Hasta La Creative!

Ogilvy & Mather New York hypes NASCAR Sprint Cup’s “The Chase” elimination series with a new campaign for NASCAR and ESPN entitled “Battle of Nations.”

The campaign spot, entitled “The Hype,” which will run in 15, 30 and 60-second formats, documents fan and commentator excitement for the new “Chase” format to the Sprint Cup, which pits 16 drivers against each other in a tough elimination playoff format. “The Hype” imagines the drivers — and their respective fans and support teams — as nations preparing to face off in rounds of challenges to determine an ultimate champion. Ogilvy’s campaign will also include radio, print, social, and digital elements — including “Spreading The Word,” an educational video which we’ve included after the jump.

“The campaign celebrates this bold and transformational moment in NASCAR’s history, taking fans along for the ride and accentuating the drama and intensity of the new elimination format as each round unfolds,” said Scott Parker, vice president of marketing at ESPN.

(more…)

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Saatchi & Saatchi New York staged a dance off between Usher and Buzz the Bee in its latest broadcast spot for Honey Nut Cheerios, entitled “Body Language.”

Coming on the heels of its Grumpy Cat spot, Saatchi & Saatchi New York and Honey Nut Cheerios decided to go with a human celebrity this time. Somehow Usher proves a better match for Buzz than Grumpy Cat. When Buzz tells Usher that bees communicate with dance, the two exchange moves for the remainder of the ad, finding quite a bit of common ground. The national broadcast spot is set to the new Usher tune “She Came to Give It to You” and is a fun follow-up to both the Grumpy Cat spot and last year’s effort featuring Nelly.

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Apple has added two new spots to its ongoing “Your Verse” campaign: “Jason’s Verse” and “Yaoband’s Verse.”

The “Your Verse” campaign, as you might remember, debuted in January with an anthem ad featuring the sadly recently deceased Robin Williams‘ recitation of Walt Whitman‘s “O Me! O Life!” (from which the campaign gets its title) from the film Dead Poets Society. It was also notable for being produced in-house, without the aid of Apple’s agency, TBWA/Media Arts Lab, as were the follow-up verses.

Apple’s latest additions to the campaign aim to continue the inspirational tone with two new stories. “Jason’s Verse” follows Detroit resident Jason Hall as he attempts to revitalize the Detroit community through his Slow Roll. What begins as a solitary bike ride turns into a weekly event drawing thousands, with Jason’s iPad Air helping him get word out to the community and build Slow Roll into a sort of institution.

“Yaoband’s Verse,” meanwhile, sees a Beijing electro-pop group’s using their iPad Air for everything from sound-sampling to communicating with fans. Both “Your Verse” stories can be examined in more depth at Apple’s site, where visitors can also access an exclusive concert from Yaoband. Stick around for “Yaoband’s Verse” after the jump. (more…)

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W+K New York has a new campaign for ESPN, promoting the network’s coverage of college football and stoking fans’ excitement for the first year of the college football playoffs.

The campaign, entitled “Who’s In?” will run from the start of the season until a National Champion is crowned in January. “Different Ways In” (featured above), the campaign’s debut spot, launches today across ESPN’s networks and digital properties. Narrated by Burt Reynolds, the 60-second spot manages to cram in references to 20 different schools, as well as cameos from Jerry Jones, Jimmy Kimmel, Urban Meyer, Les Miles, Sam Bradford and JJ Watt. That’s not a bad way to stoke excitement from fans of different schools for the FBS College Football Season on ESPN, which begins Wednesday, August 27. Stick around for credits after the jump. (more…)

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Lest we forget, in the midst of the back-to-school advertising onslaught, that we’re still in the heart of the summer, here’s a look at mono’s summer-themed campaign for Target.

For the “#TargetRun” campaign, the Minneapolis-based agency teamed up with production company Thomas Thomas films and musical supervision company Elias. Each spot in the campaign showcases Target as the perfect one-stop shop for summer needs, taking a simple, straightforward approach highlighting the retailers’ summer offerings. In “Slide” for example (featured above), children are pictured enjoying a water slide on an ideal summer day. Then a Target basket makes its way down the slide, loaded up with ice cream and cones. After the kids enjoy the ice cream, another basket arrives with paper towels, followed by the message, “Make a soak-up the summer run.”

Other ads take a similar approach, relying on Elias’ song licensing (except in the “Cannonball” spot featuring an original soundtrack) to stay memorable. Stick around for the 30-second “Sunrise” and 15-second “Cannonball,” along with credits, after the jump. (more…)

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Leo Burnett has a new campaign for Delta Faucets introducing the portmanteau “HappiMess” to describe the joy of using Delta’s products to wash away fun messes.

