AKQA, HBO, Rock the Vote and Civic Nation Don’t Want You to Sit Out This Election

AKQA teamed up with HBO, Rock the Vote and Civic Nation to launch a star-studded plea for viewers to “Use Your Voice. Use Your Vote.”

The spot opens up with Issa Rae, creator, star and co-writer of new HBO series Insecure, asking, “Can we talk about real power?”

“Real power is made sitting here talking to you,” adds Bryan Cranston, who stars as LBJ in HBO’s All The Way biopic and, of course, is best known for his portrayal of Walter White—a character who knew a thing or two about power.

Other HBO stars, including Martin Starr (perhaps best know as Bill Haverchuck on Freaks and Geeks, one of the best characters in television history) and Jimmy O. Yang of Silicon Valley, a handful of Ballers cast members and Gary Cole of Veep all add to the message, which is mostly a familiar one: just get out there and participate in democracy, already.

There does seem to be a specific focus on targeting young voters with the implication that armchair activism is ultimately meaningless if you don’t actually cast a ballot. Causes including environmental concerns and equality also get a shout out. Poorna Jagannathan, who starred in HBO’s The Night Of, summarizes the approach with her line, “We are the generation that will use our dialogue and our voices to make sure our conversations never stop.”

Now, can we discuss the Night Of finale, or is it too soon? (We liked it. People need to stop expecting perfect resolutions for everything.)

Creative Director Josh Combs Joins AKQA Portland to Work on Nike

AKQA has hired Josh Combs as a creative director at its Portland office. He will work on the Nike account and report directly to group creative director Ginny Golden

“AKQA’s Portland office has seen some significant business growth in the last five years. Josh is a proven creative leader that will help us continue this momentum, delivering more worldclass work for our growing client list,” Golden said in a statement. “His passion for telling big brand stories in modern innovative ways is what makes him a perfect fit for AKQA.”

Combs joins AKQA from Fallon, where he has served as a creative director since March of 2014. Prior to that he spent two years in the same role at JWT, working out of the agency’s New York and Paris offices. Before joining JWT he spent four years as an associate creative director with kbs+, following art director roles with DiMassimo Goldstein, Berlin Cameron and Wexley School for Girls. Over the course of his career, his work has been recognized at Cannes Lions and The One Show, among others. 

“I’m excited to join the growing creative team here in Portland,” Combs said. “AKQA isn’t just looking to make another ad for the world to gloss over, it’s about much more than that. They’re creating a place where ideas, powered by innovation, can move brands forward. And I am looking forward to diving right in.”

AKQA Promotes Rachel Barek to General Manager in D.C.

AKQA promoted Rachel Barek to a role as general manager of its Washington, D.C. office, tasked with driving innovation and leading client relationships while continuing to report to AKQA managing director Erik Rogstad.

“AKQA’s DC office has several of the most successful and longest-tenured client relationships in our company’s history, and Rachel’s passion and focus on client services has played a large part in that. I’m excited to have Rachel’s vision and leadership help shape our future,” Rogstad said in a statement.

Barek originally joined AKQA as a senior account director in April of 2010 and received a promotion to director of client services in November of 2011. Before joining AKQA she spent two years as an account director with Organic, following under a year in the same position with JWT. Prior to that she served as a marketing manager with Digitas for two years.

“AKQA’s DC office has always been about creating meaningful products and services for our clients in an environment that encourages learning and career development,” Barek said.  “I am honored and excited to lead the DC office, and its talented team, to partner with many of the world’s most prestigious brands.”

AKQA Promotes Carlos Matias to International Design Director

AKQA promoted Carlos Matias to the role of international design director, effective immediately.

In the new role, Matias will be responsible for overseeing the design and branding practices across all of AKQA’s offices in the U.S. and Europe. He will be based out of AKQA’s New York office and report to international creative director Duan Evans and international managing director Giles McCormack.

Matias has served as a design/creative director with AKQA London for the past five years, following a brief stint as a teacher for NewMedia; he helped to build the agency’s design team while creating award-winning work for Nike. Before that he spent nearly four and a half years as an art director with Fullsix Portugal and two years as a senior designer with BY Design after founding his own boutique design studio called Dialectica back in 2001 and working with clients in the fashion, arts and media sectors.

“This is an exciting opportunity to reinforce the exquisite craftsmanship of AKQA on a global level and further elevate the brand and design capabilities for our clients,” Matias said in a statement. “At the same time, I am thrilled to be in the US, discovering some of the best creative talent and collaborating with them across the AKQA network.”

