The Whole Nation Gets Scroogled When Kids Don’t Learn The Basics

Kids today are exposed to ads in the school setting. There’s a problem no one’s parents had.

Microsoft sees opportunity here and has introduced Bing for Schools, which removes all ads from searches on the school’s network, adds strict filters to help prevent adult content, and enhances privacy protections.

Bing for Schools, a pilot program, is available at no charge for K-12 schools in the U.S., public or private.

I do like Bing’s direct slam on Google and the use the neologism Scroogled. But I can also think of other more problematic areas for Bing to address. Like bullying.

Exposing kids to advertising is a teaching moment and an important part of developing media literacy. Meanwhile, underfunded schools continue to underperform. So, while it’s no fault of Bing’s necessarily, they opted to solve too easy of a problem here.

The post The Whole Nation Gets Scroogled When Kids Don’t Learn The Basics appeared first on AdPulp.

Shell Doesn’t Want You to See This

Oil brand Shell really needs no help embarrassing itself. Their 2012 Arctic drilling program was so inept (including a rig grounding and a ship fire) that even the U.S. government said they screwed up. But Greenpeace decided to go ahead and give them a hand anyway.

Following their disastrous Alaskan campaign, Shell packed up and moved their Arctic drilling program to Russia, in a joint venture with state owned energy company, Gazprom. Greenpeace wanted to get the word out that Shell’s assault on the Arctic was far from over. What better place to do that than at Sunday’s F1 Shell Belgium Grand Prix, Shell’s biggest PR blitz of the year? Greenpeace International set up remote-controlled banners. The banners, which read “SaveTheArctic.org,” then popped up during the winner’s ceremony, as the German national anthem played. The second banner popped up just after an angry official removed the first one. Much angry crumpling of the second banner followed.

Video of the incident, entitled “Shell’s priceless F1 moment” went viral on YouTube, before F1 management demanded it be removed for “copyright complaints” just before it hit 240,000 views. The reaction to the video should only fuel Shell’s embarrassment. As Greenpeace International Arctic campaigner Ben Ayliffe put it, “Bernie Ecclestone and Shell might know how to fill a racetrack, but they clearly have no idea how social media works. Hundreds of thousands of people have seen the moment Shell’s Arctic plans were uncovered at the Grand Prix, and removing the video will only encourage thousands more to laugh at the company too.”

Indeed, the video has been reposted by myriad other users, and is available at Vimeo and on countless blogs. Shell’s miscalculated reaction to the YouTube post will only add fuel to the fire of public ridicule. You’d think that a company that spends million on branding and PR would know better, but I guess there’s no underestimating Shell’s incompetence.

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NZI Launches First Television Campaign In 8 Years

NZI launched its long-anticipated brand campaign this weekend, along with its creative agency, Draftcb. The campaign is necessary because, according to Karl Armstrong, executive general manager of NZI, “…many business customers don’t know [NZI] by name,” even though they are New Zealand’s leading business insurer.

The campaign creates an animated port town called “Port Avon,” a celebration of a typical New Zealand port town that extends beyond the TV spot to digital, print, direct and ambient advertising.

The clever 60-second spot, “Devil’s Chair,” aired across New Zealand TV Sunday on all channels. “Devil’s Chair” highlights everything that can go wrong at a business, by way of a barrage of small catastrophes all caused by one chair. It’s worth checking out if, like me, you have a soft spot for the unique charm of New Zealand. Or if you have a thing for gratuitous cow excrement. Either way. continued…

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Target in Hot Water For Calling Women’s Breasts ‘Bangers’ And ‘Assets’

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English fashion consultant, author and television presenter Gok Wan recently signed 12 month a deal to appear in Target advertising in Australia. Wan happens to be gay and likes to refer to women’s breasts as “bangers,” a term he uses frequently on his UK show How to Look Good Naked. Additionally, he is being taken to task for referring to breasts as “assets.”

Predictably, the Australian public…OK, a very vocal minority…hasn’t taken kindly to Target’s selection of Wan as spokesperson for the retailer and are particularly miffed over his use of the term “bangers” in a recent Target commercial. The Advertising Standards Bureau has received several complaints about the ad.

One complaint sent to the Authority reads,”I find it distasteful that he uses the term ‘bangers’ to describe women’s breasts. If a straight man were to use similar language during prime-time TV, there would be a huge outcry by women claiming sexist behavior. There should be no different standards of acceptable language simply because a man appears to be gay.”

