Most condom ads are all about sensual pleasure, but what if the product is just too good at delivering that? That’s the theme of three 15-second spots for Okamoto condoms from Cleveland agency Marcus Thomas. The ads suggest a remedy for the problem, and it brings some levity to an often overwrought category. Via AgencySpy.
You expect big-budget, slam-bang drama from Hollywood action movies. But doing simple banking chores like depositing checks shouldn’t make you feel like you’re trapped in an out-of-control Michael Bay production.
Ad agency Tierney develops that fun storyline in a trio of spots, using familiar cinematic tropes to illustrate how TD Bank provides a better experience for its customers.
“Floodnado” posits a violent deluge of Biblical proportions, but that’s no problem, because TD lets you easily make deposits online from your dry, comfy home. Why crash through shop windows and climb over rush-hour traffic to get to the bank, like the hero of “Closed in 60 Seconds,” when TD stays open longer? And if you’re planning a vacation with a spendy friendy, relax—TD’s mobile tracking will help keep you on budget, as it does for the lesbian couple in “Cash Me If You Can.” (Wells Fargo also used a same-sex scenario in its first ads from BBDO this spring.)
Benji Weinstein, via Tool of North America, directed the 30-second TD commercials, part of the ongoing “Bank Human” campaign. He keeps the pace brisk and the mood light, while the on-screen antics never overwhelm the brand message.
In a clever twist skewering Tinseltown’s facile casting requirements, the average folks in the spots morph into younger, stronger, hipper versions of themselves for the action scenes. These transformations are noticeable, but subtle enough that some viewers might hit replay to confirm what they’ve just seen. (No harm in that, eh, TD Bank?)
Related campaign elements—which in most cases also spoof Hollywood, TV and social-media clichés (from zombies to Kung Fu and dubbed cats)—include pre-roll videos on Hulu, as well as Web banners, BuzzFeed lists and quizzes. In addition, digital billboards in select cities will display personalized responses to viewers’ tweets.
Using multiple platforms underscores “our commitment to delivering leading omni-channel solutions without sacrificing the personal experiences” that keep customers satisfied, says TD CMO Vinoo Vijay. Moreover, he says, the bank strives to tell stories “that address fundamental human truths, recognizing that since our customers’ problems are big to them, they are big to us, too.”
Anyone who’s ever played a war-themed video game like Call of Duty has effectively imagined what it might be like to be a soldier. But it’s far less common for people to imagine themselves as children victimized by military conflict.
A potent new PSA from nonprofit humanitarian group War Child U.K. invites viewers to do just that by adapting the camera angle of first-person shooter computer and console games, and making the protagonist a girl named Nima who gets caught in the crossfire.
It goes almost without saying that the storyline is heartbreaking—all the more so because the scenarios are based on testimony from real children caught up in actual conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. The stylized approach is gripping in its own right, driving home the point that people aren’t thinking seriously or often enough about protecting children—or, to put it differently, spending enough money on the issue.
At the same time, the secondary implication that video games trivialize warfare and inure players to its real human costs is also a hackneyed, and generally ineffective argument that ends up becoming a bit of a red herring here.
Plus, the creators seem at moments to have gotten a little too carried away with the concept, like when Nima gets shot within an inch of her life then finds a magical first aid kit which she administers to herself before continuing on her mission. It’s a sequence that strains a powerful metaphor into exactly the fantastical terrain it’s criticizing, and risks making the issue seem less immediate. On the other hand, the ending doesn’t leave any doubt.
If the spot does drive you to action, War Child is working to raise awareness around the issue leading into the World Humanitarian Summit.
CREDITS
Client: War Child U.K.
Agency: TOAD
Creative Directors: Guy Davidson, Daniel Clarke, Heydon Prowse
Production Company: Mother’s Best Child
Director: Daniel Lucchesi
Co-Director: Heydon Prowse
Editor: Elliot Windsor
Producer: Heydon Prowse & Guy Davidson
Postproduction Coordinator: John Thompson
SFX Producer: Andy Ryder
Colorist: Jack McGinity (Time Based Arts)
Postproduction: H & M Ogilvy One
Audio: Liam Conwell
Music: Jamie Perera
Adam&eveDDB and Glue Society director Gary Freedman made this British spot for Australia’s Foster’s beer about, of all things, a male rugby cheerleader. The ad is part of a growing trend of faux-documentary ads about people with quirky jobs, though it’s also a throwback to ’80s- and ’90s-style beer ads. (The beer commercial may be the last safe-ish haven for gender jokes like this.)
