Hasta La Creative!

If you’ve already burned through Friday Night Lights, Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Bob’s Burgers, The League, Orange Is The New Black, and basically any other TV series worth watching on Netflix, set phasers to the documentary section for the 2011 film Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Directed by David Gelb, the movie is a portrait of 85-year-old world-renowned sushi master, Jiro Ono, who’s dedicated (literally) almost every waking moment of his life to perfecting his craft.

The film goes to great lengths to show how far Jiro strives to make the most perfect sushi in the world while simultaneously begging the questions, “What if your entire life was dedicated to only one pursuit? How would that affect your personal relationships? How do you then define success, if the concept of ‘success’ is even an ascertainable goal in your mind?” It’s as troubling a portrayal as it is fascinating, causing the viewer a level of introspection that few other films can achieve. It only made sense, then, for Gelb to follow-up his documentary on the world’s best sushi by filming its American equivalent, Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake pizza, for a new campaign from Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener.

It’s clear that Gelb employs some Jiro Dreams of Sushi-style camera work here. However, whereas his documentary focuses on getting to know the people behind the food, his spot has no time to do so. So, we instead get some creepy anonymous hands, kneading pizza dough in slow motion. We get some mom feet, with a mom arm shooting into frame from above to half-hug her child. Finally, we get some assorted family hands, each reaching out of nowhere to grab pizza slices (again, in slow-motion). All of this while creepy piano-plinking plays menacingly in the background.

While watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I was nervous that perhaps someone in Jiro’s immediately family would comment on his coldness, or his chef-before-father mentality. While watching this spot for Papa Murphy’s, I was worried that someone would be murdered. Credits after the jump.

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Warning: excessive slow-mo alert. Three-and-a-half-minutes of mood music. The latest promo for Mercedes South Africa, “Silver Slipstreams,” is meant to highlight the sleek features of the A 45 AMG, but the clip really turns into a glossy skateboarding mixtape. Where’s Jon Hamm’s throaty lullaby voice when you need it? And shouldn’t the car be in the foreground, while the skateboard is in the background? This spot is beautifully filmed, the black-and-white adding interesting texture to the visual stunts, but it all drags on like a bad middle-school video project. Editing matters. Less is more. This would be better served as magazine art.

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Rooster New York, fresh off of teaching you how to take a punch (and all their skateboard projects), have unleashed a suitably goofy trailer for their new web series promoting Topps’ Garbage Pail Kids MiniKins.

For those too young to remember, Garbage Pail Kids was a popular trading card series released in 1985, parodying the then even-more-popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls phenomenon. Topps brought the Garbage Pail Kids back in 2012 with an all-new series. Now they’re expanding the Garbage Pail Kids into 1” MiniKins figures.

Rooster’s trailer is in the fake-outtake style, with Garbage Pail Kid Adam Bomb struggling to get through his lines, among other things. If you grew up with Garbage Pail Kids, it will probably be a welcome blast of nostalgia. If not, it should still ooze a kind of fun 80s cheese that’s hard not to appreciate. Everyone is still obsessed with the 80s, right? Isn’t that why we’re here talking about Garbage Pail Kids?

Anyway, the Garbage Pail Kids MiniKins will launch mid-October and Rooster’s web series will air at the MiniKins official YouTube page. Credits after the jump. continued…

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By now, you’re probably well aware of Burger King’s new lo-cal “Satisfries” and perhaps have even seen Mother’s spot that promotes the fast-food chain’s launch of its newest product. Well, what we happened to miss this past weekend during our hibernation was the teaser social/experiential portion of the event dubbed #WTFF, which not only involved Mother but also Big Fuel (where have ya been?), who dropped giant, 8-foot (steal-able) fries in NYC, LA and Chicago.

Subsequently, the fries were photographed by pedestrians as well as hand-picked “Instagram influencers,” who posted their images here as well as on a Tumblr site. It wasn’t until the official launch of Satisfries that Burger King officially acknowledged the project dubbed #WTFF.  The parties involved even managed to photobomb the Today show (above) earlier this week, so what the hell, we decided to regale for a minute in a neat project touting something we’ll probably never consume anyways. We just wish we had one of those large-size fake fries to take home, though.

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W+K and Heineken’s initial “social experiment” (sorry guys, no, this is a marketing campaign) “Departure Roulette” set about to send travelers at JFK Airport on a free trip to a new destination — one that they didn’t know of in advance.

Operating under the assumption that “Heineken consumers are especially open to adventure and the unknown” (and pissy-tasting beer), Heineken and W+K chose to follow-up by finding enthusiastic fans of the initial campaign in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York and bring the Departure Roulette board to them with “Departure Roulette En Route.” These were fans who tweeted that they would love to be given the opportunity to play Departure Roulette, so it was a fair assumption that they would accept the challenge.

