Hasta La Creative!

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.

Deutsch launched a strange new ad for Taco Bell called “Feast,” promoting the chain’s $1 All Day offerings.

The 30-second spot centers around a collection of people indulging in a Taco Bell feast. For some reason, the individuals all seem to be decked out in Victorian garb, or rather a mix of Vicotrian dress and modern day clothing. One woman is even rocking what appears to be some sort of fork hat/crown. Over this odd scene the voiceover lists some of the value menu offerings, such as the bacon-grilled breakfast burrito and shredded chicken mini quesadilla.

The emphasis on the value menu makes sense at a time when that seems to be helping drive sales for fast food chains. We’re not sure what the Victorian garb and fork-centric head attire is about, but the approach does allow Deutsch to schowcase a full spread of the value menu offerings.

The weirdness, we suppose, could also help the chain stand out. And Taco Bell is all about that.

When last we heard from Grey New York and auto loan company Ally Financial, the agency had designed a bunch of colognes that smelled odd and probably not so impressive automobiles. Who wouldn’t want to smell like a muscle car??

Last week, the two launched Ally’s very first unified brand campaign under the “Do It Right” tagline, which refers to the way Ally treats its customers: right. Also, nothing stops them. Not even one thing.

The anthem spot “Ally Team Huddle” shows us just how far that principle can go with a little help from the old Motley Crue.

We like the guy hanging from the balcony at :17. How did he get there and, more importantly, who will help him down?!

In the next spot, “Swimming Pool,” the always reliable Brian Posehn helps an Ally employee return to the land of the living. But that guy just can’t resist slipping back into the darkness in order to reveal some more details about the future life of the former star of the sadly missed Mr. Show. (The Netflix reboot was not good, dudes. Now let’s argue about it on reddit.)

“Wishing Well” shows us that Ally employees’ dedication to their clients goes beyond the job itself. That won’t stop attitude extends to dates and ill-advised treks into public bodies of water.

For more on that “going places you definitely shouldn’t go” theme, one Ally employee braves all sorts of painful and potentially fatal pitfalls to score that deal.

Things take a turn toward the freaky in “Hitchhiker,” one of fiction’s most reliable sources of guaranteed mischief. This actor reminds us of a young Buscemi…

The last spot in the series, “Go Spartans,” doesn’t quite have the punchline or concept of the other ads, but its heart is in the right place. It’s just a bit more straightforward in that Bad News Bears sort of way.

The print ads also cover the snarky/earnest dichotomy. First, Kimmy might be just a little too enthusiastic. We wouldn’t want to cross her.

Troy, on the other hand, simply cares about his community. Does he really need another reason??

The campaign launch included the six spots above, the first half of which are broadcast. New print ads will also debut in the fall to highlight products, employees and customers.

CMO Andrea Riley says, “The launch of ‘Do It Right’ marks an important milestone for Ally, because it brings together all of our financial services offerings under one unified brand promise that truly reflects our company and our relentless focus on doing things right for our customers. The creative includes photos of Ally teammates and customers and incorporates powerful narratives to illustrate the ways that we do things right.”

The punchier ones definitely stood out. And if one agency can make an endless series of sometimes-funny ads about car insurance, another can do the same with auto loans. (We know that auto finance is only one part of the Ally portfolio as they also do bank and credit card stuff, but that would dilute our point.)

After debuting its first work for University of Phoenix in February, following winning creative duties in a review launched last September, 180LA launched a new campaign last month for the for-profit university with a 60-second anthem ad borrowing from the Maya Angelou poem “Still I Rise.” With football season here, the agency launched a follow-up effort starring Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald which aims straight for the heartstrings. 

In the spot, Fitzgerald reveals he sometimes still calls the house of his mother, who died in 2003 when Fitzgerald was still a freshman in college, to hear her voice on the answering machine. Fitzgerald made a promise to his mother before she passed away that no matter how successful he was as an athlete he would graduate from college. He finally fulfilled that promise this spring and calls to leave a message on the answering machine telling his mother about the accomplishment. Need a tissue?

For what it’s worth, 180LA told Creativity that Fitzgerald’s message to his mother was not rehearsed and was filmed in a single take.

The continuation of the “We Rise” campaign made its debut last Sunday during NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast of the Cardinals’ home opener against the New England Patriots. A series of five videos running on social media round out the effort. Undoubtedly emotional, some may view the spot as uncomfortably emotionally manipulative, given concerns around the for-profit school’s recruitment and admission policies.

Forsman & Bodenfors, the Swedish agency acquired by MDC Partners this June, launched a new campaign for luxury design brand Georg Jensen, celebrating five women who have risen to the top of their respective fields in service of the message that “You Can Never Be Too Much You.”

Film director Susanne Bier, chef Dominique Crenn, stand-up comedian Sarah Kendall, boxer Cecilia Brækhus and Iranian motocross rider Behnaz Shafei all appear in the ad. It opens with the line “You’ll always be too much of something to someone.” Each woman is then introduced with a criticism they have had to brush aside over the course of their career, such as “too ambitious,” “too strong” and “too loud.” The spot concludes, “if you round your edges, you lose your edge.”

The idea, of course, is that you can’t let such criticisms define you or impact how you set about achieving your goals. It’s one of the more interesting takes on the femvertising approach we’ve seen in that it addresses a real problem in a positive, but not hokey, way. It’s also very well shot and handles the pacing between its subjects well. The spot isn’t as successful, perhaps, at tying the brand to the message. There’s an implication that Georg Jensen, like the accomplished women in the ad, stands for ignoring such criticism in pursuit of independence and excellence. It also ties their success and prestige to the brand. Maybe that’s enough.

Grey New York launched a new campaign promoting Marriott’s rewards program, entitled “You Are Here,” with a 30-second launch spot.

The campaign focuses on real Marriots Rewards members, such as the marine archeologist who takes center stage in the launch spot. As she scuba dives with family near the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman, she says “Every time I travel, it’s the moments that are most rewarding. Because if you let yourself embrace them, you’ll never forget them.” The shots of the scuba diving trip combine cinemagraphs and other variable speed footage.

The spot ends by promising to “help find your moments” if you join the reward program. It’s an example of a spot making its strategic goals perhaps a bit too obvious. Clearly the campaign was inspired by millenials’ value of memorable experiences, but hitting viewers over the head with the message diminishes its impact. The ultimately meaningless “You Are Here” tagline doesn’t help things either.

The 30-second spot is the first of four spots that will air this year as part of the campaign. Additionally, Marriott added a membership stories section to its Marriott Traveler digital magazine and released a behind-the-scenes video for the cmaping. 

“To stand out in an industry that is flush with expected, staged visuals, you have to do something dramatically different,” Grey New York CCO Andreas Dahlqvist told AdAge.