Additionally, AKQA appointed Hunter Simms as a creative director. Simms joins the agency from Razorfish, where he served as an associate creative director since April of 2014, working with brands including Dove, Mercedes-Benz, Spotify and Smart Car. Before joining Razorfish, Simms spent nearly four years as an associate creative director with Tribal Worldwide, working with brands such as Reebok, the NFL and Pepsi after spending nearly two years as a senior copywriter with JWT Dubai.

“These appointments signify an exciting new chapter for AKQA, specifically in New York,” McCormack said. “Carlos and Hunter are incredible creative talents and will make a huge impact.”

AKQA Parts Ways with Creative Director Simone Nobili

AKQA confirmed this week that creative director Simone Nobili is no longer with the agency. According to his LinkedIn page, he is currently working as a freelance creative director/copywriter.

Nobili joined AKQA as a creative director last August and has focused on the agency’s Activision (Black Ops III and Infinite Warfare) and Levi Strauss & Co. accounts.

Before joining AKQA he spent a little over a year as a creative director with Cutwater, also in in San Francisco, working across all accounts including Google, Georgia Pacific, Ubisoft and Luxottica. That followed around two and a half years as a creative director with San Diego agency Vitro, working with brands including Toyo Tires, ASICS and Taylor Guitars.

Nobili began his career in Europe, making the leap across the pond to join TBWAChiatDay L.A. as a CD in November of 2008 after holding the same position in the London office and spending two years as a senior copywriter at Jung von Matt in Hamburg. He also worked as a CD at Digitas New York and Amirati, where he worked on brands including Kawasaki Motorcycles, Autumn Games and Marvel vs. Capcom.

An AKQA spokesperson declined to comment on the reasons for the split. We hear that Nobili had been working with the agency as a non-billable staffer after leaving the Levi’s team.

AKQA Names New International Director of Talent Acquisition

AKQA appointed Jennie Child to the role of international director of talent acquisition, tasked with leading the agency’s talent strategy and initiatives. Child will be based out of AKQA’s London office and report directly to managing director Sam Kelly

“Jennie has a thirst for adventure, and I’m delighted to have her on board,” said Kelly. “We’ll be working together to continue to grow the incredible team we have at AKQA across the world.”

Child joins AKQA after a six month sabbatical spent competing in yacht races in the U.K. and the Caribbean as part of an all-female sailing team she co-founded. She most recently served as group head of talent acquisition at Omnicom Media Group, beginning in February of 2013. Before that she spent two and a half years as head of talent acquisition at Ogilvy & Mather U.K. Group, following over three years as global talent acquisition partner for WPP Branding to Design Group.

“Seeing AKQA’s collaborative culture and inclusive work environment, I know I have come to the right place,” Child said. “I can’t wait to work with the team to hire great talent that continues to create inspiring work for our clients.”

AKQA Has Lots of Positive Glassdoor Reviews

So AKQA has had a nice string of wins recently: just this week, the agency expanded its digital role on the Verizon account. Last month it became Volvo’s lead digital agency, and in April it named three members of its global creative team to ECD roles.

That said, something seems to be happening to the agency’s Glassdoor profile.

Just this week, several people who identify themselves as current employees shared their conspiracy theories:

akqa reviewsWhere are these “fake” reviews?

Does the agency not “appreciate its employees”? Is it not “inspiring?” Can it not be “rewarding and challenging in equal measure?” Does working at this particular shop not allow one to make “friends for life?

We will choose not to disbelieve these sentiments, but some employees doubt the sincerity of the five-star reviews, classifying them as the ad agency equivalent of “astroturfing.”

This is not an uncommon practice in many industries! Take Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm. Not only does it have more big-name clients than its competitors…it also happens to have a whopping 1,100 reviews on Glassdoor–the vast majority of them suspiciously positive given what we’ve heard from former employees. It often appears on the “best places to work” list, and in 2014 its chief was the third-highest rated boss on the site.

Coincidence? Probably.

Volvo Drops Grey London as Global Creative Agency

Volvo has dropped Grey London as its global creative agency and will now run its creative out of the U.S., Sweden and China, Campaign reports. The agency will continue to work on global coordination and U.K. initaitves.

Grey London was named Volvo’s global creative agency in December of 2013, following a review which ended an over six-year relationship with Arnold. The agency debuted its first work for Volvo last September. Their most recent work for the brand is featured above. Campaign reports the upcoming work from the agency includes “a global print campaign, idents for Sky Atlantic and the second phase of its LifePaint safety product.”