Another commenter was a bit more “vocal” writing, “A female body is a beautiful thing, not to be cheapened by a poofter calling breasts “BANGERS”!!!,” a third wrote. “I WAS BREAST FED, NOT BANGER FED! It’s an insult to sooooo many Aussie men and woman to see poofs on tv but you let it happen. I haven’t even started stirring up the national [Country Women’s Association] clubs yet so look out!”

For its part, Target is standing by their man and has issued a statement.”Target strongly believes that a person’s sexuality is irrelevant to their worth as a person. Target makes no apology for using a gay man in its advertising and we do not believe that this should be grounds for upholding a complaint.”

Regarding the use of the term “bangers,” Target insists they did not intend to be derogatory, rather the use of the term is meant as an “irreverent term of affection.”

Despite complaints, the Advertising Standards Bureau cleared the ad, in which Wan says “your bangers will never feel more loved,” for distribution indicating the overall tone of the ad was positive and lighthearted.

Of the term “bangers,” the Bureau stated, “The board considered that the word is not commonly used in Australia in this manner but that in this instance, it is not used in a derogatory way and that the use of the term bangers is one that is used by Gok as part of his programs and persona. The board considered that the term ‘bangers’ is not inappropriate and not strong or obscene language in this context.”

That said, the retailer did change the wording from “bangers” to “boobs” in later airings of the commercial.

Toyota Tacomas Are Invincible According to Strange Saatchi LA Ads

Even though the Toyota Tacoma is a truck, it can beat the Grim Reaper at chess. I’m not sure if this is a clouded reference to the 1957 movie “The Seventh Seal,” but regardless, it’s a strange spot from Saatchi & Saatchi LA, and part of a new Toyota Tacoma VS campaign that shows the truck taking on, in addition to Mr. Reaper, a mime, a magician, and a girlfriend with a tear duct issue. The four spots are hit-or-miss and embrace a brand of awkward humor that might not mesh with the truck-buying sector of America.

All four commercials do, however, promote a Tacoma feature, and during a time when randomness seems to be a common weapon of choice for creatives, specificity counts for something. You can watch the remaining three ads after the jump.

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Anomaly Turns The MINI Into A Roller Coaster Ride…Kind Of

Anomaly has launched a new MINI Roller Coaster spot as part of their NOT NORMAL campaign for the automaker’s Canadian division.

The ad features people riding atop a customized version of the BMW-owned brand, strapped in to a roller coaster car attached to the MINI’s roof, screaming, holding cotton candy, and generally acting as if they’re on a looping coaster and not a British vehicle obeying the speed limit. Onlookers, meanwhile, wonder what the hell is wrong with these people. The genesis for this idea, ostensibly, is to show that the MINI is “not normal,” and the people treating a ride on the MINI as if they were at Six Flags certainly could be described as such (although they may have crossed over into “crazy”). I realize there are safety concerns involved, but I have to wonder if maybe they could have done a little more to make the ride on the MINI seem exciting (you know, like a roller coaster) and less like some kind of experimental therapy. But maybe that’s just me.

If you’ve ever wondered how to turn your car’s roof into a roller coaster car, you should definitely check out the “making of” video after the jump (along with credits). We’re pretty sure you’ll get pulled over for that one, though.

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Op-Ed: Dear Chevy, Find New Ideas

We’re glad to welcome yet another monthly contributor to the fold in the form of Chuck Hipsher, currently a Houston-based freelance creative director who’s worked at the likes of Campbell Ewald, TBWA and what was FCB back in the day. If you wanted a story from the trenches, here you go. We should note that these opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of AgencySpy’s, but feel free to love or hate in the comments thread. By the way, you can read Chuck’s blog here.

I was fortunate enough to have worked on the Chevy Silverado brand from 2005 –2008 at then-Campbell Ewald in Warren, Michigan. I was the Creative Director who led the charge on the “Our Country. Our Truck” campaign.

John Mellencamp’s song, “Our Country” played a decisive role in that campaign’s birth because, frankly, then-CCO Bill Ludwig slid the studio demo cd across the table to me one day during creative development and said, “See what you can do with this, Chuck.”

Coming from the guy who was instrumental in the famous “Like A Rock” and “Heartbeat Of America” campaigns for Chevy, I was nothing – if not obligated, to listen and try.

Early on, we had terrific research and planning information at our disposal on what the Silverado brand meant to the people who cared. It was work extensively mined by one Ted Klauber (the greatest planner in America, btw) and his team months in advance of the creative start.

Ted and team had travelled to a half dozen or so locales throughout the country and interviewed countless truck owners of all brands, not just Chevy. They came back to Detroit and crunched their info and finally decided this: “Chevy truck drivers are everyday heroes. And the Chevy Silverado is their Big Metal Dog.”

