Hasta La Creative!

Venables Bell & Partners launched a new spot for Audi featuring one epic “Duel” playing out in reverse. 

The spot opens with “Vote” and “2016” buttons on the ground at some kind of elegant gala, with broken glass strewn about the scene. As the action proceeds in reverse a man and a woman rise from the floor and through the glass ceiling they’ve clearly just fallen through. From there a hard fought battle proceeds in reverse, with the device used to generate interest and add suspense to the reveal of the duel’s origins.

The clever concept of the ad would feel cheap and hollow had it been poorly executed, but it’s quite the opposite. If anything, the perfectly executed production, courtesy of Hollywood veterans like director Ringan Ledwidge, production designer K.K. Barrett (Her, Adaptation, Lost in Translation), cinematographer Greig Fraser (Foxcatcher, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and stunt choreographer Robert Alonzo (Deadpool, Tomorrowland, Oblivion) is what makes the spot work.

In addition to a reveal which champions the brand while somehow avoiding seeming as over-the-top as it should, the conclusion of the spot also manages to appeal to supporters of any presidential candidate with the line, “Choose the next driver wisely.” The ad, of course, will make its broadcast debut during coverage of the presidential debate tonight. It will also run during the two subsequent scheduled debates. 

Credits:
Client Name: Audi of America
Brand: Audi
Spot Name: Duel
Air Dates: 9/26/16, 10/9/16, 10/19/16
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Founder, Chairman: Paul Venables
Partner, Executive Creative Director: Will McGinness
Creative Director: Justin Moore
Creative Director: Erich Pfeifer
ACD/Copywriter: Matt Keats
ACD/Art Director: Matt Miller
Director Of Integrated Production: Craig Allen
Senior Producer: Matt Flaker
Producer: Gabby Gardner
Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Ringan Ledwidge
Director of Photography: Greig Fraser
Head of Production: Richard McIntosh
Executive Producer: Joe Biggins
Executive Producer: Jeff Shupe
Line Producer: Greg Haggart
Stunt Coordinator: Robert Alonzo
Production Designer: K.K. Barrett
Editing Company: Work Editorial
Editor: Rich Orrick
Assistant Editor: Mike Horan
Executive Producer: Marlo Baird
Producer: Brandee Probasco
Music Company: Woodwork Music
Music Composer: Philip Kay
Music Coordinator: Andy Oskwarek
Sound Design/Final Mix: The Sound Lab at Technicolor
Executive Producer: Debbie Gonzalez
Lead Sound Designer/Mix Engineer: Scott Gershin
Sound Designer: Johannes Hammers
VFX: The Mill
Executive Creative Director: Phil Crowe
VFX Supervisor: John Shirley
CG Lead: David Lawson
VFX Senior Producer: Anastasia von Rahl
VFX Associate Producer: Karina Slater
Colorist: Greg Reese
Head Of Brand Management: David Corns
Brand Director: Chris Bergen
Brand Supervisor: Justin Wang
Brand Manager: Abu Ngauja
Project Managers: Talya Fisher, Leah Murphy

180 Amsterdam launched a fall campaign for United Colors of Benetton, presenting the line as “Clothes for Humans” in a variety of comedically honest scenarios.

In “Interview,” for example, a smartly dressed woman signs off on a video chat job interview, seemingly the embodiment of  professionalism. That is, until she gets up from her chair and it’s revealed that she’s not wearing pants. Hey, we’ve all been there, right?

Another spot sees another young woman who faces a “Dilemma” after dropping a snack. A third explores the awkwardness of having a photo of your parents above your bed during certain situations. The 15-second spots are running on broadcast in Italy and India, in cinemas in Italy and Mexico and online in Italy, India, Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, Greece and Portugal. There’s also a long-form “backstage” spot running online, which provides a closer look at the fall collection and the print elements of the campaign.

If this year’s Cannes Festival taught us anything, it’s that case study awards show entries often look and smell a whole lot like bullshit. You know: the ads that never actually ran; the apps that never worked; the creative directors who did no real work in coming up with the idea that scored their agencies a gold. We’re not naming any names, but even David Lubars admits that this kind of stuff happens all the time.

