Hasta La Creative!

GdB has a new campaign for longtime client Anytime Fitness, but unlike prior efforts, this one has a global reach.

It also sees a shift in emphasis from convenience to intimacy. The campaign focuses on the moments people have that make them realize they need to start taking better physical care of themselves. “When my five-year-old dusted me in a race to the end of the block” says one man; “When my baby weight was acting more stubborn than my baby,” a woman adds. The spot goes on to emphasize that Anytime Fitness has “the right tools and encouragement to keep you on track,” as the people describing their moment of clarity earlier are seen enjoying Anytime Fitness’ facilities. It’s an easily relatable message, and one GdB and Anytime Fitness hope will resonate with viewers in the over 15 countries where very similar versions of the ad will run.

“You’re talking about something that’s so universal,” GdB Creative Director Doug deGrood told AdAge. “Everybody has these sort of trigger moments. They wake up one day and think, ‘Damn, I gotta do something.’”

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Droga5 enlisted the services of “writer, comedian and vagina owner” Sarah Silverman for a new spot addressing the wage gap for National Women’s Law Center.

Silverman introduces viewers to the wage gap issue, pointing out that over the course of their lives women pay a “$500,000 vagina tax,” before informing viewers that she’s becoming a man, since the operation is actually cheaper than dealing with a lifetime of income disparity. She then introduces National Women’s Law Center’s crowdfunding effort to raise the trillions of dollars American women are cheated out of by gender inequality in the workplace, to be payed back to each of them. Since the goal is basically unreachable, it actually serves as a fund raiser for National Women’s Law Center’s efforts, since they receive the money as a donation if (when) the goal isn’t reached. The video ends by directing viewers to EqualPaybackProject.com, which goes live today to inform visitors about the gender gap and accepts donations to the crowdfunding effort. It’s a clever approach, addressing the absurdity of the issue in a way people are sure to remember.

“Equal pay may not be a sexy issue, but it’s an important one,” Casey Rand, Droga5 creative director, told Adweek. “And it is absurd. Young women need to know what’s at stake. And we knew that to get them to engage, we’d need to play up that absurdity.” (more…)

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Havas Worldwide Strat Farm has a new campaign celebrating EmblemHealth’s “Legacy of Care.”

In the 60-second “Our Legacy of Care” the agency blends vintage and modern footage of New York City to show that EmblemHealth is still doing what it has been doing since its inception as GHI and HIP: “setting a national standard with neighborhood care.” The spot ends with the “What Care Feels Like” tagline, an idea expanded upon in the campaign’s other ads. “What Care Feels Like for the Dawson Family” and “What Care Feels Like for the Martinez Family” (both featured after the jump) explore the stories of real families who have stayed with Emblem for generations. The campaign launched yesterday with broadcast spots, subway ads and social components, and expands to paid digital on the 13th. (more…)

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Production studio O Positive enlisted the services of actress Jessica Chastain in a new PSA for The Nature Conservancy.

Chastain reads a poem by Matthew Dickman entitled “Our Nature.” The spot, directed by Peyton Wilson sets Chastain’s reading of the poem to a dramatic piano track, coming across more like a short film about love than a PSA, until it’s revealed that the love Chastain is talking about is her love of nature. As the 60-second PSA continues, the camera turns more and more to shots of the beautiful Sierra Mountains, and Chastain interacting with the natural world around her, ending with the tagline “Your first love wants you back.”

“I chose to be a part of this remarkable campaign not just because it spoke to my own love affair with nature, but also because it’s imperative to find a way to co-exist with nature so that this valuable and beautiful resource is protected, ” Chastain said in a press release. “I hope this film encourages everyone to rethink their relationship with the natural world around them.”

The spot, the second nature PSA featured here in two days, like Conservation International’s effort, sees The Nature Conservancy take a different approach emphasizing emotion.

“This is a departure for the Conservancy,” explains Jordan Peavey, marketing director for The Nature Conservancy in California. “Instead of a typical PSA where we explain who we are sand what we do in a very intellectual way, we worked with Peyton, O Positive and Jessica Chastain to create an entirely different type of story. One we hope will intrigue and inspire new audiences to remember their love of nature and to get involved.” (more…)

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The Richards Group today is launching the first-ever brand campaign in the 93-year history of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children (TSRHC).

Entitled “Moments” the campaign celebrates happy moments in the lives of several real TSRHC patients made possible by the hospital. In one spot, it’s a dancer who can’t imagine what her life would be like without dancing. We see her in the present day, and then flash back to her orthopedic recovery at TSRHC, preceded by the message, “These moments were made possible by these moments.” Similarly-themed spots include a horseback rider and a football player, each ending with the tagline, “Giving children back their childhood.”

“Using Texas Scottish Rite patients in our campaign brought authenticity to the hospital’s message,” said Stan Richards, president and CEO of The Richards Group, in a release. “By putting the focus on actual patients who overcame adverse circumstances, we can show how each one has gotten back to their childhood, fully recovered and happy, thanks to the good work of TSRHC.”

