Hasta La Creative!

Arnold Worldwide has appointed Jim Elliott to the position of global chief creative officer. In the newly created position, Elliott will be based out of Boston, but will also travel to New York to assist Arnold’s team there.

Elliott joins the agency from Y&R New York, where he has served as chief creative officer since June of 2011, working with such clients as Virgin Atlantic, Land Rover and Dell. Prior to Y&R, Elliott spent over four years with Goodby Silverstein & Partners as a group creative director, which followed an eight year stint as a creative director and partner at Cole & Weber.

“The creation of this role is a really big part of the next part of plans here at Arnold — building our brand here in the U.S. and beyond,” Pam Hamlin, Arnold global president, told AdAge.

While Arnold did not confirm an official start date for Elliott, AdAge stated that it will be sometime this quarter.

Cramer-Krasselt’s Chicago office has named Ken Erke to lead its creative department.

The new position marks a return home of sorts for Chicago native Erke, who served as group creative director at Cramer-Krasselt in 2006 before leaving for an ECD position at Y&R Chicago, where he eventually advanced to the chief creative officer role.

At Y&R, Erke helped win various pitches including Double Tree and Hotels.com while working on award-winning campaigns for Sears, The National Parks, and more. He moved to R/GA in October 2010 after spending more than three years with the Y&R organization; the agency hired him, along with fellow ECD Matt Marcus, to help build out a Windy City office that had just over a dozen employees at the time.

Erke replaces former SVP/ECD Derek Green, who left the agency in December and returned to his native Australia; he now serves as ECD at Ogilvy’s Sydney office. He will report to Vice Chairman/CCO Marshall Ross.

Accounts led by Erke will include Corona. In case you missed it, Cramer-Krasselt survived the October pruning in which the beer-maker’s parent company parted ways with GS&P and Constellation.

Havas Worldwide Chicago Group announced the appointment of Celia Jones as group brand director today. She will be responsible for both strategic brand building and external marketing, reporting to U.S. Chief Growth Officer Laura Maness. Jones will also be tasked with managing external communications, events and thought leadership, and will serve as “point person for all media inquiries for the Havas Chicago Group.”

Jones arrives at Havas following over seven years at digital agency Critical Mass, where she served as global marketing director, led external marketing communications across all of the agency’s offices worldwide and played an important role in global expansion. Prior to Critical Mass, Jones served as director of content and lead copywriter at Designkitchen (a WPP Wunderman unit) for two years. Commenting on the hire, Paul Marobella, president, Havas Worldwide Chicago Group, cited Celia’s “unique combination of marketing savvy, communications expertise, digital acumen and a passion for brand storytelling…”

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Last year, Droga5 gained a lot of attention for Newcastle with its “If We Made It” digital campaign for the brand. So when the agency crashed Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign with its “Chores” effort, it was clear that it was likely just the beginning of the agency’s latest campaign leading up to the big game. Now Droga5 has launched a more substantial effort, relying on a deadpan delivery from Aubrey Plaza to call on other brands to join forces with Newcastle to purchase a Super Bowl ad.

After a quick dig at big game advertising in general, and Chrysler’s ridiculous Super Bowl spot last year in particular, Plaza jumps to the pitch in typically deadpan fashion. The gist is that Newcastle wants in on the big game, but is looking for partners (whose logos and brands would also be featured in the ad), or as Plaza puts it, “Instead of blowing Newcastle’s marketing budget, let’s team up to blow all of our marketing budgets.”

(more…)

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On August 18, 2014, TBWA Toronto and Gatorade surprised members of the Cruisers sledge hockey team by inviting NHL stars to join them on the ice. TBWA Toronto then used footage from the event to create the above online spot, released just a few days ago.

In the 2:15 video, we see the surprised look on the faces of Cruisers players as a Gatorade spokesperson invites NHL stars such as Sidney Crosby, Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell onto the ice. But the ad isn’t just about how excited the Cruisers were to meet their hockey idols. The sledge hockey team proved the naysayers (who say sledge hockey isn’t as hard as the stand up version) wrong, and actually schooled the pros. “A couple of those guys did circles around us,” admits Giroux.

“At the end of the day, hockey is hockey,” the spot concludes,” followed by the message, “Proud supporter of hockey everywhere. No matter how it’s played.”

