Hasta La Creative!

RPA recently debuted a new campaign for recently-won client ARCO, following Tesoro’s purchase of ARCO from BP.

The campaign celebrates ARCO’s “top tier” designation, as its gasoline “exceeds EPA minimum detergent requirements to help clean engines and maintain optimal vehicle performance.” To highlight the benefits of treating your car right with ARCO gasoline, RPA chose to show some of the ways mistreat their vehicles in a series of four 30-second broadcast spots.

The light-hearted approach works best in “Treat” (featured above), when a woman decides “If top-tier gas at ARCO helps clean my engine, maybe I should clean the rest of my car.” She then imagines all the hard work inherent in undoing the neglect, including some pretty gross tasks, before tossing an empty coffee cup in the backseat and deciding “I’ll do that another time.”

Other spots in the campaign take a similar approach, with “Embarassing” focusing on some of the moments your car shouldn’t have to witness and “Mishap” taking on minor vehicular abuse. “Try It” changes things up, focusing instead on a couple’s misguided decision to go somewhere other than ARCO for gas. Each spot ends with the tagline, ““Your car puts up with a lot. Help protect it from harmful engine deposits. ARCO has quality TOP TIER® gas for less.” emphasizing ARCO’s quality and top tier designation. The campaign began last month with one broadcast spot and an outdoor component, and currently supports the four broadcast spots with online and radio elements, as well as a revamped website.

“We have a long history working on the ARCO brand, and appreciate the challenges of the competitive motor-fuel category,” said RPA EVP, Management Account Director Tom Kirk. “The agency’s goal is to further support ARCO’s brand positioning, and this new work focuses on ARCO’s holistic value proposition around product quality and affordability.” (more…)

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CHI&Parnters is launching its latest animated campaign for TalkTalk, the fourth in a series of animated campaigns from the agency, entitled “The Mission.”

The 60-second spot tells the story of six household objects who come to life and embark on a journey in search of great TV. “The Mission” follows a doll, a garden gnome, a toy robot, a dog-lamp, and two slippers through a grand journey as they battle the elements, traversing the varying terrains of a neighborhood, before finally arriving through a doggy door to a house with TalkTalk TV. The well-animated spot pulls off the approach with style, making for a fun spot that feels like a mini-odyssey. It is the first of four new spots which will roll out between September and January.

“Our award-winning animations for TalkTalk have set a precedent over the years – and this year we’ve aimed to raise the bar again,” said CHI&Partners Creative Director Micky Tudor. “Everything about this little film is epic. Shot in cinemascope, voiced by Derek Jacobi and with a sweeping score from ‘Last of the Mohicans’, this spot is packed with the kind of extraordinary craft that is normally reserved for the world of feature films.” (more…)

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Deutsch, New Yorkteamed up with The Ad Council to create a PSA campaign for FEMA, in time for National Preparedness Month, reminding families to have a plan in the event of a disaster.

Since, according to FEMA, 50 percent of families have not discussed an emergency plan in the event of a disaster, the organization wanted to stress what a difference having a plan can make when such an event occurs. So the broadcast and digital PSA at the center of the campaign (released in both 30-second and 60-second formats) attempts to illustrate this through a harsh depiction of two families dealing with a disaster. One of the families, who presumably designated the shelter as a meeting place, huddle together, visibly shaken up but glad to have each other. They overhear another couple, who stress out over their missing child, powerless to do anything to locate him. It’s tough to watch, but that’s intentional, as it drives home the point that you don’t want to be the second family should anything go wrong. The spot ends by directing viewers to Ready.gov and www.Listo.gov where they can find resources for developing their own emergency plan. The campaign also includes radio and print components. (more…)

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Today Leo Burnett’s London office launched a new campaign celebrating the 40th anniversary of McDonald’s arrival in the UK.

The campaign aims to portray the important moments in people’s lives…that just happened to occur at McDonald’s. In “Just Moved In,” (featured above) the most realistic of these scenarios, a family moves in to a new house. After a hard day of moving, they realize there’s nothing in the fridge to make for dinner and head to McDonald’s for a quick meal (which is just fine with the kids).

Other spots in the campaign feature an awkward first date, a rescue meal for a rainy camping trip, and a teen celebrating passing his driver’s test. Leo Burnett doesn’t overreach with the scenarios, instead choosing small moments that compliment larger ones — although the idea of taking a date to McDonald’s does seem a bit of stretch, no matter how young you are.

The broadcast spots are supported by an outdoor campaign “comprised of eight executions which also reminds people that McDonald’s has been there in the background of a myriad of moments all through their lives.” (more…)

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With football season around the corner, Toth+CO enlists Drew Brees in their latest spot for Wrangler’s new Advanced Comfort Jeans. And the results are…exactly what you’d expect from a Drew Brees Wrangler ad.

