Hasta La Creative!

New York was supposed to be the city dealing with a scary winter visitor on Tuesday, but instead it was London that was thrown off-kilter—by a giant polar bear wandering around.

The eight-foot male bear was first spotted in the Underground before walking across Hampstead Heath and along the South Bank. The beast drew quite the shocked reaction, with people posting all sorts of frightened and bemused notes to social media. They were happy to learn, in the end, that it was simply a very advanced fake bear—promoting Sky Atlantic’s new TV crime drama Fortitude, which is set in a small Arctic town.

The bear was created by special effects company Millennium FX and operated by puppeteers Tom Wilton and Derek Arnold, who worked on the theater production War Horse. The stunt was orchestrated by Taylor Herring, which has a history of doing fun outdoor stuff like this—including the brilliant beached dragon head skull for Game of Thrones in 2013.

“It is made of a semi-rigid foam, as it had to be light,” Millennium FX principal Rob Mayor said of the bear. “The head was difficult, too, as we wanted the hair to look right. So each hair was put into place individually. Then we used an electrostatic current to make the hairs to stand up on end. … We are actually going to miss the bear when it’s gone. It sounds silly, but we have got quite attached to it.”

This isn’t the first polar bear spotted in London, though the last one was homeless because of climate change in an from Greenpeace. Check out another photo of today’s bear below.

Kia has released an extended version of its 60-second Super Bowl ad, and it’s a really fun spot with Pierce Brosnan that manages to have its cake and eat it, too—by both celebrating and poking fun at over-the-top Super Bowl spots.

In the spot, the former James Bond is getting briefed by his agent on his role for the ad, which he assumes will be standard action-movie fare. Instead, the agent keeps comically lowering his expectations. It’s not a Bond-esque escapade, he explains—just a normal car-driving-through-the-mountain ad.

Along the way, we see each scene play out the way Pierce thinks it should, and then how it actually does. This, of course, makes it a Bond-esque escapade after all—as well as a sly critique of such spectacles (at which Kia, of course, has excelled in the past on game day).

The on-screen text at the end really caps it off. Nice work by David & Goliath.

We would still have unicorns around today, were it not for an epic screw-up by Noah’s son during the loading of the Ark all those years ago.

That’s the premise of this amusingly overblown Canal+ ad from BETC Paris and director Matthijs Van Heijningen, who so memorably directed “The Bear” for the same agency and client back in 2011.

It’s hard to describe the ad without spoiling it, so just watch it first.

As you can see, the film celebrates—in a roundabout way—the broadcaster’s screenwriters and its showcase of original programming. And yes, it certainly shows a different side of unicorns than we’re used to seeing.

“We had some rather surreal discussions on what unicorns’ balls actually look like,” Stéphane Xiberras, agency president and chief creative officer, tells AdFreak. “We thought about doing something a bit … unexpected. There was talk of little furry balls with twinkling stars. But in the end we opted for a pair of ‘classic’ horse balls. I know, it’s a bit bizarre.”

And the balls were the easy part of this production. “Imagine a gigantic studio reproducing the inside of the Ark, filled with hundreds of animals,” Xiberras says. “Now imagine the smell. Now imagine that the animals couldn’t stand being under the same roof together.”

Asked about the actor who plays Noah’s son, Xiberras replied: “We fell for him straight away. We were looking for a guy capable of incarnating Noah’s son as well as a modern-day ladies’ man and screenwriter. He managed to show loads of emotions without any dialogue, expect the phrase at the end. He goes from embarrassment to anxiety to victory and then shock in seconds. It’s a great performance.”

CREDITS
Client: Canal+
Brand Management: Alice Holzman, Aurélie Stock-Poeuf, Coline André
Agency: BETC
Agency Management: Bertille Toledano, Guillaume Espinet, Elsa Magadoux
Executive Creative Director: Stéphane Xiberras
Creative Director: Olivier Apers
Art Director: Aurélie Scalabre
Copywriter: Patrice Dumas
Traffic: Coralie Chasset
Tv Producer: Isabelle Ménard
Production House: Soixante Quinze
Sound Production: Kouz
Director: Matthijs Van Heijningen
Media Plan: Cinema, TV, Web
Available Formats: :40 :45 :50 :70

Sara Heffernen’s “Graphic Design Pun Cards” make gentle sport of designers’ compulsive, perfectionist tendencies, while being dad-jokey enough to elicit groans from the rest of us.

Having said that, “Bad Kerning Can Never Be Justified” is legit funny and two levels beyond what this kind of humor usually is, and “Keming” isn’t far behind, even if it does kind of tell the same joke. The others are more of a spectrum; either you’re grinding your teeth in response to the no-no’s on display, or at the low-hanging punnery.