The move follows Volvo’s selection of AKQA as its new digital agency in May, following an unannounced review, as the brand continues to shift its advertising strategy.

“On advertising, we have decided to go for global campaigns,” Alain Visser, senior vice-president, marketing, sales and customer service at Volvo., explained to Campaign. “The Avicii campaign [recently created by Forsman & Bodenfors] is an example of a truly global campaign. In the development of the global campaigns, we work with Grey New York, Grey Shanghai and Forsman & Bodenfors in Sweden, which all pitch for a creative concept.”

Volvo Picks AKQA as Its Lead Digital Agency

The international Volvo Car Corporation has chosen AKQA as lead digital agency on its global business after an unannounced review.

From a company spokesperson:

“We can confirm that we have selected AKQA to be Volvo Cars Agency of Record for Digital, CRM and Social Media for strategy, development, content and data analytics.”

Volvo’s last agency review began in the summer of 2013 and ended nearly six months later with the selection of Grey London as lead creative shop and R/GA as digital AOR.

That move ended the client’s six-and-a-half year relationship with Arnold Worldwide. At the time, we ran an internal note from Robert LePlae, who was then the agency’s global CEO; he told staffers that Arnold had decided not to defend the business thanks largely to “changes in Sweden in 2012.”

After the conclusion of this latest review, Volvo will no longer work with now-former digital lead R/GA. (That shop’s most recent notable campaign for the client was “Volvo Reality,” a VR collaboration with VFX studio Framestore that earned coverage in Digiday and other trade pubs.)

Volvo will retain Grey London as its primary creative shop; its relationship with Forsman & Bodenfors of “Epic Split” fame will also be unaffected.

For context, both Forsman and Grey have released work for Volvo over the past two months; on Monday the former shop launched a spot starring superstar DJ Avicii, and Grey London’s 2015 work to date includes an illuminated bike stunt and “Swedish Air,” a spot promoting the company’s new filtration system without including any images of Volvo products.

Neither client nor agency has announced the win publicly, but AQKA has already begun hiring to service its newest account: its homepage includes a job listing for creative director based in the shop’s Gothenburg, Sweden office which mentions the ability to “attract and recruit exceptional talent.” (Volvo, currently owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, has its international headquarters in Gothenburg.) Other open positions in the same office include analytics lead, CRM lead, and group account director.

AKQA Promotes Three to ECD Roles

AKQA promoted three group creative directors — Masaya Nakade, Jason McCann and Sung Chang — to roles as executive creative directors, The Drum reports.

Nakade joined AKQA London back in 2004, eventually working up to the group creative director role. McCann joined the agency’s New York office in November of 2011, following a six year stint at TAXI Toronto, where he served as vice president and executive creative director. Prior to joining TAXI, he spent six years at ICE Integrated Communications & Entertainment as an associate creative director. An eighteen year veteran in the advertising, digital and design sector, Chang joined AKQA New York in June of 2012, following an almost five year stint at Ogilvy & Mather as an executive creative director and senior partner. Prior to that, he was a senior partner and group creative director at OgilvyOne following his departure from contempt, “a small agency specializing in branding, design, marketing and technology” which he co-founded and served as a partner.

“With the tremendous growth that we’ve had in our New York office in the last couple of years as well as stronger partnerships with various clients such as Verizon, the promotions of Jason and Sung are an obvious recognition,” AKQA chief creative officer Rei Inamoto told The Drum. “They will be taking even greater leadership duties in New York and beyond in the coming months.”

BREAKING: Best Buy to Move Away from the Agency of Record Model

Today we learned that Best Buy — longtime client of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky — will follow a string of big-name companies like Chobani and FIAT Chrysler in abandoning the creative agency of record model and working instead with various shops on a by-project basis.

This means that CP+B will no longer be the client’s AOR.

From a Best Buy spokesperson:

“This is part of broader changes to our marketing strategy and it is consistent with moves we have made in other areas of the business.

Some marketing work will be consolidated and other pieces will be brought in-house. We will continue to have agency support, but it will be focused on specific projects.”

Best Buy had this to say about the agency itself:

“[CP+B] has been a great partner and they are [welcome] to bid on future projects.”

So the relationship between agency and client will not end immediately and the former may indeed work with the latter on future projects. Best Buy’s campaigns for the Summer and Back to School seasons will be led by CP+B and run as scheduled, but these efforts will be the last to list Crispin as the client’s agency of record.

