Hasta La Creative!

360i and Oscar Mayer have a new campaign championing unsung bacons — turkey bacon, always in the shadow of its porcine relative; and Michael Bacon, whose popularity also pales in comparison to a certain member of his family.

The goal of the campaign, which lives at the landing site www.unsungbacon.com is simple: Oscar Mayer wants to help Michael Bacon gain more Twitter followers than his famous brother. So far, it’s quite the uphill battle. As of press time, Michael trails 1,361 to 430,943. Michael, in case you didn’t know, is an Emmy award winning composer and a member of The Bacon Brothers. The landing site will host videos, photos and facts about the campaign. It’s a clever idea which may get people to reconsider an item they’d otherwise ignore. 360i’s spot, with production company Mssng Peces is pretty funny and well worth a view, noting similarities between the two unsung bacons. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Top-selling floor-care appliance brand Bissell has named Minneapolis-based independent agency Olson its agency of record, shifting creative, media, strategy, digital, PR, social and analytics to Olson. Those duties were previously held jointly by creative agency Cramer-Krasselt and media agency PHD.

“It was important for us to find an agency that could handle all of the aspects of an integrated campaign, and Olson’s ability to provide an integrated solution with strong analytics helped them stand out,” explained Theresa Junkunc, director of marketing communications for BISSELL.

The win is the latest in a run of new business for Olson since September 2013, in which they’ve AOR duties for brands such as Sharp Electronics, Supercuts, Wet n Wild Beauty, Commerce Bank, Aurora Healthcare and the McDonald’s Twin Cities Co-Op.

“We’re thrilled by this opportunity to help a category leader reach new heights through innovation and integration,” said Olson chief executive officer John Partilla. “We can’t wait to get started.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Arnold New York has a new campaign for Unilever’s brand Simple, the leading “perfume and color-free” skin care brand in the UK for over 40 years which launched in the US back in 2012.

Evolving from the idea that all skin can be sensitive, especially with the impact of cold, heat, wind, and city pollution, the campaign takes an approach to match its product’s name. Arnold dramatizes the idea by projecting images of possible triggers for sensitive skin (UV rays, stress, pollution, etc.) directly onto skin. It’s a straightforward but visually interesting approach that attempts to demonstrate that “the best way to fight the harshness is through the kindness of Simple.” Whether it can help Arnold build the brand into a powerhouse this side of the Atlantic remains to be seen. Credits after the jump. continued…

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Seattle full-service agency Wexley School for Girls is turning the RFI and RFP process on its head, or, in their words, “reversing the traditional RFI and RFP process in which brands look for agencies to handle their advertising via a complex and costly rigmarole of vetting, chemistry checks and basically pitting agencies against one another to compete for an account.” Today the agency has issued the first-ever Reverse Request for Information or RRFI, calling on brands to become the agency’s next client, tapping New York search consultancy Madam to help in the process.

“We believe it’s as important for the agency to choose its next clients as carefully and rigorously as a client chooses its next agency,” reads the RRFI. “We are looking for a client that is respectful, fun to be around and one that enjoys partnering with their agency not dictating to them… We see ourselves as an asset not a vendor. And we see clients as partners not clients,” the Wexley’s RRFI goes on. Applicants are asked to define their brand and where they want to take it in 2-3 years, what brands they admire, their marketing budget, their true “risk tolerance” for creativity, their proudest moment, a definition of their ideal relationship with an advertising agency, and “Would you rather ride 1 horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?” — you know, all the tough questions. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s quite normal to see agencies go all out for April Fool’s Day, the holidays and, yea, actual business-related stuff like the Super Bowl. But it’s rare for an agency to get as elaborate as JWT has with its Mother’s Day stunt.

The agency is out with Intelligift, a service that uses “nationally representative” focus groups to evaluate and determine whether or not the gift you have selected for your mother will be received positively or put you in the dog house for the next 12 months.

People can enter their gift idea on the Intelligift website and have it pre-tested by a focus group of real-life moms from all over the country. Using quantitative surveys, Intelligift evaluates each gift against five metrics: Likeability, Persuasion, Impact, Thoughtfulness and Originality.

Of course you have to enter your email address so perhaps the whole thing is just an elaborate new business prospecting tool:)

Lance Reddick, who you should know as Lieutenant Daniels on The Wire, takes center stage in Raleigh-based agency Baldwin&‘s new campaign for Cree LED Bulbs, entitled “The Room of Enlightenment.”

