Factory

Desperate housewives enjoy illicit entertainment right under their oblivious husbands’ noses in this campaign for Harlequin, the romance novel publisher, from BBDO Toronto and Someplace Nice director Pete Henderson.

The campaign, themed “Whatever you’re into,” is designed to communicate that there’s something for everyone in Harlequin’s wide range of book series. So, whether you prefer snogging on a washing machine with a cowboy or humping on a couch with a sailor, Harlequin has you covered (because the ads would be even more awkward if the ladies started getting uncovered).

Despite the sudden scare from Fifty Shades of Grey, Harlequin remains the juggernaut in romance publishing, putting out more than 100 books a month in 34 languages in 110 markets. The imprint was bought by News Corp. last year and now operates a as a division of HarperCollins.

With the “Escape the Everyday” campaign, it hopes to rekindle passion for its products among the average woman, who’s read only one Harlequin romance novel in the past five years. Also check out the Harlquin website, where you can play a game called “Date, ditch or marry,” which is a certainly a racier trifecta than the publisher’s official tagline, “Entertain, enrich, inspire.”

CREDITS
Client: Harlequin
Agency BBDO Toronto
Executive Creative Directors: Carlos Moreno, Peter Ignazi
Associate Creative Director: Linda Carte
Copywriter: Shiran Teitelbaum
Art Directors: Linda Carte, Alice Blastorah
Account Directors: Martina Ivsak, Paul Forrest
Account Coordinator: Zach Kula
Agency Producer: Aimee DeParolis

Production Company: Someplace Nice
Director: Pete Henderson
Executive Producer: Chilo Fletcher, Estelle Weir
Director of Photography: Jonny Cliff
Editing: Matt Dell, Ricochet
Music/Sound House: Ricochet
Colour: Eric Whipp, Alter Ego
Casting: Shasta Lutz, Jigsaw Casting

How easy would it be to parallel park if you always had a friend to help you—even when you were driving alone?

A new Fiat billboard created by Leo Burnett Germany invites viewers to imagine just that. The agency hooked up a digital screen with special software and a sensors to measure how far a driver’s rear bumper was from the car behind it, and then projected synchronized images of human helpers guiding the driver’s parking job—just like a passenger might get out and do.

It’s a simple, clever concept, appropriate to promote Fiat’s Parking Assist technology, an alarm system that warns drivers in reverse of objects behind them. The billboard even offers a range of different playful avatars for the computerized assistant—a biker, a child, a wise old-man. And the brand’s marketing team couldn’t resist designing one of them—a woman in a skimpy bunny outfit—to appeal to the leering set.

Unfortunately, that seems like the kind of thing that might make some drivers more likely to hit the car behind them.

Via The Inspiration Room.

BodyArmor fields an impressive lineup in “This Is Now,” a cute commercial that positions the brand as an alternative to established players like Gatorade and Powerade.

Director Brian Ford and production company Schema Media strove “to make sure we had a unique creative approach to draw consumers in and hammer home that we are the sports drink for today’s athlete,” vp of marketing Michael Fedele tells AdFreak.

Quick cuts depict passé eras with which the brand would rather not be associated. The best bits include: Rockets guard James Harden, topped with a ‘fro, committing fashion fouls in obscenely high socks and dangerously short shorts; Angels outfielder Mike Trout rocking a blonde mullet and loud tennis garb (he looks like Bjorn Borg crossed with Farrah Fawcett); and Colts quarterback Andrew Luck pimped out ’70s-cop-show pimp style.

“That handlebar mustache on Andrew Luck was an impromptu shave that he actually did himself,” says Fedele. “Back then, many pro QBs were very flamboyant. They threw on the fur and hit Studio 54, and the next morning did a photo shoot by the pool.”

Richard Sherman, Buster Posey, Skylar Diggins and Rob Gronkowski also goof around in the ad. (Patriots’ tight-end Gronk doesn’t twerk, but he does dig in to a mountain of hot dogs.) “Filming the spot was a lot of fun,” Fedele says. “We had Rob Gronkowski and Richard Sherman together for the first time since the Pats beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Mike Trout and Buster Posey, both MVPs, spent time talking shop when we filmed them during [Major League Baseball’s] spring training.”

It’s a cool commercial, but can upstart BodyArmor (in which Kobe Bryant bought a stake last year) really make entrenched market leaders like Gatorade sweat?

