Hasta La Creative!

We’ve been had. It turns out that one man’s heroic billboard crusade to prevent celebrity divorce was actually a hoax by WEtv to advertise its new show Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars.

We caught up with WEtv President Marc Juris to find out how he hit the zeitgeist and tricked media outlets across the nation:

AdFreak: Is there a real J. Robert Butler?
Mark Juris: You’re speaking to him. No, he’s a fictional character we invented, played by a real actor.

Whom you made up a whole backstory for about his daughter’s divorce…
Because the most important thing you have to remember, is that the audience in incredibly smart. We created a whole character, a persona, and a motivation. Thought about why he would do this, what he expected would be the response. I think the inclination is to have him say some outrageous stuff, and we pulled all that back and had him be more realistic.

How did you hatch the hoax?
We went through a couple of ideas. We thought, “Could we make these billboards poking fun at celebrity couples who had divorced?” But it just felt too much like an overt ad campaign. And that’s the problem with overt campaigns; people just drive by them and just keep going. So we thought, “How can we really do this?” What if we made an organization that seemed ridiculous, but could be real and serious?

It seemed real and serious. You fooled us. Did you get anyone else behind the movement?
We had quite a few requests for interviews from some major broadcasters and some broadcasters who were upset because we weren’t getting back to them. Some got lightly pushy, saying things like, “We’re going to go to press without your comments.” But it got a lot of pickups because it was thought provoking. What it was saying kinda made sense, and by the end it was even making sense to me.

I think you could have actually started a movement.
I think you might be right. Some of those lines really resonated because marriage isn’t a sponsorship opportunity. I think the general population is a little sick of it. The Kim and Kanye wedding happened recently, and we weren’t invited, but when you see this sort of thing where everything is sponsored, all the brands there, and people are tired of it. The best messaging is what really resonates with people. People are getting smarter and smarter, and they don’t want to be played. I mean, when you see something like “consciously uncoupled,” it really seems like they [Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin] went to the same company that comes up with things like “Obamacare” to come up with the name!

The new banner across the signs says “help stop celebrity divorce,” and suggests tuning in for Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars. Do you think a show like this will really help prevent celebrity divorce?
No, I don’t think so. At this point we’re having a little fun.  But we wanted to make people think and link it to our show in a more meaningful way.

Well you got lots of people talking. Who was covering it?
There was a lot of online blog coverage. We had a very long piece on KPLA, we had an entire segment on Fox news referencing the billboards and talking about celebrity divorce.  We really had great coverage with just five billboards and a couple of buses. I love outdoor advertising because it really stands alone, and if it’s great you really see it. Outdoor can be really successful and very cost efficient. I also think you have to do city specific advertising when it’s appropriate.

It was definitely appropriate here.
Yeah, there’s really nowhere other than Hollywood you could have put those banners. But we also had banners running up and down Jersey Shore this weekend letting everyone know JWoww was going to be at the Jersey Shore this weekend, because she was at Marriage Boot Camp. And that got a lot of Twitter activity.

That’s great. Tell me a little about the design. How did you make it look so believable? Even the actor you chose…
I was very careful not to make it look like an ad campaign. It’s easy to go there, I really like to step back and be the cynical self that I am, and say, “Would I buy that that’s an ad campaign?” I will tell you this: We shot a video message from him, but I felt it didn’t ring true enough, so we didn’t use it. Because believability is key, and you can’t fall in love with your own stuff. I saw him on camera and I said, “I’m not buying it from him.” You would have to be De Niro to sell this stuff! You’d need an actor of that caliber to pull it off. I’d rather pull back in an effort to make it feel more real than to put it up.

And the design?
It was consciously done to make it seem like someone like him would think it was a good billboard, American values, low-fi. We placed him from Utah in our own heads. What would a guy from Utah who was a used car dealer use as his billboards? Right down to the logo, that’s the sort of logo he’d like. We knew we needed a website where he could say his piece. We even went so far to Google J. Robert Butler to see who would come up. You see, we did all our homework because we knew you’d be doing that.