That insight immediately sparked the minds of myself and the creatives working with me. We had an early war room with ideas on the wall that rivaled anything I’ve ever seen produced by ANY agency on ANY automotive brand. EVER.

But then there was that Mellencamp thing.

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Here’s Heat’s New Brotastic ‘Born to Madden’ Spot

Although you have to wonder how necessary advertising the next Madden game really is, considering how football/gaming bros pretty much spend all summer salivating in anticipation of the pigskin franchise’s next release, Heat has put together a pretty brolarious spot for EA Sports’ 25th anniversary of the franchise.

In the second spot of the “Born to Madden” campaign (following the Arian Foster/Marshawn Lynch opus), directed by Wayne McClammy, it is revealed that the real inspiration for the NFL careers of Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson was a summer camp pact made in their youth to one day beat each other in Madden, as each other. The spot highlights some of the hardcore training Kaepernick and Wilson underwent, all so they could make the NFL, rise to star status, and play Madden NFL 25 against each other. So far Kaepernick and Wilson’s Madden sessions have led to only minor injuries, including a mild concussion suffered by Wilson from a stray thrown controller.

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Actor Defends Role in Horrific Samsung Video

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Everyone’s all abuzz about a recent Samsung video that details the benefits of the brand’s 840 EVO solid-state hard drive. The ad, which is said to feature “possibly the world’s worst actors,” aims to recount the trials and tribulations of owning a slow computer and how the 840 EVO can speed things up.

As many have said, the acting is certainly bad however we have seen much worse. But for this to come from a big brand like Samsung is a bit of a surprise.

One of the actors in the ad, the “businessman,” defends the ad and explains the reasons why it is perceived to have been so bad.

On Reddit, he writes, “Hi. So I’m an actor/model living in Seoul, and im playing the ‘businessman’ in this promo. now, admittedly its not my best work lol, but most people arent aware of just how many factors go into making it this bad. Allow me to elaborate. They force us to speak slowly since this will be dubbed over in Korean, and even when it isnt, most people viewing it will be Korean. They ask us to exaggerate since many Korean people feel thats how we ‘naturally’ act (most people here are not very expressive). Ive worked many jobs where I tried to act naturally only to be told by the director to act more ‘bright’ (ie exaggerate). its how the director and client (in this case, Samsung), WANT us to act. the script is brutal. written by non-native english speakers, and sometimes the PD or director wont even take our suggestions to change some parts so they sound like something a normal native english speaker would say. its a promotional video, not a tv commercial, meaning it will be shown at conventions and expos and in-house. most of the people watching it are korean and thats why they make us do all of the above. edit: almost forgot, shooting took place from 730am – 3am the next day, and by the time they shot the scenes with the girl, she was literally falling asleep in her chair, hence the stoned expression and tone :)”

Actors just doing their jobs, right? No big.

Thanks H&L: What Gives Regarding McDonald’s?

 

Ah, fuck it, you know what, let’s tell you that even though the agency now known as H&L Partners (formerly Hoffman Lewis) was not allowed to comment on the matter after 24 hours of inquiries, here you go regarding. We’ll be constructive on the matter but seriously, here’s what we were told regarding word that the agency picked up a little regional biz for the fast-food giant: “As soon as I can share publicly, I’ll let you know.” Yeah, that didn’t happen until  the local Biz Journals reported about the McDonald’s win in the B0ston-based area. You know, we don’t want to sound bitter, so we”ll leave it be, but the agency formerly known as Hoffman Lewis has taken over on the Mickey D’s biz from Arnold. Thank you, H&L, for your lack of feedback and complete incompetence.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Parents Get Feisty in New Microsoft Advert from CP+B, Roman Coppola

In CP+B’s new Roman Coppola-directed spot for Microsoft, sweet children sing in asparagus suits while their parents frantically capture every moment using their iPhones and Androids. A brawl ensues, with parents fighting for the perfect panorama, jostling one another to avoid phone photobombing, and climbing into the ceiling pipes for the ideal aerial shot. Of course, the couple with a Nokia Lumia 1020 sits calmly in the back with their superior cameraphone, knowing they got a great photo of their daughter dressed as a carrot.

This spot is in line with Microsoft’s last video, “The Wedding,” where the same scene occurs, but at a church. Both ads end, “Don’t fight. Switch.” Considering photo sharing has become one of the most important parts of owning a phone, it’s not a bad idea. Ad-wise, this spot is a great portrait of modern day life. If only an unintelligible child vegetable chorus could always soundtrack petty adult hysteria.

Credits after the jump.

