Hasta La Creative!

The newly re-branded Philly-based Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners (who recently expanded with an L.A. office) are behind this super adorbs spot for The Big Ten Network’s BTN2Go mobile platform. Who knew tiny mascots could be so cute? Who knew that I could squeal like a teenage girl upon seeing mini-Bucky Badger? Oh man, I have a lot of self-reflection to do, huh?

For those wondering how BTN2Go works, here’s a write-up:

This multi-platform mobile extension gives fans the ability to watch the network streamed live from wherever they are. Available on desktops, smartphones and tablets, the app is free for any cable subscriber with BTN in their line-up. More than just a live simulcast of games, the app is customizable to set fan’s team preferences, highlights and stats.

But who cares, right? It’s just too cute. Holy shit, so cute. It’s just inspired Kiran to tell me he wants a pet. Bfljeabf! Credits after the jump.

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Allen & Gerritsen of Boston unveiled a new campaign for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts today, their first since Blue Cross named A & G its agency of record.

The campaign, called “Blue Cross Blue Shield of You” (pretty lame name, we know) features three TV spots highlighting the stories of actual Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts plan members. Each of these stories is very different, highlighting that each Blue Cross plan is unique to the needs of its policy holder. These vary from a man competing in a “Spartan” race, to a woman biking to work for physical and spiritual health, to a startup offering Blue Cross Blue Shield to its employees. All these stories have a very Massachusetts flair to them, or as Allen & Gerritsen Creative Director Doug Gould puts it, “This campaign celebrates the fabric of our region through individuals, while mirroring the values of the Blue Cross Blue Shield brand.” Spolier: You might hear a Boston accent or two in there. Its a pretty no-nonsense approach that’s refreshing compared to the more schticky approaches certain other insurance agencies take.

In addition to the :30 and :60 second TV spots, the campaign also spans radio, digital video and banners, and out of home.

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Carmichael Lynch and the Denver Museum of Science are testing the myth that talking to a plant helps it to grow healthier and stronger to support Mythbusters: the Explosive Exhibition, and they need want your help.

Mythbusters: The Explosive Exhibtion, which runs from October 10th-January 6t, offers exciting ways for visitors to interact with the mythbusting process. “We wanted to extend that experience online for people who can’t get to the Museum in person, or who just can’t enough,” explained Marty Senn, executive creative director at Carmichael Lynch. To do so they’ve enlisted the help of an online audience to help debunk (or not debunk) the myth that talking to plants helps them grow healthier and stronger.

The Denver Museum of Science is asking people to help by going to talktoaplant.com and tweeting what you’d like to say to the plant. Tweet about whatever you want, from the government shutdown to the MLB playoffs to this incredibly depressing news about West Coast starfish. Custom tweet-to-speech technology developed by Carmichael Lynch will then read the tweet to one of the two plants in the experiment. The other plant just sits in silence, the control plant. Poor control plant.

Both plants run on 12-hour light cycles and are watered by an in-house technician, in case you’re worried about all that. Water showings occur every Wednesday over the lunch hour. You can tune in to the live stream over the next couple of months to see if the myth is busted. Will the myth be debunked? Tell us what you think in the comments section. Credits after the jump. continued…

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Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada and john st. have launched a campaign for the brand new Mitsubishi Mirage.

The spot “Commute” plays the whole music that you thought was extra-diegetic but turns out to be diegetic card while touting the subcompact cars’ features. (We don’t like being toyed with like that, Mitsubishi.) These are good selling points, especially the best-in-class 64 mpg and the $12,498 starting price. “We know that we’re giving Canadian drivers what they value in a subcompact car, great fuel efficiency at an even better price,” explains Peter Renz, Director of National Marketing at Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada.

The whole “you can do what you want with all the money you save” thing and the diegetic music trick are a little tired, but the spot keeps it short and simple. Plus the fuel economy and low price do a fine job selling the car on their own. You’ve got to be envious of that gas mileage. Credits after the jump.

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It used to be that music video premieres from popular artists were a highly anticipated event. You know, back when MTV actually showed music videos, and before songs were streaming the second they were released. Now they’re advertisement fodder, as evidenced by Eminem’s new music video that doubles as a Call of Duty: Ghosts spot. Since August’s Call of Duty: Ghosts’ trailer featured Eminem‘s single “Survival” in the background, Slim Shady’s new single “Survival” features Call of Duty: Ghosts in the background. Tit for tat if you will.

The latest in the partnership between Activision, 72andSunny, and Eminem features projected footage from the game in the background as Eminem does his thing, in a (kind of) new song about surviving adversity. “This is survival of the fittest,” goes the songs’ chorus, doubling as a tag line for the aforementioned game, in which “the fittest” is some acne-scarred high school freshman who spends all his free time playing first person shooters while downing Doritos and energy drinks. There’s obviously some audience overlap between the popular shooter and the hip-hop vet, and this partnership takes advantage of that.

Since the launch of the new Call of Duty game is, arguably, more hotly anticipated than a new Eminem video, you may wonder why the game is featured so much in the background, but whatever the case, this is Eminem’s show. You could argue that he’s using the association with the game to sell his music at least as much as he’s helping to sell the game, so it works out pretty well for all parties involved. It’s really easy to overlook the COD footage unspooling in the background, especially since (if I’m not mistaken) the title of is never mentioned. But then that game’s fanboys will undoubtedly have remembered the song from the Call of Duty: Ghosts trailer, which may be why they’re watching the video in the first place. And anyone who can’t tell what the game in the background is probably isn’t buying the new Call of Duty in the first place.

The mix of violent gaming and explicit rapping should anger a few parents, so this video/spot has that going for it… Credits after the jump.