Yeah, we looked through the site, and usually people don’t bother to hide the truth. The moment you get to the website the real advertiser is like, “Surprise! It was us all along!” And claims credit for the campaign.
That’s right. That was everyone’s inclination, but I didn’t want to do that. Because to be believable it simply can’t be connected to anything—no immediate messaging. You really have to be patient. I learned that from the Jimmy Kimmel twerking video, because that was, what? Two months they sat on their hands. I know our PR team was going crazy wanting to tell everyone about it. But you have to wait because that’s when things start to feel real—when you feel like there’s no ad message that’s behind it.

That’s a great point. Was there anything else surprising about the campaign besides the actual surprise at the end?
Well, J. Robert Butler, the actual actor we used, has been married four times. So that’s more than a little ironic. I’m wondering if he heard from any of his ex-wives about his billboard campaign.

Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars premieres tonight at 9/8 Central on WEtv.

Next time you’re out at bar tying one on, you might want to reconsider your choices—if you happen to be drinking in Japan. 

Ogilvy & Mather and bar chain Yaocho bring us this glimpse into a strange phenomenon in Japan where lots of people apparently literally drink till they drop, and sleep on the street.

To curb this disturbing trend, the slumped-over drunks are made into PSA billboards—framed within a square of white tape and adorned with the hashtag #NOMISUGI, which translates to “too drunk.” Instagram users all over Japan have been capturing these impromptu ads, which are an effort to shame people into behaving better.

We’re not sure if it’s staged or not, but it’s a hilarious concept, and worth a look below. 

Via Ads of the World.

CREDITS
Client: Yaocho
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Japan
Chief Creative Officer: Ajab Samrai
Creative Directors: Yasuhito Imai, Federico Garcia
Copywriter: Federico Garcia
Art Director: Junkichi Tatsuki
Production Company: Babel Label
Director: Kentaro Shima

Google has designed a self-driving car. And whatever reservations you might have about such an idea, the company won’t be putting the brakes on it anytime soon—if only because the vehicle has no brakes to begin with. It doesn’t even have a steering wheel.

The car works like the company’s search engine, I guess. You tell it where you want to go, and it takes you where it damn well pleases. Kidding, of course. I think. I hope.

The prototype, which looks like a cross between a Smart car and a Dustbuster, is getting lots of press this week, with most of the coverage focused on the lack of human oversight options. People seem particularly perturbed by the presence of a “panic button” in case of emergencies. Google calls it the “e-stop” feature. If the car’s on fire and bearing down on Grandma, just press “e-stop.” What could go wrong? (In a blog post, Google says, “Our software and sensors do all the work.” Phew.)

The three-minute video below shows various folks—seniors, kids, moms, a blind guy—taking test rides. The car has no brakes, but Google remembered the cup holders. The happy tune on the soundtrack should reassure us all.

Seriously, if this contraption makes driving safer, count me in. For now, though, it’s just too easy to see it as a metaphor for technology run amok.

You didn’t notice it, but the design geeks on Reddit did.

Google moved the “g” right one pixel and the “l” down and right one pixel, one eagle-eyed Redditor noticed on Sunday. Apparently, this was done to fix a very slight problem with the kerning of the letters. As another Redditor pointed out: “The bottom of the ‘l’ and ‘e’ did not line up horizontally and that, my friend, must have driven some design employee crazy.”

Gizmodo wrote about the change yesterday, and got this statement from Google: “Great to see people notice and appreciate even single-pixel changes—we tweaked the logo a little while ago to make sure it looks its sharpest regardless of your screen resolution.”

Compare the two versions of the logo below, also via Gizmodo:

Activists and health advocates are rightly upset over this poorly executed campaign to get Mexico City mothers to breastfeed. It shows topless celebrities with a carefully placed banner running right over their breasts that says, “No les des la espalda, dale pecho,” which translates to, “Don’t turn your back on them, give them your breast.”

The first problem is how overtly sexualized the women are. The act of breastfeeding is not a sexual act. It vacillates between being painful, annoying, exhausting, inconvenient and heartrendingly sublime. The sexualization of breastfeeding is a large part of the reason so many people shame mothers for breastfeeding in public, and a factor in low breastfeeding rates. (This campaign by two students nicely illustrates this part of the problem.)

