Hasta La Creative!

Bud Light has released the full 90-second version of EnergyBBDO’s “Coin” Super Bowl spot, the latest in the brand’s “Up for Whatever” campaign.

Anheuser-Busch first unveiled the ad on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon last night and uploaded the spot to YouTube, where it has received almost 150,000 views. The 90-second “Coin” doesn’t exactly offer up any surprises, as it’s basically what was promised by the teaser: a guy playing a real-life game of Pac-Man. “Coin” coasts along on that rather fun idea, opening on a man in a bar being asked if he’s “up for whatever” and then following the instructions on his Bud Light to “step outside for some old-school fun.” While the setup seems like it could have been handled more quickly (cutting down on the ad’s length a bit), the actual game itself is pretty entertaining.

The ad will air during the fourth quarter of the game, one of three ads A-B InBev will air during the Super Bowl, along with two for Budweiser (including a follow-up to last year’s popular “Puppy Love”).

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Jan Brady would be shocked to see how grumpy her sister has become in Snickers’ teaser for its Brady Bunch-themed Super Bowl ad. Indeed, she’s so grumpy that she’s turned into Danny Trejo, angrily brushing her hair (and counting the brushes, as the character used to do) in front of a mirror as her mother calls from downstairs.

The full 30-second spot, by BBDO New York, is expected to continue the brand’s “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign—so apparently Marsha is so hungry, she’s acting like Robert Rodriguez’s favorite anti-hero.

This will be Snickers’ first Super Bowl spot since 2011, taking the place of M&M’s, which has enjoyed Mars’ slot in the Big Game spotlight in each of the past three years. Snickers’ 2011 spot starred Roseanne Barr and Richard Lewis. Its 2010 spot famously had Betty White playing football—it was one of the most-liked ads of that game, and is generally credited with reviving the actress’s career.

Not everyone loves Super Bowl teasers and full ads being released early—many think it spoils the surprise. But Mars is assuming enough people will want to see the full Trejo spot early that it’s made a little contest out of it.

“Fans can ask to have the spot released early through a number of social media activities, and if consumers generate 2.5 million social media engagements before kick-off on Feb. 1, Snickers will release the entire 30-second spot early,” the brand tells us.

In a campaign scheduled to culminate with tonight’s first-ever College Football Championship, BBDO New York focuses on a single fact for client AT&T: the provider offers customers “the nation’s strongest LTE signal.”

This is not a new claim from AT&T, which began promoting the superiority of its LTE systems over a year ago and now states that its LTE “footprint” is larger than all of its competitors’.

But the “strength” concept did allow the agency to riff on a theme with the help of four retired football legends. In the first spot, “Mental Strength,” Herschel Walker pulls a Jedi mind trick on Doug Flutie:

The second spot rearranges the group to put another veteran in the hot seat.

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BBDO Toronto continues the absurdist tendencies of Skittle’s advertising with one of the brand’s strangest ads in recent memory.

Entitled “Struck By A Rainbow,” the ad is a mockumentary about a man named David who is hit by a rainbow, changing his skin to Skittles. Directed by Conor Byrne, the video, while never laugh out loud funny, convincingly mirrors and parodies the tropes of documentaries about people combating adversity, getting the feel just right. The long running time (“Struck By A Rainbow” clock in at well over three minutes) is used to show most of the implications of David’s condition and show David’s journey from struggle to acceptance. In case you’re wondering, a doctor points out that “From a medical perspective, there’s nothing wrong with David. His skin is just now Skittles.” The spot saves one of its more obvious jokes for the end, as David’s wife leans in to kiss him on the cheek and bites off a Skittle. While over three minutes is a very long time to spend watching an ad, and the premise is stretched a bit thin by the long running time, this should still appeal to fans of the brand’s distinctly oddball humor, and anyone creeped out too much by the idea would stop watching immediately anyway.

“Struck By A Rainbow” debuted on YouTube and the brand’s Facebook page on December 8th, but the campaign also includes a digital buy featuring 30-second teasers to drive additional views. Media support for the spot will continue around four weeks.

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Here’s another one from BBDO, which seems to be the only agency releasing major campaigns today. The agency continues its humorous approach for Foot Locker with the new spot “Rookie” featuring Damian Lillard and Tracy McGrady.

“Rookie” opens on the pair chatting about their Adidas kicks at a party, when McGrady drops the line, “Young guys like us, we can’t get caught looking old.” McGrady then informs a perplexed Lillard, “I play in China now, I’m a rookie” before having to deal with some unfortunate rookie responsibilities. BBDO has built a consistent and distinct humorous voice for Foot Locker, and while it’s not on par with the agency’s most memorable work for the brand, fans of the style should find plenty to like here.

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Wellington agency Clemenger BBDO has a history of releasing intriguing road safety PSAs, forgoing the typical heavy-handed scare tactics in favor of nuanced spots that tell stories rather than beat viewers over the head with a message. Their track record includes last year’s “Blazed” stoned driving PSA and this effort from January. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the agency has once again delivered with “Local Legends,” but it just may be their best attempt yet.

