Hasta La Creative!

Did Jaguar’s high-wire stunt above the River Thames in London make a big splash? You’ll have to watch and find out.

Suspended about 60 meters above the murky depths at Canary Wharf, Jim Dowdall, a veteran Hollywood stunt coordinator, attempted to drive the new Jag XF sedan roughly 787 meters across a pair of tiny carbon-fiber cables, each about the width of a human thumb.

The car was fitted with specially grooved wheels and a safety “keel” on its undercarriage for Tuesday’s crossing, which was, naturally, broadcast live online. According to Jaguar, the stunt was designed to promote the car’s lighter, mainly aluminum frame. It aimed to set a record for the world’s longest high-wire drive.

So, did the Volvo Trucks-style stunt make a big splash in terms of generating excitement for the British automaker?

The answer there is a resounding … sort of. I guess. The escapade certainly generated more media attention than your typical new-car launch. Still, the 15-minute YouTube chronicle has tallied just over 70,000 views on Jaguar’s main YouTube page—and 16,000 more on Jaguar USA. Those stats aren’t exactly meager, but still underwhelming.

The enterprise is intriguing in a WTF? sort of way, but there’s an odd, unappealing coldness here, and the dreary urban backdrop and lack of spectators are a big part of the problem. It’s as if Dowdall performed his high-wire act for the silent steel towers of London’s financial district. Images of the white Jag suspended above the grey water are almost poetic in a bleak, Ballardian way. They convey a sad sense of loneliness and modernity, testimonies to the triumph of the car, skyscraper and all-seeing media eye.

Speaking of the media, video host Gabby Logan works hard to generate a sense of excitement, but her rah-rah “reporting” comes off sounding insincere. Everything feels a tad forced, unfocused and under-explained. Beyond publicity, what the point, exactly? Even Dowdall seems nonplussed and almost dismissive of the event.

“I’ve been very lucky to be able to drive cars in some very silly situations,” says the veteran driver, who has performed stunts in Bond, Bourne and Indiana Jones films. “That’s probably one of the silliest.”

In life, as in advertising, the best idea usually wins.

That simple insight informs McCann’s campaign for the 2015 Clio Awards, featuring pairs of famous foes—Nelson Mandela and Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid; Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner; Al Capone and J. Edgar Hoover; and angel and devil.

“It’s just this simple idea that, throughout history, the best ideas always go right to the top,” says Noel Cottrell, chief creative officer at Fitzgerald & Co. (part of the McCann group), who helmed the campaign, over on the Clio site. “There are very few times when bad ideas have trumped. If you think about fashion, or politics, or life generally, the best ideas win. We think it’s a great expression of that.”

The campaign is alternately goofy and serious. Cottrell—who is from South Africa, and feels a strong connection to the Mandela/Verwoerd ad—says that flexibility is a strength.

“One image could be Nelson Mandela and Hendrik Verwoerd, another could be Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, and still the best idea wins,” he says. “I love that the campaign can stretch like that, from being sort of flip and funny to serious and controversial. I’m hoping we can carry on doing this.”

More images below.

(Note: Clio and Adweek are both owned by affiliates of Guggenheim Partners.)

CREDITS
Agency – Fitzco/McCann
Noel Cottrell – Chief Creative Officer
Andrew Whitehouse – Creative Director/Art Director
Ryan Boblett – Group Creative Director/Art Director
Brad Harvey – Group Creative Director/Copywriter
Eric Monnet – Network Creative Manager
Cris Tally – Director, Project Management
Siera Williams – Assistant Account Manager
Deb Archambault – Senior Integrated Producer
Kimberly Kress – SVP, Director of Talent Partnerships
Gordon Corte – Talent Manager

OK Go has collaborated with plenty of brands—including Chevrolet, Google, Samsung and State Farm—on its own music videos. But here is the first truly traditional commercial the band has ever filmed. Though of course, this being OK Go, it’s far from typical.

The ad, which the band worked on in China for much of February, is for the Chinese furniture store Red Star Macalline. Full of optical illusions, it visually references OK Go’s 2014 video “The Writing’s on the Wall” (which the band later accused Apple of ripping off) but is set to another OK Go track, “I Won’t Let You Down” (a remixed version by drummer Dan Konopka).

