Here’s a Social Media Campaign for Fruitwater Starring Murder Suspect Christina Applegate

Glaceau has a new product, fruitwater, that is most likely 0-calorie sparkling fruit-flavored water. I can’t tell from this spot, but that’s my guess. Sounds like just the thing a rich  woman would use to cut her vodka, doesn’t it? It’s great that there’s definitely a customer base for this new product.

To push fruitwater onto said rich women is one of their own, Christina Applegate, best known for playing Kelly Bundy on Married… with Children and jumping ship before her NBC show, Up All Night, was canceled. According to Wikipedia, her mom also used to have a thing with Stephen Stills, so that’s something.

In order to grow fruitwater’s 4,000 or so Twitter followers to a substantial enough number to convince some brand reps that their social media is “working,” consumers are being encouraged to confess crimes and say mean things via the #sparklingtruth hashtag for a campaign from L.A.-based agency Zambezi. If your truth is good enough, fruitwater will give you a personal assistant for a week. But, of course, the only way you could know that is if you start following the account or, like me, you were sent a press release describing the contest. You gotta work for information on the incentive, you know? Credits after the jump.

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George Takei Teams With AARP For Video Series

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George Takei, perhaps more famous now for his social media wit than for his role on Star Trek, has teamed with AARP for a video series which aims to provide older Americans with interesting and educational technology-focus content. AARP says the series, called Takei’s Take,”takes a smart, funny, irreverent look at what is happening in the world of the Internet and how it infiltrates our lives.”

Takei’s first episode focuses on Google Glass and is filled with all the usual trash talk about the product but also adds in some actual product benefits. The videos are produced by Fullscreen and Portal A.

Of the partnership with Takei, AARP VP of Social Communications and Strategy Tammy Gordon said, “Takei has a personality and following beyond AARP. What we love about his Facebook page was this idea that on a daily basis, he captures what’s going on in technology and the world in his voice.”

Since launching September 17, the AARP Takei’s Take channel now has 22,225 subscribers.

Claire Danes’ So-Called Life, Career Get Destroyed When She Doesn’t Drive an Audi

Current Homeland star (formerly known as Angela Chase from My So-Called Life, which we’ll get to in a minute) Claire Danes stars in this new short film for Audi by agency Mediacom. Wait, hold up, let’s be real. It’s an ad, not a short film. It’s an ad for Audi’s gas mileage capabilities. This goes way beyond simple product integration. It’s just a long ad, okay? Stop pretending it’s anything else.

Anyway, Claire Danes stars in a nearly four-minute long ad for Audi that shows the Emmy-winning actress show up late to this year’s ceremony when she goes to jail for some reason. Why does she go to jail? I don’t know, I’ve watched this multiple times and can’t seem to find a crime that she’s committed. Cops, I guess, right guys?

Claire Bears (the nickname for Claire Danes fans that I just made up now) will enjoy this long ad for the reference that comes at the end. “I dated that girl in high school” says a patron at the bar in reference to hearing Claire Danes’ name mentioned on the television. “Jordan?” asks Danes. You see, her character dated Jared Leto‘s character Jordan Catalano on My So Called Life. That is why this is funny. That’s why we’re here today, everyone, watching a four-minute Audi ad. Hey, remember when Jim Beam made ads starring Willem Dafoe? I liked those. The Emmys happen on Sunday. There’s some football on tonight.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Kobe Bryant Helps Lenovo Launch the K900 Smartphone

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Lenovo, with help from social media agency We Are Social, has launched a campaign to introduce the brand’s new K900 smartphone.

To promote the launch and boost Lenovo’s presence in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, the brand partnered with NBA superstar Kobe Bryant to create “The Everyday Kobe Challenge.”

We Are Social created a Facebook app, hosted on Lenovo’s local market Facebook pages that allows people to submit their jump shot videos and vote for their favorites, with the most popular jump shot winning a Lenovo K900.

Indonesia: https://apps.facebook.com/everydaykobe_id
Thailand: https://apps.facebook.com/everydaykobe_th
Philiipines: https://apps.facebook.com/everydaykobe_ph
Malaysia: https://apps.facebook.com/everydaykobe_my

In Vietnam, India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Peru and Serbia, a separate campaign, “What’s Your K900 Style,” will promote the launch. The campaign asks consumers to express their style by putting together items/outfits/accessories that would best pair with the K900 because as we all know, the smartphone is a fashion accessory worth celebrating.