In addition to the television ads, the campaign also include digital, radio, OOH and print elements. Stick around for two more spots after the jump. (more…)

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AMV BBDO has a new series of ads for Snickers’ ongoing “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign, resurrecting Rowan Atkinson‘s Mr. Bean character.

In the longest of the three broadcast spots, Atkinson’s character finds himself jumping over rooftops with a group of ninjas, in a parody of kung fu movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Only, while his colleagues glide gracefully from rooftop to rooftop, Mr. Bean has a bit more trouble and eventually finds himself crashing through the roof to an angry group of warriors below. At this point, one of his fellow ninjas tosses him a Snickers, saying “…you can’t concentrate when you’re hungry, eat a Snickers” and he’s back to his old self.

The character is a perfect fit for the popular “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” approach, and the spots are all pretty entertaining. In the remaining pair (featured after the jump), Atkinson’s character practices nunchucks and kata, with less than stellar results. Atkinson’s character is such a good fit — he’s certainly one of the best celebrities featured in the ongoing campaign — that you almost wonder why he hasn’t been featured before. (more…)

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Sources familiar with the matter have said that Yahoo has reached out to agencies for the creation of a new consumer brand campaign, AdAge reports. Yahoo declined to comment to that publication.

The search is being conducted without a consultant, with Yahoo reaching out to a number of agencies and inviting some to pitch ideas later this month. While there is no word on which agencies are involved, Yahoo has worked with Ogilvy and Goodby Silverstein & Partners, its agency of record from 2009-2011, in the past. According to AdAge‘s sources, the company, formerly a large TV spender, is considering all media for the new campaign. (more…)

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Droga5 has a new campaign for Strongbow Cider that takes a tongue-in-cheek approach not unlike the agency’s work for fellow Heineken-owned brand Newcastle.

In a new spot for Strongbow, released in the heart of cider season, the brand pokes fun at a longtime alcohol advertising cliche, the slow-motion horse. As Adweek points out, this trope has been around since a 1982 ad for Budweiser Light (the brand’s first) employing a slow-motion Clydesdale. In the new Strongbow ad, however, the horse moves in slow motion while a couple walks down the beach at normal speed, continually stopping to wait for the horse to re-enter the frame. The spot emphasizes that Strongbow is best over ice, with a line of logic that “Apples are good, Strongbow Hard Cider is better, but Strongbow over ice is the best.” Enjoying it with your own slow-motion horse, however, is “the bestest.” The joke really works best in the 30-second format, as it feels a bit stretched at 60 seconds, but it’s a good dig at category cliches that hopefully means the end of brands attempting to use the slow-motion horse seriously. (more…)

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Droga5 has a new ad for Diet Coke taking the beverage to a somewhat unusual setting: the car wash.

A girl pops open a bottle of Diet Coke while going through a car wash. Instantly, the car wash is transformed, as a choreographed scene unfolds in front of her eyes. Dancers in yellow outfits similar to car wash scrubbers mingle with others in white bubble dresses, while everyone drinks Diet Coke (obviously) in a lavish, hallucinatory party scene. This enjoyable eye candy is followed by the nonsensical line, “What if life tasted as good as Diet Coke?” as the girl returns to reality, followed by the new “Get a Taste” tagline. The new ad, the latest in the “Get a Taste” campaign, will run tonight during Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy (a 15-second version will debut next week). Another broadcast spot featuring Taylor Swift will launch later this month. (more…)

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Both women and the word “erection” have been conspicuously absent from Viagra’s advertising — until BBDO’s most recent ad for Pfizer’s erectile dysfunction medication, that is.

A new spot features a woman with a British accent giving men an idea of what erectile dysfunction is like from the partner’s point of view. “It’s just you and your honey, the setting is perfect,” she begins, with beach scenery in the background. “You know what, plenty of guys have this issue, not just getting an erection but keeping it,” she goes on, sounding a bit like a partner reassuring a man having troubled in the bedroom. She goes on to offer Viagra as the solution (and says “erection” again), while touting it as something you only take when you need it. “If ED is stopping what you started, ask your doctor about Viagra,” she concludes, before the list of health risks is accompanied by a barrage of ridiculous phallic imagery, including flag poles, a ship’s mast off in the distance, a long pier extending into the ocean, etc.

It’s definitely a change in approach for Viagra, whose advertising previously avoided discussing erectile dysfunction directly (and explicitly the word “erection”). Perhaps the new approach is a sign that people are ready for more direct discussions about the issue, rather than the insinuations of past ads. Still, despite the new direction, the spot still comes across as somewhat awkward in tone and the phallic imagery at its conclusion seems a bit overkill. Then again, this isn’t a category that has seen any non-awkward advertising, so maybe we should just be thankful that there aren’t his and her bathtubs.

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