The male cheerleader here isn’t all that weird, even though he looks like Jack Black’s trash-eating hobo cousin, but he has to put up with ridicule from his parents and unceasing awkwardness at work as the only dude on a cheerleading team full of women. His uniform chafes, too. Still, he has found success on his own terms, and is functional enough to drink in a bar with other normal humans. The “He’s one of us” tone is essential to ads like these.
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The most noteworthy thing here, aside from the cheerleader’s Zoolander-esque uniform, is Foster’s new slogan, “Why the hell not?”, which seems a trifle fatalistic for a consumer product. They might as well snipe from Hot Shots and go with “Foster’s: No one lives forever.”
“Maybe it’s a new chapter in my life.”
That’s how Amit (aka, “Mook”), a 44-year-old dude who’s had a thick beard for 14 years, describes the experience of shaving it off in “My New Face,” a remarkbaly three-minute online film by Israeli agency BBR Saatchi & Saatchi for Super-Pharm’s private label line of Life M6 razorblades.
Since the M6 competes with better-funded brands such as Gillette, “traditional messaging promoting efficiency due to number of blades” would likely have proven “majorly ineffective,” says BBR’s Eva Hasson. “That’s why we decided to follow a different approach.”
The idea for the film originated with an agency staffer who recalled that as a child, he did not immediately recognize his father after he shaved off his trademark beard. Much to the agency’s surprise, the client proved eager to give the offbeat idea a try.
“We were offering to shoot a documentary, which is not your regular advertising format where things are scripted,” Hasson says. “This format is a lot riskier, and we warned our client that we may ultimately go through all the motions and end up with nothing. Truth be told, we actually shot three documentaries—only one worked out. This was a gutsy decision by the client, who rolled with us, and so far, the movie has garnered over 430,000 views in under a week.”
Agency creatives were also surprised to learn “the volume and sheer power of the emotional attachment men have developed toward their beards,” says Hasson. “Some of the topics uncovered were the fact people like to hide behind their beard. It gives them a sense of security. It is an exteriorization of their virility. They believe it is a source of authority.”
Indeed, in the video, Amit admits that he “can’t remember being so nervous,” and frets about “loss of virility, loss of intimidation power.” Once the six-bladed cartridge has done its work, Amit looks at least 10 years younger and—in my estimation, at any rate—more friendly and approachable than he had before.
The reactions of his family are priceless. And in the end, the special people in Amit’s life heartily approve of the change, and our hero embraces his “new self,” reveling in the nearly forgotten tactile sensations he can once again enjoy. It’s almost as if he’s cut through a barrier he didn’t know existed. “It’s amazing,” he says.
“It’s about the simple pleasures that come from being clean shaven,” says Hasson. “Little things like the ability to feel a gentle breeze and the sunshine on your face, to kiss without tickling, to look younger.”
Few consumers will undergo such an intense sensation of renewal by using M6 blades. Still, the film does a fine job of boosting the brand by transforming a basic consumer good into an almost mystical agent of change.
CREDITS
Client: Super-Pharm
Brand: Life Private Label Brand
Product: M6 Razorblades
Agency: BBR Saatchi & Saatchi Tel Aviv
CEO: Yossi Lubaton
Executive Creative Director: Nadav Pressman
Creative Director: Idan Levy
Art Director: Michal Gonen
Copywriter: Yair Zisser
Digital Creative Director: Maayan Dar
VP Production: Dorit Gvili
Producer: Odelia Nachmias Freifeld
VP Client Services: Shani Vengosh Shaul
Supervisor: Noa Sharf
Account Executive: Stav Hershkovitz
VP Strategic Planning: Shai Nissenboim
Strategic Planner: Roni Arisson
Planning Information Specialist: Eva Hasson
Traffic: Ronit Doanis, Yael Kaufman
Production Company: T GO Tom Sofer
Director: Oded Binun
Postproduction: Broadcast
If you were looking forward to drooling over whatever hot, near-naked model would grace Carl’s Jr.’s notoriously lascivious advertising next, you’re in for a disappointment.
