Hasta La Creative!

In its second project for Honda since winning a pitch for a certain piece of the automaker’s biz in July 2012, Mcgarrybowen London uses forced perspective and other illusory tricks to mess with your head, and to emphasize the Honda CR-V 1.6 diesel’s “impossible” qualities.

Regardless of the justification, we’re always glad to see visually striking spots, and this one certainly qualifies. Using optical illusions incorporating the new vehicle should keep viewers’ eyes glued to the screen for the duration of the ad, always something to aspire to. That they are able to justify the approach makes it all the better, even if the justification isn’t all that sturdy. The idea is that a fuel-efficient SUV is thought of as “impossible” but the new CR-V disproves that. “Let’s do those things that can’t be done,” a narrator says, “like less fuel in for more miles out.” Not the strongest concept exactly, but the execution more than makes up for it. On the other hand, touting a vehicle as fuel-efficient without any mention of the gas mileage is less understandable, and may make people think that description is all smoke and mirrors.

The spot, directed by Chris Palmer of production company Gorgeous, debuted in the UK on October 19th and is currently running across Europe. It is supported by print, outdoor, digital and direct executions. Credits after the jump.  continued…

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Last night, DDB Chicago launched a new Capital One campaign for the Quicksilver card, mercifully replacing the Jimmy Fallon Cash Card campaign with something that doesn’t make me want to throw things at my television. Not only that, but they replaced Fallon with the biggest badass on the planet. I speak, of course, of Samuel L. motherfuckin’ Jackson.

Gone is the Jimmy Fallon with a whiny baby approach, replaced by the “You’re going to get a Capital One card because Samuel L. Jackson told you to and when Samuel L. Jackson tells you to do something you don’t fuck around” approach. The spot, “You Can’t Beat It” (also the name of a Catholic anti-masturbation campaign) replaces the schticky formula from the Fallon campaign in favor of a relatively straightforward description of a card that has “no rotating categories,” “no quarterly sign-ups,” and “no games” and offers 1.5% cash back “on every purchase, every damn day.” In other words: no bullshit. Since Samuel L. Jackson is basically the spokesman for not putting up with bullshit, he’s the perfect fit for the new approach.

Does this mean Fallon is gone for good? We can only hope. You know what? Jackson should just go ahead and take over for him on Late Night, too. The world would be a better place. Credits after the jump. continued…

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If you’re a fan of the Call of Duty franchise, then you’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Call of Duty: Ghosts while witnessing an all-out advertising assault for the game that began all the way back in May. The conclusion to that campaign is the new gameplay launch trailer from Ant Farm, the best look yet at what the game will actually look like.

Coming about a week after the UK spot “Faboom,” and two weeks after the Eminem music video “Survival” (also the song featured in this trailer), Ant Farm has unveiled a no-nonsense look at Call of Duty: Ghosts in all its gameplay glory. It packs as much action as possible into its 1:13 length, and really is quite well put together. For a gameplay trailer, it feels downright cinematic. It has about as many explosions as a trailer for a Michael Bay movie, but also shows enough of the unique scenarios in the game to give viewers an idea of what makes this Call of Duty installment unique. I’m not a big fan of first-person shooters, but I’ve got to say Ant Farm did a great job at making this game look badass. Not only will long-time fans of the series be salivating in anticipation of Call of Duty: Ghost‘s Nov. 5 release, they may win a few converts as well. Credits after the jump. continued…

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We’re still scratching our heads as to why the folks at LifeLock just couldn’t confirm this yesterday after several back and forth emails. Whatever the case, the tips proved true and following a review, Lowe Campbell Ewald has indeed been named AOR for the Tempe, Arizona-based brand, which provides identity theft protection services. The first LifeLock work from LCE, which has had a busy start to the week to say the least, is slated to launch in December of this year. Regarding the decision, LifeLock CMO Seth Greenberg says, “Identity theft is a rapidly growing problem. Our services can help a much broader consumer base, and Lowe Campbell Ewald has a proven track record of helping to evolve and transform other leading brands. We are very excited to partner with them strategically.”