“Young athletes, and the moms and dads who shop for them, compare BodyArmor to what’s out there, and the facts speak for themselves,” Fedele says of the brand’s mix of coconut water, vitamins and electrolytes. “A 15-year-old athlete today doesn’t want to drink the same sports drink their grandfather did.”

Kim Kardashian may be the queen of selfies, with a bestselling book to prove it, but she’s not the first over-sharing, narcissistic reality show star. That dubious title would go to the Bellacourts of the upcoming Comedy Central series Another Period.

They’re the debauched, filthy-rich members of a famous-for-being-famous clan that the cable channel is calling “the original ballers.” The Rhode Island bluebloods never fail to make an entrance (think upskirts and crotch shots), and they’re social media early adopters (credited with early, crude tweets and swipe lefts). They know a thing or two about virality, quite literally—they are 19th century celebrities, after all.

A handful of promo spots, created in-house, launched this week. They mix the show’s turn-of-the-century twisted Downton Abbey-esque setting with today’s tropes. “We wondered what these hilariously terrible people of another time would do with modern technology,” said Lu Chekowsky, the channel’s svp of brand creative, “and wanted to play with all the ingredients of the show that make it great—the gilded age, the reality show excess and the hip-hop sensibility.”

The 10-episode series, from writer-producer-stars Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome, also features Michael Ian Black, Christina Hendricks, Paget Brewster and Jason Ritter.

The show debuts June 23.

Silver Man—a dude in a top hat and glasses, every inch of him coated in silver paint—really shines in TBWAChiatDay’s new campaign for Miller Lite.

But he’s just one of many characters, oddball and otherwise, who visit a typical neighborhood bodega to pick up some suds and chat with wise, friendly Fred, the bilingual owner of the store. Other customers include a pair of muscular twins who say the same things at the same time; One Tripper (he doesn’t need help, dammit, toting a mountain of snacks and brewskies out the door); and a karaoke singer whose rendition of “Carry On Wayward Son” doesn’t quite match the sonic impact of the original.

Tagged “As long as you are you, it’s Miller Time,” the campaign includes ads in English and Spanish, targeting millennial and Hispanic audiences at a time when craft brews have eroded the sales of big-name beers. These eight spots have a relaxed, indie-film feel, inspired by the convenience-store settings in movies by Jim Jarmusch and the team of Wayne Wang and Paul Auster.

“The market seems to be rich with plenty of, let’s just say, less subtle beer advertising,” Arts & Sciences director Matt Aselton tells Fast Company, “so it seemed like a nice way of telling personal stories and not jock-rock archetypal stories. It’s like Sesame Street—the people in your neighborhood—except with a light beer.”

In real life, all sorts of people drop in and out of bodegas, so “anything is possible,” says Aselton. This makes the stream of strange customers in the commercials seem plausible, with the low-key and slightly askew humor hitting home every time. (The Silver Man, presumably a street performer, is a highlight, particularly when he’s joined by a glittery sidekick for an impromptu pose-down.)

Through it all, Fred serves as a calm, all-knowing foil, doling out advice and yakking it up with the clientele. Smartly underplayed by Eastbound & Down actor Marco Rodriguez, he keeps the proceedings firmly centered. The silver men may steal the show, but Fred is pure gold, one of the most welcome pitch-characters to hit screens in recent memory.

CREDITS
Client: Miller Lite
Campaign: “Bodega”
Andy England: Chief Marketing Officer
Gannon Jones: VP of Brand Marketing, Miller Family of Brands
Ryan Reis: Senior Director, Miller Family of Brands
Greg Butler: Director, Miller Lite
Jeanne-­ette Boshoff: Senior Marketing Manager, Miller Lite
Julia Watson: Marketing Manager, Miller Lite Multicultural

Agency: TBWAChiatDay LA
Stephen Butler: Chief Creative Officer
Fabio Costa: Executive Creative Director
Mark Peters: Creative Director
Jason Karley: Creative Director
Rick Utzinger: Creative Director
Bob Rayburn: Creative Director
Matthew Woodhams-­Roberts: Creative Director
David Horton: Creative Director
Jeff Dryer: Senior Art Director
Chris Rodriguez: Senior Art Director (Last Minute Gift)
Guy Helm: Senior Copywriter (Last Minute Gift)
Harris Wilkinson: Creative Director (Twins)
John Stobie: Art Director (Twins)
Brian O’Rourke: Director of Production
Anh-­Thu Le: Executive Producer
Stephanie Dziczek: Producer
Jill Nykoliation: Business Lead
Chris Hunter: Group Account Director
Scott McMaster: Group Planning Director
Bryan Reugebrink: Account Director
Alice Pavlisko: Project Manager
Linda Daubson: Director of Business Affairs
Nora Cicuto: Business Affairs Manager
Dorn Reppert: Business Affairs Manager
Dessiah Maxwell: Director, Traffic Operations
Judy Brill: Senior Traffic Operations Manager

