Hasta La Creative!

Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners launched an extension of its “Defy Labels” campaign for BMW’s Mini ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, which opens this Friday. 

The Olympic push is centered around a broadcast spot featuring Olympians such as Serena Williams, fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, rugby player Carlin Isles, weightlifter Morghan King, boxers Carlos Balderas and Claressa Shields, beach volleyball player Jake Gibb and swimmer Cullen Jones. Each of the athletes announces a label they’ve had applied to them reductively, such as “poor,” “black,” “immigrant” “Muslim,” and “cancer patient” (Gibb is a two-time cancer survivor), before Williams concludes, “The only label that matters is Olympian.” 

It’s a nice extension of the larger “Defy Labels” campaign and the different message helps the brand stand apart from the large pack of Olympics spots, most of which had debuts preceding this effort. The mix of Williams’ star power with relatively lesser-known Olympians is a nice touch as well, as is the decision to let Williams deliver the concluding line. A series of online interviews with individual athletes from the broadcast spot rounds out the effort.

“The campaign targets the Mini mind-set,” Tom Noble, head of marketing for the brand, told Adweek. “It’s about people who think independently. Our fans are people who appreciate design and also appreciate individuality. What we do know is that the Olympics indexes highly with our fans. They appreciate sports, and there are a lot of sports during these Games which are unique and different, only coming around every four years, and so this is a good platform to reach our audience.”

“We have a message that is topical if you look at what’s going on in today’s world, and you get a real, authentic view of what people’s struggles are and what they have overcome,” he added. “We believe having a relevant, inspiring message with a topical theme should cut through.” 

Credits:
Client: Mini
Agency: Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners
Chief Creative Officer: John Butler
Creative Director: Mark Krajan
Senior Art Director: Sinan Dagli
Senior Copywriter: Luke Zehner
Senior Producer: Lori Pisani
Head of Integrated Production: Adrienne Cummins
Account Director: Danny Peters
Account Supervisor: Michelle Finelli
Business Manager: Nihad Peavler
Director: Matt Baron
Company: All Day Every Day
Editor (TV):Pete Koob
Editor: Christopher Kasper
Editor: Andy Berner
Editorial Company: Cut & Run
Music: Joaby Deal
Music Company: One Union
Color Grading: Shane Reed
Color Grading Company: Apache
Finish: Jogger

In ESPN’s two most recent ad campaigns that we saw, Big Papi talked retirement and the network reminded us that live sports, unlike movies, cannot wait.

The latest spot from Wieden + Kennedy keeps things more narrowly focused on fantasy football, because all true fantasy fans watch ESPN — not for its airing of the games themselves but for all the guys who sit back in their chairs and earn millions via their own incisive commentary.

You, know, people like Matthew Berry!

We don’t really know him at all. Can you tell we rarely watch football?

There’s a product on offer here, though, and it’s ESPN’s fantasy football app.

The next spot in the series will air on Monday, August 8 — the day after the pre-season officially begins as the Colts and the Packers play each other in the Pro Football Hall of Fame game.

Can we just skip ahead to the Super Bowl? We only watch sports for the ads.

CLIENT: ESPN
PROJECT NAME: FFL 2016

W+K NEW YORK
Executive Creative Director: Karl Lieberman
Creative Directors: Brandon Henderson, Erwin Federizo
Art Director: Mark Potoka
Copywriter: Laddie Peterson
Producer: Alexey Novikov
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Executive Producer: Temma Shoaf
Account Team: Mike Welch, Matt Angrisani
Project Manager: Kristin Daly

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Director: Adam & Dave
Producer: Pat Harris
Executive Producer: Mal Ward
Director of Photography: Benn Martenson

EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Cosmo Street
Editor: Tom Scherma
Post Executive Producer: Luiza Naritomi

VFX
VFX Company: Switch FX
Lead Flame Artist/Creative Director: Jon Magel

MIX
Mix Company: Sonic Union
Mixer: Steve Rosen
Mixer: David Papa

United agency of record mcgarrybowen launched a spot for the airline ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics next Friday entitled “One Journey. Two Teams.”

The two teams in question? Team USA and Team United, naturally. As it turns out, Team USA does flight check in a little differently. The Olympic squad jumps over security gates, does backflips along railings, rows along moving sidewalks, and even pole vaults right onto the flight.

