Hasta La Creative!

The question is, do you want to be? Courtesy of the Art Director’s Club and Portfolio Night 11 cohorts Julie Matheny, Scott Blew, and Ivan Cash, Couchella is presumably the cheaper, safer, blander, less drug-induced, less celeb-infested, and sillier version of the Coachella music festival. Couchella’s site promotes the cyber event as an exposure outlet for musicians on the rise, but really, it’s offering itself as a curated YouTube channel of Internet music videos. Is that any different from the actual YouTube? Probably not.

If you are interested in attending (watching) online music videos in a controlled environment, you can stream Couchella live starting at noon on April 23. Bands can be nominated on the event homepage. And if you get bored of watching random music videos, you can always close your Chrome tab and go back to YouTube to watch music videos you already like.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Shots fired! According to this new car spot from Arnold Worldwide, Volvos are for real people, but Mercedes-Benzes are for snooty women of the 1% who preen at themselves in rearview mirrors. This is some good, clean class warfare, automobile-style, and luxury brands better watch out.

A few years ago, a Volvo was a boring car for people who needed affordable transportation. Now, the price hasn’t changed much, but the image has shifted slowly. It’s not that crazy to think that someone with enough money would pick a Volvo over a Benz. And the new spot tugs at the right cords of today’s economic realities to make the comparison seem not only feasible, but preferable. There are also a few campaign teasers on Facebook that flesh out the appeal of Volvo as “luxury for real people,” including: If your dog has a wardrobe, the Volvo s60 probably isn’t for you. Now they’re going after snobby women and people who dress up their dogs! More shots fired, Volvo. I’m in. Credits after the jump.

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While we’re on the McCann tip, forget about February 14. In Brazil, Ex-Valentine’s Day is April 18th. That means all those weepy single people will have another day to think about their lack of relationship success. For the recently broken-up, Ex-Valentine’s Day (a make-believe day concocted by the parties involved with this effort; Brazilian Valentine’s Day is actually June 12) is also a chance for catharsis (and presumably bad Portuguese chick flicks). The Salvation Army and Sao Paulo/Rio-based WMcCann want to jump in on the romantic purging, asking those who have mountains of useless junk from their exes still sitting around to donate.

With the tagline “Too bad it’s over. But since it’s over, donate,” you can practically feel the lack of sympathy in your bones. But, giving back after a breakup might turn the love karma in your favor. Probably not the most altruistic motives for donating to charity, but a resourceful (and potentially spiteful) way to recycle for those who are less fortunate. If your girlfriend left her favorite jeans in your apartment, you can give them away, and when she comes to reclaim her possessions, you can laugh in her face. Okay, I take back the love karma remark. This campaign will help reuse old goods, but it might actually be brilliantly sadistic. If love gods do exist, they might dislike you. Let’s hope Cupid has a good sense of humor.

Credits after the jump.

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We all remember our awkward first kiss stories, full of nervousness and rapid heartbeats. Based on “First Kiss,” the new 30-second ad in the Taco Bell Live Mas campaign that came through the tips line, we can now add sticky fingers and spicy breath to the list of uncomfortable descriptors.

Mixing Doritos Locos Tacos and kisses may not seem like the best idea, but this spot might strike the right cord for those who value some teenage sentimentality and John Hughes movies. Associating Taco Bell with cuteness is a tough trick to pull off, you know, with the greasy smells and penchant for attracting drunk college guys as a significant customer base, but Deutsch LA and director Zach Math found a way to pull it off. Taco Bell seems to have tapped the right nerve with Doritos Locos Tacos: the product helped create 15,000 new jobs. Maybe the company can use the profits to provide complimentary mouthwash with any purchase, so young lovers who want to make out in Taco Bell parking lots can have pleasant memories.

Credits after the jump.

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Has it really been ten years since The Matrix: Revolutions tarnished the Wachowskis’epic saga? Time flies, but while we’d rather forget the third and final Matrix installment, we’re happy to once again see Hugo Weaving as the relentless Agent Smith, whose dapper yet menacing visage appears along with several doppelgangers in this latest effort from BBDO New York for GE called “Agent of Good.”

The spot, which was directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express), debuted over the weekend and showcases GE’s industrial internet technology and how the corporate giant connecting its medical hardware to its software is benefiting hospitals–or something to that effect. Despite being a decade removed from the Matrix films, Weaving shows no signs of rust as he brings the snarl of his most iconic character to the most sterile of environments. Stick around for the final moments for your most obvious Matrix reference, minus Morpheus. Credits after the jump.

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KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which famously flies from The Netherlands to the Nether Lands™, is giving regular schmucks like you and me a chance to float around in outer space for a while. What this has to do with flying to different locations on Earth is unclear, but KLM along with agencies RAPP and Tribal DDB Amsterdam probably figured, “Hey, Axe is giving away a trip to outer space. We should do that too.” And do that too they are.

