Hasta La Creative!

Finlandia is gunning hard for the title of most inspirational vodka commercial ever.

A new two-and-half-minute ad, “1,000 years of less ordinary wisdom,” features offbeat heroes like a drag wrestler and reindeer racer offering tips on how to make it in the world, like “Be nobody’s bitch but your own” and “You’re only as fast as your reindeer.” In other words, a lot of the advice is, in spirit, not really that different from standard motivational fare, even if it comes from unusual sources and their unconventional contexts (though fashion icon Iris Apfel is not exactly out of the spotlight these days).

As for the title, the 1,000 years refers to the sum of the ages of the people in the commercial. A number of them are long in the tooth, which is cool, because listening to one’s elders is generally a good thing—they’re often less boring and clueless than young people. But the spot also makes sure to feature more sprightly accomplished types, too, like a prima ballerina and volcanic scientist (because it can’t really exclude representing the money demo, too).

Created by Wieden + Kennedy London, the spot relies heavily on a driving (mostly) instrumental version of the song “Undeniable,” by Donnie Daydream featuring Richie Sosa. That strings together the disparate footage from director Siri Bunford (though it might be worth mentioning that Adidas also just used the record as a soundtrack for its own sports-themed montage-qua-anthem).

Game of Thrones fans might enjoy that, as Fast Company notes, the strong man—Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson—is also a actor on the show. (He’s the latest in a string to play “The Mountain” Gregor Clegane, largely absent this season but for the occasional twitch from under a blanket on a laboratory table, the pseudo-zombie experiment of some sinister wizard. P.S.: If that’s where drinking Finlandia leads, no thanks.)

In all seriousness, though, the concept is pretty moving—a nice snapshot of various walks of life, with some clever and charming moments. Overall, it might even be convincing, except what drinking vodka really makes people want to do is drink more vodka and then pass out hard and sleep in the next day—not a great way to tear through that bucket list.

CREDITS
Client: Finlandia
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy London
Creative directors: Scott Dungate, Graeme Douglas
Copywriter: Paddy Treacy
Art director: Mark Shanley
Executive creative directors: Tony Davidson, Iain Tait
Executive producer: Danielle Stewart
Group account director: Paulo Salomao
Account director: Matt Owen
Account manager: Sophie Lake
Head of planning: Beth Bentley
Planning director: Martin Beverley
TV producer: Michelle Brough
Production company: Knucklehead
Director: Siri Bunford
Executive producer: Matthew Brown
Director of photography: Ben Smithard
Editorial companies: Lucky Cat, Whitehouse Post
Editors: Xavier Perkins, Lucky Cat; Adam Marshall, Whitehouse Post
Post producer: Anandi Peiris
VFX company: MPC
VFX supervisor: Bill McNamara
Flame artist: Bill McNamara
VFX producer: Anandi Peiris
Grade: MPC
Colorist: Matthieu Toullet
Titles/graphics: Ryan Teixeira
Music/sound company: Factory
Sound designers: Anthony Moore, Phil Bollard
Song: Undeniable, Richie Sosa
Interactive producer: Dom Felton
Director of relations: Marta Bobic
PR manager: Charlotte Corbett

Silver Man—a dude in a top hat and glasses, every inch of him coated in silver paint—really shines in TBWAChiatDay’s new campaign for Miller Lite.

But he’s just one of many characters, oddball and otherwise, who visit a typical neighborhood bodega to pick up some suds and chat with wise, friendly Fred, the bilingual owner of the store. Other customers include a pair of muscular twins who say the same things at the same time; One Tripper (he doesn’t need help, dammit, toting a mountain of snacks and brewskies out the door); and a karaoke singer whose rendition of “Carry On Wayward Son” doesn’t quite match the sonic impact of the original.

Tagged “As long as you are you, it’s Miller Time,” the campaign includes ads in English and Spanish, targeting millennial and Hispanic audiences at a time when craft brews have eroded the sales of big-name beers. These eight spots have a relaxed, indie-film feel, inspired by the convenience-store settings in movies by Jim Jarmusch and the team of Wayne Wang and Paul Auster.

“The market seems to be rich with plenty of, let’s just say, less subtle beer advertising,” Arts & Sciences director Matt Aselton tells Fast Company, “so it seemed like a nice way of telling personal stories and not jock-rock archetypal stories. It’s like Sesame Street—the people in your neighborhood—except with a light beer.”

In real life, all sorts of people drop in and out of bodegas, so “anything is possible,” says Aselton. This makes the stream of strange customers in the commercials seem plausible, with the low-key and slightly askew humor hitting home every time. (The Silver Man, presumably a street performer, is a highlight, particularly when he’s joined by a glittery sidekick for an impromptu pose-down.)

