Hasta La Creative!

CP+B launched a campaign for Fruit of the Loom’s new Micro-Mesh Breathable Boxer Briefs, which shows how the product is so effective it’s putting “Josh and Donny’s Supercool Superstore for Men” out of business. 

A series of late-night local TV ad-style spots show Josh and Donny advertising their going out of business sale (Sale! Sale!) as they decide to throw in the towel. Over the years, the pair have been the “industry leader in cooling products for men” but their technology — which includes the The Pants Snorkel, Fridges for Britches, The Bro-Dryer and The Eski-Bro — can’t compete with the Fruit of the Loom’s new breathable underwear.

While not laugh out loud funny, there’s a certain charm in the ads’ aims at seeming like a thrown together low budget production. That’s not bad for an underwear ad and the approach actually manages to sell Fruit of the Loom’s new innovation pretty well. The fictional products themselves may be the real highlight, particularly The Pants Snorkel and The Eski-Bro. In addition to the spots, which will run on social media and pre-roll, the campaign also includes a very low-budget website.

“Men have been trying to stay cool south of the equator since forever ago, but the technology to do so hasn’t evolved since talcum powders,” the CP+B creative team explained to LBB. So the campaign imagines a post-talcum industry leader before the advent of Fruit of the Loom’s new innovation. 

Credits:
Agency: CP+B
CCO: Ralph Watson
Creative Director: Allen Richardson, D’Arcy O’Neill
Strategist: Fabiana Brown
Account Director: Kristi Kirkeide Boutiette
Executive Producer: Dan Corken
Managing Director: Danielle Whalen
Producer: Amber Peña, Jordan Griffith (Interactive)
Business Affairs: Daphne Papadopulos
Project Manager: Alex Blumfelder (Snr), Courtney Pollard
Content Director: Tara Delaney
Content Manager: Tracy Sarli
Senior Copywriter: Josh Shelton, Ryan Contillo
Senior Art Director: Donny Brunner
Integrated Producer: Ramon Nuñez
Group Strategy Director: David Burg

Production Company: Caviar
Director: Jonathan Krisel

Post Production: Artjail

OFFLINE
Editor: Carlos Lowenstein

Editorial Company: The Whitehouse Post, Chicago

MUSIC AND SOUND
Sound Mix: LIME Studios
Sound Engineer: Matt Miller
Music Supervision: KBV Records

W+K Delhi launched a new musical spot for Nike (more of a branded music video than an ad, really) celebrating the country’s female athletes to the tune of Gener8ion and Gizzle‘s “Da Da Ding” (also the name of the spot). 

Directed by François Rousselet, the spot eschews voiceover narration and dialogue, instead letting the stylized images of athletes (complete with bright Nike kicks) and the anthemic music (W+K India co-wrote the lyrics with Gizzle) to do the talking. Among the athletes appearing in the ad are movie star and former national badminton player Deepika Padukone, surfer Ishita Malaviya and national field hockey player Rani Rampal. 

“Sport in India has a massive image problem, particularly for women. What we set out to do is give it a complete makeover by making it cool, accessible and fun,” W+K India creative director Mohamed Rizwan said, in a statement. “To that end, we commissioned some of the best image makers and musicians, and got together a crew of women that best represent sport in India right now.”

Indeed, the music video is inspiring, making athletic endeavors like running and parkour seem exhilarating, rather than exhausting and painful. Its stylish approach just might succeed in getting more Indian women involved in sports by making them seem like an accessible, fun and worthwhile endeavor — and sell some Nikes in the process.

In addition to the music video, which has over 350,000 views since being uploaded yesterday, the campaign also includes a collaboration with photographer Aman Makkar. W+K India commisioned Makkar to take a series of portraits of everyday athletes, as well as Nike’s NTC Trainers and national athletes. There’s also a social element, focusing on content uploaded to Instagram and Dubsmash by members of the “girl sport squad.”

Credits:
Client: Nike India
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Delhi
Executive creative directors: Kim Papworth, Susan Hoffman
Creative Director: Mohamed Rizwan
Writer: Ankita Tobit
Art Director: Anyaa Dev
Account Director: Aparna Battoo
Account Manager: Jayaram Shankar
Agency Producer: Deb Drumm
Director of Emerging Markets: Karrelle Dixon
Managing Director: Patrick Cahill
Global Planning Director: Andy Lindblade
Planner: Michelle Arrazcaeta
Global Media Planning Director: Danny Sheniak
Production company : Division
Director: François Rousselet
Executive producer: Jules de Chateleux
Editor: Tom Lindsay, Trim Editing
DOP: Matias Bouchard
Music: Da Da Ding – Gener8ion, feat. Gizzle (vocals)
Photographer: Aman Makkar

You know who had a great weekend? Serena Williams.