Set to a Brazilian take on United’s theme song, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” and a voiceover from Matt Damon, the spot is meant as a lighthearted and fun reminder of the airline’s status as an Olympic sponsor, concluding with the message, “United for over 35 years.” The format also allows mcgarrybowen to squeeze in appearances from Olympic athletes including swimmer Missy Franklin, volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings and soccer player Carli Anne Lloyd. The spot was filmed on a 787 Dreamliner in L.A., with the athletes all performing their own stunts related to their respective sports.

“Our 2016 Olympics advertising was a great way to engage and showcase our employees and our partnership with Team USA,”  United managing director of marketing and product development Mark Krolick told Adweek. “The United team works incredibly hard year round to transport U.S. Olympians and Olympic hopefuls to training, competitions and the Olympics and this campaign demonstrates that in an upbeat, fun and optimistic way.”

Credits:
Agency: mcgarrybowen
Client: United Airlines
Title: “One Journey, Two Teams”
Managing Director, Executive Creative Director: Haydn Morris
Group Creative Director: David DiRienz
Group Creative Director: Erik Izo
Managing Director, Content Production: Dante Piacenza
Managing Director, Global Music Production: Jerry Krenach
Executive Producer: Stacy Kay
Group Managing Director: Jamie Ross
Account Director: Joey Ziarko
Account Supervisor: Kayla Friedman
Athletes: Simone Biles, Kerri Walsh Jennings, Carli Lloyd, Missy Franklin, Ashton Eaton, Logan Dooley, Dartanyon Crockett
Production Company: Pulse Films
Director: Michael Haussman
President of Commercials: Kira Carstensen
Executive Producer: Hillary Rogers
Producer: Linda Masse
Director of Photography: Paul Cameron
Editor: Jon Grover
Executive Producer: Raná Martin
Producer: Ellese Jobin
Visual Effects: Framestore
Audio Engineer: Michael Marineli
Audio Studio: Sonic Union
Composition: “Rhapsody In Blue” by George Gershwin
Arrangement and Production: Yessian Music
Arranger: Dan Zank
Record and Mix Engineer: Gerard Smerek
Partner/CCO: Brian Yessian
VO Talent: Matt Damon

Los Angeles agency Phenomenon launched a new campaign for Wilson featuring Swiss tennis player Roger Federer promoting the Pro Staff RF 97 racket he co-designed. 

The black-and-white spot features fans reading letters from Federer (thus the title) while using the new racket. In what has become a somewhat tired device, one fan continues where the last left off. “If you look at me not as someone to emulate, but someone to oneday eclipse,” conclude a pair of fans, before Federer himself chimes in with “then I designed this racket for you.”

Fans of Federer will probably be pretty stoked to pick up a racket co-designed by the superstar himself. More casual fans may be less swayed by the spot’s hero worship.

The campaign includes the long-form version of the ad above, as well as a 30-second broadcast version.

Supporting the spot are digital and social media elements, including surprise engagements from Federer himself. There will also be on-the-ground activations at the U.S. Open tournament on August 27, where the rackets will be exclusively available until their retail rollout at the beginning of September.

Grey Canada launched a new, minimalist campaign for Mill Street, the Toronto brewery founded in 2002 and purchased by A-B InBev-owned Labatt Brewing Company last year.

The campaign takes the sarcastic, advertising-mocking approach to the extreme with radio ads which make light of the way other brands market their beers. In “True Story,” brewmaster Joel (actual brewmaster Joel Manning) tells the story of how Mill Street’s 100th Meridian Organic Amber Lager came to be: he suggested at a meeting that they brew it, everyone liked the idea, and so they did.

Cool story, bro. The implicit argument behind the approach, of course, is they don’t need slick marketing tactics to sell the beer, because the quality of the brew sells itself.

Another spot, “In Pack,” sees Joel responding with some animosity when a promo agency (supposedly) suggested they include a neon bandana as an “in pack” incentive with Mill Street’s summer sampler. “Focus Group,” meanwhile, sees Joel functioning as the sole member of a focus group for the brewery’s new West Coast IPA. (He thought it was really good.)

Print ads take a similar approach, with messages like “A minute more making this ad is a minute less spent making the beer.” That’s not exactly true, of course, since Grey is the one making the ads, but the approach is part of cultivating Mill Street’s image as a small craft brand, despite its status as a member of the A-B InBev roster.