Crispin initially won creative duties for Best Buy’s Geek Squad promos, working on that account long before they brought Bieber and Ozzy together for Super Bowl XLV. In 2007, the agency won more work at the expense of BBDO and eventually became Best Buy’s creative AOR; its most recent BB campaign to appear on this blog was a Rushmore-inspired back to school ad that ran last July.

A source tells us that the client has already begun issuing the RFPs in question and that AKQA is one of the winning agencies.

Both CP+B and AKQA refrained from commenting on this story.

ECD Clements Leaving AKQA

Stephen Clements, longtime veteran of the AKQA organization who currently serves as ECD in its San Francisco office, will be leaving the agency to “pursue other opportunities.”

He does so after more than a decade with AKQA, which he joined as a head of graphics/video back in 2003 before moving up to the CD role in 2010 and being selected, along with Neil Robinson, to replace departing ECD Pierre Lipton in 2012. (Lipton spent two years at M&C Saatchi before leaving to become CCO at 360i back in October.)

During his tenure, Clements helped run creative for clients such as Apple, Target, Verizon, and Google Glass.

From AKQA Managing Director Simon Jefferson:

“Stephen has been a strong creative leader and valuable mentor for our team in San Francisco. We’re grateful for the contributions he’s made to our business and wish him all the best in his next endeavor.”

…and from Clements himself:

“I’m a big fan of AKQA and am proud of all that we’ve achieved in collaboration with our forward-thinking clients. It’s an incredibly talented group of people, and I’m honored to have been part of the growth and success of one of the world’s best agencies.”

As to the why, we hear that Clements plans to run his own “incubator,” that he already has at least one major investor, and that the entire project — according to a source — may be funded by another agency entirely.

In other former AKQA executives news, Robinson — who left in March 2014 to co-found the San Francisco office of Zeus Jones — departed from that gig in January to help launch still-new agency Chapter SF.

Expect to hear more about Clements’ project in coming months.

Chandelier, Julia Louis-Dreyfus Plug Old Navy’s ‘Boyfriend Jeans’

Old Navy spokeswoman Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who took over for Amy Poehler in December, promotes the brand’s line of “boyfriend jeans” in a new spot kicking off a spring campaign from lead agency Chandelier.

The spot casts the Veep star as a couples counselor dealing with a jealous boyfriend who saw a text with the word “boyfriend” on his girlfriend’s phone. Of course, she was actually referring to her new boyfriend jeans from Old Navy. When she informs Louis-Dreyfus that they’re only $15, she says “That’s insane…not clinically, of course” and soon they’re off, following up on the “breakthrough” and headed to Old Navy. Despite Louis-Dreyfus’ talent, the spot never really finds its comedic voice. Both the tone and the timing seem just a tad off and the tacked-on running out of the shot to get to Old Navy ending feels painfully forced (as it has in past spots).

As has become the norm with these types of ads, the outtakes (featured below) are actually more entertaining than the spot itself. So far, however, Louis-Dreyfus’ outtakes have failed to attract the same attention as those from Poehler’s ads. While the latter regularly received upwards of 500,000 views on YouTube, outtakes from Old Navy’s December campaign sit well under the 100,000 view mark. The campaign also includes a social effort, handled by AKQA, featuring Emily Current and Meritt Elliott.

“They’re different sides of the same coin,” Chandelier Founder Richard Christiansen told AdAge, speaking of the two spokeswomen. He explained that Poehler was very spontaneous, while Louis-Dreyfus brings more of a “trained” approach to the ads. “For Julia, we’re still improvising, but a lot of that stuff is a little bit more planned,” he added. “She’s studied. She’s controlled. She’s got a lot of great structure.”

W+K, AKQA Amsterdam Start Great Things for Netflix

The Amsterdam offices of Wieden+Kennedy and AQKA recently launched a new campaign to promote client Netflix in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands and “The Nordics.”

The first spot aims to answer some of its own titular “Big Questions” with some hopeful maybes:

The second, more recent spot — first in a series of three — serves as another promo for Netflix original programming:

Future work will expand upon the “big questions” theme to reinforce the personalization available with the service. From Sean Condon of W+K Amsterdam:

“Some of the spots dramatise these moments of change in everyday situations; others tell bigger stories about how entertainment can have a profound effect on viewers’ lives – and diets. But they all build upon Netflix’s brand personality by bringing to life the brand’s fun, entertaining and unique personality through these compelling stories.”

Additional spots will launch later this month.