Imagine for a moment that you are the undisputed champion of your discipline and you still have to deal with dumb people talking shit about you all the time. That’s Serena.

The theme of this short film is that she remains, as always, an underdog.

From the release:

Work ethic of an underdog. Willpower of a champion. This is Unlimited Serena. In her words, “There’s no day that goes by that I feel like losing.”

It’s the latest work for Nike from Dirty Robber, which played the roles of both creative agency and production company on the campaign. The team had the short ready to go just moments after Williams won her record-tying 22nd Grand Slam women’s title over the weekend.

It’s the latest in a series of similar shorts that the company has produced for Nike. Here’s another one starring British distance runner Mo Farah, who reminds us that success in competitive sports is less about magic than practice.

Serena already has over 3 million views on Facebook.

360i, Weber Shandwick and Momentum collaborated on a campaign serving as a follow-up to February’s “Oreo Wonder Vault” effort for Oreo, which saw a mysterious Oreo door near 18th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in New York lead to a Wonka-esque OOH activation. The follow-up changes coasts, with a Los Angeles installation promoting the brand’s new Choco Chip Cookies.

The 30-second launch video, running on digital and social, stokes childhood nostalgia in viewers by reminding them of a time when imaginative playtime ended with a snack of chocolate chip cookies … and no one even had to recharge their mobile devices!

Depicting a man moving to a new house with his son while recalling his childhood, the spot ends with the pair sharing a few Choco Chip Cookie Oreos along with the line, “But no matter where we end up or how far we go, we can still feel at home with this new treat from Oreo.”

The actual OOH component of the campaign follows through on the theme. Visitors to the “Wonder Vault” in L.A. will find a rooms full of oversized objects, meant to make them feel like a kid again, including a giant table with oversized charis where they can sit, legs dangling, and, of course, an enormous cookie jar full of Oreos.

This is not a green screen.

“The new cookie is a combination of two childhood classics: Oreo and chocolate chip. Together they become a beacon of home, evoking simple childhood memories of wonder and ease,” the brand told AdFreak.

In addition to the OOH activation and launch video, the campaign also includes a week-long, Twitter-based sweepstakes offering participants the chance to win a pair of Oreo cookie jars and two packs of Choco Chip Oreos to fill them. 

New York-based agency Walrus released a campaign promoting Tiny Toast, General Mills first new cereal brand in over 15 years.

Entitled “Humans Can’t Resist,” it features a series of 15-second spots portraying scenes of human-animal role-reversal. In the bizarre “Sheep,” for example, a sheep sheers a hairy man’s back while he slurps up a bowl of Tiny Toast. A tad on the gross side, it’s clearly meant as a humorous execution of the tagline, as the man doesn’t seem to mind having his hair harvested as long as he can keep eating the cereal.

While this is easily the strangest of the bunch, the other spots all follow the same basic premise. “Horse” applies the concept to an old woman cajoled with the cereal by her equine master. “Birds” sees a woman pressed against a glass window, staring at a family of birds sitting down to breakfast, while “Seagull” depicts a bit of human thievery (an act of revenge if you’ve ever had a snack stolen by one of these birds at the beach). All of the spots manage to work in a description of the “real fruit” used in the cereal into their bizarre scenarios. In addition to the online spots, the campaign also includes social media and in-store elements.

“Consumers’ tastes continue to evolve, but they remain steadfast in their search for options with wholesome, pantry-friendly ingredients,” said Alan Cunningham, senior marketing manager at General Mills.

“This inspired our development process, and we went where few brands in the cereal category have gone before, using real fruit. With real ingredients and a truly irresistible taste, we know consumers will agree Tiny Toast was worth the wait.”

A man asks a (presumably imaginary) audience for help in David&Goliath’s latest for California Lottery, promoting new The Price is Right Scratchers.

Overexcited attendees screaming suggestions to competitors were always a notable part of the show, so it makes sense to include this feature in an ad promoting the scratch off game.

When a man goes to check out at a local convenience store, he asks the clerk for a The Price is Right Scratcher. The clerk then asks him if he wants a 2, 5 or 10. Seeming unsure, he turns around to see people screaming suggestions at him and eventually settles for the middle option.

Playing it safe. We like.

