Hasta La Creative!

Digitas LBi thanked passengers on behalf of Delta for “An Amazing Year” in a spot which debuted late last month.

“165 million people,” the spot begins with voiceover delivered from Donald Sutherland, “that’s how many of you chose to fly with us this year. That’s how many of you we want to thank.” Delta crew then goes on to craft paper airplanes out of boarding passes, which in turn create a larger model of an airplane, completed by a “backdrop of airy light.” It’s a visually interesting homage to passengers, and Sutherland’s instantly recognizable voice is voiceover gold, as usual, adding to the warm tone of the spot.

“Our goal was to shoot an elegant, tasteful and restrained visual narrative while creating a sophisticated art installation — something that might actually belong in a museum setting,” said director Sam Ciaramitaro. “Handheld, close-up shots that focus on the sincere and honest performances of the real-life Delta employees, combined with the strength of Donald Sutherland’s narration resulted in a very warm piece.” (more…)

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Johannes Leonardo explores the meaning of the term “superstar” and celebrates Adidas’ original Superstar shoe from 1969, while trotting out a slew of celebrities, in a new 90-second spot entitled “#OriginalSuperstar.”

Those celebrities aren’t just current and former athletes; NBA player Damian Lillard makes an appearance, along with David Beckham, but so do Pharrell Williams and Rita Ora. It’s a sign of the brand moving away from an athletic-wear image and hyping up its fashion cache. “If you think a superstar is standing on stage, filling up stadiums, and selling out concert halls,” Ora begins at the opening of the spot, and the rest of the 90 seconds follows the same basic formula. Each celebrity begins their own “If you think a superstar…” statement before passing it on to the next, until Pharrell finally concludes, “…then I am not a superstar.”

Over the course of the 90 seconds the repetitive, onanistic approach becomes a little grating. The self-congratulatory statements hint at the question “What is a superstar?” but, ultimately, the ad doesn’t say anything of substance on the (rather facile) subject. This would be a bit more excusable in a quick 30-second spot, but ninety seconds of celebrities musing about nothing in particular begs the question, “Where have we seen that before?”

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DDB Canada launched a pro-bono PSA campaign for Toronto Crime Stoppers examining the dangers of ecstasy use, entitled “Cookin’ with Molly.”

The spot, whose full-length version online runs 90 seconds, is presented as a cooking show with a drug dealer. Molly is a name for pure MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy), but, as the video shows, pills presented as “Molly” are often adulterated with substances ranging from methamphetamine and cocaine to heroin and even bath salts. “Welcome to ‘Cookin’ with Molly,’” says the host of the show at the beginning of the ad, “today’s secret ingredient is meth.” He adds just a pinch of bath salts to some ground up MDMA, a bunch of meth and finishes up with his “signature” blue color and some binder before pressing the pills. The online version of the spot ends by directing to viewers to the campaign landing site for more information. There are also 15 and 6 second broadcast versions of the spot. DDB Canada hopes the tongue-in-cheek approach of the campaign, which launched today and will run through the end of February, will resonate with the target audience of people between the ages of 15 and 25.

“These party-type drugs have been a growing concern, and Toronto Crime Stoppers wanted to tackle this head on without being heavy-handed, so the cooking show format is intended to be tongue-in-cheek,” explains Craig Ferguson, senior art director, DDB Canada Toronto. “At the same time, this creative still allows us to educate people on the harmful, hidden ingredients found in MDMA which was our key objective.” (more…)

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Here’s another one from BBDO, which seems to be the only agency releasing major campaigns today. The agency continues its humorous approach for Foot Locker with the new spot “Rookie” featuring Damian Lillard and Tracy McGrady.

“Rookie” opens on the pair chatting about their Adidas kicks at a party, when McGrady drops the line, “Young guys like us, we can’t get caught looking old.” McGrady then informs a perplexed Lillard, “I play in China now, I’m a rookie” before having to deal with some unfortunate rookie responsibilities. BBDO has built a consistent and distinct humorous voice for Foot Locker, and while it’s not on par with the agency’s most memorable work for the brand, fans of the style should find plenty to like here.