You can find the entire collection here. Sara should consider a line of T-shirts, and maybe opening a typographer’s version of Spencer’s Gifts to sell them in.

Via Design Taxi.

Sports Illustrated has reversed its call and will run an NFL-themed domestic violence ad from advocacy group Ultraviolet on its website Thursday, three days before the Super Bowl.

The 15-second video shows a football player in full gear brutally tackling a young woman wearing street clothes and a knitted cap. “Let’s take domestic violence out of football,” a voiceover says. On-screen text refers to “55 NFL abuse cases unanswered,” and the ad closes with the hashtag, #GoodellMustGo, a swipe at league commissioner Roger Goodell.

Ultraviolet flew banners with that hashtag above the recent AFC and NFC championship games, as it had at various NFL contests this season during the Ray Rice controversy.

Last week, SI rejected Ultraviolet’s advertising—which includes an online banner as well as the video—but upon further review, and following inquiries from other media, gave the OK, calling its initial refusal a “misunderstanding.” (Apparently, SI initially evaluated just the banner, which it felt could be misconstrued as editorial content. The banner and video together, however, were subsequently deemed acceptable.)

“We are thrilled that public scrutiny has persuaded Sports Illustrated to reverse their decision,” says Ultraviolet founder Nita Chaudhary. “We cannot allow the issue of domestic violence to be swept under the rug.”

Ultimately, the SI drama generates extra exposure for Ultraviolet’s edgy play and further deflates the NFL on the eve of the Big Game.

The year was 1994. Ace of Base saw “The Sign.” O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco sped down the freeway. And of course, this thing called the Internet was a tiny baby. And Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric were desperately trying to figure it out.

A now-famous Today show clip from ’94 features Gumbel and Couric cluelessly talking about the Internet. They can’t seem to grasp the concept of an email address or the @ symbol.

“Katie said she thought it was ‘about,’ ” says Gumbel.

“Or ‘around,’ ” adds Couric.

“I’ve never heard it said, I’ve only seen the mark,” continues Gumbel. “What is ‘Internet’ anyway? Do you write to it like mail?”

“Allison,” Couric asks her producer, “can you explain what ‘Internet’ is?” 

Fast-forward to today, and BMW is using the amusing clip—followed by Gumbel and Couric talking today, just as cluelessly, about the futuristic i3 electric vehicle—in its 2015 Super Bowl ad from Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners, released Monday morning:

As an added bonus—and arguably the gem of the campaign—BMW has given us outtakes from the shoot, featuring Couric, and the curmudgeonly Gumbel actually cracking a smile (and a couple of funny jokes) every now and then:

In the behind-the-scenes clip below, Gumbel gives a little insight into his perspective. “People are inclined to ask, ‘Aren’t you embarassed by that clip—are you angry about that clip? I say ‘No! I’m not at all! I’m amused by it.’ I watched The Jetsons years ago, so I kinda thought we’d be in a jetpack, ya know, flying over things … I guess one day we’ll get there, but for the time being, the electric car is the way to go.”

It’s a fun enough campaign. And to be fair, I’ve also found myself thinking about the enigmatic “@” symbol of late, as you can see from this tweet just last week:

it’s still ludicrous that we pronounce “@” as “at” and not “around”

— Alfred M Maskeroni (@digimatized) January 19, 2015

Sleep-aid ZzzQuil left some followers wondering what year it was when they saw the brand’s recent engagement-themed tweet.

“SLEEP LIKE he finally proposed,” the tweet noted. “And you have been dating for a decade. #SleepLike #engaged #shesaidyes”

The message felt a bit too 1950s for women who’d like to move past the stereotype that peace of mind is all about finding a husband.

Despite being posted late Thursday and sparking quite a lot of backlash, the tweet remained live this morning, and the brand hasn’t responded to any of those upset by it. 

Here are just a few of the responses:

@ZzzQuil Sleep like the only thing that’ll make you happy is a man! What is this, the 50s? #sexist

— Amanda D (@akd209) January 24, 2015

Fuck off. RT @ZzzQuil: SLEEP LIKE he finally proposed. And you have been dating for a decade. #engaged #shesaidyes pic.twitter.com/jvkgc7o7xC

— c o r s o (@WhyofCorso) January 23, 2015

@WhyofCorso @ZzzQuil whaaaaa? I dated my husband for a decade and I wasn’t losing sleep over a proposal. A very silly ad.

— sunsentinello (@sunsentinello) January 23, 2015

Haha twitter look at this bullshit RT @ZzzQuil SLEEP LIKE he finally proposed. And you have been dating for a decade pic.twitter.com/7MVCTMo582

— Bridget ?? (@moneyaftergrad) January 23, 2015

I’ll rest easier when sexism ends. “@ZzzQuil: SLEEP LIKE he finally proposed. And you have been dating for a decade. pic.twitter.com/9YRLBaasUB“

— Cecillea Pond-Mayo (@cecillea) January 24, 2015

File this one under creative ways to get agencies’ attention.

