Hasta La Creative!

Remember Partners + Napier? The Rochester-based agency has appeared on this humble blog for an animated Kodak campaign, the wooing of a “big agency” Ogilvy executive, and the usual staffing reductions.

This week, members of the shop’s Manhattan office did a bit of OOH trolling and managed to score local press mentions thanks to a PR push that amounted to Tweeting the image below at everyone from Gawker and BuzzFeed to Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian (in addition to dropping some mentions in our anonymous tip box).

@AgencySpy This is how @pnycagency welcomed @KanyeWest to Flatiron Plaza for his performance tonight. #AllStarWeekend pic.twitter.com/uUS4uVdMNQ

— PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015

Congratulations, PNYC: you did it (note the double URL there).

Pitchfork mentioned the stunt yesterday, and local blog Gothamist talked to the single-name duo Matt and Jason (who would be aforementioned executive Matt Dowshen and ECD Jason Marks, veteran of Ogilvy, CP+B and R/GA).

Here’s their pitch:

“We are an agency actively researching the effects of Out of Home (OOH) advertising. We found out Kanye was playing outside of our building and we wanted to make a point about being in the right place at the right time with the right message and how that can be amplified through digital channels. And… don’t fuck with Beck.”

Neither pop music’s self-appointed savoir nor his super-cheeky bride have responded to this blatant act of provocation, but the agency’s social media manager had a fun 24 hours:

.@KimKardashian when she eventually sees all of our crazy tweets. pic.twitter.com/Xl3uU5pLgY — PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015

Michael McDonald put us up to it. — PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015

Just kidding. It was McDonald, Tswift, Beck, and a random assortment of crowd-hating, noise-averse residents in the Flatiron District.

— PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015

Score one for persistence, then.

JWT’s London office won lead creative duties on the Ribena account.

Never heard of it? Ribena is a UK-based bottled juice company that was once #4 in that market before being acquired from GlaxoSmithKline by Japanese group Suntory. It now claims to be the most popular such brand in the United Kingdom, so it’s like a mix of Naked Juice and Sunny D.

The client, which announced an agency review back in October 2014, is big enough to attract Grey London (which runs global creative), Mother, and VCCP to pitch alongside JWT. Incumbent M&C Saatchi had run the account in the UK and Ireland since 2005 but was not involved in the pitch “given the opportunities…within the soft-drinks category.”

The client’s marketing director on why JWT won:

“As well as showing some strong strategic thinking, the pitch team demonstrated a deep understanding of the brand’s rich history, its wonderful personality and the great opportunities that lie ahead.”

From London CCO John Cherry:

“Quite simply, Ribena is great. It holds a special place in the hearts of the British public. To get the opportunity to move it forward and make it even more loved is truly fantastic.”

This was Saatchi’s last work for the client:

An agency based in Los Angeles is hosting its fifth anniversary party this week in Venice Beach. We don’t live in Los Angeles and don’t personally know anyone at Mistress, so our interest level was hovering near zero until we saw the pictures.

Here’s Scott Harris — current Mistress partner and former CD at Mother London/senior copywriter at Ogilvy New York — surrounded by his fellow creative professionals at last year’s event:

…and here’s the host of said event, Mistress Anastasia.

We don’t know what “ribbon bondage” is and we don’t quite care to find out.

There’s a bit of the usual PR blah blah in the release about agency growth, etc., in addition to this quote from the agency’s “Culture Mistress” aka head of operations Aya Nishimura:

This bordering-on-TMI story isn’t quite as juicy as the blind item we received regarding an executive who was so fond of one particular adult entertainer that he went and married her.

But it is distracting, no?

Fresh off Anomaly’s Budweiser Super Bowl win, America’s other favorite sport confirmed that the agency will be its new creative AOR. There was no review.

Less than a year ago, we reported that the league had chosen BBDO New York, also without a review. Here’s that agency’s first work for Opening Day 2014:

This big score follows Anomaly’s Johnnie Walker global win in December. From the MLB’s COO to Maureen Morrison of AdAge:

“We are very excited to work with Anomaly, whose work speaks for itself, and will look to them to capture the game, its stars and major events in new and creative ways.”

No word on whether the Budweiser work led to this win.

Brands need YouTube content and advertising, but where do they turn to procure this modern form of communications currency? Ad agencies are changing, but few have crossed the bridge from making TV for a passive audience to making video for an active, empowered audience. One way to find a video provider is to discover who […]

The post Holy Tongue Cleaners, Orabrush Team Spins Off appeared first on AdPulp.

Last week sources told us that household chemical behemoth Unilever plans to launch multiple creative reviews for its various brands, and today the corporation made a big change on the AXE account.

Various trade pubs report that creative for the client, which has been with BBH for nearly a decade, will now be run by 72andSunny with the agency’s Amsterdam office playing lead.