Brees sits on a cooler on the back of a truck, plays some football with his buddies and his son, and takes his lady out to dinner. Pretty generic stuff. Interspersed with this footage are graphics of Wrangler’s “4-way flex technology” which offers “20% stronger” reinforced fibers. And the spot ends, of course, with Brees delivering the longtime tagline of “Real. Comfortable. Jeans.” There’s nothing fresh here, but fans of Brees, and football fans who can’t wait for the new season, should still find it a welcome sight. (more…)

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The hottest story in the ad world today concerns the newly-released TV components of a campaign that had a few scratching their heads last week: W+K’s “Dress Normal” for new client Gap.

These ads, directed by David Fincher, add a bit of narrative heft to a campaign previously consisting of celebrities in everyday poses. The first one, “Golf”, elaborates on the “it’s OK if your clothes are a little boring” theme with a bit of spontaneously unconventional romance:

Three more and credits below.

(more…)

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W+K New York isn’t the only agency that’s been focused on football recently — and for good reason.

Not only is the NFL about to start things up again, but this year’s college football season will be the first in history to discard the traditional Bowl Championship Series for a true four-team seeded playoff.

The first spot in W+K’s new campaign to promote client ESPN’s college coverage casts fandom as a universal experience…something everyone has “in common”:

A second :15 spot, which also debuts today, highlights some possible shakeups in the world of collegiate pigskin: will the new format allow an underdog to win the day?

(more…)

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KBS+, Toronto have a new campaign for Bissell that gets a little gross. In the spot, promoting the Bissell Symphony, which vacuums and cleans hardwood simulateneously, Bissell Canada Senior Brand Manager Ravi Dalchand sets out to prove that he’s behind the product one hundred percent.

So he uses the Symphony to clean a subway floor and then takes things a giant step forward in the gross department and eats some saucy pasta right off the spot he cleaned, seemingly to the disgust of fellow subway passengers.

“Instead of just showing how it works at home, we felt the stronger message was to show how well it could clean, even in an extremely tough, dirty, messy situation,” Bissell Vice President General Manager Craig Emmerson told The Huffington Post.

As that publication points out, however, this was not a normal Toronto subway stop. The stop used was the Bay Lower Station, which TTC CEO Andy Byford said had been “closed off to the public six months after opening in 1966 due to passenger confusion and consistent delays.” It’s now mainly used as a set for movies and television. So while eating off of subway tile is still pretty gross, it’s not as disgusting as it originally appears. And those onlookers are almost definitely actors. But KBS+, Toronto and Bissell assume (probably correctly) that most people won’t reach that conclusion, and, staged or not, the gimmick is pretty memorable. (more…)

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Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO has a new UK campaign for Uncle Ben’s, called “Ben’s Beginners,” based on the insight that one in four parents never cook with their children.

In a two minute spot — entitled “Where’s The Kitchen” — a supposed real estate agent shows families a house without a kitchen. Invariably, the families notice and complain, to which he replies that people aren’t really cooking anymore and kitchen-less houses are the wave of the future. It’s a bit of an odd way to illustrate how people are cooking less, but lets the brand avoid seeming overly preachy. Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO probably could have made the point in less time however, as the two-minute format really stretches the premise thin.

Another part of the campaign will see Uncle Ben’s launching a YouTube cooking channel. Designed to encourage parents to cook with their children, the show is hosted by DJ BBQ shows kids how to cook simple meals using Uncle Ben’s products. It’s a nice extension of the campaign, and could foster some real brand loyalty in kids who learn to cook with the program. Additional videos will feature actress and celebrity chef Lisa Faulkner teaching basic cooking skills. (more…)

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One Trick Pony got together Virgin billionaire Richard Branson and Jonathan Goldsmith — the actor perhaps most well-known for playing “The Most Interesting Man in the World” in the ongoing Dos Equis campaign — to promote the launch of Virgin Hotels, starting with a single location in Chicago.

In the spot, Branson recites some supposed rumors about the hotel — “The beds are so springy, they had to lift the ceilings 16 inches,” for example — while Goldsmith acts them out. Goldsmith’s involvement leaves no doubt from where One Trick Pony took its inspiration, and Branson’s acting can be a bit stiff, but the 55-second spot is not without its charm. Where the campaign really shines, though, is its social component, which invites consumers to tweet their own rumors about the hotel from the Virgin Hotels site. Users who submit some of the best tweets will be entered for a chance to win a two-night stay at the first Virgin Hotels location, where it’s rumored that Richard Branson tucks everyone in at night. (more…)

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