Hasta La Creative!

Brands that try to get in on the social conversation around 9/11 can come off as crass and opportunistic. But it takes a witty foil to really show how dumb some of the tweets are.

Luckily, Mike Monteiro is that foil.

Much of this morning, he’s been replying to brands’ 9/11 tweets with amusingly fake enthusiasm, giving his 45,000 followers some comic relief on what’s always a difficult day.

Check out some of Monteiro’s tweets below.

I mean, who couldn’t have used a @huggies on that day. https://t.co/rrvta5142P

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

@DunkinDonuts @seanbonner Those people left a hole in our hearts, and in our donuts. #neverforget

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

Thank you @Applebees. When we pulled Mother’s body out of the wreckage we dragged it to Applebees. And you guys gave us free sodas.

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

Trust me, I will #neverforget. “@Cash4YourHome: Appreciate the tweet @monteiro.”

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

9/11 wouldn’t have happened if every airline passenger was armed, right, @Beretta_USA? Got any discount codes? #neverforget #neverreload

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

Hi @TheNewYouMedSpa! Is there a special discount if you actually lost someone in the towers? #neverforget #neverhadafacial

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

I wanna get ripped and kick terrorist ass, @Tee_Major! https://t.co/RHXNNmNuyE

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

@intimacybox @fart I think my sister was wearing your lingerie when she died in the towers.

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

The terrorists can take the icees from our cold, dead hands, am I right, @Official_ICEE? I mean fuck those dudes! Icee me, bro. Discounts?

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) September 11, 2014

We reached out to Monteiro for comment, but he pointed us to Sean Bonner, who’s also been monitoring branded 9/11 tweets today, and retweeting many of them. We spoke with Bonner to get his take. 

Brands are not people.

— Sean Bonner ? (@seanbonner) September 11, 2014

AdFreak: What makes these tweets feel so icky?
Sean Bonner: It’s simple. Brands are not people. Brands do not have emotions or memories or condolences or heartbreak. People have those things, and when a brand tries to jump into that conversation, it’s marketing. And in a less emotionally charged environment it’s just dumb. But when talking about a tragedy that resulted in way too many people actually dying, it’s icky x 1000.

How can brands insert themselves into the conversation without seeming opportunistic?
They can’t. They shouldn’t. Seriously, there’s no way for a brand to “insert themselves into a conversation” about a tragedy like this without it being bad. I mean really.

How could a brand’s social media managers handle this with more sensitivity?
STFU. That’s the best option. Today (or whatever other tragedy this kind of thing has happened with) isn’t the time for marketing. It isn’t the time for branding or getting people to pay attention to companies. It’s a time for people to interact with each other, and the only respectful thing for brands to do is stay out of it and wait for tomorrow to get back to business.

Ugh. I’m done. I can’t even stomach looking at those search results anymore.

— Sean Bonner ? (@seanbonner) September 11, 2014

It’s getting real at Dairy Queen this month, as the venerable fast-food chain stages an online battle between two of its Blizzard frozen treat flavors for autumnal supremacy.

The showdown: apple vs. pumpkin, and the best part of the tongue-in-cheek campaign is the rivalry it has created between “apple capital of the world” Wenatchee, Washington, and pumpkin festival home Caro, Michigan.

After all the fan votes are counted, one town will be crowned Blizzard Treat Capital of the World. The other will be wiped from the face of the earth, I imagine. 

Enthusiastic residents of each town really shine in campaign videos, as they extol the virtues of apples or pumpkins. I want to party with that Mike Myers-esque long-haired Wenatchee dude in the purple cap who says he “can’t get enough apples” because “apples are just happy … happy fruit.” Damn straight, my man!

That said, a compelling case is also made by the kid who proclaims, “I grew a 707-pound pumpkin.”

All of these folks are clearly proud of their communities, but they’re also wink-wink self-aware and in on the joke. It’s all quite good-natured, and plays like both a spoof and a celebration of homespun Americana.

For the record, pumpkin’s currently leading with 62 percent of the vote. Go pick your side.