There are a number of ways David&Goliath could have gone about trying to incorporate the series, which is really the game’s selling point, but selecting the audience participation aspect was probably a good choice. The callback to the schtick at the end of the spot when the clerk asks if the guy wants anything else is a nice touch (it turns out that he forgot the cat food).

In addition to the 30-second broadcast spot, the campaign also includes a series of social ads depicting loose change as The Price is Right contestants and spots airing on gas station TVs with audiences surprising unsuspecting customers. We are pretty sure D&G wasn’t responsible for this masterpiece, though.

Sit back and relax. We have tonight’s winning #Powerball numbers right here: https://t.co/gVW11si288 #CALottery pic.twitter.com/VUcKWdqw5h

— California Lottery (@calottery) July 7, 2016

The campaign will run in local California markets and also include OOH and radio elements.

Credits:
Agency: David&Goliath, LA
Founder & Chairman: David Angelo
Chief Creative Officer: Colin Jeffery
Executive Creative Director: Bobby Pearce
Creative Director/Writer: Greg Buri
Creative Director: Basil Cowieson
Writer: Kurt Warner
Art Director: Danny O’Connor
Strategic Planning Director: Kristen Knape
Strategic Planner: Chris Kwak
Managing Director of Broadcast Production: Paul Albanese
Broadcast Producer: Jessica Gardner
Director of Business Affairs: Rodney Pizarro
Business Affairs Manager: Camara Price
Associate Business Affairs Manager: Travis Kohler
Group Account Director: Stacia Parseghian
Account Director: Janet Wang
Account Supervisor: Lindsay Brown
Assistant Account Executive: Ellen Lovoy
Account Coordinator: Alex Petosa
Project Manager: Mike Antonellis
Chief Digital Officer: Mike Geiger
Director of Digital Production: Peter Bassett
Senior Interactive Developer: Ardon Hall
Associate Developer: Mariano Echegoyen
Senior Interactive Art Director: Steven Lau
Associate Interactive Producer: Nat Wilkes
UX Lead: John Randall
Director of Print Services: Meredith Walsh
Senior Art Producer: Andrea Rosenfeld
Production Company: O Positive
Director: Brian Billow
Director of Photography: Larry Fong
Executive Producers: Ralph Laucella & Marc Grill
Line Producer: Trevor Allen
Sales Representative: Irma Rodriguez |In House Reps
Editorial House: Spinach
Editor: Kevin Zimmerman c/o Spot Welders LA
Assistant Editor: Doug Scott
Producer: Jonathan Carpio
Telecine: Company 3
Colorist: Sean Coleman
Online & VFX: Method Studios
Flame Artist: Emily Irvine
Executive Producer: Robert Owens
Producer: Cara Lehr
Music: Licensed c/o FremantleMedia
Mix House: Lime Studios
Sound Mixer/Engineer: Sam Casas
Social Videos
Directors: Casey McIntyre, Kina Choi
Executive Producer: Mike Wigart
Line Producer: Stan Sawicki
Director of Photography: Yash Bhatt
Editor: Jonathan Ficcadenti
VFX Supervisor: Mike Wynd
VFX Producer: Brian Friel
VFX Team: Tim Kafka, Matthew Burns, Rodrigo Carrasco, Kathleen Kirkman, Jonathan Ficcadenti, Matt Bell, Emily
Gerich, Sandra Ross, Rodrigo Jimenez, Christopher Brown, Brian Williams, Andrew Arevalo, Jacob Patrick, Andrew
Price, Priya Bandodkar, Akshay Sunil Wadwalkar
Colorist: Kristopher Smale

Opperman Weiss launched a “No Bad Stuff” Olympics campaign featuring a slew of Team USA athletes,including soccer star Alex Morgan, boxer Marlen Esparza, wrestler Jordan Burroughs, paratriathlete Melissa Stockwell and decathlete Ashton Eaton. 

All of the aforementioned athletes appear in the 60-second anthem ad at the heart of the campaign, and each appears in shorter ads detailing their “#NoBadStuff” philsophy and fuel. The anthem ad in question starts with the line, delivered via voiceover coupled with footage of Stockwell swimming, “To be great, you must be full of the strength to overcome adversity.” Each athlete gets a moment in the spotlight as the ad goes on to explain what it takes to be great and what you have to stay away from. The phrase, of course, is meant to apply to the kind of negativity athletes must shy away from, as well as the yogurt being free of unhealthy additives.

The idea is explored further in the short spots, such as one featuring Morgan give the advice to not listen to your detractors with a philosophy that boils down to “Don’t listen to them, listen to you.”