BBH’s “Hotel,” which debuted just over a month ago, looks to be the agency’s last work for the client; sources tell Adweek and others that 72 beat out R/GA, Lowe, 180, and the incumbent for the business.

2014’s “Make Love, Not War” Super Bowl campaign marked a large shift for the brand, which previously specialized in sexually-charged ads targeted to pimple-popping teenage boys. Sources claim that the new agency will focus on re-positioning the brand, so we assume that 72andSunny’s work for the Unilever client will not resemble its stateside campaigns for Carl’s Jr.

From ECD Carlo Cavallone:

We’ve reached out to 72andSunny for more details; updates when we receive them.

Two weeks ago, we responded to a series of tips about Chrysler’s Jeep brand with a post noting that GlobalHue and its sister agency, A to Si, were in contract negotiations with their shared client.

Today, however, a source close to the account confirmed that A to Si lost the English-to-French translation business more than one month ago.

The same source tells us that the creative for Jeep may well remain with GlobalHue after current negotiations are resolved. But, as Car and Driver reported today, the client has yet to purchase a Super Bowl ad and may sit the game out — along with Ford, Audi, Hyundai, and Lincoln.

So no McConaughey musings or Dylan cameos in Super Bowl XLIX. Car and Driver wonders whether more auto brands have decided to let the cars sell themselves…or to let extended ruminations by the True Detective star rack up views online rather than during the commercial breaks on February 1st.

Updates when we receive them.

Ogilvy & Mather, Paris have launched a new campaign for Dove haircare products entitled “Love Your Curls.”

As that title suggests, the campaign is aimed at women with curly hair. The campaign is based on Dove’s research finding that only 4 out of 10 girls with curly hair think that their hair is beautiful. “Love Your Curls” begins with interviews with girls who express their dissatisfaction with their curly hair, and that they think straight hair is prettier. It’s tough to watch girls so young dissatisfied with their appearance, but Dove’s research also unearthed a more promising statistic: that curly-haired girls are seven times more likely to love their hair if the people around them do. As the text “The best way to change how they feel about their curls, is to show them how you feel about yours” comes on the screen, girls and their relatives dance through the streets celebrating their curls. They then arrive at a sort of Dove sing-a-long where a group plays and sings a tune with the repetitive chorus, “We all love our curls.”

“The Dove Hair Love Your Curls film reveals an important issue, and Dove Hair has a responsibility to take that finding and instigate positive social change,” Rob Candelino, Unilever’s vice president of marketing for haircare, told Adweek.

Critics of Dove’s marketing tactics have suggested that the brand is manipulative and preys on customers’ insecurities, and will likely take similar issue with this latest effort, but Candelino defended the ad, telling Adweek, “We are a proud leader in redefining how beauty is portrayed and celebrated, and we have been committed to helping make beauty a source of confidence, not anxiety. Building on the scale of the Dove brand, the Dove Hair Love Your Curls campaign reveals the opportunity that all women have to set a positive tone for the next generation.”

W+K Amsterdam has launched an integrated campaign for Booking.com introducing the Booking Now app.

In a series of four 30-second spots which begin airing this Sunday, W+K Amsterdam borrows a trick from “Ship My Pants,” ending each ad with the almost-expletive filled, “The right room, right booking now,” in suggestive circumstances. Each spot presents a comical scenario where immediate booking is a necessity. In “Dead Bed” it’s a grandmother offering up the bed where her husband died peacefully, while the similar “Race Car Bed” borrows a gag from Grandma’s Boy. “Karate” and “Interview” change things up, presenting a couple who are pleasantly surprised by their daughter’s performance at a karate competition and a woman who arrives for a job interview a full day early.

In addition to the broadcast spots, the campaign also includes cinema, OOH and digital activations.

Deutsch LA recently launched a new ad for Dr. Pepper, introducing “Mop Dog.”

“Mop Dog” is a Puli — a Hungarian breed that develops natural dread locks or “cords” giving it a distinct, comical appearance — who roams around in search of a home. The dog walks past an owner taking her two (more normal looking) dogs for a walk and passes two shops with mops in the window before finally being taken in by a Dr. Pepper truck driver (who Breaking Bad fans may recognize as “Krazy 8?). From there it’s straight Puli cuteness as the dog tags along. For a moment it seems the driver is going to drop the dog off at an animal shelter, but, predictably changes his mind. The spot ends with the “Always Be One of a Kind” tagline.

While the ad could hardly be accused of originality, Deutsch LA handles the canine approach as well as most with “Mop Dog.” Saccharine as it might be, it’s hard to imagine that people won’t eat this one right up (who doesn’t love Pulis?), and we wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Pepper’s “Mop Dog” makes a reappearance.