Agency: Team Ignition
Erick Rodriguez: Senior Art Director
Raul Mendez: Senior Copywriter
Giovanni Chiappardi: Account Director
Elsa Gonzalez: Account Planner

Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Matt Aselton: Director
Mal Ward: Managing Director/Partner
Marc Marrie: Executive Producer/Managing Partner
Zoe Odlum: Producer
Sal Totino: Director of Photography
David Wilson: Production Designer

Editorial: Spot Welders
Haines Hall: Editor (Advice, Silverman)
Kevin Zimmerman: Editor (One Tripper ENG, Twins, Karaoke)
JC Nunez: Editor (Rivals, One Tripper SPAN)
Oli Hecks: Editor (Last Minute Gift, Present)
Carolina Sanborn: Executive Producer
Evan Cunningham: Producer

VFX: MPC
Karen Anderson: Executive Producer
Abisayo Adejare: Producer
Mark Gethin: Colorist
Mark Holden: VFX Lead
Benji Davidson, Dylan Brown, William Cox, Sandra Ross: VFX

Music Supervision: Good Ear Music Supervision

SFX: Barking Owl
Michael Anastasi: Sound Designer
Kelly Bayett: Creative Director
Whitney Fromholtz: Head of Production

Mix: Lime Studios
Mark Meyuhas: Mixer
Matt Miller: Assistant Mixer
Executive Producer: Jessica Locke

Love ’em or hate ’em, jingles are effective for recall. In fact, I bet you can recall all 25 of the popular jingles that YouTube artist Grant Woolard has collaged together into this impressive earworm.

The piece, which is technically a quodlibet—a piece of music combining several different melodies, usually popular tunes, in counterpoint—is made all the more impressive because each jingle is played with an object representing the brand.

Woolard has been playing piano since age 7, but only started hammering out tunes with objects a year ago when he mashed up Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and Katy Perry’s “Firework,” playing each tune with a telephone and a firework, respectively.

Woolard told AdFreak that he “wanted apply the same concept to jingles, which are easier to work with and more instantly recognizable.” But he is saddened by the fact that “this video is completely lost on my international audience. Even in countries where these products are sold, the jingles used to advertise them aren’t necessarily the same.”

So, to our international readers: Sorry, if you’re not lovin’ it.

Do you often find yourself compulsively stuck in GIF-style sequences where you’re repeating the same everyday action in a continuous loop just for fun? If so, Samsung would like you to consider its Galaxy S6.

The new ad below shows a bunch of happy young people doing a series of happy activities—flipping eggs, subway dancing, popping champaign. But instead of featuring each activity just once, the ad cuts them into a stuttering sequence of mini-clips that the brand is describing as GIFs, and which it’s also planning to use individually to promote the phone.

Big Spaceship selected the video’s music track, “When I Rule The World” by LIZ, which will be released on Columbia Records in the coming weeks. It’s a gleefully shrill, domineering record, apparently meant to appeal to youthful hubris, though if the rest of you olds can clear the blood out of your ears long enough to hear the lyrics, the sexual undertones are actually kind of subversive for a major marketer. It’s not every day you hear Samsung telling you to “get down on your knees and then do as I please until I tell you to stop” (even if that hope might be the basic premise at the heart of all of its messaging).

As fun as it might be, beating viewers about the head with fun and optimism could read as symptomatic of not having very much to say. Instead, Samsung harps on an intrinsically generic “new phone feeling,” which it suggests this phone will give you over and over again. And while the GIF approach theoretically fits the zeitgeist, and is reinforced at least in the abstract by PC Music’s incorporation of Internet cultural cues into its work, the concept ends up feeling a little half-baked. How hypnotizing or rewarding is it really to watch a guy pour coffee on repeat?

GIFs at their best tend to turn on some kind of exceptional visual cleverness or silliness or weirdness that’s riveting in its own right—not just a circular, slick, relatively mundane sales pitch. That, even if it is possible to tie simpler loops into a clearer narrative and proposition, as Spanish soccer magazine Libero proved with its dancing players.

At least nobody can accuse Samsung of not getting enough product shots in, though.