While it’s nice to see an actual brewer get the nod in the radio ads, it’s sort of funny to think of Mill Street’s marketing team and Grey hard at work coming up with a strategy for the brand and arriving at the idea of making it seem like they didn’t spend any time thinking about the brand’s marketing at all — followed by a design team painstakingly deciding which font looks most like they didn’t spend any time on the print ads. The approach also sees an A-B InBev owned brand (through Labatt) mocking the kind of advertising gimmicks of its parent companies — sort of the opposite of Budweiser’s craft-mocking Super Bowl advertising despite A-B InBev’s continued pursuit of craft breweries.

“This campaign is all about breaking through a cluttered category with originality,” explained Mill Street vice president of marketing Jeffrey Zietlow. “A lot of beer companies are conveying the same kind of messaging and that often involves a lot of showmanship. We decided to go in a different direction which is to keep it simple and let our product speak for itself.”

CP+B L.A. launched a new campaign for PayPal-owned payment app Venmo featuring YouTube sneaker reviewer/”influencer” (ugh) Brad Hall.

“Normally I talk about cool shoes,” says Hall, in his trademark deadpan, at the beginning of the spot, “Today I’m talking about something even more important than cool shoes: how to buy cool shoes with Venmo.” Hall’s Venmo review continues for some two and a half minutes, with things getting a bit suggestive when he talks about the app’s push notification feature. “The push notification and I, we have a fun relationship,” he says. “I touch it, it responds, we could do this all day long.”

Hall is so excited about the app, he can’t help breaking into song.

While fans of Hall’s deadpan humor will likely find plenty to enjoy here, other views may be left wondering who the hell this guy is and what exactly is going on. That’s not entirely to the spot’s disadvantage, as Hall’s awkwardness provides a nice contrast with his apparent enthusiasm for the app, allowing him to deliver an enthusiastic endorsement that’s part of the humor, as he casually mixes in such ridiculous “features” as the app “fitting all the way inside a smart phone.” The schtick wears thin by the end of the spot, however, as the approach would have been better served by a more concise format. In addition to the launch tutorial, the campaign will in fact feature several shorter videos, which presumably also feature Hall’s deadpan enthusiasm.

“When CP&B LA, an advertising agency in L.A., approached me about doing an #ad for Venmo I was initially skeptical,” Hall said in a statement. “I make unboxing videos about cool shoes. Not cool apps. But then I heard how cool the new Venmo app was and I realized that it was cooler than cool shoes because it lets you buy cool shoes using Venmo. I told CP+B LA that I’d like to unbox this application so the world can know what I now know — the Venmo application is cool. And that was exactly what they wanted me to do in the first place so they said, ‘Yes.’ I told them, ‘Thank you.’ Then they said, ‘Thank you.’ Then I said, ‘Please tell Venmo thank you too.’ And we kept going back and forth like that for what felt like forever but was only 30 minutes.”

Based on our admittedly limited knowledge, Miami is a bit like Cannes with a less lily-white cast and rum/vodka in place of rosé. But everything in both cities is very fashionable.

To that point, online car seller Autotrader, which dropped Doner after 16 years last fall and now resides with L.A.’s Zambezi, recently staged an installation and interactive event in Miami that was all about style. By that we mean personal style, as in “What sort of color would you like your next car to be??”

This project guessed at the answer, using “color detection paired with 3D projection mapping technology” to match the tint of a given car to that of clothing worn by passersby. As one participant put it, “Yo, banana!”

In order to promote the event, the company brought in some social media influencers including — yes — “Remix the Dog.”

He looks happy because he can’t see his own outfit.

A few human fashion plates also showed up to share.

According to the release, this effort was aimed at all those young people who see cars as fashion accessories, or “a means to tell the world who they are.”

Zambezi ECD Josh DiMarcantonio reminded us that Autotrader isn’t like your average used car salesman: “To us, Autotrader isn’t just a car shopping brand. It’s a technology brand. And nowhere is that more evident than in the technology Autotrader uses to match consumers with their perfect car.”

The client’s senior director of consumer marketing Scott Thomas said, “Autotrader enables people find their perfect car match, and we wanted to emphasize that you don’t have to search for a car in an expected way. You can use your own life and sense of style as a filter for what you want and need in a car, and Autotrader will help you get there.”

The next question, obviously: when is Grand Theft Auto 6 coming out?