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FitzCo//McCann created a holiday spot for Coca-Cola and Walmart entitled “Earn It” which features a sentimental twist designed to tug at heartstrings for the holidays.

The spot shows a teenager working odd jobs around the holidays to earn some extra money. After finally earning enough money he heads to Walmart to make his purchase, which is revealed in the next scene. Without giving too much away we can say that the spot is built around this reveal, which positions Coca-Cola and Walmart alongside some cute holiday sentimentality. Splitting an ad between two brands is no easy feet, but FitzCo//McCann manages to avoid shortchanging either party. In the opening shot, the protagonist is seen thumbing through a Walmart catalog while drinking a Coke. One of his money making schemes involves selling bottles of the soft drink for $1.25 each and he drinks a bottle again at the conclusion of “Earn It.” It also works surprisingly well with Coca-Cola’s larger “Open Happiness” campaign, albeit with the kind of sentimentality that might seem too much at any other time of year. (more…)

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McCann XBC teamed up with Gwen Stefani in a new 30-second broadcast spot for MasterCard directed by Wondros’ Sophie Muller.

The spot focuses on MasterCard’s integration with Apple Pay and the “priceless surprises” the company is giving away to customers using the new feature. Stefani works a rocket launcher, sending these surprises — including a hand bag, concert tickets (to see Stefani, naturally) and a “golf experience” represented by a golf kart — flying through the air toward unsuspecting MasterCard users. At the end of the spot, an unsuspecting fan rocking Stefani’s old haircut wins a chance to meet the woman herself.

It’s pretty basic stuff, with McCann XBC and MasterCard counting on Stefani’s star power to win over viewers and the potential prizes to get them excited for MasterCard’s Apple Pay integration. The choice of Stefani isn’t simply a nostalgic one for the brand, as the singer’s recent single “Spark The Fire” is used as the spot’s soundtrack and she has both a solo album and an album with No Doubt in the works.

(more…)

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BBH London tells the story of “The Boy Who Learnt To Share” for KFC in a 60-second holiday spot for the brand.

The ad shows the selfish nature of a young boy who refuses to share. He hogs up all the snow when making snowmen with his sister, won’t share an umbrella with his mother, writes his name on all the Christmas presents and, when cast as one of the wise men in a Christmas pageant, he won’t even give a gift to the baby Jesus. When the family gets KFC he initially holds his arms around an entire bucket, declaring it for himself. But when he sees the rest of the family happily sharing the rest of the meal, he finally decides to share, offering his sister a drumstick.

The whole “learning to share” angle is not a bad approach for a heartwarming holiday spot, and the spot is mostly put together well, but there’s one problem I can’t seem to get over with this one. At no point in the ad do we see the parents actually try to teach their son to share, something he should presumably have learned at least a little about from them. Instead, the parents seem to just ignore his bad behavior as if there’s nothing they can do and let him continue to act like a little snot. Wouldn’t the boy finally learning to share mean more if they had made attempts to teach him before? Understandably the spot is attempting to show KFC as the catalyst for the revelation, but this comes across as a bit random and forced since viewers aren’t really presented a window into his motivations or given the impression that the parents have done anything to try to change the son’s behavior.

“The Boy Who Learnt To Share” is supported by a social campaign in which KFC is calling on fans to tweet using the hashtag #KFCSharesies for the chance to participate in a campaign challenge and win a prize. (more…)

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Union Made Creative recently launched an inspirational ad for Lego targeted at young girls and for many the reaction will be: “It’s about time.”