The Effies are in on that not-quite joke, and New York’s Walrus manages to have some fun with the concept in a new campaign promoting this year’s event. The first spot “Logos” plays on the “received coverage in X, Y, and Z” section of every case study video in which the agency brags about how many overextended bloggers looked at their PR pitches and said, “Content!!”

You might notice a certain weblog’s logo on the left side of this gentleman’s screen…but no BuzzFeed. SAD.
The next spot, “Sales,” reaffirms the common suspicion that the numbers you see included in those case studies often mean little or nothing. But isn’t this kind of like the common struggle to prove that impressions translate to money being exchanged for goods/services, or that advertising actually works in the first place?

Ooh, that was good spin. We like.

Next comes one of those projects that is so filled with good vibes and positivity for the human race that you might just explode thinking about how awesome it is, or at least act like a smug douche for coming up with the idea that you probably stole from a 1997 OOH campaign even though you can’t remember which agency made it.

Finally, “over the shoulder impressions” sounds so close to believable that we could swear we’ve read it in a past media campaign blurb.

For some reason, we were once surprised to learn that many agencies hire people whose entire job consists of submitting stuff to awards shows. We were so naive on that day 9 months ago.

Effies season is upon us. Send them your work.

CREDITS

Client: Effie Worldwide, Inc./North American Effie Awards
Agency: Walrus
Chief Creative Officer: Deacon Webster
Art Director: Evan Vosburgh
Head of Integrated Production: Valerie Hope

Production Company: Whiteboard Pictures
Producer: Jonathan Yaniv
Director: Jacob Sillman
First Assistant Director: Nadia Fedchin
Director of Photography: Christopher Parente
First Assistant Camera: Cameron Femino
Gaffer: Forest Erwin
Grip: Justin Chen
Sound Mixer: Chris Scott
Art Director: Cory Nicholas
Hair & Makeup: Lani Barry
Production Assistant: Liz Bendelac
Production Assistant: Megan Brittan
Production Assistant: Mark Stepanov
Casting: Whiteboard Pictures
Actors: Anthony Michael Lopez, Rikki-Lee Millbank, Marc Levasseur, Morné Vogel, Carmen Mendoza, Andrew Colford, Mike Holt
Voiceover Artist: Kevin Cummings
Voiceover Casting: Carrie Faverty, The Sound Lounge

Locations donated by: Red Fuse Communications and The Sound Lounge

TBWAChiatDay launched a new digital campaign with a series of online spots starring Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper and 2016 NBA Rookie of the Year Karl-Anthony Towns Jr.

In the spots, announcers point out an individual casually enjoying a Gatorade without breaking a sweat. Then one of the athletes pops up to make the person “burn it to earn it.” In “D Up with Karl-Anthony Towns,” for example, he slaps a man’s Gatorade out of his hand. Then he gives him a basketball and once he’s broken a sweat, and been thoroughly humiliated by the 7 foot tall Timberwolves center, he’s allowed to have his drink back.

The approach is very similar to a digital campaign from two years ago featuring Rob Belushi, Peyton Manning and Cam Newton. It’s essentially a defensive approach, staving off criticism of the company for peddling sugar water with the concept that the drink is meant for athletes who have “earned” the sugar by burning calories.

“With sugar being such a hot topic of conversation, especially in the beverage space, we wanted to talk about it head on — that our product is for athletes, the sugar is functional. It’s in there for a reason, to help fuel athletes and we are actually proud of it,” Gatorade head of consumer engagement Kenny Mitchell explained to AdAge. “We just want to make sure folks are earning it [and] we wanted to make sure that message is clear.”

It also calls to mind a bit by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, who said, “I’m thirsty for absolutely no reason, other than the fact that liquid has not touched my lips for some time. Can I have a Gatorade too, or does that lightning bolt mean no?”

With these spots and the similarly-minded earlier effort, the brand seems to be saying that no, you can’t. That approach is at least a little unusual in that it risks alienating a segment of the brand’s audience (namely, just thirsty dudes). But then that may be taking the ads a bit too seriously.