Surprised but delighted to be given the opportunity to press the red button and set off for destinations unknown, most seemed excited at their travel prospects. One dude didn’t know where Reykjavik is, which is kind of lame, since I would club baby seals to be given the opportunity to travel to Iceland. Someone else appears to not have been home. (They must be kicking themselves for that one.) Another guy seemed less than elated to be going to Romania, with a reaction something along the lines of “Romania? Okay, I guess I’m going to Romania.” I guess he would have preferred Disney World or something. Maybe that “open to adventure and the unknown” assumption wasn’t so accurate.

This is a really interesting campaign from W+K. The original premise was a cool idea, and the follow-up engaging fans who claimed they’d love to participate makes a lot of sense; and taking things outside of the airport really raises the bar on the spontaneity factor. Wasting a perfectly good chicken parm, though? Not so cool. Credits after the jump.

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If you haven’t heard yet, MDC-owned, Detroit-based Doner has been awarded agency of record duties for carpet cleaning staple, Stanley Steemer, which last we recall worked with Indianapolis-based Young & Laramore back in 2011 on spots such as this (the brand has also worked with agencies such as Loomis and Ron Foth Advertising in the past as well). There was no incumbent, though, on this go-around, though there was a review, and a result of winning AOR, Doner will begin work effective immediately on Stanley Steemer with the first efforts expected to launch in spring 2014.

Regarding his company’s decision, Stanley Steemer president Justin Bates says, ““Doner truly understands what is important to our business, franchise owners and customers. The agency possesses a deep understanding of how to build brands and drive response. Their retail and franchise expertise makes them the ideal agency partner to create multi-platform campaigns that will advance our leadership position and build our business.”

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Funny prank, or the ultimate gift?

For Saatchi and Saatchi’s latest campaign for DB Breweries, the agency pranked a friend named Russ by plumbing his house with beer.

Following their plumbing hack, every tap in the house flows with cold beer, fulfilling every alcoholic frat boy’s wet dream. (It is unclear if the toilet is also tapped with beer.) They then set up cameras around the house to capture the reactions of their friend and his significant other. Russ is initially flummoxed by the brown liquid flowing through the tap (usually when that happens it’s time to call a plumber); after smelling and then tasting the beer he delightedly pours himself a glass and decides, “That actually tastes really good.” His wife/girlfriend, on the other hand, seems significantly less amused, presumably with concerns of when water will once again flow through the taps. The spot concludes with Russ climbing under his house, to find the kegs tapped to his plumbing. At this point the prank crew jumps out of hiding, and, predictably, everyone enjoys a good brew.

Since launch last week, the spot has gone viral on YouTube, with the full-length version (watch at your lunchtime leisure above) already racking up over three-million views. There’s also a :90 version, with :60 and :15 TVCS to follow as well as social media support, billboards, etc., etc.

Should Saatchi wish to duplicate this experiment in the States, I would be more than happy to volunteer my apartment. Let’s make this happen guys.

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Well, details are once again vague on this one, but sources tell us that Olson has won co-op work for McDonald’s in the Twin Cities. From what we’ve been told, this is a new piece of business for the fast-food giant and it whittled its choices down to just a handful of agencies. Folks on the Spy line tell us that Olson, which also won beat out 18 (!) other agencies to win the account for mortgage lender Guaranteed Rate this week, is also doing some non-advertising work for McDonald’s that will debut in 2014. A spokesperson for Olson has declined to comment on the Mickey D’s assignment in the meantime. We’ll keep you posted if we hear more.

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Carnival Cruise Lines is launching a new 25 million dollar campaign, “Moments That Matter,” with agency Arnold Worldwide. The fall campaign will extend across broadcast, radio, digital and direct mail from September through December. For the first spot in this campaign, Carnival sourced material directly from their customers through social media.

The :60 spot, “24 Hours Onboard” features content chosen from over 30,000 pictures and videos submitted by past guests on Carnival’s cruises, including one dude who publicly proposed on a Carnival Cruise (yikes). “24 Hours Onboard,” which will debut on major network primetime Monday, September 23rd, appeals to viewers’ sentimentality, and employing pictures and videos sourced directly from past customers adds a personal element that could help convince viewers to book their next vacation with Carnival. As Arnold Executive Creative Director Pete Johnson puts it, “We found those looking to book a cruise are much more likely to listen to recommendations from previous cruisers.” So filling a commercial with vacation memories from enthusiastic fans of Carnival makes a lot of sense.

This isn’t a spot that will blow anyone away with its creativity or execution, but it doesn’t have to. It appeals to the type of people who line their walls with photos from family vacations, or, in other words, Carnival’s target audience. continued…

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In a move rarely seen from an ad agency (helping people other than themselves), Barton F. Graf 9000 created a wonderfully cheesy, Geocities-era website and a radio ad that not only sells the Little Caesars Deep Deep Dish pizza but also helps Alan Varner, the voice behind Little Caesars ads, find more voiceover work.

Altruism at its finest. And yet another brilliant move by Barton F. Graf 9000 to gin up awareness for Little Caesars in a unique manner.