The approach is a well-worn one. While the “No Bad Stuff” message has a double meaning which applies well to the brand, the anthem ad feels more than a little familiar, which detracts significantly from its effectiveness. With a growing pack of similarly-minded Olympics ads, it just doesn’t do much to stand out.

“In order for these athletes to really reach their ultimate place of greatness it’s not only that they can’t let shitty food get into their body—they can’t eat sugars and preservatives and chemicals and all that stuff—but they also can’t allow negativity into their being and spirit, whether that’s racism or hatred or jealousy or pride, all of those things that are blocks to greatness to athleticism,” Opperman Weiss co-founder Jeff Weiss told Adweek.

Credits:
Brand: Chobani
Founder: Hamdi Ulukaya
Chief Marketing and Brand Officer: Peter McGuinness
Marketing: Jessica Lauria, Scott Bacco, Danielle Palmer
Communications: Michael Gonda, Blair Aires

Creative Agency: Opperman Weiss
Creative Directors: Paul Opperman, Jeff Weiss, Antonio Navas
Design & Integration Director: Benjamin Bailey

Executive Producer: Mark Johnston
Managing Director: Julian Shiff
Account Supervisor: Alexa Beck

Production Co.: SUPERPRIME
Director: Laurence Dunmore
Executive Producer: Rebecca Skinner
Executive Producer: Roger Zorovich
Managing Director: Michelle Ross
Producer: Michele Abbott
DP: Jeff Cronenweth

Editorial Co.: Bug Editorial
Editor: Andre Betz
Executive Producer: Caitlin Grady

Color: The Mill NY
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Senior Color Producer: Natalie Westerfield

VFX: Blacksmith
Flame Artist: Danny Morris
Executive Producer: Charlotte Arnold
Producer: Bomyee Hwang

Music: Duotone
Music By: Jack Livesey
Executive Producer: David Leinheardt
Producer: Gio Loboto

Mix: Heard City
Mixer: Cory Melious
Managing Director: Gloria Pitagorsky
Producer: Sasha Awn

Strategic Partnerships: DDCD
PR Agency: Weber Shandwick
Media Agency: OMD
Shopper Agency: Momentum
Digital Agency: RGA

This is a strange one.

MPC Creative teamed up with Jonah Hill and directors Stuart Bentley, Stuart Hammond and Lev Tanjufor for this intentionally bad spoof spot promoting London-based skateboarding brand Palace’s collaboration with Reebok. Full of very obvious green screening, dub fails and an entirely unenthusiastic delivery from Hill, it’s actually pretty funny.

“What’s up? I’m here in sunny London,” says Hill at the beginning of the spot, unconvincingly green screened in front of a Palace store. He talks up the store’s atmosphere and has a few awkward interactions with fellow skaters before getting to the main point: “these dope new sneakers that they made in collaboration with some sportswear company called…Reeboke.” The first part of Hill’s description is bleeped out after the word “These,” but then returns for the line “while having the most amazing sex with a rare white tiger on your birthday, and it’s also his birthday as well.”

Intentional lack of enthusiasm aside, Hill actually “grew up skateboarding in L.A.” and is a big fan of the sport (and presumably the brand as well) which lends some authenticity to the intentionally inauthentic performance. Whether or not viewers are clued in to that, though, the spot’s humor is undeniable.

It would be a hard approach to pull off without the right performance and Hill’s spot-on deadpan makes the ad. If advertising doesn’t work anymore, this kind of clever un-advertising (or whatever you want to call the sarcastic approach) may be something we see a lot more of soon.

Back in March, Wendy’s appointed WPP-owned, Kansas City-based agency VML, which had formerly served as its digital AOR, as its creative agency of record, replacing incumbent Publicis without a review. Following the appointment, VML announced a round of creative promotions. Now, some four months later, the agency has released what appears to be its first work for the client, promoting the chain’s seasonal salad offering with “How to Make Wendy’s Summer Berry Chicken Salad.”

The spot at the center of the campaign was inspired by a pair of social media trends: those recipe videos popping up all over your Facebook feed and people trying to recreate fast food meals at home. It opens with a promise to teach viewers how to recreate Wendy’s Summer Berry Chicken Salad in five easy steps. The catch? Those steps aren’t so easy after all, and include moving to California to grow your own blackberries. Of course the logical leap from getting fresh blackberries to studying soil chemistry to grow them yourself is a ridiculous one, but this is intended as parody.