Ogilvy & Mather U.K. group chief creative officer Emma de la Fosse is introducing a new model for the agency called Makerspace, Campaign reports.

Get ready, because it is going to totally revolutionize the way creative agencies work, you guys! For reals this time.

Here’s the skinny: Rather than focusing on planning and research in the initial stages of the creative process, the agency will jump right in to creating a rough version of its intended approach immediately, while working within existing client budgets, aiming to complete each Makerspace project within a month. Campaign notes this could range from a pilot spot to launching social content that acts as a litmus test of public response to the work. The idea is that showing clients a tangible example of the creative approach in a meeting will result in a shared vision for strategy while allowing the campaign to reach its final stages more quickly.

Skeptical? Of course you are. But the agency is currently working with Dove, Pizza Hut and American Express on such Makerspace live briefs.

Ogilvy & Mather Group U.K. plans to adopt the Makerspace approach throughout its agencies and has set up a team to aid adoption of the strategy. Led by strategic maker Gary Bonilla, the team will be comprised of a data analyst, coder, two creative technologists, an Ogilvy PR executive and a paid media specialist from Neo@Ogilvy.

De la Fosse told Campaign the approach would result in the agency creating more work, adding, “The amount of chat that goes on in an agency is painful – it can take up to a year to make a TV commercial.”

The revolution will not be televised. Take note.

In case you missed it, the first public campaign from Joan, the agency launched by Jamie Robinson of W+K and Lisa Clunie of Ogilvy and Refinery29 this spring, debuted during the Emmys on Sunday night.

The spot for Netflix is an alternate take on “She Rules,” which was essentially a compilation of all the badass female characters in Netflix’s original shows. It mocks the sort of “how to behave like a woman in present-day society” educational reels that one imagines ’50s schoolchildren might watch (in black and white, of course). We’re not sure we’ve ever seen any of those, but the archetype is familiar and we are fairly sure they would make great midnight viewing.

The most important aspect of the spot is the choice of scenes to go along with the eye-roll narration. It manages to showcase most of Netflix’s original programming and get a few striking contrasts in there; we particularly liked the Jessica Jones “give your man a squeeze” death scene.

So this is the agency’s first publicly visible work, but they do have “unspecified yogurt, snack and meal-focused projects” in the pipeline for their first client General Mills, and we also talked to Robinson and Clunie at Cannes about their plans and how female creatives so often get assigned to work on “feminine” brands. Look for more work from Joan soon.

BBDO New York teamed up with acclaimed director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, music videos for, Björk, The White Stripes, Beck and others) in a new 30-second spot for Bacardi to launch the brand’s largest-ever global ad campaign. 

As you may recall, BBDO New York released its first campaign for Bacardi as AOR last October, after winning creative duties that April following Bacardi’s decision to consolidate creative and media without a review.

In the new spot, “The Night,” they’re clearly going for the younger crowd. The spot celebrates those who emerge after dark: the “brave shirts” and the “still-at-work shirts,” or a bunch of total bros who stand “united against all dress codes.” These groups are “illuminated by 1,000 likes” and seem exist for the sole purpose of partying as much as possible before catching the last train home. It ends with the tagline, “We Are The Night.”

It’s a type of blanket nightlife celebration designed to appeal to to party-happy 20-somethings, which makes sense for the brand.

There are traces of Gondry’s signature style here and there, though these touches aren’t quite strong enough to elevate the spot above a series of like-minded ads despite its fine direction and an obviously sizable production budget. It feels a bit plain for a project with Gondry’s name attached to it, though we wonder if the parties involved might go more abstract if given some room to move.

