Hasta La Creative!

Earlier this week, we covered some Sid Lee Paris video game business. Today, we’re moving back across the Atlantic, as Sid Lee New York debuts a 3-Bee (yup, they punned 3-D) printing project for Dewar’s Highlander Honey whiskey. The technology allows for  80,000 bees to mimic their natural environment in a factory setting and create hives in custom shapes, like a Dewar’s whiskey bottle. The Ebeling Group, which produced the accompanying video, had to do their work in full beekeeper suits. That is how you commit to a project.

The 60-second video offers viewers an artsy glimpse into the totality of the 3-Bee project. The edgy tone comes from muted lighting and  background music that might as well be a leftover composition from Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood‘s There Will Be Blood soundtrack. I’m not sure that this strategy would make me want to purchase a drinkable product, but the creativity involved more than makes up for it with originality. Credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The world is weird, and Snapple has succeeded in giving us small moments to reflect and delight in that with every juice. Now with their latest digital campaign from Code and Theory (check out our recent Cubes tour with the shop here), those moments are deepened via “Re-enFACTments,” videos that bring Snapple Real Facts to life.

The most recent bit of useless knowledge re-enFACTed is that the ostrich’s brain is smaller than its eyeball. To prove this point, we see the ostrich peck moodily at the camera, allow humans to ride on its feathery back, and make vague humming sounds. But the real point is that, “the true measurement of a champion *isn’t* the size of its brain.”

365: Neck-in-Neck is an HBO-24/7-style sports documentary on the wild world of ostrich racing. In the 5-minute (riveting and thus justified) spot, we watch the townfolk of Chandler, Arizona, put on their annual ostrich race, featuring both riding and chariot racing. Snapple interviews the head trainer and his prize ostrich, Julio, who was apparently bullied as a youngster. He hid his head in the sand but was still mercilessly attacked by vicious teenage beaks. Today he is a winner.

This is all real, seconded by a Daily Mail article on the “Hilarious and Unpredictable World of the Great American Ostrich Races.” There’s something fascinating about ostriches, and seeing fully-grown men on their backs is even more bizarre. Snapple strikes us with wonder every time we open a juice, and this campaign lengthens that curiosity, engaging until the last sip.

Credits after the jump

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

After their amusing spot featuring a basketball player juggling a couple of extra balls, Boost Mobile and 180LA are back together once again, this time emphasizing the savings Boost customers can get. In three short videos, we see various stealing scenarios: a man on the subway gets pickpocketed, a city guy leaps over fences to evade a mugger, a woman has her purse snatched on the sidewalk. But by the end of each ad, the victim has money handed back to them, showing that “Boost Mobile puts cash back in your pocket, literally.”

It’s a good concept, and the little song that shifts each scene into celebration coupled with the actors’ yay-I’m-richer-than-I-thought smiles makes these spots sweet. I only wish they could have cast at least one white thief. Sure, they’re all good guys in the end, but these spots still reinforce tired racial stereotypes. We can do better.

Credits and the rest of the videos after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As much as I appreciate a good fail video and laugh regularly from schadenfreude, Lowe Roche’s latest for Fuzz Wax Bar in Toronto just made me cringe. To advertise their dedication to smoother skin, Fuzz covered a male model in wax strips and sent him onto the streets. People could tear the strips (and hair) off him to receive a 25% off gift certificate. The strips were illustrated with grim-faced smileys, varying based on the amount of pain they would cause. Many people appeared to delight in making this man shout in agony.

“Street Waxing” seems to me the opposite of an attractive ad campaign. The selling point of waxing is the final product: smooth skin. In between appointments, one primary goal is to forget about the pain. That makes this experience more of an anti-waxing PSA. Fuzz Wax Bar reminds us, very viscerally, that waxing is not a pleasant experience. And adding insult to injury, (unlike this model), you’re going to have to pay to get yours yanked off.

Credits after the jump

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

From Mother’s UK shop comes a new two-minute spot for IKEA kicks off the new ‘Make Small Spaces Big’ campaign.

Featuring the vocals support of soul singer Elayna Boynton covering Aretha Franklin‘s “One Room Paradise,” we’re taken inside a doll house stocked to the brim with IKEA furniture. There we meet a single mom with a creepy doll head raising her similarly creepy doll-headed son, both adept at finding solutions for making their tiny house bigger.

Now, for U.S. audiences, the doll heads are a bit off-putting and hard to get over. But, once you do, you come to realize what a rarity it is that we see single parent households depicted in advertising, especially for a global brand like IKEA. Mother does a wonderful job in not only demonstrating the products’ features, but also giving the spot some emotional weight. If it was only something other than doll heads…

Take a virtual MTV Cribs-style tour of the apartment from the spot here, and view credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The ESPYS are supposed to throw a nudge and a wink in the direction of typical award shows that take themselves too seriously. Athletes get all dolled up in dresses and suits, the host runs through some comedic skits, and the sporting world congratulates itself on the red carpet, all of which has appeal to the average viewer, because the sports world is usually unglamorous for the other 364 days of the year.