The digital campaign features Daniels Reddick in a series of loquacious spots extolling the virtues of LED bulbs, which compare favorably to the incandescent ham fryers you grew up with. Relying on solid copywriting and Reddick’s excellent delivery, the spots are memorable without any frills or fancy production touches. The campaign comes on the heels of a recent incandescent bulb ban, with stores still trying to sell their remaining stock of the soon-to-be relics. One spot, “Gray Market” (featured above) pontificates that there will soon be an illicit market for incandescent bulbs where you may find yourself  “trading jugs of grandpa’s porch juice for bulbs out of a rusty hatchback from a guy with a tattoo on his forehead who goes by the name of Rattlesnake.” In other, clever spots, Reddick uses a competitor’s oddly-shaped bulb as a ping-pong paddle, and talks metaphorical money goats. Stick around for a couple more spots, along with campaign credits, after the jump. continued…

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With Mother’s Day around the corner, the folks at Cadillac have unveiled this timely effort that might just warm your cockles and put your old flowers-and-card gift for moms to shame in the process. The automaker, armed with director Spike Lee and his SpikeDDB unit, Lawson Clarke (aka @Malecopywriter) and art director Khari Streeter (from Hill Holliday and Rogue, respectively) as well as Grenadier’s Mark St. Amant, have turned the spotlight on Teddy Bridgewater, University of Louisville QB who’s now a top NFL draft prospect. You see, folks, as a wee lad–when he was nine-years-old, to be exact–Bridgewater made a promise to his mom that one day, he would buy her a pink Cadillac (and yes, the Springsteen tune is rolling along in our heads). Well, as you can see in the 7-minute Lee-directed doc above called  “A #Promise2Rose” (ideal for lunchtime viewing), consider mission accomplished.

According to ABC News, the pink Cadillac has even more significant meaning than just a promise from son to mother fulfilled, though, as  Bridgewater’s mother also raised her son while battling, and eventually beating, breast cancer. Yes, folks, it is getting hella dusty in here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Independent full-service agency DNA has expanded their “One Goal” campaign for Group Health Cooperative with a series of new broadcast spots.

Deciding that healthcare advertising all looked and sounded the same, DNA took a slightly different approach with “One Goal,” emphasizing their ability to help people continue to live their lives over any specific claims as to quality of care and coverage. In the 30-second “The Wait” (featured above), for example, a couple with an already healthy-sized family waits for the results of a pregnancy test.

“It’s really a tough time to be a healthcare marketer,” explained Dan Gross, executive creative director, DNA. “The clutter in healthcare advertising is at much higher levels now due to the health insurance exchanges. This has led to consumer confusion and, in some cases, they are completely tuning out. A longstanding issue for Group Health has been the misperception that they provide limited services and specialties, so we wanted to communicate the breadth of what Group Health actually offers, and to do it in a way that avoids the warm and fuzzy clichés in this category.”

In addition to television and radio, the campaign also features outdoor/transit and a new digital landing environment at http://onegoal.ghc.org.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Agencies active in the content game are making progress. They’ve moved away from the “every company is a media company” fallacy to a better place.

One thing we know for sure, every company is NOT a media company, especially not every advertising agency nor the marketers they support. Yet, the need for compelling brand-building media remains as strong as ever.

What is a global leader in digital marketing to do? If you’re Digitas LBi, you partner with with BuzzFeed and Epic Digital to develop new digital branded content. Why reinvent the wheel when you can simply buy new wheels and have them installed on your vehicle?

Epic Digital is an arm of Epic Magazine, which was co-founded by Josh Bearman and Joshua Davis (one of the most interesting people working online today).

According to Adweek, part of the deal includes marketing-side staffers from BuzzFeed will “grab a desk” in digital agency’s New York office. Teams from both companies will work together on strategies for brands.

Adam Shlachter, head of media activation North America Digitas LBi, said, “Buzzfeed has a formula for connecting with people, the things they want to read, the things they want to share, the things they want to talk about. We think we can combine that formally with how we think about the media to help brands tell really powerful stories.”

A formula to help tell really powerful stories? If the formula is to staff your team with outstanding writers, I can see where this is a winning idea. Other formulas like when to post, and how often are distractions.

Brands can’t tell their own stories. They need highly skilled modern-day storytellers to perform the hard work. An interesting twist here is that Digitas LBi has many solid copywriters on staff, but copywriters are trained to sell with short, smart language. Weaving long-form narratives (sponsored by a brand) is a different skill—one most often found in journalists.

The post Digitas LBi Applies BuzzFeed’s Content Formula To Client Problems appeared first on AdPulp.

Wieden + Kennedy New York’s latest World Cup spot is a welcome departure from their previous World Cup work, foregoing focusing directly on the on-field action in lieu of the conversations and connections among fans sparked by the World Cup, leading into the “Every Four Years” tagline.

The new 30-second spot, called “Global Issues,” follows a linear conversation between soccer fans from diverse backgrounds. “Global Issues” stars real soccer enthusiasts — including a German butcher, an Italian barber, and a cab driver from the Ivory Coast, who support a vast array of teams, but all reside in the U.S. It’s a clever direction, executed well thanks largely to the precision editing, from editorial company Final Cut, necessary to pull off such an approach, and illustrates the excitement leading up to the World Cup well.

Wieden + Kennedy New York also debuted eight of its 32 original World Cup posters for ESPN, designed by Brazilian artist and graphic designer Cristiano Siqueira. Each features a likeness of key players and stories from the featured country competing in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Stick around after the jump for a look at several of these posters, as well as campaign credits. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.