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Verizon, mcgarrybowen Make It Easy to Find Lost Phones

If you’ve already seen “Elysium,” “Kick-Ass 2,” or “2 Guns” and need to get a quick action fix, then you can always check out Verizon’s new thriller, “Catch Me If You Can.”  The plotting and scriptwriting is probably on par with regular films that fizz out in theaters, and this spot, which was created by mcgarrybowen, even has The Bourne Identity/Swingers/Mr. And Ms. Smith director Doug Liman behind the camera.

In the one-minute spot, an unnamed protagonist races to find his Droid phone after leaving it in a New York City cab. Making the stakes even higher, the cabbie drives like a typical cabbie, so the phone is sliding all over the place and smacking into windows. Luckily, Droid phones now have scratch-resistant glass. I don’t want to say anymore and spoil the ending, but as with most action movies, the hero gets the girl, or phone, or whatever object is the focus of the chase.

Credits after the jump.

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Taco Bell Recruits YouTubers to Promote New ‘Fiery’ Flavor

For the pre-launch and launch phases of the new Fiery Doritos Locos Tacos (DLT), DigitasLBi created an ambitious digital and social campaign involving young YouTube influencers. Taco Bell gave chosen creators early access to the new flavor and, 13 days later, incorporated the resulting videos in the official flavor launch. Of those video creators, the top 20 were chosen to compete in a second challenge: in 24 hours, they had to complete the entire filmmaking process, culminating in a promo centered on “taking a bite of the new DLT.”

It’s an interesting idea: harness the audiences of independent YouTube stars, gaining social media cred and creative content in the process. In practice, it’s less impressive. Watching the creator content, I had flashbacks to high school health class, when we had to make video PSAs about safe sex. Every Taco Bell “spot” has the same contrived, amateurish feel.The Alexa Losey Flip Book was cute, and “Selena Stalker” was fun mostly due to the actor’s hoodie and his little eating sounds. Otherwise, color me bored. Even reading this campaign’s press release left me overwhelmed and uninterested – if Digitas wants to build excitement around a fiery flavor, they should at least tell Taco Bell’s audience where to look. They could have hired three ambitious YouTubers, given them a bigger budget, and created actual worthwhile entertainment instead of clogging the space with cobbled-together content.

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Nike Taps LeBron, Piqué, Bradley Cooper’s Voice for ‘Just Do It’ 25th Anniversary

At this point, Nike and AOR W+K are just showing off. Their latest spot, “Possibilities,” is a fat, splashy kick-off to the 25th anniversary of its ubiquitous slogan, “Just Do It.” These type of Nike ads have always had a mythical quality, compared to other sports brands – like certain BBDO Foot Locker commercials – that are solid and funny. Nike is serious. W+K Portland is serious. Nike, Inc. is set to earn $25 billion in revenue this year, meaning we must be serious, too, when it comes to our purchases.

Being serious does not preclude Nike from a certain playfulness if you look hard enough. For “Possibilities,” the lightness comes from some Bradley Cooper voiceover that makes the viewer want to just do it, even though said viewer knows he/she can’t do it as well as professional athletes. That’s where stars like footballer Gerard Piqué and basketballer LeBron James come in, cameos that are almost taking the money out of your wallet before you know it.

For LeBron, the unofficial king of the summer, Nike has been creatively pumping out his spots for a few years now. This one may be a joint venture, but he subtly dominates the end with some clever winking done in the form of a fake dunk content. LeBron has never entered the NBA dunk contest. Maybe this is a hint for 2014? Or maybe it’s just smart marketing? Plenty of possibilities to choose from.

Credits after the jump.

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We Hear: BNY Mellon Launches Review?

Well, when a client “declines to comment,” one starts to wonder, but anyways, multiple sources have told us that Bank of New York Mellon “is going to put [its] entire account into review” according to folks on the Spy line. The BNY Mellon global creative biz has been handled by fellow Big Apple-based operation Doremus since fall 2011. From what we’ve been told, Doremus has “declined” to continue serving as global AOR on the BNY Mellon business, which at the time called for the agency to integrate the brand’s TV, print and digital advertising in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Arian Foster, Marshawn Lynch Get Generational for ‘Madden 25?

Madden is turning 25 this year. That means decades of video game football obsessions have now been around long enough to be passed from parents to children and then some. To kick off the game’s promotional campaign, EA Sports debuted “Running Back Sons” yesterday, a minute-long spot about the origins of star running backs Arian Foster and Marshawn Lynch. While you might expect their motivation to come from supportive families, inspirational coaches, and the love of the game, it turns out that their success can be traced back to a friendly battle of brinksmanship between their fictitious fathers, Darian Foster and Marshawn Lynch Sr.