Let’s be clear: Women are not failing to breastfeed because there aren’t enough topless celebrities out there. As health advocates point out, the decision not to breastfeed is part of a complicated series of factors, including lack of paid time off and family support. To imply it’s all up to the women unfairly blames them when they are unable to breastfeed.

I’m a huge advocate of how advertising can change behavior, but these ads are a waste of money. The good news is, the campaign also involves opening 92 lactation rooms throughout the city, and they’ve removed the topless images from the city’s website.

Photo via.

We’re only 16 days away from the start of the World Cup. And ESPN—which will present all 64 matches of the quadrennial tournament across the ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC networks—released its latest teaser commercial on Tuesday, this one devoted to the time warp that happens for viewers around the world every four years.

The spot, by Wieden + Kennedy in New York, feels like the beginning of an action movie, where the team is getting together before a big heist—except here, we’re seeing how different people around the world are getting ready for the World Cup. And wherever they are in the world, day or night, they’ll be setting their countdown clocks to Brazil time.

The spot moves seamlessly from metropolis to metropolis, with business executives, children, fisherman, etc., getting ready for the event. It opens on a favela rooftop in Rio and goes around the world—to a pub in England, a social club in Ghana, a fishing boat off Spain, an apartment in Russia, a car heading to Tehran, a bar about open at dawn in Japan, an office in Seattle, a family barbecue in Mexico and a research station in the Andes—before returning to Brazil.

“Every 4 years the world has one time zone,” says the end line. (That follows a spot earlier this month that said, “Every 4 years the conversation starts again.”)

Thanks to our longitudinal proximity to Brazil, Americans will see the matches at exceedingly humane hours, with kickoffs generally scheduled for noon, 3 p.m. or 6 p.m. ET. That’s a lot better than other recent World Cups—in particular, the 2002 tournament in Japan and South Korea, whose daily slate of matches began at 2:30 a.m. and wrapped up shortly after breakfast.

CREDITS
Client: ESPN

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Creative Directors: Brandon Henderson, Stuart Jennings, Gary Van Dzura, Caleb Jensen
Art Director: Mathieu Zarbatany
Copywriter: Andrew Jasperson
Producer: Luiza Naritomi
Executive Producer: Temma Shoaf
Account Team: Casey Bernard, Katie Hoak, Alex Scaros

Production Company: Imperial Woodpecker
Director: Stacy Wall
Executive Producer: Doug Halbert
Line Producer: Terry Shafirov
Director of Photography: Corey Walter

Editorial Company: Final Cut
Editor: Jeff Buchanan
Assistant Editor: Geoff Hastings
Post Producer: Beth Fitzpatrick

VFX Company: MPC
Senior Producer: Matthew Loranger
Production Asst.:
Lead Flame Artist/Creative Director: Gigi Ng

Mix Company: Heard City
Mixer: Philip Loeb
Producer: Sasha Awn

Music Company: Travis + Maude
Creative director: David Wittman
Producer: Kala Sherman

Here’s a quick way to sober up after a holiday weekend: Watch this intense, claustrophobic safe-driving PSA from the U.K., aimed at young male drivers who appear to be a terror on the London roads.

“Friendships are critical to this audience. And the tragic message—that by driving too fast, they might kill the very friends they are trying to impress—is one that really hits home,” M&C Saatchi CEO Camilla Harrisson tells the Drum.

The tragic moment here isn’t as dramatic as in the memorable U.S. PSA from a few weeks back, but maybe that’s the point. Perhaps Hollywood-style visuals offer a comfortable distance. This ad certainly doesn’t. The tagline is, “Kill your speed, not your mates.”

The campaign will run in cinema, video-on-demand and social media.

7-Eleven is now offering its Slurpees with hipsterlicious mustache straws and cups shaped like Mason jars.

Be warned: they ain’t free. It’s a cool 99 cents for the stache straw, and a full $2.99 for the Mason jar (though you get your first Slurpee free).

The four stache styles include a British upper-lip, a hirsute handlebar, a Ron Swanson special, and the Hulk Hogan. The entire promotion seems perfectly geared for social sharing with Instagram and Facebook. You should expect to see more of these sort of photo-friendly promotions tailor-made for the selfie crowd.

According to ABC news, the straw sales have already surpassed expectations, and it’s only the start of Slurpee season. Get your summer sippin’ on before they’re all gone.