Through it all, Fred serves as a calm, all-knowing foil, doling out advice and yakking it up with the clientele. Smartly underplayed by Eastbound & Down actor Marco Rodriguez, he keeps the proceedings firmly centered. The silver men may steal the show, but Fred is pure gold, one of the most welcome pitch-characters to hit screens in recent memory.

CREDITS
Client: Miller Lite
Campaign: “Bodega”
Andy England: Chief Marketing Officer
Gannon Jones: VP of Brand Marketing, Miller Family of Brands
Ryan Reis: Senior Director, Miller Family of Brands
Greg Butler: Director, Miller Lite
Jeanne-­ette Boshoff: Senior Marketing Manager, Miller Lite
Julia Watson: Marketing Manager, Miller Lite Multicultural

Agency: TBWAChiatDay LA
Stephen Butler: Chief Creative Officer
Fabio Costa: Executive Creative Director
Mark Peters: Creative Director
Jason Karley: Creative Director
Rick Utzinger: Creative Director
Bob Rayburn: Creative Director
Matthew Woodhams-­Roberts: Creative Director
David Horton: Creative Director
Jeff Dryer: Senior Art Director
Chris Rodriguez: Senior Art Director (Last Minute Gift)
Guy Helm: Senior Copywriter (Last Minute Gift)
Harris Wilkinson: Creative Director (Twins)
John Stobie: Art Director (Twins)
Brian O’Rourke: Director of Production
Anh-­Thu Le: Executive Producer
Stephanie Dziczek: Producer
Jill Nykoliation: Business Lead
Chris Hunter: Group Account Director
Scott McMaster: Group Planning Director
Bryan Reugebrink: Account Director
Alice Pavlisko: Project Manager
Linda Daubson: Director of Business Affairs
Nora Cicuto: Business Affairs Manager
Dorn Reppert: Business Affairs Manager
Dessiah Maxwell: Director, Traffic Operations
Judy Brill: Senior Traffic Operations Manager

Agency: Team Ignition
Erick Rodriguez: Senior Art Director
Raul Mendez: Senior Copywriter
Giovanni Chiappardi: Account Director
Elsa Gonzalez: Account Planner

Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Matt Aselton: Director
Mal Ward: Managing Director/Partner
Marc Marrie: Executive Producer/Managing Partner
Zoe Odlum: Producer
Sal Totino: Director of Photography
David Wilson: Production Designer

Editorial: Spot Welders
Haines Hall: Editor (Advice, Silverman)
Kevin Zimmerman: Editor (One Tripper ENG, Twins, Karaoke)
JC Nunez: Editor (Rivals, One Tripper SPAN)
Oli Hecks: Editor (Last Minute Gift, Present)
Carolina Sanborn: Executive Producer
Evan Cunningham: Producer

VFX: MPC
Karen Anderson: Executive Producer
Abisayo Adejare: Producer
Mark Gethin: Colorist
Mark Holden: VFX Lead
Benji Davidson, Dylan Brown, William Cox, Sandra Ross: VFX

Music Supervision: Good Ear Music Supervision

SFX: Barking Owl
Michael Anastasi: Sound Designer
Kelly Bayett: Creative Director
Whitney Fromholtz: Head of Production

Mix: Lime Studios
Mark Meyuhas: Mixer
Matt Miller: Assistant Mixer
Executive Producer: Jessica Locke

Absolut rolls out new advertising today from Sid Lee including a new short film and TV commercial, a never-before-heard song from Empire of the Sun, and a limited-edition illuminated bottle that lights up when you push a button on the bottom.

The short film and TV work, directed by Grammy-winning director Melina Matsoukas, collect footage from a series of “Absolut Nights” events hosted last year in New York, Sao Paolo, Berlin and Johannesburg that featured one-of-a-kind artistic collaborations—with Vita Motus, Marianne Krawcyzk, Studio XO and Charles Gadeken.

The short film:

The TV spot, launching Monday:

Those events were all about reinventing aspects of traditional nightlife in keeping with the brand’s “Transform Today” credo of rethinking nightlife through a lens of creativity.

The short film features a new track from electronic music duo Empire of the Sun. And the campaign features an intriguing packaging component—the Absolut Spark bottle, with a light that shines through the bottom and  “gives consumers the ability to shine a new light on their nightlife rituals for up to eight hours.”

The bottle:

“At Absolut, we believe in a world where there’s no such thing as a ‘standard’ night out,” says Joao Rozario, vp of Marketing at Absolut. “By infusing the unexpected into the ordinary, ‘Absolut Nights’ aims to inspire nightlife lovers to use the night as their canvas to explore what the future of nightlife looks like.”

More work from the campaign below.