After selecting their K900 “Lookbook,” fans of Lenovo can upload their photos on to their market’s Facebook page using a “What’s Your K900 Style” app. A voting mechanism will choose the most popular “looks” which will be entered into the running to win a K900 smartphone.

UAE: https://apps.facebook.com/lenovomobilestyleuae
Saudi Arabia: https://apps.facebook.com/lenovomobilestylesa
Vietnam: https://apps.facebook.com/lenovomobilestylevn

Robert De Niro Asks Us to Remember 9/11

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In an effort to get people to pause and reflect on the tragic losses of September 11, 2001, BBDO New York has created a video for the National September 11 Memorial Museum. In the video, 9/11 Memorial Board Member Robert De Niro asks people “to pause, to reflect, to explore, to learn and to honor the best in humanity.”

Viewers are urged to take a day to remember the day that changed us forever.

The multimedia campaign, which was created pro bono by BBDO New York, includes print, outdoor, digital and video advertising. TV features the voiceover of Robert De Niro, and drives people to www.911memorial.org where they can learn more.

Nissan Knows You Love Watching Heisman Winners Living Together, Gives You More of That for Third Year in a Row

For the third year in a row, Nissan is helping college football-obsessed viewers imagine what it would be like if Heisman Trophy Winners all lived in the same house for some reason.

Why would these former star college athletes live in the same house? Is it because traditionally, Heisman Trophy winners go on the middling (or worse) NFL careers that, in the best case scenario, are ignored when ESPN College Gameday offers them a job as a special correspondent? Or is it just because the “imagine the conflicts that would arise if X kind of people were forced to live together” formula still tantalizes us two decades after the  Real World debuted. TV viewers love reality show parodies, after all.

Anyway, starring in the first spot for this year’s run are former Baylor Bear and current Redskins QB Robert Griffin III teaming up with former Oklahoma Sooner and current Rams QB Sam Bradford to portray themselves as two young cool kids who race around in expensive cars and blast hip-hop. Of course, the idea that Bradford is cool in any way, or imagining him routinely participateingin this sort of activity may be the funniest aspect of this commercial. Sorry, Sam, but you’re like the Billy Joel of the NFL—beloved, respected and skilled, but not exactly “cool.”

Starring as the aging veterans are Oklahoma State Cowboy, Barry Sanders, joined by former Michigan Wolverine and current ESPN NCAA football anchor Desmond Howard, who in tandem remind us how far away the late ’80s/early ’90s seem now. Those were the days, huh? Finally, playing the even older guys are the legendary former Texas Longhorn Earl Campbell and Pittsburgh Panther Tony Dorsett, both new to the campaign this year. The campaign, which will feature a traveling Heisman House that will visit college campuses throughout the country, will run through the rest of the NCAA season. Also, Ron Dayne will be in one of these episodes, which I must mention as a Wisconsin Badger fan.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Farmers, RPA Present Dick Fowler, Dispenser of Golf Course Justice

A new series of online videos from Farmers Insurance and RPA (who also handle Honda) highlights the insurance company’s partnership with PGA golfer, Rickie Fowler. But instead of just having Fowler appear as himself, they transform him into Dick Fowler, P.I., dispenser of golf course justice. The series is an obvious homage to the 70s, with the full mustache, and the kind of jerks you’ll meet on the golf course.

In the first video, “Backswing Sting,” Fowler deals with a problem everyone has faced, whether on or off the course: the loud cell phone talker. Fowler deals with the loud talker in somewhat predictable fashion, but there is a nonsensical explosion you probably didn’t see coming.

In the follow up, “Divot Dummy,” Fowler deals with a problem more specific to the golf course: a golfer who doesn’t replace his divot. This is perhaps the more amusing of the two, with Dick Fowler forcing the “divot dummy” to eat his divot, served on a silver platter. This new, lighthearted series from Farmers is a welcome departure from the tiresome “University of Farmers” campaign.

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Robert Downey Jr.’s HTC ‘Change’ Campaign Pays Homage to Classic Ad Film, Putney Swope

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It’s just really hard to fathom that Robert Downey Jr. used to be a drugged out, has-been actor on the brink of death. The dude truly has become the Iron Man. His latest commercial outing, aside from his many successful films, is a two year deal with HTC that will place Downey front and center in a new campaign for the brand, launching August 15, that will playfully endeavor to define what HTC stands for.

Beginning with “humongous tinfoil catamaran,” Downey is expected to use his super powers in several humorous short commercials envisioning what HTC really stands for.

