Hasta La Creative!

Sources told Adweek that Sprint is seeking a new lead creative agency.

According to the publication’s sources, the review will be focused on above-the-line marketing, most of which is spent on television. Sprint spends approximately $800 million on measured media annually. According to Adweek, it’s still unclear if the review also includes digital work, which is currently handled by DigitasLBi.

Sprint has a somewhat unusual history of agency relationships. In 2011, the company unexpectedly shifted its advertising duties from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to a team consisting of various Publicis Groupe agencies, led by DigitasLBi, who worked in conjunction with Leo Burnett on broadcast advertising. However, last year Sprint assigned those duties to Figliulo & Partners, who created the recent “Framily” campaign. (With Sprint abandoning that plan, and now searching for a new agency, it seems the Frobinsons may have seen their moment pass.)

The move doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, given these comments made by Masayoshi Son, CEO of Sprint parent company Softbank:

“Sprint spends a large amount of money on advertising every year, but its effects have been almost negligible. I directed the Sprint executives to terminate all existing contracts with the company’s advertising agencies. We will shortly start from scratch on advertising, with new agents also making proposals.”

Dream client?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

RPA recently debuted a new campaign for recently-won client ARCO, following Tesoro’s purchase of ARCO from BP.

The campaign celebrates ARCO’s “top tier” designation, as its gasoline “exceeds EPA minimum detergent requirements to help clean engines and maintain optimal vehicle performance.” To highlight the benefits of treating your car right with ARCO gasoline, RPA chose to show some of the ways mistreat their vehicles in a series of four 30-second broadcast spots.

The light-hearted approach works best in “Treat” (featured above), when a woman decides “If top-tier gas at ARCO helps clean my engine, maybe I should clean the rest of my car.” She then imagines all the hard work inherent in undoing the neglect, including some pretty gross tasks, before tossing an empty coffee cup in the backseat and deciding “I’ll do that another time.”

Other spots in the campaign take a similar approach, with “Embarassing” focusing on some of the moments your car shouldn’t have to witness and “Mishap” taking on minor vehicular abuse. “Try It” changes things up, focusing instead on a couple’s misguided decision to go somewhere other than ARCO for gas. Each spot ends with the tagline, ““Your car puts up with a lot. Help protect it from harmful engine deposits. ARCO has quality TOP TIER® gas for less.” emphasizing ARCO’s quality and top tier designation. The campaign began last month with one broadcast spot and an outdoor component, and currently supports the four broadcast spots with online and radio elements, as well as a revamped website.

“We have a long history working on the ARCO brand, and appreciate the challenges of the competitive motor-fuel category,” said RPA EVP, Management Account Director Tom Kirk. “The agency’s goal is to further support ARCO’s brand positioning, and this new work focuses on ARCO’s holistic value proposition around product quality and affordability.” (more…)

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CHI&Parnters is launching its latest animated campaign for TalkTalk, the fourth in a series of animated campaigns from the agency, entitled “The Mission.”

The 60-second spot tells the story of six household objects who come to life and embark on a journey in search of great TV. “The Mission” follows a doll, a garden gnome, a toy robot, a dog-lamp, and two slippers through a grand journey as they battle the elements, traversing the varying terrains of a neighborhood, before finally arriving through a doggy door to a house with TalkTalk TV. The well-animated spot pulls off the approach with style, making for a fun spot that feels like a mini-odyssey. It is the first of four new spots which will roll out between September and January.

“Our award-winning animations for TalkTalk have set a precedent over the years – and this year we’ve aimed to raise the bar again,” said CHI&Partners Creative Director Micky Tudor. “Everything about this little film is epic. Shot in cinemascope, voiced by Derek Jacobi and with a sweeping score from ‘Last of the Mohicans’, this spot is packed with the kind of extraordinary craft that is normally reserved for the world of feature films.” (more…)

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Hampton Inn has named Austin-based agency GSD&M as its new creative agency, following a review, AdAge reports.

The three finalists in the review were revealed to be GSD&M, Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt and Los Angeles-based David & Goliath. Incumbent agency Y&R Chicago participated in the initial stages of the review, which included six agencies but was not selected as a finalist, Hilton Garden Inn & Hampton Hotels Vice President, Global Brand Marketing Judy Christa-Cathey told AdAge. Y&R Chicago remains on the Hilton roster, however, via its recently-won DoubleTree duties.

Christa-Cathey explained that the brand chose GSD&M because it “wanted an agency that had a clear understanding of the Hampton Inn brand and what makes it special,” also citing the agency’s “strong consumer insights and strategy, fresh creative and problem-solving skills.”

A new campaign is expected in early 2015, which will be aimed at millenials and “celebrating Hampton’s culture and hospitality.” Hampton Inn spent approximately $23 million on national measured media last year, according to Kantar Media.