Credits:
Agency: BBDO New York
Client: Bacardi
Spot: “The Night”
Chief Creative Officer Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Danilo Boer
Executive Creative Director: Marcos Kotlhar
Associate Creative Director: Marcus Johnston
Associate Creative Director: Jim Connolly
Global Executive Producer: Angelo Ferrugia
Producer: BreeAnn Stuart
Business Manager: Matt Friday
Jr. Music Producer: Julia Millison
Evp, Senior Account Director: Steven Panariello
Account Director: Joshua Goodman
Account Manager: Meghan Wood
Account Executive: Lindsay Vellines
Evp, Group Director, Behavioral Planning: Gordon Mclean
Head of Communications Planning: Julian Cole
Communications Planning Director: Patrick Tomasiewicz

Production Company: Partizan
Director: Michel Gondry
Director of Photography: Shawn Kim
Production Designer: Maxwell Orgell
Head of Production: Molly Griffin
Executive Producer: Lisa Tauscher
Producer: Raffi Adlan
Production Manager: Debo / Joseph DeBartolo

Edit House: Final Cut
Editor: Jeff Buchanan
Head of Production: Jen Sienkwicz
Executive Producer: Sarah Roebuck
Producer: Penny Ensley
Assistant Editor: Spencer Campbell

Vfx & Design: The Mill
Producer: Chris Harlowe
Production Coordinators: Chris Lewis, Carlos Zalapa (New York)

Shoot Supervisors: Glyn Tebbutt and Felix Urquiza
2-D Lead Artist: Glyn Tebbutt
3-D Lead Artist: Felix Urquiza
2-D Artists: Katerina Arroyo, Tom Van Dop, Brad Scott, Dag Ivarsoy, Jake Elbers, Peter Sidoriak, Chris Knight
3-D Artists: Cory Cosper, Juan Salazar, Ahmed Elmatarawi, Blake Guest, Monique Espinoza, Troy Barsness, Mahmoud Elragheb, David Tyler Young, Michael Lori, Danny Garcia, Steven Olson

Matte Painting: Ed Laag
NY 2-D Lead Vfx/Finishing: Krissy Nordella
Colorist: Fergus Mccall
Executive Producer, Color: Dee Allen
Color Producer: Natalie Westerfield
Production Coordinator, Color: Evan Bauer

Audio Post: Heard City
Mixer: Philip Loeb
Producer: Talia Rodgers

Music: Soundtree
Song Title: “Night Creatures”
Composers: Luis Almau and Peter Raeburn For Soundtree Music Limited
Publisher: Soundtree Music Publishing Limited
Managing Director / Music Supervisor: Jay James

Additional Credits for Social and Bar Call:
Social and Bar Call Films Editor: Spencer Campbell
Finishing: Significant Others NY
Creative Director: Dirk Greene
Sound Mixer: Terressa Tate
Finishing Producer: Alek Rost
Color: Color Collective NY
Colorist: Mike Howell

When we last encountered one Blake Griffin, he was recreating Top Gun, taking on the Jordan mantle and generally appearing in lots of ads.

Now he’s back thanks to the Red Bull 30 Days in L.A. music festival and Brooklyn/Los Angeles-based creative and graphic design agency Doubleday & Cartwright, which launched this new spot today to promote the event.

Will you be in the Los Angeles area this November? Do you enjoy the rarely soothing sounds of Pusha T? Are you a Red Bull Sound Select Member? If you answered yes to all three, then Mr. Griffin might like to help you achieve unity through transcendence.

“Learning is the first step … make sure you’re stepping in the right direction.”

In case you didn’t get it, the festival will run through all of November in Los Angeles and feature a bunch of different acts, many of which we do not know because we are old and snobbish.

The blog post goes into a bit more detail about how brand spokesman Griffin wants to get you all to go check out some music in southern California this fall. And for the record, his favorite type of music is “I don’t have a favorite, I have eclectic taste” and the most important person in his life is “my family.” We’re beginning to think maybe he didn’t write those himself.

Regarding the work, Doubleday & Cartwright creative director Nathaniel Friedman, who you may know as a Wieden + Kennedy veteran and sports journalist or @freedarko on the social media, says, “We wanted to poke fun at Los Angeles while landing in a deliberately bizarre place. This one was a fun one to make and it certainly helped that Blake Griffin is a natural.”

The campaign will also include some social elements and a blooper/outtake reel. The festival itself starts on November 1st.