In a new 30-second commercial, the crass burger chain plays on its reputation for portraying women as pieces of meat who love to eat smaller pieces of meat in the most ridiculously carnal way possible. But here, it turns out the sweaty, glistening curves belong to something way less titillating.
Titled “Natural Beauties,” the concept is essentially a rehash of one of the older jokes in the book, if cleverly tailored to poke fun—in a nonetheless leering, winking sort of way—at the brand’s history of scantily clad talent including Charlotte McKinney, Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.
In the end, it’s all just part of Carl’s Jr. attempt to make its products seem less terrible for your health—i.e., natural. Everyone knows that’s a nonsense classification to begin with, and seems particularly half-hearted here—which is fitting, because each time you eat one of the brand’s hot-dog-and-potato-chips-on-a-burger burgers, half your heart is probably liable to just give up.
CREDITS
Client: Carl’s Jr.
Chief Executive Officer: Andy Puzder
Chief Marketing Officer: Brad Haley
SVP, Product Marketing: Bruce Frazer
Director of Advertising: Brandon LaChance
VP, Field Marketing, Media & Merchandising: Steve Lemley
Director, Product Marketing & Merchandising: Christie Cooney
Product Marketing Manager: Allison Pocino
72andSunny Team
Chief Creative Officer: Glenn Cole
Group Creative Director: Justin Hooper
Group Creative Director: Mick DiMaria
Creative Director: Tim Wettstein
Creative Director: Mark Maziarz
Sr. Designer: Marcus Wesson
Group Strategy Director: Matt Johnson
Strategy Director: Kasia Molenda
Strategist: Eddie Moraga
Group Brand Director: Alexis Coller
Sr. Brand Manager: Scott Vogelsong
Brand Coordinator: Anthony Fernandez
Director of Film Production: Sam Baerwald
Executive Film Producer: Molly McFarland
Jr. Film Producer: Kira Linton
Film Production Coordinator: Taylor Stockwell
Business Affairs Director: Amy Jacobsen
Business Affairs Manager: Jennifer Jahinian
Business Affairs Coordinator: Ryan Alls
Coast Public Relations:
Founder and CEO: Jeanne Beach Hoffa
Group Director: Melissa Penn
Director: Kate Franklin
Production Company: Strange & Wonderful
Director: Will Hyde
Executive Producer: Celeste Hyde
Producer: John Gomez
Editorial: 72andSunny Studio
Editor: Doron Dor
Executive Producer: Jenn Locke
Producer: Becca Purice
Online Finishing: Brickyard VFX
VFX Producer: Diana Young
VFX Artists: Patrick Poulatian & Mandy Sorenson
CG Artist: David Blumenfeld
Telecine: Beach House
Colorist: Mike Pethel
Producer: Denise Brown
Audio: On Music and Sound
Mixer: Chris Winston
Sound Design: On Music and Sound
Sound Designer: Chris Winston
Music:
Track name: “Beastie”
Written and Performed by: The Blancos
Used courtesy of GODIY Music
To stand out in the piles of applications DDB Istanbul received when it was looking for an art director, Canhür Aktuglu sent out an SOS and presented his portfolio as a message in a bottle. They hired him, so obviously they like the Police as much as he does.
“After that my life changed and it was guaranteed no more boring!” he writes on Behance.
The idea was a clever one, and well executed. The cover letter was sealed inside an empty glass bottle, while his résumé and portfolio were stored on a USB stick in the bottle’s cork.
DDB Istanbul had better make good use of Aktuglu while he’s there. On Behance, he also mentions that he wants to see kangaroos and go surfing—and might look into approaching DDB Sydney next. He could even use the same bottle.
Via Design Taxi.