Credits

Client: Autotrader
Agency: Zambezi
Founder, Chief Executive Officer: Chris Raih
Partner, Executive Creative Director: Josh DiMarcantonio
Associate Creative Director: Ben George
Associate Creative Director: Nick Rodgers
Senior Art Director: Max Pollak
Senior Copywriter:  Brian Hallisey
Partner, Head of Content: Alex Cohn
Partner, Executive Director of Technology: Justice Erolin
Sr. Digital Producer:  Ziv Sibony
Producer: Katrina Nahikian
Partner, Managing Director:  Pete Brown
Account Director: Matt Kline
Account Supervisor: Lauren Bondell
Account Executive: Tori Tessalone
Project Manager: Courtney Szews
Chief Strategy Officer: Kristina Jenkins
Group Strategy Director: Ryan Richards
Strategist: Keely Galgano 

Production Company: Unit 9
Director: Andrew Gage
Creative Partner: Michelle Craig
Creative Director: Sean Pruen
Director of Photography: Bart Tau
Executive Producer: Luca DeLaurentiis
Producer: Vianney Comot
Production Manager: Andrew Nathanson 

Editorial: Blink Studios
Editor: Paul Oh
Assistant Editors: Sasha Perry

BBDO New York launched a new campaign for Foot Locker featuring Houston Rockets star James Harden, who the agency teamed up with last September for the “Play My Tweet” effort.

The campaign features a series of spots starring Harden, centered around the spot “James Harden’s Inner Voice.” It seems that some strangeness from Periscope and Harden’s whacky work for Trolli may have seeped into the effort, as said “inner voice” sounds a lot like Colin Farrell.

When approached by two fans, Harden’s gives out a little nugget of advice: “Look fresh and always trust that little voice in your head,” to which the fan nods along…until Harden adds, “you know, that little voice that kind of sounds like Collin Farrell.” The guys look thoroughly perplexed as Harden’s inner Farrell voice tells him it’s time to get going so he can “shower and wait for the president to call.”

The other spots follow the strange formula, with Farrell providing Harden’s inner monologue for a practice session, a strange car entry method and, in both “Treadmill” and the self-referential “Greatest Pre-Roll Ever” a workout session.

Harden is a natural choice for such a strange approach, even if the scenarios in which he interacts with his inner Colin Farrell voice are a little run-of-the-mill. Harden’s presence and the sheer strangeness of the ads should be enough to at least help them stand out from the pack, however — especially at a time when other brands seem focused on the 2016 Rio Olympics.

HBO’s Vinyl has already proven that one man can’t carry a franchise, even if he happens to be a charismatic actor who was good in that boring retro gangster show that lasted three seasons longer than it should have.

But Bobby Cannavale was a nice choice for this new Wieden+Kennedy Nike ad, which aired last night and already has about 8 million YouTube hits.

In “Unlimited Future,” Cannavale speaks to some of Nike’s (and the world’s) best-known athletes as babies, giving them a very unconventional pep talk.

That ad reminded us of a few things that we sort of knew: Mo Farah was separated from his family; Serena Williams and her sister grew up in Compton; top Chinese NBA draft prospect Zhou Qi is “mysterious“; Neymar Jr. did not choose to be a Jr. Also, LeBron went to Cleveland and Nike made an ad about it after he won.

Even though you can’t determine your parents, your place of birth, your social class or any number of other variables that will ultimately have a significant impact on your life, you CAN control whether you decide to work your ass off from the moment you first become self-aware enough to start considering it. And a Nike contract can be the ultimate product of all that work for an athlete who isn’t yet a household name.

“The road to greatness is a long one, made up of staunch determination, inevitable struggles and hard-won triumphs,” the release tells us.

It’s part of a pre-Olympic series profiling Nike contract athletes that provides a pretty good twist on the common millionaires as underdogs narrative, and it allows for a lot of winking references to famous names without crowding any of those familiar people onto the screen.

To get serious for a moment, though: the Rio games are gonna be a big mess, right?

Credits
CLIENT: Nike
PROJECT NAME: Unlimited Future

W+K PORTLAND
Global Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Ryan O’Rourke
Interactive Director: Dan Viens
Executive Producer: Matt Hunnicutt
Copywriter: Josh Bogdan
Art Director: Pedro Izique
Agency Producer: Erin Goodsell
Digital Producer: Patrick Marzullo, Keith Rice
Strategic Planning: Andy Lindblade, Nathan Goldberg, Reid Schilperoort
Media/Comms Planning: Danny Sheniak, John Furnari, Brian Goldstein, Jocelyn Reist
Account Team: Chris Willingham, Alyssa Ramsey, Corey Woodson, Anna Boteva, Carly Williamson