If summer is the season of casual, short-lived romances and flirty hookups, maybe winter is the season of serious dating and questions like, “We’ve only been together for three weeks. Is a gift card too impersonal of a Christmas gift?”

Indeed, says two Manhattan women who turned to Craigslist to summon applications for “fall boyfriends.”

The ad offers zero information about the women besides smart/funny/attractive. But with guidelines for applicants like “Probs spent at least 4 weekends in Montauk over the summer” and “Ivy league preferred. Def in a frat or played a sport,” we can conclude they’re those girls at the bar who laugh really loud to show everyone that they’ve got great senses of humor (read: intensely annoying).

It’s another addition to the list of notable Craigslist ads (“Looking for boys we might be able to stand being sober around” is kind of funny), and a nice little read, if two of your hobbies listed on LinkedIn include cringing and getting a mild headache.

And for every person who says “This is satire!” there are probably several who think this ad is perfection and are firing up their Craigslist accounts right now. The post has been flagged for removal, but hopefully not before they found two chill bros for Sunday Fundays.

Full text of the ad below. Photo via.

 
Seeking Fall Boyfriends

2 smart, funny, attractive girls each looking for a fall boyfriend with chill group of bro friends, now is the time you must start dating someone in order to spend the holidays together/go on ski trips/have a NYE kiss you’re stoked on.

Labor Day has happened, we are saying goodbye and filtering out our casual summer, meet up at 2 a.m. hook ups and are looking for boys we might be able to stand being sober around.

Needed: 2 males interested in something steady/serious-ish as the weather fades from hot, humid, and care-free to crisp, chill Patagonia vest season. Interested parties should have a window in their bedroom and want to cuddle with the window slightly open to let the fresh autumn air in while a fall scented candle (that I’ll buy for you, babe) fills the room with cozy comfort.

Requirements

Chill group of guy friends (preference will be given to bros who come from the same group of friends, just because that makes it easier and more fun for double date brunching)

27 and older

6 feet or taller (if you’re 5’11” but have a personality to make up for the height difference, willing to consider it. Any shorter? Don’t apply.)

Wardrobe should include: Driving mocs, Barbour coat, Half-Zips (at least 3, please send pics if possible), Ray-Bans (Wayfarers or Clubmastesr preferred, but open to other styles), loafers, Patagonia vest(s), Vineyard Vines, basketball shorts for me to sleep in

College education. Ivy league preferred. Def in a frat or played a sport (lacrosse, crew, tennis, etc.)

Probs spent at least 4 weekends in Montauk over the summer

Activities can include but are not limited to

Apple Picking

Sunday Fundays

Borrowing your pullover and returning it after an indecent amount of time, if at all

Taking selfies in Patagonia vests/taking selfies while doing all activities #fall #boyfriendweather

Watching football (aka me getting drunk while you watch football, and you thinking it’s so adorable when I wear jeans and Converse to the bar and get blackout in your team’s hat.) *sneakers show how chill and laid back I am < this is why it's kinda essential for the two boys to be friends so me and my friend can blackout together and I won't get bored.

Cooking – Instagramming dish with captions such as “Fall night with my babe @yourhandle *heart emoji all the fall emojis*”

Brunching outdoors until weather permits

Strange how the night moves, with autumn closing in

(If you don’t know that song, don’t apply)

Looking forward to meeting you!

Relationship with your agency on the rocks? Looking for love with a new one? Just want to check out the playing field? A just-released app is like Tinder for clients seeking a connection with some of the best agencies in Amsterdam.

It’s called Pitcher. Available on iOS and Android phones, it lets you specify criteria like brand category, campaign type and pitch fee—and then you swipe through a selection of Amsterdam’s top ad agencies, each with a short profile and overview of their latest work.

Swipe left to dismiss, swipe right to select.

You can create a shortlist of up to five agencies, then call them directly or send an email inviting them to take part. No information is stored or shared with any third parties.

Pitcher was created by ad agency Woedend!, which is Dutch for “Furious!” (Maybe take its bio with a grain of salt?) The content for the app is supplied by Amsterdam Ad Blog.