The 30-second anthem ad features a variety of messy situations highlighting Delta’s different faucets. A woman clears a collection of dirty dishes at a dinner party and washes them in her Delta kitchen faucet; children play in a garden and are then ushered inside for a bath; a father and daughter enjoy a muddy hike and then the father washes his hands with a motion sensor faucet; a woman gets blasted with colored powders on a color run and returns to take a shower. “When Delta bath, toilet, shower and faucet innovations make getting clean just as beautiful as getting dirty, that’s HappiMess,” the voiceover intones. As The New York Times points out, the tagline is similar to children’s bath bubble brand Mr. Bubble’s, “Makes getting clean almost as much fun as getting dirty!” Only Leo Burnett aims to translate the idea for adults.

“When you think back to when you were a kid, getting messy in the garden, or baking and getting flour all over you were always considered to be a great things,” Leo Burnett Creative Director Jo Shoesmith told The New York Times. “But for adults, getting sweaty going for a run, or going on a mud run or a color run — those also are moments in life that people love and Delta plays a role in that, because where there’s a mess you need to be cleaned up.”

The campaign, which also features print and digital components, also marks the first time the brand is advertising the whole brand rather than a single product, according to Catherine Roper, director of brand marketing for Delta Faucet. It aims to celebrate the product innovations — such as the detachable shower head with temperature indicator, and motion sensor touch-free faucet — but these can be easy to miss over the course of the ad. Stick around for credits after the jump. (more…)

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JWT has launched the new “Forever Faster” brand platform for Puma, starting with the new anthem ad “Calling All Troublemakers.”

With the stated mission “to become the Fastest Sport Brand in the World,” Puma tapped the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, and a host of other star athletes for a global multimedia campaign. Alongside Bolt in the 60-second “Calling All Troublemakers” are soccer icons Mario Balotelli, Sergio Agüero, Marta Vieira da Silva; golfers Rickie Fowler and Lexi Thompson; and the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team. The athletes were chosen for their individuality in “both performance and personality,” and the spot does have a bit of a mischievous streak to it. But Puma sees “Forever Faster” as more than a campaign tagline — it’s also a company motto representing the desire to “quickly identify product designs and innovation, trends and style and bring them into the marketplace in a more dynamic manner.”

“Forever Faster is about Puma making a statement as a brand and reminding people that we are and will continue to be the fastest sports brand in the world,” explains Adam Petrick, global marketing director at Puma. “We’ve always been known as a brand that takes risks and that’s not going to change, Forever Faster clearly represents that. This is going to change the way we approach product design and innovation as well as how we market our brand.” Stick around for limited credits after the jump. (more…)

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BWM, Melbourne tapped Arnold Schwarzenegger in their latest campaign for Realestate.com.au.

In the spot, Arnold decides to move back to Austria, mistaking Australia’s .au for his birth country. His assistant tries to inform him of his error, but Arnold is too excited over the possibilities he’s found on the site and tells his assistant to book him some inspections while leaving the filming of his current movie to his “double.” While its humor doesn’t quite hit its mark, it’s refreshing to see Arnold still willing to play on his persona, and make himself seem ridiculous in the process. And Arnold’s star power should certainly get people’s attention. Stick around for credits after the jump. (more…)

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RPA has launched a new integrated campaign for Honda highlighting the brand’s summer clearance event and attempting to spread summer cheer, under the face-palm worthy title “Summer Cheerance.”

To be fair, “Summer Cheerance” is at least memorable, however irksome the title may be. The campaign includes broadcast spots, print, digital, radio, “an abundance of smile-inducing videos, memes, GIFs and visual jokes via social media” and special events from August 4th until August 8th to promote the Honda Summer Clearance event. As part of the campaign, Honda will donate $100,000 to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

“Summer Cheerance” launched today with an introduction video (featured above), as well as a series of short videos designed to be shared on social media to spread summer cheer. For example, one video shows a pig swatting its tail for six seconds, followed by the message “We hope this video added some cheer to your day” and promotes Honda’s event with the #Cheerance hashtag. Other videos include dancing dolphins, an exhausted puppy and an “Epic Gopher.” Additionally, the brand has teamed up with YouTube star Andrew Hales, who will promote the brand with two videos on his YouTube channel. Stick around for a few examples, along with credits, after the jump. (more…)

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TBWA/Media Arts Lab has a new spot for Apple’s iPhone 5S entitled “Dreams.”

Set to the made-for-a-television-commercial strum of Jennifer O’Connor’s “When I Grow Up,” the spot celebrates everyday heroes like firemen, doctors, veterinarians, environmental scientists and artists. The choice of music, pacing and editing make the spot feel like a spiritual successor of sorts to the recent “Parenthood” successful spot. Like that ad, “Dreams” shows its subjects using the iPhone 5S in a variety of ways as a tool to do their job better. It’s nothing ground breaking, but it communicates its message well while showing a variety of the smart phone’s capabilities. Coming off the recent spot “Stickers” and the aforementioned “Parenthood,” “Dreams” sees TBWA/Media Arts Lab on something of a creative roll following the announcement in June that Apple would take more ads in-house.

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