WIEDEN+KENNEDY AMSTERDAM

Executive Creative Director
Mark Bernath & Eric Quennoy

Creative Director
Sean Condon

Art Director
Jordi Luna

Copywriter
Diaa Mohamed & Evgeny Primachenko

Head of Content Production
Joe Togneri

Broadcast Producer
Ross Plummer

Planning Director
Martin Weigel

Group Account Director
Clare Pickens

Account Director
Eleanor Thodey

Account Manager
Charlotte Jongejan

Project Manager
Emma Williamson

Business Affairs
Emilie Douque

 

 

FILM PRODUCTION

PRODUCTION COMPANY
BISCUIT

Director
Aaron Stoller

Director of Photography
Henrik Stenberg

Producer
Mala Vassan

Executive Producer
Kate Taylor

EDITING COMPANY
PEEPSHOW, LONDON

Editor
Andrea Macarther, Amanda Perry.

AUDIO POST
WAVE SOUND STUDIOS, AMSTERDAM

Sound Designer/Mixer
Alex Nichols-Lee

MUSIC – BIG QUESTIONS

Artist / Title
Harry Lightfoot / “To Glory”

Music Company
Woodwork Music, UK

MUSIC – SARA

Artist / Title
Beacon Street Studios / “Jaunty”

Music Company
Beacon Street Studios, LA

POST PRODUCTION
GLASSWORKS AMSTERDAM

Colourist
Scott Harris

Lead Compositor / Supervisor
Morten Vinther

SR. VFX Producer
Anya Kruzmetra

Compositors
Kyle Obley, Jesper Nybroe

On-set VFX Supervision
Naomi Anderlini

3D Lead & Character Design
Simon Glas

Animation
Thomas Hinke

Additional Modelling & Rigging
Rudiger Kaltenhauser

Surfacing, light & rendering
Florian Breg

 

 

INTERACTIVE

DIGITAL AGENCY
AKQA

Creative Director
Ivar Eden

Associate Creative Director
Kim Baffi

Copywriter
Rachael Kendrick

Planning Director
Laurence Parkes

Senior Project Manager
Mikaela Westerberg

Production Manager
Dorothy Bany

Account Director
Cecile Desmarest

Client Partner
James Scott

Director of Delivery

 
Kristopher Smith

 

Film Director
Quentin van de Bossche

DIGITAL PRODUCTION
MEDIAMONKS

POST-PRODUCTION
GLASSWORKS AMSTERDAM

SOUND DESIGN
WAVE SOUND STUDIOS, AMSTERDAM

AKQA Animates Your Data for Nike

Here’s one we missed from earlier in the week: an animated spot from Nike’s digital agency AKQA based on…data drawn from the client’s wearable tech device.

As the agency explained to Mike Shields of The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today blog, Nike collected data from the “most active users” of its Nike Fuelband product throughout 2014. Agency and client then “visualized” the data in order to create customized animated films depicting each customer’s “year in exercise.”

Each of those individualized videos also includes geographic personalization based on the cities in which users exercised during 2014; Nike emailed the clips to Fuelband’s top 100,000 users.

Here’s the “national” version of the video:

As AKQA Creative Director Whitney Jenkins told WSJ, the hope is that these users will share their videos so as to lightly brag about 2014 accomplishments, thereby inspiring more workout fanatics to buy the Fuelband.

If you actually exercise and use the app, here’s the page to visit for that personalized clip.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Nike and AKQA Create an LED Basketball Court to Help Kids Learn Kobe's Moves

Global design firm AKQA and ubiquitous shoe manufacturer Nike have collaborated on a full-size LED basketball court for Nike Rise, a program designed to train Chinese youth based on the techniques and practice drills of Kobe Bryant.

Called House of Mamba (a reference to Kobe’s Black Mamba nickname), the LED court guides and reacts to the players’ movements with an impressive range of visual displays, to the point where you wonder how the athletes aren’t distracted by it. 

Nike Rise centered on a reality show where 30 Chinese teens trained with Kobe and LeBron James, and three of them will go on to the Nike World Basketball Festival next month.

Via DesignBoom.



Ad Creatives Launch 'ManServants,' Offering Hunks for Hire Who Aren't Just Strippers

Ladies, if your idea of a good time doesn’t involve a male stripper waving his junk in your face, you might want to consider instead getting a dapper hunk to cater to your every need from a respectful distance.