In addition to the long-form version running on Facebook and YouTube, the ad will also run on broadcast in 30 and 15-second iterations throughout the summer, until Wendy’s runs out of those precious fresh blackberries.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize the length that a brand like Wendy’s has to go to actually bring in things like fresh blackberries, Wendy’s vice president of advertising, media and digital Brandon Rhoten told Adweek. “It’s definitely a spoof that we thought would look good in someone’s Facebook timeline. People are used to consuming this on a regular basis, it’s just a little bit of a twist on what they may normally see.”

“When we started digging, we found out that people on Pinterest are actually copying Wendy’s recipes,” VML creative director Daniel Lobaton explained about the campaign’s development. “When you mix that with the idea of these trending online recipe videos, we had this very simple idea: If you’re going to follow the steps to make a Summer Berry salad like Wendy’s, let us show you all the steps that went into it.”

We wrote a quick post at EOD yesterday arguing that now might just be the time for Chipotle to partner with a creative agency again for a comeback campaign.

And wouldn’t you know it, the chain that told the world it didn’t need a creative AOR decided to absolutely NOT take our advice because its marketing team was months ahead of us, durrr.

Chipotle went with CAA rather than a “traditional” agency for the third animated film in the series that started with Willie Nelson covering Coldplay to promote the company’s earthbound ethos. It’s pretty much what you would expect: a sappy, faux-Pixar tale illustrating a love story between two cutthroat capitalists set to a folk-rock cover of the Backstreet Boys(?!).

We get it: artificial ingredients are (literally) evil. But competition and business innovation are good … until they lead you away from your founding vision and your original product: straight-up no bullshit orange juice.

This is all very much in keeping with Chipotle’s long-running strategy, but how will it land with the perpetually bored, easily frightened American consumer?

Our colleagues speculate today that the ad trilogy amounts to a cry for help from a company lost in its own marketing maze, and this narrative makes some sense. But the things that have distracted Chipotle from its core philosophy have not been fake colors and flavors or movie tie-in campaigns or a pressure to compete more directly with the old-school chains it had previously left in the dust. They were incidents that largely occurred outside the company’s control, and they weren’t exactly shocking: food naturally collects bacteria. Marketing executives naturally turn to drugs to escape stressful professional lives.

We’re not sure that this campaign will be able to move attention away from the “scandals” and back to the food. On a consumer level, this blogger loves Chipotle but can’t remember the last time he ate there—and therein lies the problem.

CREDITS

Client: Chipotle
Title: A Love Story
Agency: CAA
Agency Producer: Amanda Jiminez / Jay Brooker
Agency Creatives: Todd Hunter / Tony Fur

Production & Animation Company: Passion Pictures
Director: Saschka Unseld
Art Director: Katy Wu
Executive Producer: Debbie Crosscup / Ryan Goodwin-Smith
Producer: Sibylle Preuss

Animation & VFX Credits (Passion Pictures)
VFX Supervisor: Neil Riley
CG Supervisor: Christian Mills
Animation: Wesley Coman/ Chris Welsby/ Aldo Gagliardi/ Cath Brooks/ Catherine Elvidge/ Karin Matteson/ Scott Bono
Texture & Shading: Ian Matthews / Katreena Erin Bowell/ David Domingo Jimenez / Leigh Van Der Byl/ Louise Chassain / Sara Diaz / Stuart Hall/ Arkin Esfref / Alex Holman / David Watson/  Leigh van der Byl/ Camille Perrin/ Patrick Kraft/ Roxanne Martinez
Rigging: Morgan Evans / Matteo Nibbi / Giulia Dell’Armi
VFX: Jamie Franks / Colin Perrett/ Kwai Keung IP/ Junaid Syed/ Antonios Deftarios/ Guillaume Zaouche/ Gabriele Veronese/ Matt Moyes/ Robin Nordenstein/ Alice Jarre
Light & Render: Christian Mills/ Richard Moss / Stuart Hall / Adrian Russell/ Patrick Kraftt/ Alex Holman/ Roxanne Martinez/ David Watson/ Nikolay Kulishev/ Simon Maddocks/ Francois Pons
Compositing: Johnny Still/ Andre Bittencourt/ Raphael Theolade/ Valeria Romano/ Javier Cid/ Alex Grey
Animation Supervisor: Jay Boose
CG Coordinators: Joost Zoetebier / Suzanne Forward
Character & Production Design: Katy Wu / Amandine Pecharman
Graphic Designer: Davide Saraceno

Post Production Services: Technicolor Postworks NY
Colourist: Max Horton

Music Producer: Blake Mills
Music Performance: Brittany Howard, Jim James