Of course, a campaign doesn’t begin and end with just giving away tickets to space. As every advertising veteran knows, the difficult part is determining  who actually gets the tickets. Ever the pragmatists, KLM have decided that this makes the most logical sense: They are launching a balloon with space tickets inside of it from Area 51 on April 22, with viewers of a live stream predicting at what altitude the balloon will pop. Should you guess correctly, you get the space tickets.

Should advertising ever be lauded for any one attribute, it should be its practicality. Credits after the jump.

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It took more than 170 hours for Seoul-based shop Mr. Romance to animate a 100-second stop-motion short film for the Pantech Vega No 6 smartphone. That’s a week without sleeping. That’s a few weeks with a handful of naps sprinkled in between the production work. Before the animation took place, 1600 paper figures had to be cut carefully: that took three weeks. So, when you watch the clip, know that a tremendous amount of detail and effort went into the creative process.

That being said, the payoff for all of the work lasts less than two minutes. There’s actually a “making-of” section in the above video, which runs longer than the stop-motion part (that’s never a good ratio in filmmaking). Numbers seem to be vital to this whole campaign–500 Vega No 6 phones were also used to build the sets–but too much so, to the point where they overshadow the product. The video may have even been more effective if it stood alone without the making-of portion. I could tell you less is more, but I don’t think the workers who cut out the paper characters would be happy.

Credits after the jump.

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From Arnold comes the latest TV spot for Progressive, “Rate Suckers,” helmed by director Ruben Fleischer (of  pretty great Zombieland and pretty terrible Gangster Squad fame). Depicting bad drivers as the soul-sucking, rate-hiking leeches they are, the ad also introduces Progressive’s new “Snapshot” technology.

“Snapshot,” a little device that sticks underneath your dashboard, ostensibly counts how many times a driver slams on the brakes, calculates the time of day and how many miles a car has driven. Then it rewards good drivers with Pez or something, but as the spot doesn’t say what the hell it is, none of this really matters now does it?

Noticeably absent from this spot is Flo, Progressive’s chipper apron-ed spokesperson. I know that we, the car insurance-purchasing consumers, were always supposed to really like Flo because everyone in Progressive’s ads sure did. However, the Flo-lessness of this spot reminds me that I kind of hate Flo, and I hope to never see her ever again. Credits after the jump.

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If anyone needs a crash course explaining the differences between American and European cultures, pay attention to this post about taxis. American cabbies are generally considered beasts behind the wheel–especially in New York City, where driving their yellow death machines poorly is not only acceptable, it is encouraged. Cab rides are expensive in American cities, so the drivers try to seduce any possible fare into their jail-like backseats. In Europe, cab drivers are more underdressed chauffeurs than maniacs. The cars are smaller, more energy-efficient, and not always driven by Formula 1 wannabes.

These stereotypes, while not always true, make the latest news out of Dusseldorf, Germany, seem par for the course. Grey Worldwide Dusseldorf and Seat Germany created “The Seat Taxi Fare,” a technology that results in a decreased fare every time a cabbie uses the brakes. In the land of awesome architecture, this brand of savings is acceptable; in America, there would be cabbie riots.

The above video gives viewers a chance to see how passengers responded to “The Brake Energy Recovery System.” From a consumer’s perspective, this campaign is fantastic other than the fact that Seat’s slogan is “Enjoyneering.” After I covered last week’s Nissan Juke n-tec, it may be time to save creatives from themselves with an automotive naming intervention. Credits after the jump.

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Nissan is bringing Google Maps to the road, so if you live with a parent or spouse who gets lost regularly and refuses to ask for directions, this car may be a solid investment. Navigation systems aren’t new, but the Google Send-to-Car technology can be accessed and modified remotely. In the sixty-second spot above, you’ll notice Google’s signature blue rope pulling along the Nissan Juke n-tec (I guess nobody will be buying this automobile for the name…) through an unmarked city during the night. And if you’re worried that this promotion will take away the comfort of watching a loved one go crazy in the driver’s seat after realizing he/she is lost, fear not. There’s always the chance that the angry driver will question Google Maps and make up a new route. Then, you can get the popcorn ready.

TBWA\G1 Paris developed the spot and corresponding “Urban Thrill Rides” campaign that will pop across Europe starting this month. Take a second to pay attention to the music, which a rapped by a man who is half-Jay-Z, half-Will Smith, a perfect combination for a European audience. A little pitchy Jay-voice and  some Big Willy over-pronunciation makes everyone happy. Hopefully happy enough for you not to realize that a car is grinding on a median X-Games style. Keep the Google, but maybe next time, we can stop pretending that cars are like skateboards. Safety first.

Credits after the jump.

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