Hasta La Creative!

One of the lovably misguided characters from “Dumb Ways to Die” sold both his kidneys on the Internet. Now, the client behind the beloved campaign has made a similarly greedy deal with the devil.

Through a licensing deal, Metro Trains has sold the creative product pretty much wholesale to Empire Life Insurance Co., which is cutting its own ads from it. Three 30-second spots posted online play snippets from the original musical cartoon, before a female voice pipes in and says: “What’s the dumbest way of all to die? Having no life insurance.” Empire has also done some digital ads with the characters and plans “a robust merchandise program … for multiple territories worldwide,” according to the Globe and Mail.

Ugh.

Talk about dumb. As the Ethical Adman points out, it just seems lazy and greedy—plus, the viral potential of the work has already been tapped worldwide, so what’s the point? On the eve of the 2014 Cannes Lions festival, it’s also a depressing slap in the face to the ad business to see the most decorated campaign in Cannes history bastardized like this—a PSA cynically turned into for-profit campaign.

You can understand Metro Trains wanting to make a buck off the work. But stick to making plush toys, not selling the whole cartoon to some huckster.

McCann, whose Melbourne office created “Dumb Ways to Die,” declined to comment on the Empire ads and referred inquiries to Metro Trains. We left messages with Metro and will update when we hear back.

Hey, millennials, 20 years ago you might’ve been riding in the third row of a Volvo station wagon, staring out the back window and maybe trying to stave off the slight nausea that can accompany your body’s sense that it is hurtling in the wrong direction through space.

If you were, Volvo and Seattle creative studio World Famous would like to point out to you that you’re now old enough to buy a Volvo of your own, and drive it forward through space on outdoorsy adventures with your pals.

Isn’t it fun to grow up?

This is a nice spot that seems likely to resonate with viewers in the target—based on the entirely anecdotal evidence that I, a twentysomething who grew up in one of those white refrigerators on wheels, find it manipulating me into feeling nostalgic … even though I can tell, rationally, that the forward-and-backward metaphor is advertising pseudo-philosophy.

In the true version of the story, the millennial probably buys the vintage version of the car and pimps it out with 22-inch chrome spinners with blue lights, then leaves it in a heap on the lawn, because the millennial doesn’t know oil changes are actually important.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Volvo
Production Company: World Famous
Director: Jesse Harris
Writer: Jesse Harris
Executive Producer: Megan Ball
Head of Production: Nick Hegge
Producer: Kyle Seago
Editor: Nick Pezzillo
Director of Photography: TJ Williams Jr.
Color: Lightpress
Sound Mix: Clatter&Din
A co-production of NFFTY

How precocious are digital natives today? They take charge of things literally from birth, according to this somewhat terrifying spot from MTS Telecom, which the company claims is now the most-viewed ad ever to come out of India.

The spot—created by Creativeland Asia, directed by Guy Shelmerdine from Smuggler Films and set to “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross—has 23.4 million views on YouTube (surpassing the previous Indian record holder, Lifebuoy’s “Help a Child Reach 5” PSA, with 19 million). And its pint-size star fits snugly into a long line of famous unusually dexterous infants, from Evian’s CGI babies all the way back to the original Internet dancing baby. Rather than just cavort about on roller skates, though, he spends his brief first moments of life Googling, stealing and taking selfies. And MTS quite clearly loves that about him.

A rep tells us the company launched the ad in an innovative way—by seeding the spot as a BitTorent file and letting the country’s digital natives find it on their own. And indeed, it got plenty of buzz before it was launched on the brand’s official social channels.

MTS Telecom has entered it in next week’s Cannes festival and hopes to bring home a Lion. We’ll leave it up to you to determine whether it deserves one.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: MTS Telecom
Agency: Creativeland Asia
Production House: Smuggler London
Creative Chairman: Sajan Raj Kurup
ECD: Anu Joseph
Script: Sajan Raj Kurup
Director: Guy Shermeldine,
Producer: Chris Barret,
Director of Photography: Alex Baber
VFX: Glassworks London
VFX lead: Abi Klimaszewska,
Editor: Andy Mcgraw, Stitch
Music Director: Mickey Mcleary

Miami stumbled in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but a Native American tribe turned up the heat. The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation of California ran a 60-second spot protesting the Washington Redskins nickname during Tuesday’s game—a cutdown of the two-minute version below, which broke online just before the Super Bowl.