Hear the band talk about the project here:

CREDITS
Director: Damian Kulash Jr.
Co-Director & Creative Director: Mary Fagot

Executive Producer: Fung Ni
Director of Photography: Luke Geissbuhler
Art Director: Julius Mak
Production Manager: Bihong,Chan
Assistant Director: Joan Chen

Photograph group:
Steadicam Operator: Alec Jarnagin
1st Assistant : Kenan Qi
Assistants: Xinfeng Zhang Hongyan, zhang Yanru, wang
Equipement: Wei Pang
Digital Image Engineer: Tiger
Equipement Company: Yiying Shanghai

Light Group:
Lightman: Kok Kin Wing
1st Assistant: Jingdong Wang
Light Assistant: Bin Xu Xinbin Jiang Yongchao Hu Chaoliang Wang Yang An
Light Equipment : Chenjun Zhou

Art Group:
1st Assistant: Ong Wan Hoong
Art Assistants: Harris Eddie Sequerah, Rae Chen
Props: Songyi Wu
Studio Factory Manager: Yubin Xia
Recordist: Yan Xia

Production Group:
Executive Producer: Xiaoming Tang
Production Assistants: Jojo Ying Yuanbiao Wang Yong Dong Longhui Li Yi Zheng
Translator: Lingyi Chen, Yifei Gu
Runner: Chao Huang
Transport: Shuguang You

Casting: Fei Huang, Jingyuan Yuan
Choreography: Guanglei Zhang
Dancers: Weijia zhou, Chuanjing XU, Kaijie Wang, Xi Xu, Zhijing Cao, Yimian Song, Xuqin Hua, Wentao Fan, Qin Zhang, Xubin Geng, Chunmeng Yan

Costume:
Stylist Director: Mengjia Zhan
Stylists: Yuanjun Xiao, Shiqi Zhang, Yinghui Huang, Zhihui Wang, Chen Wang, Bin Lang, Huiting Wang

Postproduction
Offline Editor: Fenny
TC : Jian Wang
Online user: CiCi & Yuqian Jin
Post Producer: Jojo Ying
Behind the Scene: Steven
Post Production Company: Liveplus Shanghai, Film Vally Shanghai
Music Studio : Take One, Shanghai

General Planner: Red Star Macalline “Two Days coming” program
Agency: 25hours, Shanghai
Production House: STEAM ,Shanghai
Advertising Agency Executive Creative Director: Lei Tao
Advertising Agency Creative Director: Song Zhang
Advertising Agency Art Director: Lei Shi, Binyan Huang
Account Director: Lingning Yan
Account Executive: Yan Huang, Da Li

Taco Bell is calling McDonald’s a disgusting communist pig, but McDonald’s doesn’t care, because McDonald’s still has the Big Mac. And now, the Big Mac is getting its very first lifestyle collection of merchandise for those who want something a little more meaty than what Martha Stewart can deliver.

The collection—which includes everything from clothing to wallpaper to bed sheets, all emblazoned with images of the chain’s signature sandwich—was launched Tuesday at a “McWalk” fashion show in Stockholm, Sweden. (It follows the success of Big Mac thermal underwear—at the time, a one-off product that McDonald’s Sweden made as part of its sponsorship of the Swedish Alpine and Cross Country Ski Team.)

If you’re so inclined, you can order this stuff at bigmacshop.se.

While not an April Fools joke (you’ll have to wait until next Wednesday for those), this stunt was part of a global day of McDonald’s hijinks that took place Tuesday. Called imlovinit24, it featured goofy antics from McDonald’s marketing teams in 24 cities worldwide in 24 hours.

Among the other highlights: a coffee-cup-shaped ball pit in Sydney, Australia; a giant Big Mac jigsaw puzzle in Madrid, Spain; a Joy Maze in Bucharest, Romania; a McOrchestra in Vienna; and a Ne-Yo concert in Los Angeles.

Ever wonder how the BP logo would look if its sunflower petals were replaced by penises? What if a phallus stood in for the “I” in AIG, or the slanted stripes of Adidas’ emblem morphed into dicks? Do you imagine giving Airbnb’s heady logo the shaft?

If such thoughts keep you up at night, you might want to check out Penised.com. For $25-$35, designers at the assuredly not NSFW site will add penises to your enemies’ logos. (Scrotums are strictly optional.) In its first week, the site has focused on corporate insignias, but its founders say they’re eager to handle requests of every kind.

I sought out the pubic pranksters for a hard-hitting Q&A.

So, who are you?
We are two buddies that work in tech and have decided to remain anonymous for now, as we do have day jobs, and we want the logos to be the face of the business, not us.

