Hasta La Creative!

It’s an accepted truism that the food in fast-food ads looks nothing like the food in real life. But can it be made to look that way? Is it possible to transform a regular McDonald’s burger into food-porn perfection using only a couple of iPads and an iPhone??

That the challenge the guys at DigitalRev TV set for themselves. And they do a pretty decent job of replicating actual McDonald’s product shots. Though you wouldn’t want to run extreme close-ups of their creation, like they do in France.

Check out the process below, and skip to 3:00, where the action really starts.

Via Design Taxi.

A few weeks ago, we were super excited to hear news of a real working hoverboard. And now that we’ve tackled Back to the Future, Electrolux has its sights set on the Jetsons. 

The Electrolux Design Lab has whittled down 1,700 entries from 27 countries to six finalists in its tech design contest for students. The theme of the competition is to prototype healthy living solutions for the future—specifically, culinary enjoyment, fabric care and air purification.

“For this year’s global design competition, we asked students to submit concepts based on our theme ‘Creating Healthy Homes,’ ” says Lars Erikson, head of group design at Electrolux. “The finalists’ concepts are truly innovative and offer new ideas on how we might be living our lives in the future, whether it’s eating healthier or being more sustainable.”

The winner will be announced next week. And while there’s no guarantee these products will ever hit the shelves of your local Best Buy, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

 
1. Set to Mimic
Your kids will eat that cauliflower now—because it tastes like potato chips! If this thing ever exists, I’ll be putting some grass and dirt on the plate, and saying “STEAK!”

 
2. Future Hunter-Gatherer
In the future, you can hunt fish with a lightsaber, and a man will deliver one to your door in plastic wrap!

 
3. Pure Towel
Here’s the one I could actually imagine being sold at Bed Bath & Beyond. 

 
4. urbanCONE
In the future, the air will be cleaner. But it will also be full of drones and these weird things. 

 
5. PETE
“Here you go, honey, I drank a two-liter of Coke Zero and turned the empty bottle into this dress. Let’s go. We’re late.”

 
6. Lotus
This “seed of fresh air” would be particularly handy if you have flatulent roommates or partners. 

Lowe’s must have known its human-size robotic “shopping assistants,” which are rolling out this holiday season, would be mocked, right? They couldn’t possibly have believed that people would just let that slide.

Enter John Oliver and Nick Offerman.

The Last Week Tonight host, who expertly skewers corporate buffoonery of all kinds, smartly posits that employees at home improvement stores aren’t just there to sell you stuff—they’re there to referee the impending nuptial doom that such stores cause.

Check out Oliver’s fake ad below—showing the nonrobotic, personal touch of rival chain Home Depot’s employees, as epitomized by macho do-it-yourselfer Offerman.

It’s a great bit, with hilarious performances, too, by Louie guest star Sarah Baker and Archer/Bob’s Burgers genius H. Jon Benjamin.

Oliver isn’t wrong about these stores and the tension they cause, either. There’s even a scene in He’s Just Not That Into You where (2009 spoiler alert!) Bradley Cooper reveals to Jennifer Connelly that he’s been cheating on her in a Home Depot.  

It’s official: Internet domain-name company Verisign has launched one crazy (and at times creepy) campaign.

Which of the four videos from FCB Chicago is the most self-consciously bizarre? You’ve got the giant yellow smiley-fish tormenting a late-night bus rider; a cabbage in a convertible chasing a dude in an alley; a leggy frosted cake that dumps her date for a dance-floor suitor; and an oversized flirty bee in a bar with, um, pollination on hizzz mind.

The wacky work, themed “Make your idea official” and using the #InternetOfficial hashtag, touts Verisign’s .com and .net registration service. (What else, after all, could an anthropomorphized disco dancin’ dessert treat be advertising?)

The costumed creations—revealed in each clip as business mascots (the bee, for example, represents the fictitious “HoneyMayo” condiment brand)—represent great ideas that entrepreneurs can have at any time, and each vignette dramatizes “that ‘eureka’ moment that comes with an idea,” says the company. “So rather than flirting with, dancing around, or ignoring their idea, people should act and secure their domain name today.”

The ads successfully make that point, albeit in an absurdist and roundabout way. A few online commenters have winced at the abundant weirdness, and whined about some brief cartoonish violence. I found the mild edginess compelling and in keeping with Verisign’s message. Great ideas really can knock you around a bit before you get them under control and make them pay off.

CREDITS
Client: Verisign
Agency: FCB Chicago
Todd Tilford, Chief Creative Officer
Teddy Brown, Group Creative Director
Tyler Hattery, Creative Director
Alison Hammer, Associate Creative Director
Chris Bing, Director of Broadcast Production
Lara Hurnevich, Producer
Hollie Platte, Management Director

If you thought there was no way to top a Paris Hilton-Hannah Ferguson slow-motion car-washing, sex-eating burger-palooza, you’d be wrong, Carl’s Jr. want to tell bros.

Supermodels and celebutantes don’t have the market cornered, after all, on using their scantily clad bums, stripper moves and garden hoses to hawk fast food. Along comes Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Carl Brutananadilewski, a husky, hirsute late-night star, to show everybody how it’s done.

Just don’t eat that burger before you see the new commercial, airing online and during Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, where Aqua Teen Hunger Force anchors the block and Carl regularly heckles his neighbors Meatwad, Master Shake and Frylock.

Though lacking in the bronzed beauty and sex appeal of the burger joint’s former brand ambassadors—Padma Lakshmi, Heidi Klum and Kate Upton among them—Carl “brings a certain willingness to the role and a unique interpretation of fresh baked buns,” said Steve Lemley, svp of field marketing and media at Carl’s Jr. and sister chain Hardee’s.