LifeLock previously worked with fellow IPG-owned shop Dailey as its agency partner, though we heard brand and agency parted ways in August (the West Hollywood, CA-based Dailey was invited to participate but chose not to defend). Interestingly, LifeLock CMO Greenberg previously served as VP/digital, brand, social and ad strategy at Intuit, parent company of TurboTax, which just so happened to be a Dailey client during his time there. The account, though, was eventually moved to W+K this past summer (around the same time that Greenberg left Intuit for LifeLock). From what folks on the Spy line tell us, Dailey didn’t even get the chance to defend this particular business. Is there beef or is it sheer coincidence? Things that make you go hmm.

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W+K’s new spot for Booking.com features legendary ghost hunting destination the Queen Anne Hotel in San Francisco. The Queen Anne, which was featured on an episode of the Travel Channel’s Haunted Hotels, was a boarding school before it was a hotel, and one-time headmistress Mary Lake is said to haunt it.

In the spot above, a woman sleeping in the hotel is awoken by the television turning on by itself. She sees a camera view of something approaching her room, Room 410: the very room Mary Lake is said to haunt. Later the woman sees shots of herself, presumably while Mary’s ghost approaches. We cut out just before this woman wets the bed. At the end we see the tagline “Stay if you dare,” followed by “Over 350,000 accommodations including haunted hotels.” I’m not sure there’s a huge audience who wants to stay at haunted hotels, but I suppose the idea is that Booking.com can accommodate your every whim. Even a weird one like wanting to stay in a haunted hotel. I don’t love it, but it could be the most interesting Booking.com spot since they stole Bob Marshall’s idea of showing someone booking a room during Spain’s Running of the Bulls. Now if they’d only stop the whole “Booking.yeah” thing.

If you’re a paranormal enthusiast and are serious about wanting to stay at a haunted hotel, Booking.com will totally hook you up. They’ve created a Haunted Destination finder on their site. Included are the Queen Anne Hotel, The Stanley Hotel in Colorado (the inspiration for Stephen King‘s The Shining), the Vinoy Renaissance Hotel in St. Petersburg, Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas, The Historic National Hotel in Jamestown, California, The Gettysburg Hotel, and the 1886 Crescent Hotel (a purportedly haunted Arkansas hotel that houses an old morgue in its basement). It’s worth a quick click through for the histories of these paranormal destinations. Credits after the jump.  continued…

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After taking a different direction with their last SportsCenter spot, W+K New York and ESPN have gone back to what has made the “This Is SportsCenter” series so popular, employing humorous situations in the network’s Bristol HQ.

The spot, “Double Double,” stars Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Love as the guy responsible for pushing the coffee cart that keeps the SportsCenter crew caffeinated (UCLA mascot Joe Bruin can also be seen in the spot). This is an important job, because, as anchor Scott Van Pelt says, the SportsCenter crew relies “pretty heavily on the coffee cart” to keep going throughout the day. Love’s specialty is making “the best double-double,” which is two double espressos. Host Stan Verrett swears by Kevin’s double-doubles. In fact, he’s a little too fond of them. He requests another double-double from Love while he still has his two espressos in-hand, but Kevin says “I think maybe you should slow down.” Verrett continues to hound Love for more espresso as the spot goes on, with Kevin responsibly telling him he should just get through his show. At some point Love must have given in, and the results on Stan Verrett‘s show are pretty funny, as well as startling to co-host Neil Everett.

It’s a return to form for W+K, who play to their strengths with “Double Double.” The strategy seen here has worked for the “This Is Sportscenter” series in the past, and “Double Double” is the best SportsCenter spot in recent memory, with a good setup and comedic payoff thanks to Love and Verrett’s delivery. Let’s hope agency and brand continue sticking with what works in the future. Credits after the jump. continued…

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Naming your own training regiment LeBrontime might cause some people to shake their heads, but when the best basketball player in the world offers a window into his personal workout routines, it’s easy to overlook the title. As part of a new push for Powerade Zero Drops, this effort from W+K Portland is essentially the Coca-Cola brand’s response to rival Gatorade’s Chews. In an interesting twist, Gatorade happens to be endorsed by LeBron’s buddy/teammate, Dwyane Wade, and his chief rival, Kevin Durant. But, neither Wade nor Durant have made an effort to sell sugared water by revealing their workouts to the public. LeBron has, tilted-up headband and all.