In hopes of landing an internship at an ad agency, Dutch student Max Kurstjens, who’s studying in Sweden, took matters into his own hands. Kurstjens tells AdFreak via email that he struggled to get in touch with the agencies, so he targeted their Instagram hashtags instead.

“Why? To get their attention and to mock the hashtag phenomenon, especially in the advertising world,” he says.

Kurstjens created different Instagram accounts to flood the feeds of certain agencies, including TBWA, Droga5 and Wieden + Kennedy. Scrolling through an agency hashtag yields a composite of images that take the hashtag hostage and direct users to wehaveyourhastag.com. There, you’ll find a robotic arm dumping hashtags into shark-infested waters, holding them over a fiery grill and electrocuting them.

The only way to save your hashtag is to invite the guy for a cup of coffee.

It’s not clear yet whether he’s landed that elusive interview. But hey, the site’s pretty cool. We hope he graduates from hijacking hashtags soon, before they have to bring in the hostage negotiators.

How would you feel if, during high-tension moments in your favorite movies, the cameras cut to slow motion and the lead actors turned to stare right at you?

Now you might find out, thanks to a new campaign by from Fox Entertainment’s movie channel, FXM. Production company Imaginary Forces took key frames from films that are slated to air on the network, and then used 3-D animation techniques to manipulate the characters’ faces so they’d be looking at the camera.

The 10 spots, which are 20 seconds each, are loosely tied together under FX’s “Fearless” positioning, which the behind-the-scenes video says allowed Imaginary Forces to “get strange” in its approach to teasing the network’s programming.

Some of the cuts are more effective than others. Daniel Craig’s scene from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is particularly eerie. Will Ferrell’s from Step Brothers is particularly funny. None actually captures fear quite as well as Kevin Bacon’s in X-Men: First Class. Jesse Eisenberg’s in The Social Network might take the cake for most creepy (or maybe it’s just the whole idea of Facebook ruling the world that’s still unsettling).

Regardless, it’s a nifty experiment. As for whether it’ll make you want to watch any of the movies again—let’s just say Bruce Willis’s character in the Sixth Sense is still dead.

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CREDITS
Client: FX Networks
Designed and Produced by: Imaginary Forces
Creative Directors: Tosh Kodama, Peter Frankfurt
Art Director: Dan Meehan
Executive Producer: Ben Apley
Head of Production: Claudina Mercado
Producers: Terry O’Gara, JJ Gerber
Designers: Tosh Kodama, John Kim, Ryan Massiah, Kina Choi
Junior Designer: Wes Yang
Design Intern: Ryan Massiah
Animators: Dan Meehan, Kina Choi
3D Model Builders: DeAndre Moore, Jamin Joseph-Lackie
Compositors: Orlando Costa, Sam Cividanis, Ben Hurand
Editors: Ryan Hensley, Kina Choi
Illustrator: Alejandro Lee
Inferno Artist: Rod Basham
Photographer: Ryan Speers
Coordinators: Nicole Zschiesche, Dominick Guglielmo
Copywriter: Kyle Barron-Cohen
Music Company: Easy Feel
Composer: Mark Share

Those of you who’ve been pining for another episode of Shit Girls Say are in luck: Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey’s amusing web series, based on the popular Twitter account, just did a spot for haircare brand Aussie—in the same style as their unbranded videos.

Sheppard directed the ad and is also the star, donning a wig and narrating common hair woes. (We’re told mcgarrybowen was the agency.)

“I can’t it wet!” he complains. “This looks stupid.” “Does this look dumb?”

Aussie recently conducted a #hairprobs survey, which found:

• Women run late an average of one day per week due to hair drama.
• One third of moms (35 percent) say their hair requires more time than their kids in the morning.
• 40 percent of women under 40 cried at least once over their hair in the past six months.
• Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of women under age 40 think that while having sex, a partner ruining their hair would be worse than a partner who can’t perform.
• Seven percent of women admit to avoiding getting intimate altogether to preserve their hairstyle.
• Women spend 20 minutes per day on their hair, translating to a full work week each year.

If you think most of these stats are hard to believe, I’m with you. Who are these people?

Stats aside, the video itself is fun—relatable and entertaining. It ends with Aussie encouraging women to #DitchtheDrama and their complex hair routines (with a shampoo plus conditioner combo product and a dry shampoo) in exchange for “fully living life.”

Which also means not crying over your hair or thinking about it during sex, probably.