Hasta La Creative!

We thought we’d round out Monday on a cute note.

Draftfcb Chicago created a new pro-bono campaign for The Shelter Pet Project that lets the animals speak for themselves. Working in partnership with The Ad Council, The Humane Society of the United States, and Maddie’s Fund, Draftfcb’s integrated campaign features TV, outdoor and web PSAs promoting pet adoption. The campaign showcases the adorable and amazing personalities of real dogs and cats adopted from shelters, who practically reach through the screen and invite viewers to play with them. Draftfcb plans to take things a step further later this week with the launch of a new online experience on The Shelter Pet Project’s website allowing visitors “to virtually meet and play with the pets from the PSAs.” You can view the PSA for the friendly feline Stetson above, while dog lovers can meet the energetic Arnie below. Still not enough aww to round out your Monday? Stick around for another feline/canine pair and credits after the jump.

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Lowe Campbell Ewald marks the end of an era today, with their campaign for Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) offering up a new tagline that shifts away from the iconic “Got Milk?” line that seems like it’s been around forever.

Although the “Got Milk?” tagline will still be used in some markets, such as California (where the processors are reportedly still with Goodby), the campaign is largely fazing out the popular tagline in favor of “Milk Life” — which may or may not be inspired by “Thug Life.” Lowe Campbell Ewald’s multi-million dollar integrated campaign focuses on milk’s health benefits (fitting the new tagline), most notably as a strong source of protein.

“Got Milk has very high awareness,” Sal Taibi, president at Lowe Cambell Ewald, New York told AdAge, “But we have a new strategy. We have a new message and we just felt we needed a new approach.”

At the heart of the “Milk Life” campaign is the new anthem spot featured above, which “spotlights everyday moments of accomplishment, achievement and enjoyment, showing milk with the latest in graphic and animation technology to bring to life how families who include milk’s protein at breakfast make the most of their day.” The obviously high-budget visuals are impressive enough, and the spot is fairly well put-together, but I’ve got to say I really miss the milk mustaches. In addition to the 30 second anthem spot, the campaign also includes “print, TV and digital advertising, consumer and retail promotions, public relations and social media” — presumably also devoid of milk mustaches. The “Milk Life” campaign also marks the first work to come out of Lowe Campbell Ewald’s recently opened New York office. Stick around for credits after the jump, and let us know what you think of the new direction in the comments section. continued…

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72andSunny has unveiled a rather minimalist new campaign for Square, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey‘s mobile payments company.

The campaign is made up of 15-second spots, each of which begin with a dual colored screen with text on each side representing a merchant and a customer, followed by a card swiping through Square Register. In “Surf Instructor” (featured above), for example, the left-side of the screen reads “Dude,” while the right side reads “Little Dude.” The card is swiped through the Square Register on the right side of the screen, followed by a short scene of an enthusiastic young surfer in training. All of the spots follow this basic formula, demonstrating the kind of small business transactions Square’s product can open up for people in a simple, easy to understand way that perfectly matches the campaign’s message about the simplicity of using Square. Check out “Stylist” below to see a shih tzu getting a haircut, and stick around for “Designer” after the jump.

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With the 2014 Sochi Olympics slowly making their way toward their conclusion, we thought we’d share an Olympic campaign you might not have seen yet. Radley launched “Be A Weekender” for Hilton with four mini-documentaries honoring American Olympic athletes for Hilton’s Honors program.

The four videos were designed to “provide an energizing look at the forever-on-the-move lifestyles of Olympic hopefuls,” exemplified by “Weekend By Ashley,” the 2:16 video starring U.S. skater Ashley Wagner featured above. In the video, Wagner talks about her crazy, always on the move lifestyle in which she sometimes forgets what country’s hotel room she is in, growing up at the ice rink, and all the trips to warm places she’d like to take. Other athletes featured in the series include speed skater Patrick Meek, hockey player Meghan Agosto-Marciano and Paralympic ski racer Alana Nichols.

Creating these documentaries was no easy feat, as finding the extra time to film with athletes whose days typically begin with training at 3 A.M. is a big challenge. As Radley CCO/Director Kurt Spenser explains, “Fitting into the lives of Olympic hopefuls in the middle of an Olympic year is not an easy task. Detailed planning with the Hilton team allowed us to stay on schedule for the athletes and to be spontaneous when opportunities presented themselves. We did not want to interrupt their training or their travel, so we had to tailor our production as much as we could while still staying on budget and on time. It was a great team effort and we are all very proud of the results.”

Check out “Weekend By Ashley” above, and stick around for Alana Nichols‘ video, along with credits, after the jump. And for the full experience, head over to the campaign website. continued…

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And so, the cast of contributors from the Huge family continues to rotate as we now welcome Andrew Kessler to the fold. Kessler is the founder/CEO of Togather, a startup out of Huge Labs that serves as a platform that helps clients like Barnes & Noble and Red Bull deploy event marketing programs with the same control and measurability of a digital ad buy. As the headline mentions, Kessler makes his AgencySpy debut by discussing whether it’s to sound the death knell for what’s known as experience marketing. Take it away, sir.

The “experience marketing” trend is close to extinction.

A sponsored pop-up/installation/lounge/whatever made sense as an “organic” brand experience — before the domination of digital. But today anything that would feel at home in Times Square doesn’t fulfill the new authentic standards for branded content.

Specifically, I’m talking about the big-budget consumer-facing events with colored lights, a giant logo, and, if you’re lucky, a fun stunt. In years of agency work, I’ve been a part of too many to count, and the result was always:

– A large crowd…but not the right audience
– Lots of product interest…but only about the freebie swag, and
– Photo albums of smiling fans…but no metrics or demographic data

Sure, our clients could claim a big success because a whole town could be counted as “impressions” and gift bags eventually ran out. But nobody was asking:

– Is this a useful exercise?
– Are we providing the right kind of value to give us a return on brand favorability?
– Are we just repeating a visibility stunt that has a negligible effect on ROI?