How did the idea for Penised—sigh—come together?
We have a side business building prototype apps for people. One day we were at the bar having a couple of beers and doodling some logo concepts for an app we were about to build, and we noticed a couple of sketches had rather phallic shapes to them. The more we drank, the funnier they looked, and we started joking about other logos that looked a bit dick-ish, and, boom!—the idea for Penised was born. Everyone loves a good dick joke, and we are no exceptions.

What’s the response been like?
We launched last weekend, and the site went viral on Reddit around Monday [March 16]. Our first 24 hours saw about 330,000 visitors, and our first full week about a million. We have been incredibly overwhelmed with how well it’s been received and how many people love the idea. Since every logo is chosen by the customer, it’s basically like telling a joke perfectly tailored to your audience.

We received over 1,000 design applications in the first week. We were shocked by how many people there are out there like us—getting paid to draw dicks is their dream job.

How many paying customers have you had so far?
We have chosen not to disclose sales numbers nor customers. Most of the logos on the homepage were made by our designers, based on logos we selected.

Are there companies you expected requests for, but haven’t got?
We tried to get some of the heavy hitters on the most-hated list (penised for the launch, before the push for customers), so maybe people just like the ones we have already done. We are shocked we haven’t gotten any Comcast requests. We personally hate them and are pretty sure the rest of the world does, too.

Which logos are your favorites so far?
My personal favorite is the Uber logo because of how subtle and elegant it came out. Shout-out to our designer Stephen Thompson for that one.

Are there any logos you’re just aching to turn into penises?
I’d like to see a real challenging one, something like Dick’s Sporting Goods. Something that obvious would be difficult to penis well.

What’s your view on circumcision?
We let each designer make their own calls about girth, cut and length. It’s really a case-by-case basis.

What does all this say about Western Civilization?
People are awesome. Organizations can be dicks. Often the organization runs the people instead of the other way around, and people are getting sick of taking it. There is really no excuse anymore for any organization to not being aware and empathetic to peoples’ opinions of them and to try to make those opinions positive. If you don’t, we are going to penis you.

Is there a company or organization whose logo you’d never remake as a penis?
We don’t really care if anyone gets upset or offended by any of our logos.

Any worries that corporate lawyers might order you to cease and desist?
We consulted with an attorney prior to this endeavor. Basically, if you look at our terms, all work should be considered parody and therefore should be OK. However, we recognize how litigious this country is and are well aware someone will probably take legal action at some point.

What’s next, vaginas?
We are still trying to get our heads around where we are right now. But with the rock-star design team we have as the heart of our business, we will definitely be erecting some new tools and working hard to penetrate into new areas.

Good news, soccer-obssesed dudes — it turns out if you can kick the ball, you can dance too, at least, as long as you also have a little help from a film editor.

A set of ads from Spanish soccer magazine Libero takes on the idea that men can’t cut a rug, by looping footage of casual soccer players doing warmups, feints, passes, and other tricks in time with music.

Visually, the spots, created by Lola, are basically GIF montages. But overall, they, do a nice job of wrapping the style into a clear message: that the publication covers culture—beyond sports—in terms football fans will enjoy. (The spots also fall less into the men-are-meatheads trap than the brand’s relationship-talk spots from early last year, which are still plenty funny.)

Sure, the “Can-can” video is a touch corny (who wants to hear that song again, ever, even as a joke?) But the rock and techno clips all more or less nail the movements with panache (Cumbia looks great, too… we just can’t call ourselves experts).

Of course, the ads might also be ruining a perfectly good excuse for the guys who were just being lazy. 

(Via Ads of the World)

Air France must have decided that their previous on-board safety videos didn’t have enough hot women in them… because their new one is chauvinistic even by French standards.

Made by BETC and slickly choreographed, the whimsical clip goes through all the standard airplane safety stuff—exit locations, tray tables, etc.—and goes out of its way to add that a properly fastened seatbelt “will elegantly highlight your waistline.” I hear the oxygen masks bring out your cheekbones, too. Yeesh.

The costumes and color palette anchor a fun and playful late 1950s-early 1960s vibe, reminiscent of that bygone era where people dressed up and got excited to fly (or maybe just of an Old Navy commercial). The winking approach extends to the props, with cutesy set pieces where the actresses play with smartphones and tablets—pictures of cats on the screens, naturally—hidden away inside giant, pastel colored books. Because isn’t that cheeky and endearing?