The spot takes an intriguing approach to the problem of drunk driving, targeting not drivers themselves but bystanders who witness people getting into their cars drunk but are unsure how to act, or if it is their place to do so. In the ad, two elderly gentleman at a gas station see a group of rowdy youngsters getting into their car. “They’re just kids, if we don’t say something” one of them says, gesturing toward the group. “Why don’t you get a lift home tonight?” one of the men asks the boys, who are initially dismissive. Eventually, after much discussion, they convince the group to let one of them drive them home. What really sets the ad apart is how convincing the dialogue is, with awkwardness and humor that pulls the viewer into the story.

Clemenger BBDO also manages to incorporate a clever social extension, with local newspapers, radio and street posters asking public “What would you say?” and allowing them to respond via phone, text or Facebook, and then sharing the best responses. Rather than feeling tacked on, it engages viewers with a question the PSA implies and gets people thinking about what they’d do in a similar situation. Not only does this increase viewer engagement with the PSA, it may even help change bystander behavior, ultimately the goal of the campaign.

“The purpose of this strategy is to get people to be their own legends,” explains Linda Major, head of social marketing at Clemenger BBDO. “By thinking about what they would do in a similar situation people will be better prepared intervene in a way that defuses a real situation.” (more…)

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Today Mercedes-Benz announced its first major “global agency realignment” since 2006. The big winners appear to be BBDO, Merkley+Partners, and the custom team that will come from a “pooling” of creative talent in Europe.

The press release, in summary (thanks, Google Translate):

• Mercedes-Benz has established a “new agency model” based around three creative hubs: Europe, USA and China
• The company will create a new unit to handle its European creative after conducting “a screening of the European agency landscape”; efforts will be led by Kemper and Kroger in Berlin

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BBDO added to a recent series of client wins this morning by adding American Family Insurance to its roster (BBDO’s New York office won CVS/Caremark back in March just a few days after its San Francisco wing scored Wells Fargo).

BBDO New York will be the creative agency of record for AFI, which is one of the company’s largest providers of property casualty/auto insurance (among other services).

Ogilvy won the account back in 2010, and the company did not announce a review this time around. Here’s the Ogilvy & Mather Chicago spot that aired during the Super Bowl in January:

AFI has had a good year to date; the company reported a 5 percent earnings increase right around the time its executives were (probably) deciding whether to field creative pitches. In the release, the VP of marketing writes:

“We believe BBDO NY will play a significant role in helping us to continue to change the mindset of consumers about insurance.”

…so we’re interested in seeing where the agency takes its newest client.

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The 50th anniversary of England’s first drunk-driving PSA inspires a sobering celebration in this Department for Transport campaign.

Kool & the Gang’s 1980 hit “Celebration” anchors the new spot spot from AMV BBDO. Usually, the iconic dance track suggests parties and good times. Here, however, it’s sung karaoke-style by emergency responders at the scene of a car crash and by ambulance and hospital personnel as they struggle to save victims’ lives. (The song’s joyous “Come on!” exhortation becomes a doctor’s impassioned plea for an injured driver to pull through.)

The final scenes, which I won’t spoil, are immensely sad, their impact heightened by sudden silence as the music unexpectedly cuts out.

The spot stands in stark contract to Britain’s first drunk-driving ad (posted below). Created in 1964 by animation firm Halas & Batchelor, it shows an office party, complete with balloons and silly hats. The voiceover says, “Four whiskeys, and the risk of an accident can be twice as great … Eight, and the risk can be 25 times as great.” (Eight whiskies—that’s some bash!)

The ad concludes, “Don’t ask a man to drink and drive”—a line that is sexist today, but true to its era, when only a small percentage of English women had driver’s licenses.

Of course, we’ve come a long way since then. Thanks in part to aggressive public-service campaigns, drunk driving has been stigmatized, and rightly so. Text at the end of the “Celebration” spot notes that in the past 50 years, annual drunk-driving deaths in the U.K. have fallen from 1,640 to 230, but then cautions: “That’s still 230 too many.”

Overall, the ad, expertly directed by Mark Zibert via Rogue Films, provides a compelling and slightly surreal viewing experience. Though neither gory nor emotionally over the top, its message—propelled by a cruelly ironic soundtrack—might just get stuck in viewers’ heads this holiday season and make them think twice about drinking and driving.

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The latest spot in the BBDO series for Foot Locker is a bit more forward-looking than others: it involves Wizard Point guard John Wall’s colleagues predicting his entire career arc. Here’s “The Process”:

Fairly accurate, but he left out the “gambling problem followed by redemption” part, which leads to either the inevitable “re-dedicates life to family/charity” chapter or the “goes through painfully public rehab/tattoo spree/divorce” option. Also: didn’t Wall’s Wings and Burgers just hire TBWA?

We would definitely watch that local car dealership commercial more than once, though.

Credits when they come in.

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