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BBDO New York’s latest offering for GE continues to celebrate innovation, but marks a stylistic departure from the agency’s recent work for the brand.

While “What Would Happen” and “Childlike Imagination” looked at innovation from a sense of childlike wonder, “Ideas” takes a sharp sidestep, personifying those ideas and focusing on how they often emerge as rough around the edges but grow into something beautiful. In the 60-second online spot, ideas are presented as an odd-looking creature that looks like something that could have crawled out of the reject pile at Jim Henson’s workshop.

Starting from birth, we follow an idea as it has a pretty rough time of things. Continually facing rejection, it resorts to sleeping on the streets until it is finally taken in by GE. “Ideas are scary, and messy, and fragile,” says a voiceover, “But under the proper care, they become something beautiful,” and then we see the fully-transformed idea, followed by the “Imagination at work” tagline.

Following the success of BBDO’s recent work for the brand, the shift in approach comes as a little off-putting, and the idea seems a bit dragged out at 60 seconds. But then maybe the spot being a little rough around the edges actually fits the concept. (more…)

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With football season around the corner, Toth+CO enlists Drew Brees in their latest spot for Wrangler’s new Advanced Comfort Jeans. And the results are…exactly what you’d expect from a Drew Brees Wrangler ad.

Brees sits on a cooler on the back of a truck, plays some football with his buddies and his son, and takes his lady out to dinner. Pretty generic stuff. Interspersed with this footage are graphics of Wrangler’s “4-way flex technology” which offers “20% stronger” reinforced fibers. And the spot ends, of course, with Brees delivering the longtime tagline of “Real. Comfortable. Jeans.” There’s nothing fresh here, but fans of Brees, and football fans who can’t wait for the new season, should still find it a welcome sight. (more…)

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Doner’s latest spot promoting the Fiat starts out cute and sweet before taking a menacing turn.

The 54-second animated effort, entitled “Helpful Critters,” opens on a group of woodland critters talking up the Fiat 500?s gas mileage in a casual, conversational tone. “Do you get such crappy gas mileage, they know your name at the gas station? a bunny rabbit asks in a squeaky voice. “Why you hatin’ on the earth? With the Fiat 500, just think of the money you’d save,” adds a squirrel.

Things take a sinister turn around the midway point with the rabbit saying, “We think you should get a Fiat, if you know what’s good for you,” as her face suddenly changes from a smile to an evil glare. The critters then suggest that they know several members of the bear community and you could go missing (presumably murdered) if you don’t buy a Fiat.

It’s both reminiscent of Italian mafia stereotypes and the classic South Park episode “Woodland Critter Christmas” for its cuteness-turned-evil tone. Needless to say, threatening to murder potential customers is an odd approach for a car commercial.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

McCann, New York has a new campaign for Verizon FiOS, touting the brand’s “Speed Match” — matching download and upload speeds.

To do so, McCann set up an experiment slowing down an up escalator. When riders finally reached the top, a spokeswoman asks, “Shouldn’t up be as fast as down?” and then continues to make the point that the same should true of Internet connection speeds. It’s a pretty obvious visualization of the feature, and may help those who have trouble understanding tech issues appreciate FiOS’ “Speed Match” (even if they still don’t quite understand what they’re talking about). (more…)

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Translation has a new back-to-school campaign for Champ Sports, entitled “Game Loves An Audience.”

That phrase appears on screen, leading in to the brand’s “We Know Game” tagline following short vignettes in several 30-second spots. For the most part, Translation keeps things pretty simple. “Practice,” for example, is a montage of players training for the upcoming season at football practice, ending with the coach riling the team up with a chant. “Joy Ride” and “First Period” (which we’ve included after the jump) are similarly straightforward (and self-explanatory) eschewing any dialogue for a focus on Champs Sports’ products. You have to wonder if maybe they could have benefited from a little more substance, though. (more…)

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One Trick Pony got together Virgin billionaire Richard Branson and Jonathan Goldsmith — the actor perhaps most well-known for playing “The Most Interesting Man in the World” in the ongoing Dos Equis campaign — to promote the launch of Virgin Hotels, starting with a single location in Chicago.

In the spot, Branson recites some supposed rumors about the hotel — “The beds are so springy, they had to lift the ceilings 16 inches,” for example — while Goldsmith acts them out. Goldsmith’s involvement leaves no doubt from where One Trick Pony took its inspiration, and Branson’s acting can be a bit stiff, but the 55-second spot is not without its charm. Where the campaign really shines, though, is its social component, which invites consumers to tweet their own rumors about the hotel from the Virgin Hotels site. Users who submit some of the best tweets will be entered for a chance to win a two-night stay at the first Virgin Hotels location, where it’s rumored that Richard Branson tucks everyone in at night. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.