Airbnb’s existential-crisis ad with the waddling baby didn’t lend itself to being taken all that seriously in the first place. Now, a parody is now helping it along the path to full ridicule.
A grown man replaces the infant in this clip from digital shop Portal A, which turns the moral musings of the original voiceover into a biting satire of its sales-pitch subtext—and drives home why maybe you shouldn’t blindly trust the vacation company’s assessment of human nature. No, he’s not technically wearing diapers, but he probably should be.
Portal A, makers of Pitch Perfect 2’s crowd-sourced fan montage and YouTube’s Rewind videos from the past couple of years, shot the new video two days after Airbnb launched its global campaign.
In fact, the shop has been building a channel dedicated to ad parody—other bits so far include a more down-to-earth version of Carnival Cruise’s JFK Super Bowl spot, and if you’re a sucker for punishment, that older, NSFW play on Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches.
Here’s the original Airbnb spot:
A year ahead of its centennial, footwear brand Keds is launching a global brand platform and fall 2015 ad campaign around female empowerment, and has gotten one of the world’s great trailblazing women, Taylor Swift, to headline it.
Print ads from kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners show the pop star, 25, posing against artistic backdrops with headlines like “All dressed up with everywhere to go” and “There’s no such thing as an average girl.” The tagline is, “Ladies first since 1916.”
Click the ads to enlarge.
“A new generation of women has been leading an exciting cultural shift redefining the conversation about equality and female empowerment,” Keds president Chris Lindner said in a statement.
“Keds was originally created in 1916 to provide ladies with accessible, fashionable footwear to allow them to be who they wanted to be, and go where they wanted to go. ‘Ladies First’ is a celebration of amazing women like Taylor Swift who are blazing new trails every day. From CEOing to BFFing, these ladies are doing it all.”
The campaign features other female talent, both on and off camera. In addition to a few other models, the ads employed notable female artists to make the backdrops—including illustrator Priscilla White, surface artist and pattern designer Kendra Dandy, and street artist Paige Smith.
Keds said the combination of poppy, street-style photos and empowering headlines is meant to deliver a “one-two punch of fashion and emotion” and capture “what is means to be a lady in 2015.”
The media plan combines retail, social, print and digital (with publishers including Nylon, Paper, Interview, Refinery29 and WhoWhatWear) with wild postings, bus wraps and subway media “in many of NYC’s most artistic neighborhoods.”
A graphic sexual health campaign aims to combat rising STD rates in Omaha, Neb., by grossing out young people with giant flesh-and-pus letters that deliver off-putting puns.
Billboards and bus posters around the city, as well as digital ads, feature twisted plays on sentimental clichés, with lines like “Him and Herpes” and “Ignorance is blisters.”
The Women’s Fund of Omaha’s Adolescent Health Project created the visually striking ads, with all-volunteer ad agency Serve Marketing, to encourage viewers to capitalize on free testing, and ultimately lower infection rates. (Serve was also behind these fake storefront businesses in Omaha with STD-type names.)
But, especially with flourishes like toupees and tattoos, the humor-meets-horror approach may also risk coming across as ridiculous—if not just too terrifying to get through—to the target audience. In any case, they make Unilever’s hideous-germs-on-holiday ads look gorgeous by comparison.
CREDITS
Agency: Serve Marketing
Executive Creative Director: Gary Mueller
CD/Art Director: Matt Hermann
Art Director: Carsyn McKenzie
Copywriters: Bruce Dierbeck + Evan Stremke
Illustrator: Shawn Holpher
Retoucher: Anthony Giacomino
Account Executive: Heidi Sterricker
These days, if you can’t understand emojis, life is not worth living. But there is hope, thanks to an “Emoji Literacy” campaign from Domino’s and Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
As you might recall, CP+B won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes (honoring the most breakthrough idea of the year) for designing an emoji ordering system for Domino’s, which lets folks place orders on Twitter and via text message simply by typing a pizza emoji.
Now, in something of a follow-up, client and agency have created 52 flashcards designed to help the uninitiated “speak” emoji. The cards—a tongue-in-cheek promo which really should boost your emoji prowess—are available for free starting today at emojiliteracy.com.