In the spot, a narrator lists many of the ways Native Americans describe themselves. These include “proud,” “forgotten,” “Indian,” “indomitable,” “survivor” and “patriot.” In the end, we’re told, “Native Americans call themselves many things. The one thing they don’t …” and a shot of the Redskins helmet fills the screen.

The commercial aired Tuesday in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, San Francisco and, of course, Washington, D.C. The tribe ran the same spot in Miami during Game 2 on Sunday.

Last year, the Oneida Nation produced a series of pointed, high-profile radio ads on the subject, and the timing of the Yocha Dehe Wintun TV buy, against the backdrop of the Donald Sterling racism scandal, adds significant fuel to the fire.

You know what else Native Americans are? Media savvy, and skillful at playing the PR game. Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who famously told USA Today he’d never change the name—”NEVER. You can use caps”—looks more tone-deaf, mean-spirited and, in the eyes of some, flat-out racist the longer he holds the line. A Redskins rep declined to comment for this post, but Snyder has steadfastly maintained the name is not offensive but a badge of honor, and respectful of Native Americans.

Even if that’s what Snyder and many die-hard fans truly believe, bad feelings will fester the longer this drags on. With each NFL season, we’ll get more parking-lot protests at Redskins games, more commentators parsing the controversy on halftime shows and more indignant sports columnists who refer to the club as the R*dskins or “The Washington Football Team.”

Ultimately, Snyder will be remembered as the villain, a guy who fumbled an opportunity to stand up for change and perhaps ignite the passions of a whole new generation—a legacy he could have been proud of.

We’ve seen lots of “Don’t text and drive” ads lately. With this one from Ogilvy Beijing, Volkswagen drove the message home to a captive movie-theater audience in a way they’ll surely remember.

Watch the spot first to get the full impact.

Obviously the video begs the question about how, exactly, the stunt was pulled off. It says a “location-based broadcaster” was used—presumably this is done through geo-fencing, though you would think people would have to opt in to receive text messages that way.

But if the footage is genuine, it’s a remarkable way to demonstrate that mobile-phone use is now the leading cause of death behind the wheel. Advertising is a great way to get that message across, at least until VW figures out a way to use German engineering to solve our obsession with cellphones.

Y&R New Zealand turns manly beards into cute animals for Schick’s “Free Your Skin” campaign, which takes a bold anti-beard stance in this golden age of hirsute ruggedness. 

Of course, sneering observers are all calling the Schick models hipsters, so maybe the ads also tap into a sort of cultural exhaustion with all things bearded, buttoned-down and knit-capped. Seriously, I think Tony Montana said the F-word fewer times than I’ve read the word “hipster” doing research for this post. 

Y&R did a brief interview with Metro about the campaign, claiming that the bearded creatives in the agency’s employ “all confessed that their beards aren’t actually that pleasant to live with.” Lies and slander! They also claim that “women actually find beards kinda gross,” which science would argue is only half-true.

Via Design Taxi.

Mannequins usually symbolize the consumer ideal of the “good life,” draped in couture and jewelry in department-store window displays. But now they’ve fallen on hard times in a JWT stunt meant to raise money for Amsterdam’s growing homeless population.

Agency staffers rounded up unused mannequins, dressed them in ragged clothes and placed them around the city with cardboard signs asking for money. Each mannequin also had a piggy-bank-style donation slot cut into its head, and donations went to advocacy group BADT.

Critics might suggest that using “dummies” somehow demeans or trivializes the homeless, but I think it powerfully underscores just how dehumanizing it can be to live on the streets.

Produced in a week on a budget of less than 100 Euros, the effort seems to have yielded a good number of donations and, more importantly, attention for the issue. 

Still, I wonder how many passed the mannequins by with barely a glance? And how often do we ignore flesh-and-blood human beings, shivering beneath rags and huddled in doorways? Sadly, such sights are so common, they can fail to move us, or else they simply don’t register anymore.

Homelessness dehumanizes us all. Even those of us who have homes.

Via Ads of the World.

Remember the good old days, when a Coca-Cola cost only a nickel, and people weren’t always whining about how bad soda is for your health?

Coca-Cola does.