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Superprime
Director: Damien Chazelle
Executive Producer: Rebecca Skinner
Head of Production: Roger Zorovich
Line Producer: William Green
Director of Photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production Designer: Melanie Jones
Casting: Dan Bell Casting
EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Exile
Editor: Eric Zumbrunnen
Assistant Editor: Dusten Silverman
Post Producer: Brittany Carson
Executive Post Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver
Head of Production: Jennifer Locke

VFX
VFX Company: The Mill
2D Lead Artist: Adam Lambert
2D Artists: Joy Tiernan, Jason Bergman
Matte Painting: Rasha Shalaby
VFX Producer: Alex Bader
VFX Coordinator: Samantha Hernandez
Executive VFX Producer: Enca Kaul
Shoot Supervisor: Phil Crowe, Tim Rudgard
Color
Company: The Mill
Colorist: Adam Scott
Executive Producer: Thatcher Peterson
Color Producer: Diane Valera
ORIGINAL MUSIC
Music Company: Beacon Street Studios
Composer: John Nau
Executive Producer: Adrea Lavezzoli
Music Company: Walker
Composer: Frédéric Chopin
Track Name: XBereceuse, Op. 57
Arranger: McKenzie Stubbert
Executive Producer: Sara Matarazzo
Senior Producer: Abbey Hickman
Music Coordinators: Jacob Piontek, Marissa Hernandez

LICENSED MUSIC
Artist: Santigold
Track Name: “Kicking Down Doors”
Music Supervision: Walker
SOUND DESIGN
Sound Design Company: Barking Owl
Sound Designer: Michael Anastasi
Creative Director: Kelly Fuller Bayett
Producer: Ashley Benton

MIX
Music/Sound/Mix Company: Lime Studios
Audio Mixer: Rohan Young
Audio Assistant: Ben Tomastik
Executive Producer: Susie Boyajan

With the 2016 Rio Olympics two weeks away, Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam launched a campaign for Amnesty International Netherlands designed to show viewers “The Other Side of the Medal.”

After opening on a shot of the Olympic stadium in Rio de Janeior, the spot cuts to the back of a young man running as gun shoots off in the air. The message “In Rio, Matheus Silva ran the fastest 100 metres of his life,” appears onscreen, at which point viewers might expect yet another story of an athlete triumphing over adversity. But this isn’t the case. Instead, it shows the young man running away from cops with a group of friends before being shot in the back. The 19-year-old victim, “Killed in 2014. Innocent and unarmed.” was one of the over 2,651 people in the city killed by police violence since the games were awarded to Rio, the majority of which were young black men.

“The police are breaking records in Rio,” the spot concludes, mentioning the over 2,500 people killed by cops in the city in the past seven years and asking viewers to sign a petition calling for an end to police violence in Rio. 

The “#PoliceBreakingRecords” campaign arrives at a time when racism and police violence are still very much on the minds of Americans in the wake of recent shootings, and undoubtedly people in other countries as well. Its parallel between the celebratory nature of the Olympics and police violence in the city is a striking one, and should garner attention for an issue that hasn’t received much attention, but is all too familiar.

“The film is based on a real story, a story of a young man in his prime, who’s life was cut brutally short. A story that touched us,” explained Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam creative director Jacques Massardo. “The events surrounding the shooting closely mirrored to a sprint, connects the world of the Olympics to police violence in a powerful way. Which gives it the potential to do more than just generate awareness, but hopefully also trigger people to take action and sign the petition.”

“Despite the promise that Rio would be a safe Olympic city, the amount of deaths as a result of police bullets increased over the last two years. We ask people all over the world to take action and maximize the pressure on Brazil. The Olympics should be seen as a celebration, not a place for excessive police violence,” added Amnesty International Netherlands campaign coordinator Jan Willem Dol.

Credits:
Client: Amnesty International Nederland
Account: Pauline Landa (Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam)
Creatives: Djajant Hanenberg, Helen Fernando, Jacques Massardo (Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam)
Production: DPPLR
Direction: Daniel Dow
Producer: Lotte Kwak
DOP: Aage Hollander
Focus Puller: Justus Engelbracht
Line Production: Soulkitchen
Composition & Sound Design: Audentity
Off-line/colorist: Ruben Labree
Creative Producer: Nils Vleugels
Compositor: Bas Wijers
Production assistant: Titus Vriend
Styling: Nadine Rodenburg
Aerial Cinematography: Ricardo Malaguti
Broadcast/cinemacopies: Captcha!
Camera: Camalot & Camaleón
Bioscoopmasters: Haghefilm Digitaal en Cinemeta
Media Sanoma | SBS, Jan Mineur Mediavision, STER, RTL