The animated character is willing to wear a physique-inappropriate banana hammock, in other words, and writhe around on a Dodge Spyder while chomping a burger and slapping his ass.

The spot, written and produced by Aqua Teen Hunger Force creators with assists from 72andSunny and Initiative, promotes the chain’s bread, baked fresh in stores, which makes its buns “denser and a little sweeter” than competitors’ products, according to the press release.

Make that connection between the food and Carl’s lumpy posterior at your own risk.

Hungry yet?

Petco had a whole Halloween contest around dressing up pets this month, but you don’t have to be a pet brand to get in on that action. Droga5 did this cute ad for Chobani, featuring pooches in their Halloween costumes—while enjoying the treat that is Chobani yogurt.

Check out the video below. Happy Halloween!

Ever feel like real-time marketing is all about being first, and not about being good?

You’re not alone.

John St., the Toronto agency that regularly produces scathing parody videos about the ad business, just released the hilarious video below about the breakneck pace of marketing today—and how every brand feels the need to react to real-time events within minutes.

As it did with Catvertising™, John St. is now pretending to be running a whole new dedicated unit called Reactvertising™, where it goes to absurd lengths to make sure its clients are clued into current events 24/7 and can react within seconds—indeed, knee-jerk-like—to breaking news.

“Does your agency take hours to respond to the latest trending hashtag or celebrity death?” John St. asks. “Is your brand missing out on being part of the conversation because you’re reacting too slow?”

Watch below and see how to get quicker, quality be damned.

 
A few more videos from the campaign:

Betabrand satirizes Christmas creep in its first video game, Santa Sleighs Halloween, as you play as Mr. Claus armed with a blunderbuss and a candy cane shiv. Your mission? To make sure no fall holiday is safe from the encroaching consumerism of the season. Clothing retailer Betabrand created the game “to lampoon the early onset of holiday sales—a retail trend that will surely morph Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas into a three-headed shopping Cerberus.”

Which it is indeed. All my local stores started putting out their Christmas crud weeks ago. It does seem that no matter how many times consumers complain about holiday creep, stores just can’t help themselves.

At least Betabrand knows what’s up. They hired digital agency Bradley and Montgomery to create the game, in which Kris Kringle kills mummies, werewolves, witches, zombies, vampires and Frankenstein in an unholy quest to become the one true holiday.

And it’s more than just a game. When you play, you can unlock deal codes and humorous specials. So, if you want some sweet swag from Betabrand, be prepared to plunge your candy cane stake right into Dracula’s heart.

It’s that time of year again, when we can escape our average selves, don clever costumes and get all hopped up on Fireball shots—I mean, gummy worms. And it’s always pretty fun to see what brands do to celebrate, because when they’re good, they can be really good.

Social media aggregation site Hootsuite has done itself proud with a great series of horror-movie parody posters, produced in-house. Take a look below and see what happens when scary movies are monster-mashed with social-media themes. 

Via Ads of the World.

 
Instagram/The Blair Witch Project

 
Twitter/The Birds

 
Pinterest/Hellraiser

 
Facebook/The Shining

 
YouTube/The Ring

 
LinkedIn/American Psycho

CREDITS
Creative Director: Briony Crane
Designer: Jason Esteban
Copywriter: Evan LePage
Photographer: Alastair Bird
Digital Retoucher: Steve Pinter
Hair & Makeup: Jessica Langedyk, Marie-Helene Babin
Art Director: Briony Crane
Social Strategy: Evan LePage, Jamie Stein, Andy Au

Victoria’s Secret is under fire for its newest bra campaign featuring the tagline “The Perfect ‘Body’,” suggesting on first glance that these women have it, and you probably don’t.

More than 10,000 people have signed a U.K. petition calling for Victoria’s Secret to  “apologise for and amend the irresponsible marketing of your new bra range ‘Body’.”

“Victoria’s Secret’s new advertisements play on women’s insecurities and send out a damaging message by positioning the words ‘The Perfect Body’ across models who have exactly the same, very slim body type,” the petition notes. “This marketing campaign is harmful. It fails to celebrate the amazing diversity of women’s bodies by choosing to call only one body type ‘perfect’.”

Of course, the brand isn’t literally saying its models have the perfect body. It’s a play on words with the popular “Body” line of bras, and the ad copy clarifies: “Perfect fit. Perfect comfort. Perfectly soft.”

But at a time when unrealistic body images are such a controversial topic, this tagline has understandably sparked some fires in social media:

Victoria’s Secret – stop bodyshaming young women! #iamperfect Sign the petition here http://t.co/jB3049yIR1 pic.twitter.com/u6wgbxvhpf

— Frances Black (@FrancesNoir) October 29, 2014

No such thing as a perfect body, @VictoriasSecret. Please, stop perpetuating this myth. Only harmful. #iamperfect

— Anne A. Wilson (@Anne_A_Wilson) October 29, 2014

Victoria’s Secret, I am appalled. Frick you and your “perfect body” campaign SMH YOU’RE ALL PHOTOSHOPPED pic.twitter.com/PE49XSktJv

— O’Haggerty (@leerocket5000) October 30, 2014

This year we’ve seen quite a few female-focused brands toss aside the whole idea of perfection. Aerie refused to Photoshop models, ModCloth pledged to be transparent about retouching, Dear Kate focused its underwear campaigns on “real women”), so one has to wonder if Victoria’s Secret just made a tone-deaf misstep or actively decided to troll the competition.