“A Coke used to cost 5 cents,” says this new Coke ad. “But what if a 12-oz. Coke cost 140 calories?” the brand adds, in a head-scratcher of a rhetorical non-sequitur that’s the perfect setup for the awkward answer that follows.

A 140-pound person would have to ride a bicycle for 23 minutes, on average, to burn off an equivalent amount of energy, according to the commercial. Of course, 140 pounds is only 56 pounds lighter than the average American man, and 26 pounds lighter than the average American woman, according to CDC data on body measurements.

In other words, welcome to Coca-Cola’s fantasy world, where mostly fit young people are more than happy to climb onto a giant stationary bike in front of a crowd and sweat it out to earn a Coke, delivered by some kind of circus robot, cash and guilt free.

The online video is surreal mainly because it forces into relief the main criticism it’s hoping to defuse—and, in a state of more or less total delusion, manages to make a case that supports the brand’s detractors. The science is misleading, and the creative is depressing—suggesting exercise is a zero-sum game akin to a hamster on a wheel chasing a treat that will kill him, unless he runs ever longer.

“Movement is happiness,” says the end line. Yet never has it seemed so bleakly transactional and dead-ending.

It’s not the first time Coca-Cola’s marketing has struggled to meet, head on, its health critics. It’s also not the first time it’s leaned on nostalgia as a means of deflecting blame for the rise in obesity. And for a brand that produces so much global advertising—much of it hitting the sort of pitch-perfect distraction that can help make the product more endearing—it’s almost inevitable that some of its commercials will be flat-footed duds.

But while we’re imagining an alternate universe where all of Coca-Cola’s dreams come true, we might as well talk about the one where every single household object is made of empty Coke bottles.

On Saturday, California Chrome will try to become the 12th horse to win the Triple Crown when he races in the Belmont Stakes. But to Breathe Right, his success isn’t just about raw talent—it’s about the nasal strips he’s been wearing lately, which his owners swear by.

Though horses are not its target, Breathe Right is taking full advantage of the news. Parent company GlaxoSmithKline plans to distribute 50,000 Breathe Right nasal strips to fans at the Belmont. And Grey in New York quickly whipped up the commercial below, too.

The agency says the spot was written last Wednesday, awarded production on Thursday, cast Friday, pre-pro’ed Sunday, shot Monday, edited Tuesday and shipped on Wednesday. Showing the journey of a jockey who goes from congested to rested in the “Breathe Right Bedtime Stakes,” the spot will air on NBC during the race on Saturday night.

Also note the jockey’s name: Jimmy Heekin. Inside joke.

Credits below.

brightcove.createExperiences();

CREDITS
Client: GSK Consumer Healthcare
Agency: Grey, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Tor Myhren
Creative Directors: Lee St. James, Dave Cohen
Art Director: Lee St. James
Copywriter: Dave Cohen, Andy Bohjalian
Agency Producer: Lori Bullock
Production Company: Chelsea Pictures
Director: Robb Bindler
Director of Photography: Derek McKane
Editor: Crandall Miller, Whitehouse
Sound Design: Crandall Miller. Whitehouse
Senior Mixer: Dante De Sole, Vision Post
Principal Talent: Andrew Keenan-Bolger
Principal VO Talent: Dave Johnson

Behold Coca-Cola’s newest happiness machine: the Bio Cooler, a soft-drink dispenser that doesn’t need electricity or batteries to run.

The unit, developed by Leo Burnett Colombia and the International Physics Centre in Bogota, uses two cooling methods based on ancient technology. Watering the plants atop the device produces evaporation, and a mirror at the top is used to convert gas into liquid inside the cooler. Coke claims the cooler works better the hotter it gets, and the brand chose to demonstrate in Aipir, Colombia, where temperatures can approach 115 degrees Fahrenheit and residents travel 12 hours to fetch ice.

Some commenters have questioned whether it’s crass to provide a thirsty population with a fridge that dispenses Coca-Cola, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly the healthiest beverage choice. That point would apply if this were a purely altruistic endeavor. Since it’s a promotional exercise, however, such arguments don’t really hold water.

True to its marketing mantra, Coke’s peddling a feel-good vibe—just as it did with those sharable cans that split in half and friendly bottles (also from Burnett Colombia) that can only be opened when joined with other bottles.

Via Ads of the World.