The initial ad, created by 171 WorldWide, is an homage to the opening scene of the classic advertising movie, Putney Swope which, interestingly, was directed by Downey’s father, Robert Downey Sr. In the opening scene, a Hell-Angel-ish “advertising guru,” Dr. Weasley, flies over Manhattan in a helicopter sporting a Confederate flag, makes his way to the conference room of a Mad Men-era advertising agency and shares the kind of insightful wisdom we have all heard before spewed from the mouths of over-paid consultants and account planners before simply leaving the room.

Hopefully Downey’s advice will be a bit more grounded than Weasley’s and help the struggling technology brand right itself from failed campaigns and internal upheaval.

Of the campaign’s direction, HTC CMO Ben Ho said, “With this campaign, we are reaffirming what HTC’s role is in the mobile market which is to define change and lead the industry in developing the newest and most innovative technologies.”

Following the initial brand re-positioning, product launchers will be incorporated into the campaign.

A social game of sorts will support the campaign. Called HTC Generator, visitors to the brand’s What Is HTC page can simply click a “Here’s to Change” button and explore possibilities slot machine-slyle. These random generations can be shared across social channels.

Opening scene of Putney Swope:


Putney Swope Intro by NedDorsey

HTC Change:

HTC Places Big Bet on New Campaign Starring Robert Downey Jr.

Finally, with help from WPP-owned 171 Partners, HTC is getting creative. For their new “Here’s to Change” global campaign to promote  the HTC One smartphone, the brand has enlisted Robert Downey Jr. as both the star and purveyor of creative input. Engadget suggests that this is new CMO Ben Ho making good on his promise to make HTC’s voice louder.

So far, we’ve got RDJ as mysterious, self-important “Subversive Thinking,” a man with Terry Richardson glasses and a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He flies in a helicopter and enjoys high-fives. He wears a puce-colored tie. We meet him in HTC’s first teasers: “Big Things Ahead,” “Prelude to Change,” and “The Arrival.” The entire “Change” campaign should run 24 to 36 months, with the first 2-minute spot debuting Thursday. And with any luck, our main man will be quirkily cooing to that cat.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Let’s Talk Ad Math, Vol. 1

This column has been pinballing around my head for the past few months. I’m curious about hashtags. I’m under the impression that although everyone knows what a hashtag looks like, not many people pay attention to Twitter statistics beyond Follower counts. And now that every commercial – online or televised – comes with a hashtag, many of which seem perfunctory, I want to make an inexact science a bit more exact by evaluating basic Internet data and applying it to our coverage for the previous week.

Twitter clearly has value. Celebrities of varying degrees get paid silly amounts of money for sponsored tweets (sidebar: did you know that Melissa Joan Hart makes $9,100 for some of her tweets? That’s more obnoxious than silly). With money and brand equity to be had in the Twitter economy, every company can now slap a hashtag onto a visual ad and pretend to know what it’s doing. Remember when Newsweek ran with #MuslimRage? Or McDonald’s unintentionally eviscerating itself with #McDStories? Twitter can be tricky for the lazy and oblivious.

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Footlockers ‘Endorser’ Proves NBAer Blake Griffin Really Does Love His Jordans

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We’ve all become very used to celebrities and sports figures endorsing everything under the sun. We’ve also become very used to the fact these celebrities and sports figures get paid millions to say great things about the brands they endorse. But when so much money is at stake, how do we really know if any of these celebrities or sports figures actually mean what they say? After all, most people would say anything you told them to if you gave them a few million dollars, right?

Footlocker wants to insure that its spokesperson, NBS player Blake Griffin really means what he says when he talks about how awesome Footlocker is and how the brand helps make him look his best. So, with help from BBDO New York, the retailer gives us a behind the scenes look at Griffin endorsing Footlocker.

OK, now we get it. Now we understand why celebrities and sports figures utter the branded nonsense they so often do in commercials. Blame it on The Endorser.

The Manning Brothers Flex Funk For DirecTV

 

On the football field, Peyton Manning runs the Denver Broncos with a robotic efficiency fitting of a man with a giant, shiny forehead. His younger brother Eli roams the sidelines for the New York Giants with the mopey glare of a six-year-old who wants to pick his nose but can’t because cameras are watching. Usually, the funniest thing about the Manning brothers is that they’re so unfunny. They’re stiff and white. But every once in a while – don’t forget the acclaimed “Football Cops” – they unleash some comedy genius for a football-related commercial.