How does a popular job posting site show off the breadth of its help-wanted offerings in the limited space of one commercial? For Indeed, the answer was to use its own listings to hire experienced professionals for the ad’s cast and crew.

“How the world works” is the theme delivered across TV, digital, print and other media in a rollout that began last week in the U.K., targeting both applicants and companies looking to hire. Bright, bouncy and upbeat, the initiative, crafted by Mullen, emphasizes teamwork and striving toward common goals.

A 50-second spot sets the tone, presenting an ad inside an ad with meta twists that turn the medium into the message.

We see folks from various professions “working” among huge letters that spell out the word I-n-d-e-e-d. The camera pulls back to reveal that the action is taking place on a soundstage where an ad is being filmed. “How do commercials work?” a voiceover begins. “Well, you need a team of talented professionals, working together, focused on the task, doing all kinds of jobs.” The crew on the set—choreographer, boom operator, caterer, makeup artist and others—are identified by on-screen icons which, in the spot’s clickable version, let users search Indeed’s site for those jobs.

What’s more, these folks aren’t actors, but actual professionals (real choreographers, caterers, etc.) hired through Indeed for the spot. (The making-of clip below, which goes into detail on this process, is a must-see.) Even the talent being used to represent nurses, engineers, IT specialists and financial planners are actual trained members of those professions.

Admittedly, not all parts were truly cast through Indeed, since Mullen and other production partners like the directing collective StyleWar were already in place. Here’s how a Mullen spokesperson described the process:

“For the video part of the campaign, we used the Indeed platform to scout and hire creative and production talent. Indeed posted 26 job openings on its website for roles in the spot. Within 48 hours, 1,500 applications were received. Indeed conducted more than 200 interviews in just 14 days. Once a selection was made, industry professionals from six different countries—U.K., U.S., Canada, Czech Republic, Australia and Germany—traveled to Prague for filming and production.”

Beyond TV and digital video, coffee-cup wraps detail the jobs needed to bring java to market, while subway and newspaper ads explain the positions required by those industries.

Communicating aspirational themes and complex information is no easy task, but, overall, this campaign does a fine job of taking Indeed’s message to a higher level.

CREDITS
Client:  Indeed, Austin, Texas
Senior Vice President, Marketing: Paul D’Arcy
Vice President, Corporate Marketing: Mary Ellen Duggan

Agency: Mullen, Boston and San Francisco
Chief Creative Officer: Mark Wenneker
Executive Creative Director: Paul Foulkes
Group Creative Director, Copy: Tim Cawley
Copywriter: E.B. Davis
Copywriter: Jamie Rome
Art Directors: Brooke Doner, Ryan Montgomery
Designer: Mike Molinaro
3-D Artist, Concept Designer: Andy Jones
Producer: Mary Donington

VIDEO CREDITS
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: StyleWar
Editing Company: General Editorial
Color Correction, Visual Effects, Titles: The Mill
Audio Postproduction: Soundtrack
Music: Madplanet
 

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Oreo would like you to start solving your conflicts by scrubbing its cookies against your tongue as fast as you possibly can.

This new spot from AKQA London (and Mind’s Eye director Luke Bellis) shows pairs of what appear to be siblings and friends squaring off over various disputes—like riding shotgun in a car whose backseat is stuffed to the brim, picking what to watch on TV, or taking the blame for knocking the head off a statue with a soccer ball. But instead of, you know, flipping a coin or playing Rock Paper Scissors, they whip out Double Stuf Oreos, put on the stupidest faux-intense-concentration faces they can muster, and compete to be first to transfer all the cream from their cookies onto their tongues.

“We’ve all got something to settle,” reads the copy. “Lick for it,” adds the tagline, using a verb that doesn’t quite accurately describe the action portrayed in the preceding spot.

It’s a somewhat strange commercial, with slightly too much close-up footage of people’s mouths, and it can’t help but evoke Tootsie Roll Pops, which long ago cornered the repetitive-licking theme in advertising. But maybe it’s just not meant for olds like us to understand. The target demographic is clearly tween-ish, a point driven home by the bad dubstep soundtrack.

It is hard to believe any sane person would have the patience not to just eat the cookie.

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