It is, in a way. But if the tone were less condescending, the whole thing might fly better.

UPS knows you’ve got problems, and it wants to help.

The shipping service is repositioning itself as a business-to-business solution for companies with logistical considerations trickier than just picking up and dropping off boxes. To that end, a new global campaign from Ogilvy debuts the tagline “United Problem Solvers” (because abbreviations can be puns too, see?).

The debut ad essentially calls on viewers to bring UPS their stickiest package delivery issues, while a montage of action shots show examples of how the company is working behind-the-scenes in of-the-moment industries. That means making sure medicine is transported at the right temperatures, and offbeat companies like paramotor manufacturers get the parts they need, and artisanal, fragile products arrive where they’re going in one piece. 

The new tagline does earn the honor of being more relatable, at least in theory, than the company’s last, similar-in-spirit “We [Heart] Logistics.” But the new execution feels, overall, a little like a self-help speech for snail mail—a heady conceptual attempt to communicate the idea that UPS is keeping pace with the design-and-innovation zeitgeist.

The overwrought copy, in particular, struggles at moments to turn the corner—trying to repurpose adjectives like “baffling” and “audacious” as nouns, which is kind of distracting, especially because baffling actually is a noun that means something totally different. Presumably UPS would be happy to ship your baffling, too, if your problems include baffling. That, assuming you didn’t actually want to ship your bafflements (also a noun UPS should never use in an ad), by writing all your big questions down on slips of paper and overnighting them to your future self for better, wiser answers. 

Or you could just post them somewhere on the Internet. Like, here’s one—what’s this ad about again?

(Via WSJ)

Microsoft is back with the latest installment in its “Productivity Future Vision” series—and this time, it’s drifting through the story of a marine biologist, Kat, and a corporate executive, Lola, who collaborate on a complex undersea project. Naturally, thanks to Microsoft, they get thoroughly immersed in their work.

The goal of the six-minute film is to whet viewers’ appetites for Microsoft products and services that are roughly five to ten years away. In this regard, the impressive video—with visual storytelling that puts some sci-fi epics to shame—makes a big splash. Sexy tech on display includes scuba gear that generates holograms for oceanographic study and a segmented bracelet that’s also a computer (it forms a larger display when its pieces are joined). There’s also a hyper-flexible magazine-like digital device that works with a stylus. One especially cool demo even shows hologram Lola “beaming” into a meeting, and interacting with data on a wall-size blackboard-screen, just as if she was in the room.

As in Microsoft’s previous productivity plays, as well as its home-of-the-future clip a ways back, the new video assures a shimmering techtopia of endless endeavor, achievement and connectivity. In this particular clip, there’s an emphasis on seamlessly “fluid” communications and information sharing—hence the aquatic theme. In effect, though, all that water reminds me of the blue screen of death… but I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong.

And frankly, Microsoft’s notion of the future has always seemed kind of fishy, anyways. Everyone’s toiling all the time. Even the future house is overstimulating, with its motion-activated wallpaper and tweets dancing through the halls. Watching this stuff gives me a sinking feeling that we’ll be drowning in technology, with no time to come up for air. Maybe the company should develop an inflatable device that helps us float around the pool as we unplug and decompress.

On the bright side, Internet Explorer’s finally capsized. We’ll see if its successor, code-named Project Spartan, is really such a catch.

Advertising creatives love to harp on a good pun, but rarely do they push it so far into bat-shit territory that it turns into a form of genius.

A new summer intern recruitment music video from Mother takes the “Fresh Meat” metaphor to its event horizon—pounding its hook into a juicy, irresistible mess, just like any good pop song should. 

Enjoy a psychedelic trip through a world of dancing, flying, spinning raw cuts—hamburgers, chickens, steaks, and roasts, to name a few. There’s homage to Lady Gaga, in the form of a meat wig. There are affirmative lyrics aimed at boosting the self-esteem of sausages. There’s even a meat kaleidoscope. There is so much more (including, in all likelihood, Illuminati references)—but drenched in epic 1980s-style staging and visual effects, the whole thing is basically a Gen X butcher’s acid fantasy.

Sure, it’s a brazen grab for virality, but it’s so funny and rich in ostentatious insanity, who cares? It also probably helps that it’s a near-perfect metaphor for the advertising industry—you might walk in as a choice piece of wagyu, but once you’ve gone through the grinder, you’re sure to come out the other end as a sorry, charred, and over-salted beef patty.

Or maybe that’s just life, in general.