The newest addition to the Manning oeuvre is a fake R&B music video created by Grey for DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket. #footballonyourphone. Remember that hashtag. It’s going viral, because a company that deals with an incredibly popular sport got two huge stars to subvert their normal personalities and completely buy-in to a goofy campaign that could’ve been an abandoned Lonely Island digital short. In the first 12 hours or so after it hit Youtube, the clip reared in 100k views.

Everything about the spot is smart, right down to the tiny Archie Manning cameo and the best/worst hair design you’ll see this year until American Hustle, starring Bradley Cooper’s curled terribleness, hits theaters. Peyton may be known as the more gregarious of the two brothers, but Eli is a vastly underrated comedian in his commercials. He ends up stealing this show with some odd riffs on milk, blouses, and Alexander Graham Bell. Pay attention, brands: This is how you go viral.

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Rooster Outpunches James Franco…Sort of

I’m the Rooster guy apparently and I’m back to cover some more irreverent Rooster shenanigans. The above video, “How to Take a Punch,” epitomizes what a side project should be: easily digestible, fun to watch, and humorous. A slow-mo gif of James Franco taking a punch to the face has been making the blogging rounds before his Comedy Central roast airs on Labor Day. Vice co-founder/Rooster boss Gavin McInnes decided to join in on the slow-mo fun and take a harder punch to the face. The result is a side-by-side 13-second video comparison of the punches that is probably too stupid for its own good. Something makes me think Rooster likes that. These guys seem to have fun in the office.

After the jump, you can watch a longer video of people getting punched in the face slowed down to 1000 frames per second. It’s violently elegant and directed by Cody Kern, a man who has no relation to Rooster. As you watch, feel free to let the catharsis of watching others get walloped improve your day. Jiggling jowls have the affect on people.

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Jason Sudeikis Confuses American Football with Soccer for NBC Sports

If you live in either Chicago or Boston, you may have watched (or wanted to watch) the Stanley Cup Finals, in which case you realized that you don’t have access to NBC Sports. After some McGyver-ing and hooking you iPad to your TV, you got thousands about thousands of commercials advertising that NBC Sports would be broadcasting every game of England’s prestigious Barclays Premier League. After digesting this fact, you immediately stopped caring because 1.) You’re an American who likes ‘merican sports and 2.) Again, you don’t have access to NBC Sports.

But who better to make you, an American without access to NBC, care about this development than Jason Sudeikis, a former Saturday Night Live cast member who has appeared basically fucking everywhere in the last month? First, dude quits SNL. Then, he starts going on a press tour for his terrible-looking new movie, Meet The Millers, where he stars opposite Jennifer Aniston, who plays a middle-aged stripper. Then, he joined ESPN to count down the top 50 “This Is SportsCenter” ads last week. Then, he made cameo appearance in Drinking Buddies, a new film playing on Apple TV before it hits theaters at the end of the month and stars Sudeikis’ real-life fiance, Olivia Wilde. Then, Kiran shows me this and asks me to write about it, compelling me to start complaining about how Jason Sudeikis is fucking everywhere these days. Then, wouldn’t you know it, he releases a viral video YESTERDAY where he leads a parody version of Mumford & Sons, with Ed Helms, Jason Bateman and Will Forte starring as his bearded indie-folk backing band.

Seriously, it’s absolutely impossible to get rid of this guy. Watch him play a dumb American coach who doesn’t get soccer above in a new campaign from the Brooklyn Brothers (who you may remember from those kick-ass John Krasinski/Alec Baldwin New Era spots), and then don’t talk to me about Jason Sudeikis until you’ve developed some sort of Sudeikis repellant.

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Maria Sharapova Named Samsung Brand Ambassador For Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

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Yesterday in Moscow, Samsung announced that global sports icon and four-time Grand Slam title winner Maria Sharapova was named as its brand ambassador for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. In this role, Sharapova will work with Samsung to promote sporting and Olympic ideals as well as help raise awareness for Samsung’s Sochi 2014 sponsorship.

The company also unveiled its Samsung GALAXY Team Russia for Sochi 2014, which features NHL All-Star and 2009 Stanley Cup champion Evgeni Malkin. The Samsung GALAXY Team is one of Samsung’s key initiatives around the Olympic Games, aimed at promoting the Olympic Movement and providing “direct contact” between Olympians and their supporters around the world.

Following the debut of Team Russia, Samsung will continue selecting top athletes in 16 countries to join the Samsung GALAXY Team in an effort to spread the Olympic spirit.