Credits

Agency: Doubleday & Cartwright
Executive Creative Director: Aaron Amaro
Creative Director/Writer: Nathaniel Friedman
Producer: Adam Argersinger

PRODUCTION: PDK Films
Director: Mike Warzin
Executive Producer: Dan Fisher
Producer: Jed Herold

EDITORIAL: White House Post
Editor: Matt Wood
Producer: Michael Beltrame
Executive Producer: Kristin Branstetter

POST FX: Carbon VFX
Executive Producer: Phil Linturn
Producer: Kate Soczka

MIX: a n o t h e r   c o u n t r y
Mixer: Drew Weir
Composer: Andy Huckvale

COLOR: CO3
Colorist: Tom Poole
Producer: Clare Movshon

Strother Nuckels Strategies launched a new campaign for Airbnb making an emotional appeal to viewers via interviews with Airbnb hosts who have gotten through tough times thanks to the home sharing service.

In “Meet Kevin and Esther of the Outer Sunset,” for example, Kevin explains that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2013. Since then, he and his family have used income from Airbnb to help pay their mortgage and Kevin’s hospital bills, as well as saving for college tuition for their children. Near the end of the spot, the message, “77% of Airbnb hosts in San Francisco say they use money they earn to help pay their rent or mortgage” appears onscreen. 

It’s not only San Francisco that gets the spotlight, though. In “Meet Dreama of Carrollton,” a woman explains that income from Airbnb helped keep her and her family in their house during a period of unemployment. Other spots feature Airbnb hosts from Vancouver, Los Angeles and New York. The campaign will run in broadcast, radio spots, pre-roll and banner ads in those locations through November. 

“The hosts telling their stories directly is really powerful; it’s showing people the real faces of Airbnb,” Ben Nuckles, Strother Nuckels Strategies partner at Strother Nuckels Strategies told Campaign. “None of these are scripted…We really wanted it to be an authentic story as told by the hosts.”

As individual stories the simple spots work to highlight the human connection of the service but there’s also a further implication that Airbnb benefits middle class families. That message is in stark contrast to a campaign launched last summer by lobbying group the Share Better Coalition, which criticized Airbnb, claiming in one ad that forty percent of Airbnb revenue in New York went to real estate moguls. The response by Airbnb, via this campaign, highlights how the company is helping middle class families, while side-stepping the specific real estate mogul criticism made by Share Better New York. It avoids the kind of controversy generated by TBWA’s OOH campaign against Proposition F in San Francisco, which would have required Airbnb to essentially be classified as a hotel chain, an effort that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said “embarrassed” the company. 

That didn’t stop the Share Better Coalition from firing back, though. In response it launched its own “Dear Airbnb” campaign, featuring messages accusing the service of “making millions from unregistered rental listings” and asking the company to abide by laws that “exist to protect us all.”

“Rather than creating petty misleading advertisements, we invite Share Better and their hotel industry backers to join us in working with city policymakers who agree the current registration system is broken,” an Airbnb spokesperson wrote in a statement. “We are ready, able and willing to work with city officials to find real solutions that protect housing and enable middle class residents to share their homes, but 400 percent increases in permit fees, taxes on silverware and an application process that can take months to complete all need to be fixed.”

Share Better New York and Share Better San Francisco both plan to release additional campaigns this year.

Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners launched a new campaign for Nature Made Adult Gummy Vitamins, focusing on how the range of adult gummy vitamins is the first to receive verification from the USP Dietary Supplement Verification Program. 

In a 30-second broadcast spot, a spa-enthusiast admits she has no idea what it is in the seaweed wrap her body is encased in. (We’re guessing, uh, seaweed.) But she does know what’s in her Nature Made Adult Gummy Vitamins, thanks to the aforementioned USP seal.

While the spot makes the USP-backing as selling-point quit clear, the setup of the spot is a little strange. On the one hand, it presents the product as a well-researched USP-approved supplement, while pointing to the seaweed wrap as a pseudoscience counterpoint. We just can’t help but wonder if there was perhaps a better counterexample than the seaweed wrap, which, regardless of efficacy, is at least pretty self-explanatory. You know what you’re in for, even if the benefits are unclear.

The point probably would have been better made with a counterexample that left viewers wondering what exactly the protagonist was getting into (perhaps some ridiculous homeopathy concoction), but at least BSSP gets to the point fairly quickly.