On Powerade’s YouTube channel, you can watch the full 58-minute video as well as other clips that include teammates and trainers gushing about their guy and/or giving out useful tips. A writer at SportsGrid even decided to list every exercise and the number of reps in the video. They say, to beat the best, you have to train with the best. Now you can. Just don’t hurt yourself trying to relive glory days from high school. And make sure to slip some Gatorade into your backpack before you and LeBron train, because nobody really likes Powerade, right?

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Bi-coastal creative studio/prodco Logan & Sons somehow enticed Jane Fonda to voice a new spot for Prada called “The Future of Flesh” and the results are really creepy. I guess that’s to be expected when the word “flesh” is right there in the title.

Whether or not intentional, the Luke Gilford-directed spot leaves me feeling a little uneasy. According to a release, the spot is “set in a strange futuristic world where humans evolve to fit the style of the season.” Without that bit of clarification, I have to wonder how anyone would figure out what the hell is going on. The answer: they probably don’t. Actually, even with that info it’s still kind of hard to piece together. Gilford, offers this further explanation (not that it helps all that much), saying, “Compare magazine covers over the decades, you’ll see how much hair and physique change with the clothes. Now as body modification accelerates, facial features and bone structure are changing as well. The body is beginning to merge with fashion in very interesting ways…I find this sexy as well as strange – a science fiction fantasy becoming a reality.”

The spot takes place in some kind of futuristic society, one seemingly set apart from the rest of the world. Jane Fonda‘s voice really ads to the creepiness factor as she describes the process of joining this closed-off society (or something like that) and says nonsensical things like “each tear authenticated.” Throughout the spot there are close ups of people’s creepy-looking flesh, which seems to morph throughout the spot. Again, this is weird stuff. The wardrobe, provided entirely by Prada, does look pretty fetching, however. I’m certainly no fashion expert, but my girlfriend (who knows a thing or two about fashion) confirmed that the clothes in the spot do look quite appealing. So maybe in a fashion ad, that’s all that matters. Or maybe Logan & Sons and Prada want to scare you, you know, since it’s October.

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Poppin’ Layers is not a good commercial (or music video). The Trident Player is not a good rapper. Rapping about Trident Layers gum for four minutes and 34 seconds is not very funny. At this point in pop culture, the vaguely racist whiteboy poser with a fake rapper voice is just about the laziest choice for any creative or artistic project. It was lazy/dumb 10 years ago when Malibu’s Most Wanted came out.  Trident and Hollywood’s Mischievous Studios, which is behind this music video, can do better.

It would be easy to mock this campaign and be mean, but I’m not going to. You really don’t have to watch more than the first 15 seconds to get the video’s full effect. You may not know that the actors in the clip are all popular on Vine, which is mostly irrelevant, because it’s Vine. However, everyone should use this opportunity to learn from mistakes. Using Vine as a marketing platform is not very wise, especially with Instagram and SnapChat clearly dominating social media video sharing. Using lazy stereotypes is, well, lazy and uninteresting. The only press that can come from something like this is bad press from people who think it lacks any sort of awareness or intelligence. I get that gum brands are supposed to be cool and irreverent, but Poppin’ Layers is just amateurishly off the mark.

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Hmm, well, to start things off this morn, we’ll veer to the client side on such a matter, something we haven’t really done since Wrigley over two years ago. But anyhow, yes, to address what we’ve heard on the Spy line, a spokesperson has confirmed that DirecTV has had to make some cuts across the board. We’ve received confirmation that approximately 100 people were let go from the company, which apparently has small impact on the El Segundo-based satellite broadcast service provider. Here’s a statement from the DirecTV spokesperson:

“We are implementing difficult, but necessary operational changes for the company to remain healthy and competitive.  While only a small number of employees are affected,  we understand this is a difficult time for anyone impacted.  We have treated these individuals with the dignity and respect they deserve, and are assisting them with job placement services,  severance packages and temporary medical coverage.”

From what we’ve been told, this affects “just under 2 percent” of staff but will not have any effect on agency relationships.

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