To date, Sharapova has lent her skills and beauty to Land Rover, Evian, Google, canon, Nike and was also at the center of a crotch shot debacle with Dentsu.

Jenny McCarthy Doesn’t Smell Like an Ashtray in These Blu eCig Ads

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Jenny McCarthy, who recently unleashed her breasts for Carl’s Jr. can now be seen pimping Blu e-cigarettes in a television campaign breaking August 5. Making note that while dating “smelling like an ashtray isn’t the ideal aphrodisiac,” McCarthy talks about how smoking e-cigrettes have made her feel better about herself and have eliminated the guilt associated with smoking.

The ads, and associated webisodes introduce a new Blu eCig Starter Pack, packaging that recharges the eCigs.

With tobacco companies getting hit from all aside, the eCig business is projected to grow to $1 billion in 2013. And Blu already has a 40% share of the market.

Kelly Bundy Rocked the Miniskirt But Christina Applegate Rocks Fruitwater

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OK, First of all, Christina Applegate is 41. Let that sink in for a minute. 41. Got it? 41. It seems just yesterday she was 18, all sexed up as Kelly Bundy wearing tight miniskirts and crop tops on Married With Children giving men of all ages something pleasurable to think about while trying to go to sleep on a lonely night.

At 41, the woman is still scorchingly hot but as a mom she tends to shy away from the short skirts and crop tops preferring, instead, more conservatively elegant mommy-wear.

Now, Applegate can be seen in a new Zambezi-created campaign for Coca-Cola’s Glaceau Fruitwater, the brand’s zero-calorie fruit-flavored line of water.

In a series of print ads, Applegate can be seen joyfully consuming a bottle of Watermelon Punch. Clad in a sleeveless white dress and minimalist pink belt, Applegate radiates dignified beauty. But don’t let that look fool you. Soon she will be seen reprising her role as Veronica Corningstone in the upcoming Will Ferrell film Anchorman: The Legend Continues.

Check out the ads below or, if you prefer the miniskirt-rocking version of Applegate, be sure to visit this Miniskirt Monday tribute “honoring one of the greatest miniskirt wearers in TV history.”

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Intel, Toshiba, Pereira & O’Dell Make Alien Movie to Sell Computer Processors

About a year ago, Intel and Toshiba partnered together with the help of Pereira & O’Dell to create “The Beauty Inside,” a so-called “social movie” that paired not-quite-movie stars Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as two young actors who can’t believe that this is where their careers have taken them thus far. The big budget online film was apparently effective enough at whatever it was trying to do to spawn a spiritual sequel, “The Power Inside,” starring Harvey Keitel as a guy you kind of feel sorry for until you you consider that he’s still finding work at his age.

As a press release tells us, the heavily product integrated plot will consist of “An alien invasion by a race of extraterrestrial moustaches and unibrows who take over the upper lips and eyes of people around the world. The main character is Neil, who together with his friends and the help of technology discovers his inner strength to defeat the moustache and unibrow invaders called Uricks. Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba play an important role in Neil’s journey of self-discovery.” We assume “inner strength” and “Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba” are pretty interchangeable in this scenario.

Similar to its predecessor, computer processor fans every can be part of the film by interacting with the protagonist via Facebook. Users can also upload a photo of themselves, edit that photo with a moustache and unibrow, and reach self-actualization after the process is completed. Credits after the jump.

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Sailor Brinkley Does Claire’s, Honda Responds Via Vine

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– Christie Brinkley’s daughter, Sailor, will appear in her first ever ad campaign at the age of 15 for Claire’s.

– Apparel company Primitive has gathered together the hotness of all its models; Christine Mendoza, Alexis Lopez, Justene Jaro and Rosanna Castillio, among others, under the Twitter and Instagram hashtag #primitiveladies.

– Digiday takes a look at why so many media planners are women.

– Working with RPA, Honda, basically copying the Old Spice Response Video campaign, launched a campaign that would respond to people who tweeted why they want a new car with the hastag #wantnewcar

– How Carlsberg beer became so awesome.

– Gatorade makes it easy to do it one more time.

– Here’s that Confused.com “blowjob” ad.

Can You Handle Six David Beckhams?

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If you’re a fan of footballer David Beckham, your’e going to love this new Sky Sports commercial in which multiple David Beckhams go through their day staying connected to the sporting world with Sky Sports.

In the ad, we see the Beckhams check sports scores in the morning, pick up the kitchen, leave for work, sit on the couch, head to the coffee shop, make an appearance at and event and then appear, all six Beckhams, to catch a game.