A new company, aptly called ManServants—conceived by a group of San Francisco-area ad creatives who’ve worked at AKQA—is out with a video inviting women to pay men in tuxedos to hold parasols and refill their champagne glasses, even if it means wading through a pool while still dressed in black-tie attire. Customers interested in a more casual experience might pay a guy in a cool white jeans jacket or beanie to hang around snapping photos of a client and her girlfriend, or to hold her tablet for her while she takes a bubble bath. Men are also welcome to hire manservants, the ad suggests, perhaps to put on a push-up show and not talk.

The service itself isn’t set to launch until fall. But even the commercial struggles against the incredulity of the idea, reassuring viewers at the end: “This is a real service.” In other words, the spot is pretty well put together, if also fairly silly. It wraps its product in a thin critique of gender politics, as if the product it’s hawking is somehow more progressive than a naked faux-fireman, rather than just an alternate, more-reserved fantasy for sale, itself rooted in traditions of power and privilege. Regardless, to each her own.

Mostly, it’s surprising there isn’t already more competition in the space—not counting, you know, gigolos, minus the sex.

Note: While not explicit, the video is probably NSFW.



Looking for a Weird Way to Settle Scores? Oreo Suggests You 'Lick for It'

Oreo would like you to start solving your conflicts by scrubbing its cookies against your tongue as fast as you possibly can.

This new spot from AKQA London (and Mind’s Eye director Luke Bellis) shows pairs of what appear to be siblings and friends squaring off over various disputes—like riding shotgun in a car whose backseat is stuffed to the brim, picking what to watch on TV, or taking the blame for knocking the head off a statue with a soccer ball. But instead of, you know, flipping a coin or playing Rock Paper Scissors, they whip out Double Stuf Oreos, put on the stupidest faux-intense-concentration faces they can muster, and compete to be first to transfer all the cream from their cookies onto their tongues.

“We’ve all got something to settle,” reads the copy. “Lick for it,” adds the tagline, using a verb that doesn’t quite accurately describe the action portrayed in the preceding spot.

It’s a somewhat strange commercial, with slightly too much close-up footage of people’s mouths, and it can’t help but evoke Tootsie Roll Pops, which long ago cornered the repetitive-licking theme in advertising. But maybe it’s just not meant for olds like us to understand. The target demographic is clearly tween-ish, a point driven home by the bad dubstep soundtrack.

It is hard to believe any sane person would have the patience not to just eat the cookie.



Source

Looking for a Weird Way to Settle Scores? Oreo Suggests You ‘Lick for It’

Oreo would like you to start solving your conflicts by scrubbing its cookies against your tongue as fast as you possibly can.

This new spot from AKQA London (and Mind's Eye director Luke Bellis) shows pairs of what appear to be siblings and friends squaring off over various disputes—like riding shotgun in a car whose backseat is stuffed to the brim, picking what to watch on TV, or taking the blame for knocking the head off a statue with a soccer ball. But instead of, you know, flipping a coin or playing Rock Paper Scissors, they whip out Double Stuf Oreos, put on the stupidest faux-intense-concentration faces they can muster, and compete to be first to transfer all the cream from their cookies onto their tongues.

"We've all got something to settle," reads the copy. "Lick for it," adds the tagline, using a verb that doesn't quite accurately describe the action portrayed in the preceding spot.

It's a somewhat strange commercial, with slightly too much close-up footage of people's mouths, and it can't help but evoke Tootsie Roll Pops, which long ago cornered the repetitive-licking theme in advertising. But maybe it's just not meant for olds like us to understand. The target demographic is clearly tween-ish, a point driven home by the bad dubstep soundtrack.

It is hard to believe any sane person would have the patience not to just eat the cookie.




Here’s Another Freaky Brand App That Shows How Much of Your Private Life Is Online

If you're anything like me, you might get a little freaked out by the Internet.

Whatever you put out there exists, in some capacity, forever! But that neurotic voice in your head is probably drowned out when you capture the perfect photo of your dog giving you the side-eye (it happens), or you need to chat about the BIG THING that happened on whichever show has a BIG THING that week, and somehow you've become pretty active on various social media platforms.

No big deal, right? Wrong, according to AKQA's latest digital campaign for Ubisoft's game Watch Dogs.

AKQA created a site, Digital Shadow, that allows you to log in with your Facebook profile and see what your digital imprint says about you. (For the record, mine says, "You display a bleak outlook that can be manipulated for future gain." OK, then.) It also estimates your net worth and where you might be spotted and guesses what your passwords could be.

"We know everything about you." Spooky.