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If you own a car and live in Manhattan, you’ll have reason to celebrate this Monday, especially if you’re a fan of TNT’s Dallas reboot.

To celebrate the season 3 launch of Dallas, Grey New York is organizing a gas station takeover for TNT, with the mystery location being transformed to a Ewing Energies station with prices that will drastically undercut the competition (although 1978 prices may be a bit too much to hope for). The show’s star, Josh Henderson, will be on hand to cut the ribbon and announce the price.

Grey has launched the campaign with a video message from Henderson on the Dallas Facebook page. A multimedia campaign will lead up to the event on Monday, including “radio promotions, billboards, wrapped oil tankers,” more video messages from Henderson, and “a New York Times ad announcing the price cut.” The actual location of the Ewing Energies gas station will be kept secret until Monday, so a keep eye on this campaign, especially if you’re keen on getting some cheap gas after the weekend. This should be a fun way to launch the new season, and we’re guessing the slashed cost of gas at the station will draw quite the crowd and garner a lot of attention for the show.

“Producing a campaign for TNT that effectively showcases how the world’s most powerful fictional family, the Ewings, can blur the lines and wield enough power to change something in the real world is the type of work that Grey lives and breathes for,” says agency executive creative director, Lisa Topol. “Fans will just have to wait and see how generous the Ewings will be with the final price of gas.”

One thing is for sure, though, this guy is excited:

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David&Goliath wanted to do something a little different to promote the California Lottery’s California Black Exclusive Scratchers tickets as part of their “Luck Will Find You” campaign. So the El Segundo, CA-based agency teamed up with production company V Squared Labs to create the “first-ever real-time, augmented reality experience.”

Utilizing “a mix of live TV production and augmented reality,” David&Goliath and V Squared Labs brought Lady Luck to life on a massive LED screen at L.A. live on February 9th. Select bystanders were given the opportunity to dance and interact with Lady Luck in real time. Pulling off the augmented reality experience was made more difficult by having “set times to go live and nail the performance before the next advertisement went on,” combining some of the more difficult aspects of live television with those associated with creating a believable experience out of augmented reality technology. After each performance, the scene was reset and the crew went through the whole process all over again. It’s exhausting just thinking about it. In order to account for any mishaps, and to make the experience as seamless as possible, V Squared Labs “created a custom software platform to react to real-time interactions,” including any possible mishaps.

“It was all about creating a fun, engaging, interactive piece of entertainment,” says David Angelo, founder/CCO of David&Goliath, and it seems the agency was willing to pull out all the stops to make it happen. Check out the video above to see how the whole thing came together, and stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Last month, Bryce Harper performed the first ever chicken-eating backflip for KFC as part of Draftfcb Chicago’s “How Do You KFC?” campaign. Now, Draftfcb continues the campaign of people eating chicken in situations where it doesn’t make sense for people to eat chicken, making history with the first ever two-man chickensled. The campaign is well-timed, coming on the heels of the U.S. men’s first two-man bobsled medal since 1952 and a two medal performance by the U.S. women’s bobsled team.

Draftfcb and KFC tapped Team USA Bobsled brakeman Jim Carriel, and retired Team USA Bobsled pilot Landon Phillips for the historical event. Carriel ate chicken from the KFC Go Cup from a customized cup holder while speeding down the track at 70 miles per hour and five Gs. “No other bobsled team out there is pulling five Gs while eating chicken. More casual fans of chicken sled racing may not know the physical demands five Gs puts on an athlete. Do you know how much an Extra Crispy Strip ‘weighs’ at five Gs?” Carriel asked. “It’s almost a half pound. Seriously. Don’t try this at home, kids.”

Draftfcb’s new video is supported by a tongue-in-cheek social campaign calling on fans to like or share a petition on the brand’s Facebook page to make chicken sled racing a Winter Olympic event in 2018.

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TBWA\Chiat\Day LA is behind this new, heartwarming long-form clip for Gatorade.

On Feb. 15, the Riverdale High School basketball team in New Orleans was on the verge of playoff contention for the first time in 20 years. To celebrate the team’s dedication TBWA/Chiat/Day LA and Gatorade decided to surprise the team with a renovated locker room. Since the renovations were completed while the team was on the court, the new locker room came as a complete surprise. Just as the team is celebrating their victory and the new locker room, Gatorade has one more surprise in store for them…a visit from Miami Heat star, Dwyane Wade. Check out the video above for a pleasant antidote to this dreary Tuesday.

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Brooklyn-based design agency HUSH (who you may remember from their unique way of ringing in 2014) were tasked with launching Lyve, a startup offering a new solution to the problem of information overload, at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. To do this, they transformed two suites in the Venetian Hotel in the heart of Vegas into a completely branded space, complete with “lights, displays, and visuals to showcase Lyve’s unique offering.”

HUSH’s installation was “anchored by a large central screen flanked by a custom designed product display. The screens [showed] a collection of personal images and videos breaking into fragments and transforming into colored lighting illuminating the assortment of tablets, phones, and other devices arrayed on glowing physical pedestals below.” The visuals were designed as a kind of metaphor for Lyve’s collecting, sorting and protecting service.

As HUSH creative partner David Schwarz explains, “Lyve is an elegant solution to a persistent technological problem, and we were happy to help them define this product while introducing it to the wider world. In words, the offering sounds complex, but showing it visually feels simple – so we created a metaphor to discuss how the different technology platforms capture and share content all to one central product.”

While I’m sure you’d have to have been there in person to get the full experience, you can watch HUSH’s CES installation for Lyve in the video above, and be sure to stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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