The artistic collaborations:

CREDITS
Client: Absolut Vodka, Pernod Ricard USA
Agency: Sid Lee Amsterdam & Sid Lee New York
Managing Partner: Eric Alper
Executive Creative Director: Daniel Chandler & James Yeats-Smith
Creative Team: Maclean Jackson, Roeben Beddeleem, Eoin Mclaughlin & Thomas Glover
Group Account Director: Emily Creek
Account Director: Amy Manganiello
Production Management Director: Melanie Bruneau and Dave Isaac
Head of Strategy: Simon Wassef
Strategy Director: Nicola Davies
Editor: Thomas Schenk
Director:  Melina Matsoukas
Production Team: Jimmy Lee & Sid Lee Entertainment
Production Partners: Prettybird, Vice, O’mage, StudioNOW
Public Relations: Weber Shandwick

New Belgium Brewing peddles its Slow Ride Session pale ale in a series of silly Web shorts created by production house Strike Anywhere.

Dr. Don, a mellow therapist with a bushy upper lip, advises patients to relax and enjoy life as he serves them beer during slow rides on a fantastical bicycle-couch contraption. Is this guy licensed? To practice therapy or drive that thing? It’s probably best not to ask.

The pleasingly perky films, which began appearing a few months back, top out at around three minutes, and the performances by sketch comedy vets, at times clearly ad libbing, give the spots an extra kick. Ditto the retro elevator/lounge soundtrack (like something from an oh-so-groovy ’60s romp) and the rear-projection effects, which are goofy but not intrusive.

Still, it’s a thin concept, and after episodes with a bickering couple on their first date, bickering roommates and a millennial bickering with his boomer boss, the comedy starts to fall a bit flat. Also, Dr. Don’s chill-out mantra, while on-brand, wouldn’t feel out of place for a purveyor of the wacky tobacky. (What exactly are you hopped up on, dude?)

Ah well, it’s all about the “mobile therapy couch,” which steals the show every time. There’s even a laid-back video that shows you how to build one of your own. Alas, the instructions make assembling Ikea furniture look like child’s play. (It’s also difficult to follow what the hosts are saying in the clip shot outdoors on a windy day).

After attempting that DIY project, you just might need therapy. Or a couple sixes to take the edge off, at the very least.

Carlsberg doesn’t do things half-ass. If the Danish brewer is going to do something, it will make it the best in the world—at least, according to three new ads that admit that might not actually be true at all.

The campaign, by 72andSunny in Amsterdam and the new Copenhagen office of New York’s MacGuffin Films, imagines what would happen if Carlsberg made erotic dramas, sang karaoke or taught language courses. In each, it would excel—”probably,” the ads say.

The campaign marks the return of the famous “If Carlsberg Did” theme after an absence of four years. “Carlsberg beer is made by natural, unique ingredients, and MacGuffin have helped us make these come to life in a refreshing and indulging way. Hereby, the beer itself is put on a pedestal, just where we think it should be. Probably,” says Carlsberg director of strategy and innovation Didrik Fjeldstad.

See the other spots below.

CREDITS
Client: Carlsberg
Spot: “If Carlsberg Did”
Agency: 72andSunny Amsterdam
Production Company: MacGuffin Films New York
Director: Nick Fuglestad
Exe. Producer: Sam Wool

Brands are obsessed with space, getting to space, and anything that’s been to space. This week, it was Jose Cuervo’s chance to boldly go where no tequila brand had gone before—and hopefully make it home safely.

In honor of National Margarita Day last Sunday, Cuervo and its agency, McCann New York—using aerospace technology and GPS tracking—launched a container of margarita ingredients heavenward, hoping to mix a cocktail in space and parachute it back to Earth.

See how that went in this video:

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The agency teamed up with independent space program JP Aerospace, along with scientists who led the Phoenix Mission to Mars, to build and launch the spacecraft. The launch site was Pinal County Park, about an hour north of Tucson, Ariz.

Severe buffeting of winds at high altitude shook the margarita, and the extreme cold froze it. When the capsule reached about 100,000 feet into space, the weather balloons shattered and the capsule parachuted down.

The margarita landed in a ravine 100 miles from the launch site. It reportedly tasted good.

Waka waka waka.

Bud Light on Friday released the 15-second teaser below for its upcoming 60-second Super Bowl commercial, in which—as promised—a man accepts a challenge to play a crazy, life-size game of Pac-Man.

As seen in the teaser, the dare is written on the label of his Bud Light bottle. That ties into a new Anheuser-Busch packaging campaign that began in December, in which Bud Light bottles now come with almost 50 different “Up For Whatever” messages to inspire drinkers to be more spontaneous and fun.

In the full 60-second Super Bowl spot, titled “Coin,” from EnergyBBDO, the man follows the hint on his bottle and “finds himself in a giant Pac-Man maze, having the time of his life,” says the brand.