Despite its roots of mostly gender-neutral marketing (which makes sense, given that there’s no real reason to attach a gender to building blocks), Lego has come under fire from many, including feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, who devoted two segments of her “Feminist Frequency” series to the subject, for its overt marketing towards boys in recent decades. The “together” in the brand’s “Let’s Build Together” campaign, for example, was limited to fathers and sons. In 2012, the brand reacted by releasing its Lego Friends line, marketed towards girls, but the extension was viewed by many as an after-thought at best and by its more vocal critics, as Sarkeesian put it, a “a pastel-colored gender-stereotyped suburban wasteland.” That Lego Friends is “for girls” only reinforces the problematic notion that the rest of Lego’s products are intended for boys. The majority of sets in the line feature stereotypically feminine constructions like beauty salons and bakeries, and are dominated by soft pastel colored blocks.

A kind of tipping point came early this year when a letter from a 7-year-old girl went viral and put renewed pressure on Lego to better serve its female fans. The company showed that they might finally be getting the message this summer when they released the Lego Research Institute, developed by Swedish geochemist Ellen Kooijman through the fan-sourced Ideas platform, which features three female scientists. The limited-edition set sold out within days, delivering a clear message to the company that there’s a demand for such products.

All of which brings us to “Inspire Imagination and Keep Building” from Union Made Creative, which (finally) addresses many of the sexist tendencies in Lego’s advertising. “I don’t always want you to help me,” says a girl narrator at the beginning of the ad, “Do you know why? I want to figure it out on my own.” While the ad shows the girl playing with figures from Lego’s Friends set, it shows her using those pieces in creative ways, and she doesn’t play with them exclusively. She also makes a hospital bed and plays doctor, creates a helicopter and a maze for a hamster. In short, it explores the wonder and imagination at the core of the brand. “Because you taught me how to think and how to dream,” the narrator says at the conclusion of the spot, “I’m about to make something that I know will make you proud.”

The ad is very well crafted and would be emotionally powerful even without the background of the brand’s gender-biased marketing, but is all the more so because of it. At the very least it is a big step in the right direction for Lego, as they hopefully continue to move toward making all of their fans feel equally welcome, regardless of gender. (more…)

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Creative digital studio Click 3X worked with National Geographic and Kinema Films to create “a four-ton scientific contraption with 38 triggers and 71 moving pieces” that they’ve dubbed “The Nat Geo Contraption.”

Drawing inspiration from the gadgets depicted by American cartoonist Rube Goldberg (although many viewers may be reminded of the board game Mouse Trap), the contraption combines items including “nine globes, three tires, one billiard ball, one VW Beetle, a set of bowling pins and a variety of everyday objects” for a fun chain reaction promoting the network’s “science-minded block of programming” which includes Brain Games, Science of Stupid and Street Genius. The programming bloc is set to air on National Geographic in 170 countries, and in 45 different languages, beginning in January 2015. A contraption of such size, of course, wasn’t built overnight. Click 3X and director Manny Bernardez worked diligently with production designer Bernardo Trujillio for over two months to bring the creation to life.

“It’s the celebration of human ingenuity, to highlight the smart and entertaining lineup of the shows coming up on Nat Geo” explained Emanuele Madeddu, senior vice president of creative and marketing, NGCI. “I have always been fascinated by these devices, and I want our viewers to experience science in a uniquely National Geographic way. You can’t miss the reveal at the end.” (more…)

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Grey London created one of the more off-the-wall Christmas spots you’ll see this year with “Christmas Choir,” promoting McVitie’s Victoria cookies.

In the spot, a family sits around on a sleepy holiday evening when the father decides to open up a box of McVitie’s biscuits. Upon opening the container, a chorus of tiny, adorable animals begins barking, meowing, quacking and otherwise vocalizing to the tune of 80s hit “Only You” by Yaz. The chorus of cuddly critters is, clearly, meant to evoke the happiness evoked by digging in to a box of McVitie’s (in this case punctuating a case of holiday doldrums), but that’s not important right now. What’s important is that around the 44 second mark a tiny narwhal whale emerges from the depths of a punch bowl. For that, Grey London, we thank you. (more…)

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