It’s an inspiring message, delivered well over the course of the ad — which actually does a good job of developing its story of the course of its run time, not feeling too stretched at out, even at over two minutes. “Sledge Hockey” is a pretty perfect encapsulation of Gatorade’s “#WinFromWithin” campaign message, and seems to have struck a chord with hockey fans, as it has already tallied almost 700,000 views on YouTube. (more…)

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adam&eveDDB London has a fun new campaign for Temptations, in which they unleashed hungry cats on packs of the treats.

The results were, of course, completely predictable: the cats destroyed the bags in an attempt to get at the goodies inside. adam&eveDDB London not only captured their shenanigans for an online video (above), but used the wrecked bags for print and OOH ads. The video, which was just uploaded today, is all but guaranteed to go viral, since cats+destruction is a pretty winning formula. At the beginning of the spot, the hashtag “#PackAttack” appears onscreen, and the brand is calling on cat-loving viewers to submit their own photos of Temptations bags destroyed by hungry felines. It’s a nice way to bring in social engagement and get everyone excited about the “#PackAttack” effort — especially the cats.

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DDB Canada launched a pro-bono PSA campaign for Toronto Crime Stoppers examining the dangers of ecstasy use, entitled “Cookin’ with Molly.”

The spot, whose full-length version online runs 90 seconds, is presented as a cooking show with a drug dealer. Molly is a name for pure MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy), but, as the video shows, pills presented as “Molly” are often adulterated with substances ranging from methamphetamine and cocaine to heroin and even bath salts. “Welcome to ‘Cookin’ with Molly,’” says the host of the show at the beginning of the ad, “today’s secret ingredient is meth.” He adds just a pinch of bath salts to some ground up MDMA, a bunch of meth and finishes up with his “signature” blue color and some binder before pressing the pills. The online version of the spot ends by directing to viewers to the campaign landing site for more information. There are also 15 and 6 second broadcast versions of the spot. DDB Canada hopes the tongue-in-cheek approach of the campaign, which launched today and will run through the end of February, will resonate with the target audience of people between the ages of 15 and 25.

“These party-type drugs have been a growing concern, and Toronto Crime Stoppers wanted to tackle this head on without being heavy-handed, so the cooking show format is intended to be tongue-in-cheek,” explains Craig Ferguson, senior art director, DDB Canada Toronto. “At the same time, this creative still allows us to educate people on the harmful, hidden ingredients found in MDMA which was our key objective.” (more…)

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Wexley School for Girls wishes to extend you a warm holiday greeting. The only problem is, it is 2014 and our culture is drowning in politically correct language. Therefore, the agency set out to not offend with this non-denominational winter song: At the end of the video, viewers are further encouraged to explore more options. […]

The post This Christmas, Enjoy Wexley’s Non-Denominational Holiday Greeting appeared first on AdPulp.

The folks over at Chicago agency Plan B crafted their own sarcastic take on the The Elf on the Shelf, “The Ad Agency Elf on the Shelf,” for the agency’s holiday card/

As might be expected, the ad agency elf is a little more ornery than his non-agency brethren, while also showing a taste for alcohol. Rather than spying on children to find out who’s naughty and nice, he instead keeps tabs on agency taboos. He calls out one employee for texting during a meeting, an intern for looking at a picture of a kitten on Facebook — “What client job are you going to bill that to, huh?” he asks — and a group creative director who “can make a big TV commercial but can’t make a pot of coffee.” As often as not, The Ad Agency Elf on the Shelf comes across as creepy (which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise), and on more than one occasion pushes things well past uncomfortable into cringe territory. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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FCB Inferno has just launched its first campaign for BMW UK with a 60-second spot promoting the hybrid i8, entitled “Curiosity.”

The spot is based off an idea “first presented in June 2013, when FCB Inferno pitched to win the BMW UK creative account,” according to The Drum. “Curiosity” shows an early human in the year 4000 BC as he becomes curious about a herd of horses. “Interesting thing curiosity: we can learn from it, we can die from it,” intones the voiceover. Although the man is frightened, he manages to mount one of the horses, taking an important step forward for civilization as the voiceover sums up the situation: “…sometimes it can lead us to places we never imagined we would reach.” The ad then pans to the BMW i8, introducing the vehicle as an important innovation for the company. A bit hyperbolic perhaps, but this isn’t a brand known for its modesty.

“In essence, driving a BMW is about exhilaration. The emotion behind the ultimate driving machine is very primal in some respects. The first man ever to have the breakthrough idea of riding a wild horse seemed a fitting parallel for the breakthrough idea that is the i8,” Al Young, FCB chief creative officer, explained to The Drum.

The ad is slated to premiere during the final ad break of the X Factor, and will then be broken up into smaller segments to air on broadcast and online.

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