There’s even a faux PSA explaining the initiative.
“I didn’t know what to say,” laments one befuddled middle-aged dad. “I just replied BRB and hoped they don’t text back.” A teary-eyed mom fears that if she can’t communicate with emojis, somebody might “take my kids away from me.”
So, smarten up and master emojis! (Sure, you could spend your time learning an actual language, like French or Spanish or Mandarin, but really, what for?)
Is Geico’s “It’s What You Do” campaign on life support? Not yet, but it’s been hospitalized with a severe case of the non-sequiturs.
I’m not a huge fan of the insurance company’s “It’s What You Do” ads from The Martin Agency—there’s just not that much tension in the idea that getting Geico insurance is a given, and the other givens in the spots often feel too random.
This one, at least, provokes a chuckle with the appearance by a certain Hasbro game. Great pacing and direction, and the mini punch line is funny enough. The ad has almost 2.5 million YouTube views, though the vast majority of those came from its prime placement in the YouTube masthead last Saturday.
As for the campaign as whole, well, the patient is certainly on the table…
CREDITS
Client: Geico
Vice President, Marketing: Ted Ward
Director, Marketing: Bill Brower
Senior Manager, Marketing: Melissa Halicy
Marketing Supervisor: Mike Grant
Marketing Buyer: Tom Perlozzo
Marketing Buyer: Brighid Griffin
Marketing Buyer: Katherine Kalec
Marketing Specialist: Julia Nass
Agency: The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va.
Chief Creative Officer: Joe Alexander
Group Creative Director: Wade Alger
Group Creative Director: Steve Bassett
Creative Director: Sean Riley
Senior Copywriter: Ken Marcus
Executive Producer: Brett Alexander
Senior Broadcast Producer: Heather Tanton
Junior Broadcast Producer: Coleman Sweeney
Group Account Director: Brad Higdon
Account Executive: Allison Hensley
Account Supervisor: Josh Lybarger
Business Affairs Supervisor: Suzanne Wieringo
Financial Account Supervisor: Monica Cox
Senior Production Business Manager: Amy Trenz
Senior Project Manager: Jason Ray
Production Company: Hungry Man
Director: Wayne McClammy
Managing Partner/Executive Producer: Kevin Byrne
Executive Producer/Head of Sales: Dan Duffy
Executive Producer: Mino Jarjoura
Executive Producer: Nancy Hacohen
Producer: Dave Bernstein
Production Supervisor: Shelly Silverman
Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Christjan Jordan
Assistant Editor: Pieter Viljoen
Executive Producer: Angela Dorian
Producer: Jared Thomas
Telecine: MPC
Colorist: Ricky Gausis
Animation/VFX: MPC
Executive Producer: Elexis Stearn
Senior Producer: Juliet Tierney
Junior Producer: Nicole Saccardi
Creative Director: Paul O’Shea
CG Supervisor: Zach Tucker
Flame Lead: Blake Huber
Nuke Artist: James Steller
Flame Artist: Ben Persons
Music Company: HUM
Executive Creative Director: Jeff Koz
Sound Designer: Dan Hart
Music/Composer: Haim Mazar
Creative Director: Scott Glenn
Executive Producer: Debbi Landon
Producer: Caroline O’Sullivan
Audio Post Company: Rainmaker Studios
Engineer/Mixer: Jeff McManus
Maytag doesn’t just make washing machines in the U.S. It makes people.
Lots and lots of very zen Maytag Men, to be precise. A new ad from agency DigitasLBi shows the appliance brand’s famous mascot—that is, the 2014 macho reincarnate edition—taking form, assembly-line style.
Set at the company’s factory in Marion, Ohio, the ad also features real Maytag employees, and a giant American flag. It’s like a hyper-patriotic sci-fi comedy, where the clones are all the same affable guy who wants to fix your stuff (but sorry, it’s so well built it never breaks).
Actually, the Maytag guy stands in for the products themselves here—he’s no longer just the guy who wants to repair them—which is a little dissonant at first, though the final visual clears everything up.