Fathers Foster and Lynch (played by the actual Foster and Lynch, respectively) spend all of their time playing Madden in unusual places as their sons train for football. At one point, young Marshawn even spins around a bear, establishing the beginning of “Beast Mode.” Finally, now that Arian and Marshawn are millionaires, their fathers can play Madden in the pool, which sounds about as dangerous as training with a bear.

This spot is sure to get plenty of airtime in the next few months, especially considering Foster and Lynch have decent acting chops when it comes to commercials. As Marshawn Sr. says, that’s that beast mode right there (raspy old-man laugh) Credits after the jump.

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We Hear: Did Erwin Penland Nab CIT Duties?

Ah yes, we relish the thrill of the chase, especially when even the client has “no comment” on the matter. But yes, as we delve further into the rabbit hole, multiple tipsters, sources and the like have told us over the last 24 hours that Erwin Penland has nabbed creative AOR duties for CIT, the 125-year-old, NY/NJ-based financial institution focused on small business and middle market companies. Yes, it’s that sexy. Anyhow, CIT has worked in the past with the likes of Mobile, AL-based Red Square Agency and NYC-based B2B shop, Desantis Breindel.

Folks on the Spy line tell us that following a review, Erwin Penland won AOR duties for CIT, including digital, branding, and retail. If it’s official, that would mark the second notable win for the Greenville, SC-based agency, which took over on sole ad duties for Denny’s last month. We’ll keep you posted if and when we hear more.

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Nike, Foot Locker, W+K Introduce Kevin ‘Kevin’ Durant

Hot Sauce. Skip to My Lou. Main Event. Kevin. The park league nickname has always been a valued tradition in the realm of streetball, meaningful monikers passed down from the basketball gods that can become legend, a la Dr. J or Pee Wee Kirkland. Kevin Durant, for all of his NBA greatness, has yet to merge his skills with an equally skillful nickname. Yes, there’s KD and the Durantula (and perhaps the best one via Jalen Rose, who resurrected the name Iceberg Slim), but it just doesn’t feel right yet.

For the latest Nike effort from W+K Portland, which was created in partnership with Foot Locker, the agency decided to take Durant’s lack of nicknameness and build an ad around it. The sixty-second spot, which features comedian Hannibal Buress as MC, is the coming-out party for Kevin “Kevin” Durant. Buress runs through pre-game introductions and calls out intricate nicknames for random guys like Don Juan Have a Picnic by the Pond, but when he gets to Durant, the crowd goes silent. Kevin Kevin: It’s funny because it’s true. Credits after the jump.

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StubHub’s Ticket Oak Returns to Give ‘Couples Counseling’

StubHub’s Ticket Oak is back from hiatus with some advice for a bored couple, which for this particular plant means a concert ticket giveaway. “Not everyone has a Ticket Oak, but everyone has StubHub,” the ad from SF-based Duncan/Channon ends. In past, Ticket Oak has presented sports game tickets and orchestra-center tickets for a sold-out show. He’s a generous character, made even more loveable through his social media presence. He carried on a multiple-tweet conversation about kittens with @zachford2 and made lady oak jokes on Facebook.

Ticket Oak also showed up naked in ESPN’s Body Issue, on the side of StubHub food trucks, and will be appearing in pop-up shops for fans to take selfies with the big guy. It’s a sweet campaign for a ticket company, endearing users instead of estranging them. With help from their foliaged friend, StubHub will keep on growing.

Credits after the jump

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Ex-Saatchi X Chairman/CEO Murray Lands SVP Gig at Walmart

While Walmart has yet to respond to our inquiries, we have received confirmation from other parties involved that Andy Murray, founder and former chairman/CEO at Saatchi & Saatchi X who parted ways with the agency at the end of 2011, has accepted the position of SVP/creative with the Bentonville, AR behemoth.

Since his departure from Saatchi X, Murray has spent the last two years building his own Fayetteville, AR-based social media/marketing technology agency, Mercury 11, which is now on the verge of being bought up by Project:Worldwide. In fact, the global agency network has officially announced its intent to acquire Mercury 11 and merge it with its own Dallas-based shopper engagement unit dubbed Shoptology, which is led by Murray’s old Saatchi X cohort (and former North American CEO), Charlie Anderson.

Terms of the deal are undisclosed, but in a statement, Murray says, “I’m excited for Mercury 11 to join the Shoptology team. Charlie is an experienced builder and has a keen appreciation for how to scale a top team to bring world-class digital shopper marketing solutions to blue-chip client partners. I have no doubt Mercury 11’s capabilities and people will add value to Shoptology’s offering and will be in good hands.”

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