Die Young, but Look Pretty Doing It, Says This Existential Clothing Ad With a Twist

There’s not much anyone can do to avoid life’s little indignities. But if you’ve got some money in the bank, you can at least be well dressed while facing them.

That, at least, is the upshot of a new ad from Middle Eastern clothing retailer Centrepoint and agency Impact BBDO Dubai. 

Shot in black and white, it features a young man driving a flashy vintage sportscar while a stunning woman stares out the window from the backseat (perhaps reflecting the marketer’s audience). The party drips with ennui. Despite the trappings of success, this gent can’t escape banal little tragedies—a stone in his shoe during a meeting, a piece of gum left on his seat by some thoughtless predecessor, a baby on the airplane he’s riding in.

The uncaring universe, it turns out, does not love him like his mother does (assuming the universe recognizes he’s there at all). His scruples eventually reach a high point when the car breaks down on a set of railroad tracks. 

read more

All 32 NFL Teams Took a Break From Their Rivalries to Unite for the Olympics

What’s more American than mom and apple pie? Or, as Bob Dylan asked in Jeep’s Super Bowl spot, “What’s more American than America?

One possible answer is the National Football League.

Professional pigskin may be the United States’ most popular sport by a mile (or at least 100 yards), but it has never made a paid appearance in the Olympic Games … until now.

The NFL debuted its first Olympics ad in the opening days of this year’s games with “One Team,” created by Grey New York. The work was developed in collaboration with the NFL, the U.S. Olympic Committee and some dedicated groundskeepers.

read more

Nationwide's Jingle Gets a Modern Tune-Up in Ogilvy's Olympic Spots

Brad Paisley and Rachel Platten are on your side, performing expanded versions of Nationwide’s iconic jingle in the insurance company’s new spots from Ogilvy & Mather.

Launched during NBC’s Olympics coverage, the work presents “Songs for All Your Sides,” striving to tell “the whole story of what Nationwide is and how we can support our members through their life stages,” says client CMO Terrance Williams.

Both Paisley and Platten contribute to the lyrics in their respective spots, touching on issues like banking services and retirement plans. First up, country star Paisley works the frets, waxing poetic about man caves and RVs (which, let’s face it, wouldn’t seem out of place in most country songs):

read more

Y&R Imagines the Sad Wasteland of All Those Shopping Carts You've Abandoned Online

Do you ever abandon an online shopping trip mid-search, only to discover your potential purchases weeks or months later, still languishing in the cart?

Online discount code hub RetailMeNot and agency Y&R New York bring that image to life in a new ad called “Carts,” one of two new spots aimed at raising awareness of site features beyond promo codes.

Y&R says its mission was “to transform the brand’s position from a coupon aggregator to a tool that empowers more confident shoppers,” resulting in the “Carts” spot and a brick-and-mortar example called “Handbag.” In the second spot, a shopper overcomes her retail-price angst thanks to a discount from RetailMeNot’s mobile app.   

Check them both out below:

read more

How 2 Copywriters Convinced Strangers to Take Drugs and Try Building Ikea Furniture

Earlier this week, an updated take on a famous anti-drug PSA posed the classic question: “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”

Nope. But what about your Ikea furniture on drugs?

Hunter Fine and Alex Taylor are two veteran copywriters who met several years ago while working at BBDO New York and continue to collaborate on the occasional side project. Last year, they were discussing the shared frustrations of building Ikea furniture when a friend noted that the experience would be particularly difficult for someone under the influence of certain intoxicants.

Using the power of the pun, they then developed the idea for “Hikea,” a video series in which they recruited several willing strangers to go on camera, take substantial doses of psychedelic drugs, and attempt to construct new desks and drawers without injuring themselves in the process.

We think it’s fair to say that they experienced varying degrees of success. In the first episode, things went predictably awry for Giancarlo and Nicole once the LSD kicked in.

read more

Amy Schumer Isn't All That Great With Kids in Old Navy's Back-to-School Ad

Amy Schumer may be the world’s worst babysitter, but she will take her nephew and niece back-to-school shopping at Old Navy.

A new 60-second ad marks the star’s debut for the clothing chain as its spokescomic. In it, she demonstrates her total ineptitude at looking after children, like feeding her charges by slopping milk into a box of cereal, and handing them each a fork.

Luckily, she knows enough to call some cool kid and get his advice on where to take them to buy clothes. Unluckily, she sweeps them out of the house without finding them shoes to wear—and knows too little to avoid making a total fool out of herself.

read more

Ikea Finally Agrees to Collaborate With Kanye West, but Not the Way He Wanted

You know how sometimes people fish on Twitter in hopes that a brand will give them free stuff? For the last few months, Kanye West’s been doing that with Ikea. And Ikea Australia finally gave him an answer—one so packed with lulz you could use it as a throw pillow. 

read more

Elegant Split Screens Balance On-Board With On-Shore in This Cruise-Line Ad

Figliulo & Partners doubles your pleasure through elegant use of split-screen technique in the agency’s first major push for Carnival’s ultra-luxury Seabourn Cruise Line.

Targeting affluent millennials, a playful, visually arresting anthem spot titled “Extraordinary Worlds” presents a series of complementary images on opposite sides of the screen. One panel shows on-board amenities, while the other displays highlights from exotic cruising destinations such as New Zealand and Iceland. Throughout the minute-long commercial, the frames work together to create an optical feast of color, flow and composition.

read more

Flo? Whoa! Progressive's Icon Swaps Her Apron for Attitude in Motorcycle Insurance Ads

Like a true nature’s child, Flo was born to be wild. Or something.