“The current pitch culture [in the Netherlands] is not sustainable,” says Woedend! creative director Merien Kunst. “Brands are increasingly flirty, and agencies need to invest more time and money in smaller projects and shorter relationships. … We believe that this free app really adds value for marketeers.”

British luxury brand Burberry has launched a new fragrance, My Burberry, and you can even put your name on it, sort of.

The spot promoting it is your typical fragrance spot (good looking people, nothing makes sense, etc.) featuring Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne, but what really shines is the website.

It’s a beautifully designed, interactive, one-scroll site. The background starts as gently falling rain (“My Burberry is a contemporary grand floral that captures the fragrance of a London garden after the rain”) and includes images of flowers, the iconic Burberry trench, and is generally a lovely Internet experience when you consider all of the alternatives out there.

The bottle itself is well designed, although I think the font chosen for “My” in “My Burberry” kills the look a little. You can even have the bottle engraved—a personalized touch pointing back to brand messaging—although again, I think it takes away from the general aesthetic of the bottle.

I could probably scroll up and down this site for a solid 15 minutes though.

Does the three-minute “Perspective” film that kicked off Apple’s product event on Tuesday borrow ideas from a popular music video by OK Go? The band seems to think so and is weighing its legal options, its manager, Andy Gershon, tells Bloomberg Businessweek.

Both “Perspective” and OK Go’s “The Writing’s on the Wall” video take place inside large white rooms and rely on optical illusions. In Apple’s mainly black-and-white video, tricks of perspective make inspirational slogans like “See things differently” and “Follow a vision” appear as the camera pans around.

OK Go’s more colorful film sees band members interacting with various objects in different ways to create a series of hypnotic visuals. That video has been viewed more than 10 million times since June and won an MTV Video Music Award for optical effects.

Perhaps most damningly, Gershon says OK Go pitched its visual concept to Apple in April, hoping for a collaboration with the brand, but the company declined. After OK Go made its own video, Apple hired the same production company, 1stAveMachine, to create “Perspective.”

Apple did not immediately respond to AdFreak’s requests for comment.

In advertising and other creative fields, it’s not unusual for similar concepts to crop up in work from different sources. Tricks of perspective have been used in several notable campaigns lately, including this trippy Honda CR-V spot from 2013, which some found derivative of an earlier ad by Audi.

For Apple, it’s a particularly thorny issue, though, because appearing to borrow concepts from others repudiates the brand’s core message of being original and innovative. Simply put, Gershon believes Apple didn’t think differently enough when creating its film. “The videos speak for themselves,” he says, “and you can draw your own conclusions.”

Apple wrapped up its iPhone 6/Apple Watch event today with quick the kicker: a performance by U2 followed by a remarkable offer: Everyone can get the band’s new album, “Songs of Innocence,” for free on iTunes through Oct. 13.

Below is the new spot celebrating the partnership, and it’s a throwback in more ways than one. It’s reminiscent, of course, of Apple’s old “Silhouettes” iPod commercials. (You’ll remember that U2 did an Apple ad, plus a longer video, around “Vertigo” in 2004.)

And then, in the new spot, you’ve also got glimpses of the Ramones and the Clash, to whom U2 is apparently paying tribute with the new record.

U2 and Apple have had a fruitful partnership for years, as Bono and Jonathan Ive discussed this summer at Cannes. One eagle-eyed observer suggested Tuesday that U2 might even be broadcasting hidden Apple messages. After all, “Songs of Innocence” appreviated is S.O.I., which backwards is iOS. And U2 S.O.I. backwards is iOS2U.

As for iPhone 6 and Apple Watch ads—we’re still waiting.

MetLife asks people on the street who they live for in this campaign designed to give life insurance a human dimension.

The answers are pretty much what you’d expect. People live for their spouses, parents and significant others—for their kids, grandkids, siblings and, in one case, an adorable bulldog named Huey.

Two longer YouTube clips anchor the #WhoILiveFor campaign and present many diverse people, while shorter edits break out individual stories. A guitar player named Heath ad-libs a soundtrack/jingle that runs through the longest video, which is a nice touch.

