Hasta La Creative!

RPA recently debuted a new campaign for recently-won client ARCO, following Tesoro’s purchase of ARCO from BP.

The campaign celebrates ARCO’s “top tier” designation, as its gasoline “exceeds EPA minimum detergent requirements to help clean engines and maintain optimal vehicle performance.” To highlight the benefits of treating your car right with ARCO gasoline, RPA chose to show some of the ways mistreat their vehicles in a series of four 30-second broadcast spots.

The light-hearted approach works best in “Treat” (featured above), when a woman decides “If top-tier gas at ARCO helps clean my engine, maybe I should clean the rest of my car.” She then imagines all the hard work inherent in undoing the neglect, including some pretty gross tasks, before tossing an empty coffee cup in the backseat and deciding “I’ll do that another time.”

Other spots in the campaign take a similar approach, with “Embarassing” focusing on some of the moments your car shouldn’t have to witness and “Mishap” taking on minor vehicular abuse. “Try It” changes things up, focusing instead on a couple’s misguided decision to go somewhere other than ARCO for gas. Each spot ends with the tagline, ““Your car puts up with a lot. Help protect it from harmful engine deposits. ARCO has quality TOP TIER® gas for less.” emphasizing ARCO’s quality and top tier designation. The campaign began last month with one broadcast spot and an outdoor component, and currently supports the four broadcast spots with online and radio elements, as well as a revamped website.

“We have a long history working on the ARCO brand, and appreciate the challenges of the competitive motor-fuel category,” said RPA EVP, Management Account Director Tom Kirk. “The agency’s goal is to further support ARCO’s brand positioning, and this new work focuses on ARCO’s holistic value proposition around product quality and affordability.” (more…)

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Continuing a rather ambitious storyline that kicked off late last year, Samsung, with the aid of Cheil Worldwide and Psyop, has unveiled the next installment of its soccer stars vs. aliens saga to promote the Galaxy. While not technically a World Cup tie-in, “The Training” (nearly 42 million views and counting–yeah, we know it’s been out for a bit) features two of the event’s biggest (and best) participants, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who have also been making the rounds in spots for Nike and Adidas, respectively, that are officially attached to the event. In this campaign, though, real-life Ken doll Ronaldo and his archrival Messi, along with other notable footballers like Wayne Rooney,  join forces and evolve from mere athletes to sci-fi superheroes in order to combat an alien invasion…with their Galaxy S5s in tow, of course.

Psyop director Laurent Ledru, who shot this four-minute short in two months across cities including London, Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Prague and Manchester, explains the process of working with the stars.  “Because of the athlete’s varying schedules we had to shoot each player separately. It was very important that each performance felt authentic to that athlete yet interacted seamlessly with the others.” Ledru, who met the players in the varying aforementioned locales, where they would execute the acrobatic stunts and moves for the real shot, adds, “Each player was given instructions and guidance but we needed to capture them acting as naturally as possible in front of the green screen despite the CG elements that were to come later.”

Like the previous clips that have encompassed this campaign, the Samsung Galaxy branding is kept to a minimum, save for the occasional highlighting of a feature (heat sensor! fast auto focus!). It’s the stars, story and special effects that take center stage here, and now, with training said and done, we’ve only the big final showdown to look forward to. Consider us involved. Game on.

Credits after the jump.

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Award-winning editor Lucas Eskin has joined production company Cut+Run.

Eskin spent years as an editor/owner at Mad River Post, before joining Beast as senior editor in 2009. He has worked on such notable projects as the Cannes Lion and Clio Award-winning Apple Vs. PC campaign for TBWA\Chiat\Day, multiple Nike spots for Widen+Kennedy, the “Boom De Yada” spot for Discovery Channel via 72andSunny, BBDO’s VISA Olympics “Extreme” featuring Gracie Gold and directed by Marcus Walter, and GM’s “Robot” spot directed by Phil Joanou (which was named one of Time Magazine’s best Super Bowl spots of all time).

“Lucas is so talented, which is evident in the scope and breadth of his work. He has an incredible passion for editing,” said Cut+Run EP, Carr Schilling. “When you say his name, people’s faces light up. Everytime.”

Eskin’s editing work for Cut+Run was already featured on the recent “Bedtime Story,” for the Newport Beach Film Festival via agency RPA.

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After their amusing spot featuring a basketball player juggling a couple of extra balls, Boost Mobile and 180LA are back together once again, this time emphasizing the savings Boost customers can get. In three short videos, we see various stealing scenarios: a man on the subway gets pickpocketed, a city guy leaps over fences to evade a mugger, a woman has her purse snatched on the sidewalk. But by the end of each ad, the victim has money handed back to them, showing that “Boost Mobile puts cash back in your pocket, literally.”

It’s a good concept, and the little song that shifts each scene into celebration coupled with the actors’ yay-I’m-richer-than-I-thought smiles makes these spots sweet. I only wish they could have cast at least one white thief. Sure, they’re all good guys in the end, but these spots still reinforce tired racial stereotypes. We can do better.

Credits and the rest of the videos after the jump.

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