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For the first time, Burt’s Bees is promoting its seven mainstay, “classic” products as a group. These “classics” include Beeswax Lip Balm, Coconut Foot Cream, Shea Butter Hand Repair Cream, Hand Salve, Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Cream and Res-Q Ointment. To promote their classic lineup, Burt’s Bees is reinterpreting a few classics in a new format. Burt’s Bees and agency Baldwin& are using 6-second stop motion animated Vines interpreting seven classics of literature: Little Women, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Metamorphosis, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, and Julius Caesar.

The humorous Vines highlight the time-tested nature of Burt’s Bees products, suggesting they will last as long as the classic literature they pay homage to. Of course, Burt’s Bees products are actually featured in the Vines, such as the lip balm in “Little Women” who declare “We really are quite little. And each of us women.” These classic vines are staged by Vine animator Jethro Ames of San Francisco, using in-camera stop-motion shooting for each Vine. The process takes about four hours to complete, with no post-production possible.

The first two “Classic Vines” to roll out are Little Women (featured above) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (featured after the jump).” In a small, prequel campaign that marries the new and the classic in a different way, founder Burt Shavitz will post about his backwoods Maine life on Instagram. This “Classic Burts” campaign contrasts a classic, traditional lifestyle with the hustle and bustle of modern social media, such as a photo of Burt splitting logs with the caption “Innovative home heating system.” This campaign from Baldwin& is refreshingly non self-serious and makes sense for a company whose selling point is that they make a no-frills, quality product out of classic materials. We’re guessing it didn’t exactly break the bank either. continued…

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72andSunny pays homage to sci-fi and television history in their new campaign for Samsung Galaxy Gear.

The spot “Evolution” traces the evolution of wristwatch communication, from Dick Tracy and Star Trek to Inspector Gadget and even Predator. The spot ends with the text “After All These Years It’s Finally Real” before introducing Samsung’s latest product. It’s a fun way to highlight the evolution of modern technology and say “The future is now” while making Galaxy Gear seem pretty cool.

A second spot, “A Long Time Coming” pays similar homage, showing characters talking into their wrist pieces in rapid succession. It’s not quite as strong as “Evolution” and perhaps more than a touch too similar to the iPhone’s “Hello” spot, even if it does touch some similar bases.

The Samsung Galaxy Gear is available now for the futuristic price of $299. Knight Rider not included. Check out the second spot and “Evolution” credits after the jump.

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Dodge and Paramount have joined forces in a co-branded campaign from W+K launching the new 2014 Dodge Durango featuring Ron Burgundy (of Anchorman and the upcoming Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, but you already knew that).

The campaign, which spans television, print, digital and social media, debuted October 5th online and on television. Be prepared to see it everywhere.

“With the personal involvement of Will Ferrell, our writer / director Adam McKay, the comedy team at Funny or Die, and the Dodge creative team at Wieden+Kennedy, we were able to create a truly epic partnership,” says CMO of Paramount Picture Josh Greenstein in a statement. But are the spots actually funny? Some of them — they really very widely in quality. Each of the spots takes advantage of the 70s aesthetic in the Anchorman films, taking place in a colorful, very 70s auto showroom. The first spot, “Horsepower” is a bit of a letdown. It resurrects the tired “comparing horse power to an actual horse” theme commonly used in spots for powerful vehicles.

The staring contest with the horse at the end is almost worth a chuckle though. “Glove Compartment” is a lot better: it features Ron Burgundy toting the Durango’s glove compartment, which can hold “two turkey sandwiches or seventy packs of gum.” Another spot finds Burgundy struggling with a script that touts the Durango’s “m.p.g.” performance. The highlight is definitely “Ballroom Dancers,” featured above, which has a comically angry showdown between Burgundy and dancers that he thinks may “live in the rafters.” A lot of this is stuff that only Ferrell could get away with delivering, and only about half of the time is the writing worthy of his talent, but when it works it works. Plus, it will whet people’s appetites for the Anchorman sequel, which is kind of the point.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues debuts in theaters December 20th. Credits and additional video after the jump.  continued…

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M&C Saatchi gained the attention of passing pedestrians in Milan by creating an installation that looks like a submarine emerging in Milan’s Piazza Mercanti, crashing into a nearby motorist.

The surreal stunt was created for insurance companies Genertel IT and Europ Assistance IT as part of their “Protect Your Life” campaign. It featured a rescue team, a group of stunned sailors, and one irate Smart Car driver. To make sure the point (Which is what exactly? It’s really hard to extract from this confusing scene) was not lost on pedestrian witnesses, “a man in scuba diving gear was on hand to speak to people about the importance of safeguarding their possessions.” Because anytime people need something explained to them: bam, a man in scuba gear.

I’m a fan of good old-fashioned Italian surrealism, so I can appreciate this from that point of view. But I can’t really make much sense of it from a marketing standpoint. Protect your possessions because you never know when a submarine will emerge out of nowhere? If you can make some sense of this, let us know in the comments section.

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We reported earlier on Honda’s “Day of Reckoning” for the Odyssey: a Twitter campaign engaging snack brands in dialogue over the Odyssey’s built-in vacuum cleaner.

Cheerios tweeted Honda in response, and donated $1,933 to Honda’s ‘Project Drive-In Fund‘ (which we’ve also covered; it would appear I’ve become the “Honda guy” around here, which is fine — I drive an Insight) to commemorate the birth year of the drive in. Honda has to feel pretty ecstatic about that move, as it ties together two of its campaigns and engages an outside audience. The two brands are a pretty perfect match, too. There must be a big overlap between station wagon moms and Cheerios moms.

Honda: feel free to send me free stuff. Cheerios: only if it’s frosted.

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