It’s pretty silly, but in an appropriately vanilla kind of way. “What’s inside matters,” says the tagline. And apparently, what’s inside is a fake human—which doesn’t seem like the most efficient or comfortable way to wash clothes in 2015.
It does explain why the dude is so chiseled, though.
Volkswagen wants you to feel like a kid again.
A new campaign from the automaker and agency Deutsch LA cleverly invites you to create your own virtual test drive of a Golf R—by making car noises into your computer.
“Unleash Your Rrr” lets you record video of yourself imitating revving engines and squealing breaks—then analyzes the audio to string together clips into a personalized video of the VW model in action, racing down a track or drifting through turns.
Professional driver Tanner Foust performed the stunts, and also stars in one of two excellent teaser vids—in which he delivers some killer sounds, and perfectly sums up the experience at the end, with a slightly horrified, “Good God.” While his facial contortions are nothing to sneeze at, actor Michael Winslow (aka, the Man of 10,000 Sound Effects) blows Foust out of the water with priceless looks and bottomless panache.
In short, it’s an exceptionally fun and simple idea. Head over to rrr.vw.com for some more samples, or to create your own—so long as you’re willing to forever and completely grant VW rights to the footage of you puckering up while you say “Vroom.”
Attention, Aldi’s shoppers: Do not be alarmed. The big man with a megaphone is harmless. We think.
Comedian and TV host Ben Bailey trades in his cash cab for a grocery cart and goofs around with Aldi customers in this web video series created by Weber Shandwick for the discount supermarket chain.
The company plans to launch 45 stores in Southern California next year, and the campaign will “help introduce Aldi’s unique and quirky ways to new markets and neighborhoods,” says Weber executive creative director Jim Paul.
Under normal circumstances, those quirks don’t include Bailey, armed here with an amplifier and whirling police light, accosting shoppers with questions (mostly, he asks what they like about the store). Still, it’s all in good fun. The dude’s down-to-earth, regular-guy persona feels right for a chain that charges folks to use its carts and makes them bag their own groceries in order to keep prices down.
Bailey, the former host of Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab, shot the hidden-camera spots in April at a Chicago-area store. “People were quick to call out their favorite products and how much money they save each month,” he says. Indeed, the customers seem to be having a great time. For them, it was a change of pace from the dairy-case doldrums, no doubt. And, as advertising, the approach offers something a bit unexpected for the category (unexpected, though not supergeil).
A special shout-out goes to an elderly shopper named Herb, who basically steals the show with his high spirits, good-natured kibitzing and quips like, “Ben Bailey?! Never heard of you.”
Herb will have you rolling in the aisles.
CREDITS
Client: Aldi
Director of Public Relations: Liz Ruggles
Marketing Manager: Erika Lempa
Agency: Weber Shandwick
Executive Creative Director: Jim Paul
SVP, Creative Director: Jeff Immel
VP, Creative Director: Dan Jividen
Copywriter: Mikinzie Stuart
VP, Executive Integrated Producer: Kim Mohan
Producer: Karen Carter
EVP: Allison Madell
SVP: Katy Pankau
SVP, Digital: Jonathan Sullivan
VP: Eniko Bolivar
VP: Emily Fisher
VP, Consumer Media Relations: Ernestine Sclafani
Director, Senior Media Specialist: Jennifer Parsons
Director, Digital: Nick Wille
Group Manager, Paid Media & Content Distribution: Allie Smith
Group Manager, Media Specialist: Alan Keane
Account Supervisor: Kristen Thompson
Account Supervisor: Caitlyn Andre
Account Supervisor: Carolina Madrid
Production Company: Accomplice Media
Director: Tom Feiler
Executive Producer: Mel Gragido
Editor: Christina Stumpf
Post Production Company: Quriosity Productions
Sound Design & Mix: Joe Flood, Floodgate Studios
Beautiful design is at the heart of the Squarespace brand, and so its ads must have a high aesthetic value as well. For this latest round, the website maker again calls on ad agency SpecialGuest, which this time showed up with a Phantom Flex4K camera and a plan to really slow things down.
The result is three new spots, directed by 1stAveMachine’s 1stAveMachine, that capture objects from real customers’ businesses in super slow motion—as they ultimately land as beautiful still images on Squarespace pages.