Gustavo, a young Hispanic guy, delivers the sweetest moment when he talks about his boyfriend, Fernando, who “helped me come out of the closet.” There’s also social outreach, with consumers encouraged to share their stories, though there’s no traditional media buy.

MetLife’s goal is “to try to get people to think about insurance in a different way,” Richard Hong, the company’s svp, global brand and marketing, told the New York Times. Most folks “think about life insurance as a death benefit, [but] people really buy life insurance for the other people in their lives. We wanted to flip the lens on this, make it a positive.”

Crispin Porter + Bogusky created the work, which coincides with National Life Insurance Month. (Party at my place tonight. BYOB—Bring your own broker!)

The effort’s somewhat similar to the Cannes Grand Prix-winning campaign from funeral insurance company Dela, in which real people thank those closest to them while they still can. Both campaigns expose the human core at the heart of what’s often perceived as a bureaucratic, faceless (and some might say evil) industry.

Dela’s emotionally intense viral films are mini-masterpieces that really get under you skin. That said, I admire the way MetLife lets people simply tell their stories, rather than staging lavish productions designed to go viral. By putting a premium on spontaneity, MetLife delivers a subtly profound payoff.

DiGiorno Pizza has become one of the top brands on Twitter thanks to its quick wit and good ear for real-time conversations, but one careless tweet last night put that reputation at risk.

After a video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee Janay Palmer led to his termination from the Baltimore Ravens on Monday, thousands of women took to Twitter to discuss their physically and emotionally tortuous experiences in abusive relationships. They used the #WhyIStayed hashtag to fight the victim-blaming attitude of Palmer’s critics, who had questioned why she would marry a man who knocked her unconscious.

Jumping onto the popular hashtag, DiGiorno clearly didn’t look into its context before tweeting, “#whyistayed You had pizza.”

Example of a brand using a trending topic without understanding the context #Advertising #SocialMedia #WhyIStayed pic.twitter.com/iTSmfaT6Xv

— Scott Paul (@scottatslee) September 9, 2014

The backlash was swift, and within minutes the tweet had been deleted. The brand then posted the apology above, noting: “A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting.”

It was a boneheaded mistake, to be sure, similar to snack brand Entenmann’s famously regrettable decision to tweet on the hashtag #notguilty, failing to realize it was trending because Casey Anthony had been aquitted of murdering her daughter.

But in Entenmann’s case, the brand responded by simply abandoning Twitter for years, leaving their account as a scorched-earth monument to poor decisions.

DiGiorno has, so far, taken the more mature and difficult approach. Since last night’s #whyistayed tweet, the brand has been responding to dozens of Twitter users offended by the post. Each response has been personalized and is clearly sincere, which is a nice reprieve from the usual copy-and-paste approach to dealing with bad PR in social.

So while DiGiorno is sure to take more heat today for a truly dumb tweet, it’s good to see the brand’s social team didn’t just close down the account, smash their phones on the ground and hop the first plane to the tropics.

Via Mic.

If you’ve been drinking wine out of a bottle all this time—well, quite frankly, you’re a sucker.

Some might tell you they prefer wine from a box, but everyone knows that all drinks taste better from a can. It’s mostly psychological, but it’s true. 

Anyway, Portland, Ore.-based Union Wine Company and agency Story Manufacturing Co. have made some wine in a can that mocks wine culture itself. For $24, you can get a 4-pack of this canned vino, which comes in two varieties—pinot noir and pinot gris.

Below are a few ads that feature some of the more fermented archetypes in aged-grape society: a sommelier, a hipster and a couple who would rather be drinking than talking. 

Someone send these to Kathie Lee and Hoda. They’re the only palates anyone should trust. 

CREDITS
Client: Union Wine Company
Agency: Story Manufacturing Co., Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Michael Etter, Mattias Segerholt
Art Director: Michael Etter
Copywriters: Austin Howe, Andrew Dickson
Director of Photography: Eric Edwards
Producer: David Cress