Progressive’s iconic ad character, played by Stephanie Courtney, revs up the va-va-vroom in this tongue-in-cheek motorcycle-themed print campaign created by Arnold Worldwide with Buffalo Art Co. and custom bike builder Chase Stopnik. (The work marks another departure for Flo from her familiar white-and-blue aproned commercial appearances, following her ectoplasmic turn in spots touting the insurer’s sponsorship of the Ghostbusters reboot.)

Now, Flo goes the sexy/rebel biker-chick route—which, of course, yields some high-octane kitsch, as she poses on custom-built “Chrome Thrones” made from motorcycle parts designed to represent different rigs.

read more

Voiceover Narrator Totally Loses Control of This Awesome Nike Ad for the Olympics

Nike athletes do such great things, even voiceover artists are surprised.

The athletic wear brand’s “Unlimited” campaign, which launched last week with this baby-themed spot, really kicks into high gear today with “Unlimited You”—a long-form spot running as a 2:30 online and as a :60 on NBC’s coverage of tonight’s Opening Ceremonies of the Rio Olympics.

The spot, created by Wieden + Kennedy Portland and directed by The Daniels (aka, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), has fun in particular with the voiceover, by actor Oscar Isaac. After talking up the potential of everyday athletes, in a playfully freewheeling way, for the first 60 seconds, Isaac tries to wrap up the spot—but the athletes have other ideas.

read more

Maya Angelou Illuminates the Human Family in Apple's Beautiful Rio Olympics Spot

Building on Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” campaign, TBWAMedia Arts Lab gives us “The Human Family,” a new spot with Maya Angelou narrating her poem “The Human Family.” 

read more

Miller Lite Is Surprising Fans With Unexpected Activations Across the U.S. This Summer

Summer is better with perks. To take advantage of that, Miller Lite is spending these sun-soaked months offering “kick backs”—a fun series of unexpected rewards—to people across the country. Who says service is dead? 

read more

The Search for Extraterrestrial Life Suddenly Has a New Logo

With help from BMB founder/chairman Trevor Beattie, the SETI Institute—devoted to, among other things, the search for technologically sophisticated life on worlds orbiting other stars—has released a new logo that features a question mark smack-dab at the lead. 

read more

Hitman's Latest Campaign Set Garys (Busey and Cole) in Competition … to Get Assassinated

For Square/Enix’s Hitman, a video game where players must assassinate given targets without getting caught, Omelet LA spent the first half of the year building a campaign that kills (literally! … well, digitally, anyway). And it used that campaign to build actual gaming content. 

In March, for the game’s release, Hitman built pre-rolls that let you murder the ad. The spot, titled “The Wolfshark,” featured the aforementioned (“TV’s King of Corruption!”) and featured a “Kill this ad in…” button where “Skip ad” normally is. 

read more

3 Agency Interns Have a Plan to Get More Women Into Google's Image Results for 'CEO'

Search for “CEO” on Google Images, and you’ll find only a handful of the first 100 results include female faces. Of those, one is a stock photo and another is … CEO Barbie.

A 2015 study by CNNMoney found that 14.2 percent of leadership positions in the S&P 500 are held by women, and according to nonprofit Catalyst, only 4 percent of top companies are currently led by female chief executives.

To help change Google’s own male-dominated portrayal of CEOs, three aspiring agency professionals working their way through BBH’s internship program, The Barn, want to change that fact with the help of some strategic SEO magic.

read more

This Texas Agency Uses a Special Deck of Cards to Get New Hires Up to Speed

As small agencies expand, maintaining culture can be a challenge. McGarrah Jessee, an agency that threw a massive celebration complete with streamers and beach balls for its 100th employee, recently rounded out its team to 140 people.

read more

Snack Brand Reaches Out to Coders in Desperate Attempt Not to Be Killed by Robots

When the robopocalypse comes, will you be ready? Or will you at least have some snacks on hand so you can ride out the chaos in an underground bunker somewhere?

A snack brand called Halfpops wants to help—partly by stoking fears that highly advanced artificial intelligence will rise up and kill us one day (soon) and partly by offering sustenance to the robofighting code ninjas among us. These two groups need each other to survive, says Halfpops.

That’s the premise of the brand’s new digital ad campaign, which teases the concept of Armageddon. It’s all in fun, though, so there’s really no need to worry about death by cyborg (at least not yet).

read more

Deep Breaths, Everyone: McCann Made a Perfume That's Meant to Stimulate Creativity

To celebrate its 70th anniversary in Uruguay, McCann Montevideo has created I CANN Eau de Créativité, a limited-edition fragrance meant to, well, boost creativity. 

“In our research, we determined that creativity is completely emotional and with no logical process,” explains Leándro Gomez, McCann Montevideo’s CEO and general creative director. “We also learned that scents are a powerful medium to convey emotions—in fact, 75 percent of our emotions are connected to scents that immediately take us back to very specific moments of our lives.”

read more

Corn Dogs Beat Down the Most Monstrous Hunger in This Ad for Foster Farms

A horned, hairy monster represents a pre-teen’s ravenous appetite which, left unchecked, swells to Godzilla-esque proportions in the first-ever ad campaign for Foster Farms Corn Dogs. On the plus side, that furry freak is a beast on the soccer field (we’d pick him for our team any day!)—and the middle-schooler jonesing for a snack never once morphs into Marilyn Monroe:

read more

Dinosaurs Dance to a Song About Underwear in Happiest Ad Ever About Child Abuse

The Aardman studio, known best for creating Wallace & Gromit, made the rollicking cinema commercial below for the NSPCC’s anti-sexual abuse “Pants” campaign in the U.K. The ad is a four-minute music video for a song, produced by Adelphoi Music and voiced by X Factor’s Peter Dickson, urging children to speak up if someone tries to touch them inappropriately.

read more