The tagline is, “Build It Beautiful.”
The selected Squarespace customers worked with SpecialGuest and the client team to show how the platform allowed them to create state-of-the-art online identities—presented here with what the brand called “the aesthetic purity of motion.”
“The campaign is a truly collaborative effort, working with these businesses to properly convey the passion and energy behind the Squarespace community,” says SpecialGuest creative director Aaron Duffy. “That’s part of what makes Squarespace great, both as a creative partner and as a platform: ultimately Squarespace is about more than just building websites. It’s also about helping to support and empower its community.”
As the moving images resolve to static ones on the website, a voice says, “Isn’t it beautiful when things just come together?”—in which ad watchers will surely hear an echo of the famous Honda “Cog” spot, which used the line, “Isn’t it nice when things just work?”
More spots and credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Squarespace
David Lee: Chief Creative Officer
Ness Higson: Creative Director
Jenn Grossman: Creative Partnerships
Donovan Mafnas: Designer
Luis Gonzalez: Designer
Michelle Liv: Designer
Creative Partner: SpecialGuest
Partner/ECD: Aaron Duffy
Business Director: Ashley McGee
Creative Director: Jonathan Emmerling
Producer: Barry Gilbert
Sr. Art Director: Morgan Harary
Jr. Art Director: Eddy Choi
Creative Development: Chloe Corner
Production Co: 1stAveMachine
Partner/Executive Producer: Sam Penfield
Director: Tim Brown
Head of Production: Lisanne McDonald
Visual Effects Supervisor: John Loughlin
Line Producer: Alec Sash
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Still Photographer: Dylan Griffin
Production Designer: Clement Price-Thomas
Editors: Karl Amdal, Jonathan Vitagliano
Compositors: Michael Glen, Joseph Pistono, Gerald Mark Soto
Color Grading: Seth Ricart @Ricart & Co
Sound Design: Joseph Fraioli
Music Supervision: Brienne Rose @ NoiseRacket
Audio Mix: Gramercy Post
Music Composition: Apothecary: Sofia Hultquist / Greater Goods: M. Colton / Yield: Adam Arcuragi + Jonny Diina
In an effort to make online dating even more fickle and ultimately pointless, people with an Apple Watch soon won’t even have to swipe left or right on Tinder anymore. Their hearts will do it for them.
Austin agency T3 has created an app for the Apple Watch that offers hands-free Tinder use by detecting the user’s heartbeat and using that to select or deny potential matches. If it works out, they plan to develop a whole matchmaking system based on this concept.
While removing rational judgment from dating isn’t always a bad idea, I feel like an average person’s heart rate fluctuates way too often, for way too many reasons and often too slowly for something like this to be effective. And what if I had a pacemaker? Or a heart murmur? Or one of those coal-fired difference engine hearts like Dick Cheney?
For all the brain’s flaws, I’d rather rely on its cognitive functionality than a muscle in my chest that races whenever I see oncoming traffic (anxiety) or A-frame ladders (fear) or someone eating a delicious-looking sandwich (lust).
Via Design Taxi.
Infiniti recreates the “flirting on the highway” scene from 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation with one of that film’s original stars (not Chevy Chase, unfortunately) in this Crispin Porter + Bogusky ad tied to the Vacation remake coming later this month.
Here, Ethan Embry (who played Rusty in Vegas Vacation back in ’97) replaces Chase in the Clark Griswold role, rolling down the road with his family en route to Walley World for some R&R. Instead of a crappy station wagon, however, they’re ensconced in a comfy, high-tech Infiniti QX60 SUV.
Embry is soon distracted by an attractive blonde woman in a sleek convertible, and some intensely silly flirting ensues. (Sorry, Ethan, but nothing tops Chevy’s self-consciously goofy grin. Nothing. Ever.)
In the movie, Christie Brinkley played the blonde. Will she show up here? Perhaps in an ironic punch line that makes me feel ungodly old?
Um, maybe. Cute enough ad, though.