The work builds on Bud Light’s buzzy 2014 Super Bowl campaign “Epic Night,” which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Don Cheadle and took the brand away from its usual scripted jokes and into dynamic real-life stunts. This year’s campaign will be supported by a three-day House of Whatever event in Arizona, near the site of the Super Bowl.

In addition to the Bud Light spot, A-B plans to air two 60-second Budweiser ads (one of them a sequel to last year’s chart-topping “Puppy Love”) on the Feb. 1 Super Bowl telecast.

The industry is rapidly changing, but one thing remains the same: Literally the only thing that gets agency people to fill out their timesheets consistently is free beer.

The latest example comes from Minneapolis, where Colle+McVoy has built a wondrous machine called the TapServer—a “multi-keg beer deployment system” that uses RFID and custom-written software to verify whether you’ve stopped being a lazy git, finished your timesheets and earned your free pint. (According to the agency, the technology used includes “several Arduinos, a Node-based server, solenoids and a Raspberry Pi.” For all we know, so could the beer.)

Check out more pics below. And yes, similar things have been done before, including the beer fridge at JWT agency Casa in Brazil that unlocks only when timesheets are done.

Droga5 has won raves for its Newcastle Brown Ale work, which skewers beer-marketing clichés. Now, the agency is bringing a similar sensibility to another Heineken-owned brand: Strongbow Hard Apple Cider.

The new “Cider at Its Bestest” campaign shows how the drink is best poured over ice. It launches with the 60-second spot below, featuring an image that will be familiar to booze-ad watchers everywhere: a horse running in slow motion on a beach. (In fact, a Clydesdale did just that in the very first ad for Bud Light—then called Budweiser Light—in 1982.)

But this Strongbow horse—well, let’s just say he’s not your typical excessively slow-moving quadruped. And he won’t elicit the typical (glazed-over) reaction from viewers, either.

“With cider brands trying to out-refresh each other, we went better than best, to bestest,” John McKelvey, creative director of Droga5 said in a statement.

“The overall campaign explores the absurd notions of making the best even more desirable. In this case it meant enjoying a Strongbow with your horse that only runs in slow motion. That’s the bestest,” added creative director Hannes Ciatti.

An additional 15-second spot, “Three Sunsets,” will debut later this fall. The campaign will include a mix of traditional and paid media, digital, PR and experiential marketing.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Heineken USA / Strongbow
Brand Director: Alejandra De Obeso
Global Marketing Manager: Olivier Darses
Senior Director, Portfolio Brands: Charles Van Es
Chief Marketing Officer: Nuno Teles
Agency: Droga5, New York
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Director: John McKelvey
Creative Director: Hannes Ciatti
Copywriter: Molly Jamison
Art Director: Eric Dennis
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Verity Bullard
Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Digital Strategy Director: Dan Neumann
Group Account Director: Dan Gonda
Account Director: Nadia Malik
Production Company: Rattlingstick
Director: Hamish Rothwell
DOP: Ben Seresin
Executive Producer: Joe Biggins
Producer: Sam Long
Editorial: Workpost Editorial
Editor: Rich Orrick
Assistant Editor: Adam Witton
Executive Producer: Erica Thompson
Post Production: The Mill
Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Producer: Alex Fitzgerald
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Flame Artist: Nathan Kane
Music: Human
Founding Partner: Marc Altshuler
Producer: Jonathan Sandford
Sound: Sonic Union
Studio Director: Justine Cortale
Producer: Pat Sullivan
Mix Engineer: Stephen Rosen

If you always suspected that a pale ale would rate a shimmering, golden 604C on the Pantone color system, have a pint on me.

Spanish agency Txaber matches brew types with their Pantone hues in this stylish package design exercise. It’s reminiscent of last year’s “Beertone” cards that provided the exact color values of various beers in RGB, CMYK and HTML code. Here, however, we get simple, gorgeous cans and bottles that really let the shades of the suds inside shine through.

See the whole collection on the Txaber site.

Beer packaging has been a powerful muse in the design world, inspiring some impressive work. The comeback of the can, particularly among craft brewers, “opened up a 360-degree canvas for label designers typically restricted to the few stickers on a beer bottle,” according to my AdFreak colleague David Griner. That’s true, though some creative types have made heroic efforts to sass-up humble glass containers and do that medium justice, too.

I like Txaber’s restrained, elegant approach. You get lots of color and, in tiny typeface (HipstelveticaFontFamily, which is free to download), the beer names and Pantone designations. That’s all you need. The results are especially compelling when the cans and bottles are grouped together. Their hues play off one another like the bands of a rainbow, ranging from pale ale’s carefree vibrance through the playful, almost purplish tones of the porter’s 1817C to the dark grandeur of imperial stout at 426C.

Though, as we’ve learned, nothing represents the vibrant soul of “black” quite like Guinness.

Via Design Taxi.