For the 2013 ESPYS, ESPN seems to have taken that care-free attitude to a whole new level, a level that borders on creative laziness. Amazing athletes and sporting events “happened.” For example, Robert Griffin III tells us that Gabby Douglas “happened,” and Lebron James “happened, with authority.” ESPN worked with creative agency 77 Ventures to produce a dozen or so spots in advance of the July 17 show that covers just about every positive sports story from the previous year. They all happened. Which makes you want to hit your head and let out a rhetorical, “duh?” ESPN wasted the chance to use its biggest stars like RGIII, Derek Jeter, Danica Patrick, and Ray Lewis to sell great games and plays. We know they happened. These inspiring sports stories can pretty much sell themselves, but this “Happened” campaign pushes the limit of less is more. For once, less is less. Less happened.

You can watch three more promos after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Betty White, Joe Pesci, Robin Williams, and… Kenny G. Aside from picking the most odds-and-sods group of entertainers out there, Snickers and BBDO New York have a knack for choosing celebrities with just enough relevance for the “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign. The title for best Snickers jokester is a toss-up between White’s roughhousing football player and Pesci’s whiny wingman. The latest spot, “Cards,” won’t top its predecessors, mainly because Kenny G doesn’t speak throughout the whole clip, but you can always lose yourself in his patented melancholy saxophoning.

It’s strange to think that the first ad with White came out over three years ago, but these spots seem to have enough social support to keep on kicking, even as the celebrities get less celebratory. Maybe for the next one, BBDO could get all four celebs in one room at the same time – a group of hungry people who all need to eat Snickers. That way, we could get Pesci to look at Kenny G and unleash a “Who is this fuckin’ guy?” tirade. Everybody wins, even Kenny G, since he’d be in two commercials in the past decade instead of one. Credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

You rumdrinkers out there might not have known this while pounding down eight dollar shots at trendy bars, but Bacardi Rum has quite the historical significance. Think Cuban Revolution, Spanish-American War, and the Rough Riders. I don’t remember learning about any of these connections in social studies class – hmm, I wonder why, board of education? – but thanks to OppermanWeiss, “¡Vivimos!” the history of Emilio Bacardi Moreau and his company’s revolutionary roots will be on display in the coming weeks with a cinematic spin.

The above clip is the second ¡Vivimos! spot from OW and director Jake Scott, featuring a handsome and thinly mustachioed version of Emilio Bacardi Moreau set to a grainy image filter. The video does embellish a bit, making it appear as if our Bacardi hero was going to be gunned down spaghetti western style. Truthfully, or at least according to the Bacardi website, Bacardi Moreau was exiled from Cuba to North Africa twice, but who are we to nitpick with an actiony marketing campaign 115 years after the fact? Also be on the lookout for the ad in movie theaters, because Bacardi and Screen Vision partnered to put the clip on 100,000 screens across the country. And if you are really into Cuban revolutions, the brand is unrolling added content through Shazam, so everyone can also vivimos with their smartphones out.

Credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Did you know that Cap’n Crunch has his own digital late-night talk show? Because I didn’t. You don’t even need to watch it to know that he’s better than Jay Leno. The latest episode of The Cap’n Crunch Show addressed a recent uniform controversy about whether or not the Cap’n is indeed a captain. (At this point, you’re wondering what’s going on. You aren’t alone). But the “controversy” has been getting play from Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, and Leno, so Brooklyn-based shop Huge has been behind the latest self-deprecating content from everyone’s favorite cereal captain. The above clip runs about a minute and reveals the ultimate secret: Cap’n’s eyebrows are actually attached to his hat, not his head. It’s good-natured and self-aware, things that are hard to find most days.

If you happen to be interested, the next episode of The Cap’n Crunch Show airs July 9 at 11:30 p.m.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hmm. Elevating an automobile to the level of mankind’s varied and stellar achievements is a tall order. Granted, it’s no small feat to create a great car but to equate it to space travel and other such lofty human endeavors is, well, a bit pompous. Now don’t get us wrong. This Mullen-created campaign for the 2014 Acura MDX, “Made For Mankind,” is great work. It’s inspiring and thought-provoking.

A little bit Red Bull Stratos and a little bit Hill Holliday-created Infiniti from back in the day, the campaign — if you can get through it without smirking — is one that will endear you to the human race and give a a warm and fuzzy feeling about what we, as humans, can accomplish when we put out minds to task.

The campaign broke Friday with, of course, a Vine teaser. Outdoor, print and online will round out the campaign.