Everyone knows babies make hilarious faces when they poop. For that matter, so do most adults. Whether or not knowing this universal truth entices you to watch a medley of babies’ faces as they poop is a gamble that Saatchi & Saatchi London decided to take. Its “Pooface” video for Pampers baby wipes is literally 75 seconds of what I just described.
Oh, and it was filmed in slow motion (400fps!) and set to Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” which we all recognize from every other film project that either aspires to or mocks maturity. It’s also “Nature Boy” Ric Flair’s theme music. I honestly can’t decide which of these is the less dignified use of that song.
In any case, the spot won a bronze Lion in Film at Cannes, and a silver and a bronze in Film Craft, so clearly Cannes judges are into this kind of potty humor. Not bad for a glorified YouTube Vine compilation with better production values. (The concept has also been floating around for years, mostly in scam ads.)
Also, is it me or does the baby at 0:44 look like a young Nathan Lane?
If you think rigorous scientific research is boring or self-serving, this short film from the Netherlands just might change your mind.
Amsterdam-based agency 1Camera and director Hugo Keijzer employ some deft storytelling as they follow five scientists from different fields around the world, all working to improve people’s lives in significant ways. Running more than four minutes, the film is the cornerstone of “Science Can Change the World,” a new campaign from Royal Dutch DSM, a life and materials sciences company.
The film, “Unsung Heroes of Sciences,” will be shown at more than 50 events throughout the year, and has been seeded to blogs and uploaded to DSM’s digital channels. The target audience is the scientific community, governments, NGOs and, perhaps most importantly, the general public.
“People often think that science is there for the sake of science,” says DSM global brand, digital and communications director Jos van Haastrecht. “We really would like to shift the perception to science for a societal purpose.”
To achieve that aim, the five scientists—selected from a list of 100 candidates—are shown in a mix of documentary footage and vignettes in which they recreate episodes based on their actually experience. Richard Little and Robert Irving of New Zealand design bionic legs for those who have lost limbs, while in Tanzania, Bart Knols develops an affordable way to fight malaria. Saumil Shah grows algae on Thailand rooftops as he strives to eradicate hunger, while San Francisco’s Molly Morse converts methane gas into biodegradable plastics.
Knols nails the overarching message when he says at one point, “This is not about research. This is about the lives of real people.” Indeed, science isn’t placed on some grand pedestal. Instead, we see complex, driven folks using their intellectual gifts to help others, and we gain insight into their motivations and the personal and professional hardships they strive to overcome.
“Showing the real scientists in the film makes it all the more powerful, but also somewhat challenging since they had no acting experience,” says 1Camera partner J.P. de Pont. “So getting these non-actors to act in their own story was a concern. However, because the struggles are such an everyday reality for these and most scientists, the emotion was already in them. And with the help of supporting actors, director Hugo and producer Ellen to make them feel comfortable, they performed great—at times, so great that it’s easy to forget that they are not actors.”
Some of the scenes are hugely compelling, notably the segment where Amanda, a paraplegic, tries on Little and Irving’s bionic legs and says, “It just felt like I got to reclaim a bit of me that’s been lost.” De Pont recalls, “When she stood up for the first time, the whole room, including the crew members, were fighting back their tears because of the sheer emotional impact.” The crew knew they had captured “a beautiful moment that gave the most tangible proof that science can in fact change the world.”
One fictionalized scene, where Morse gets turned down for funding and tells a roomful of suits that “people like you are the reason our planet is going to hell!” veers into TV-movie territory. But it still works, because, for whatever reason, you don’t expect a dedicated scientist to express frustration so strongly from the heart.
Overall, we’re treated to crisply edited, heartfelt filmmaking, with just enough dramatic tension to keep viewers involved and entertained.
At times, the film resembles commercials from sneaker companies that show athletes going through their painstaking routines (running for miles at dawn, pumping iron, etc.) as they overcome adversity and emerge as winners.
“We were inspired by the perseverance that scientists show in facing endless challenges, much like top athletes,” says 1Camera creative director Jasper Claus. “But unlike top athletes, you’ll probably never hear about these scientists, even though their work affects our daily lives and actually changes the world for the better.”
Thanks to this film, we’re hearing about five of them now.
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