Hasta La Creative!

On October 1, Zambezi released the first installment of an uncensored interview with Michael Jordan to coincide with the release of NBA 2K14. We’re pleased to cover the release of the second part as MJ, known to be private over the years, opens up a bit about his career, life, and family. When MJ talks about on-court incidents, the viewer can see brief reenactments of his most famous moments using the game’s graphics. The game has been out for awhile, but now that the NBA season is hitting its stride, 2K is looking for another marketing jolt to go with the PS4 and Xbox One releases in the next 10 days.

The best part is when MJ muses on his favorite Jordan shoe of all time, comparing it to choosing a favorite child, but then he goes ahead and rattles off his top-three in the next breath. By the transitive property, MJ could probably rank his offspring, which actually fits perfectly with his competitive and results-based history. Nothing wrong with that, just interesting insights that come from this four-minute candid interview.

Credits after the (basketball-related segue) jump.

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McCann and Lowe have put together a new global integrated campaign for Nestle’s espresso line Nespresso featuring good pals/Oceans Eleven co-stars George Clooney and Matt Damon.

The new spots follow in the footsteps of the eight part, award-winning campaign with George Clooney, who’s been the face of Nespresso–especially outside of the U.S.–since 2006. In this latest effort, “Nespresso: In the Name of Pleasure,” (featured above), Clooney is snubbed by an attractive female, which is supposed to be funny because he’s George Clooney. In the cheesy, not surprising “twist,” the woman tells a crowd “George Clooney’s inside,” causing a stampede.

In the shorter complement to the main Nespresso “Pleasure” ad, Clooney runs into his Hollywood colleague and informs everyone of the latter’s presence, causing a similar stampede. If you like the gimmick, or love the talent enough not to care either way, you’ll fall for it. Otherwise, you may be wondering what the appeal is (like me). Check out the Damon follow-up as well as credits after the jump. continued…

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OK, that ridiculously long, search engine-unfriendly headline pretty much tells the story but it is, indeed, a magically crafted one. And it has Helena Bonham Carter! Along with the Alice in Wonderland theme, there are touches of Little Red Riding Hood, The Magic Carpet (with a hot guy), the Wizard of Oz and…Helena Bonham Carter.

The model is question is Rosie Huntington-Whitley and the work was created by RKCR/Y&R for Marks and Spencer. Enjoy.

Debuting during tonight’s Chicago Bears/Green Bay Packers Monday night match-up is the latest in State Farm’s Discount Double-Check campaign from DDB Chicago. And, folks, it is a doozy.

Again, we find Packers QB Aaron Rodgers flanked by the SNL ”Superfans,” George Wendt and Robert Smigel, on a flight that has now lasted two months since these guys first showed up. Rodgers, who you may know is as bad at acting as he is incredible at football (the worst and best, respectively), faces his biggest challenge yet: Portray someone who isn’t Aaron Rodgers looking uncomfortable while trying to deliver scripted lines. The results are, well, watch the clip.

In Rodgers’ defense (and it’s easy for me because he is my favorite player ever), a Chicago accent is hard to replicate. In DDB’s defense, I sympathize with how many takes of Rodgers’ “acting” they had to do before just saying “fuck it” and going with the above spot. And, in everyone’s defense, this campaign has been incredibly successful for State Farm over the years. Don’t like Rodgers’ acting? Think the spot isn’t funny? Well that’s too bad, because the rest of America loves these things. This is advertising, and the will of the consumers wins (haha). Credits after the jump.

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Whenever sports stars come to Asia, they do an autograph session. But when Dwight Howard came to Manila, adidas, with help from TBWA Singapore, adidas went all in to do something that had never been done before. By coding a new ball-tracking program, adidas enabled Howard to create autographs for his fans with a ball and a court.

Fans were invited to play one-on-one with Dwight, with the movement of the ball captured to create the signature. The signature was then printed onto an adidas shirt, creating a one-of-a-kind piece for the fan to take home.

We are now in the season of LeBron James commercials. He’s like Victor Cruz, only taller, better, richer, and not a Time Warner Cable lackey. If you happened to watch the opening night of the NBA season, you saw three different LeBron endorsements, including a new two-minute Samsung spot (:60 version with just the family after the jump) that gives viewers a glimpse into the family life of the best basketball player in the world.

If you care about such things, you may remember last year’s Samsung/LBJ launch, which also premiered on opening night as the Miami Heat were getting their first set of rings. That 2012 spot was more about LeBron and his friends ruling Miami in barber shops and ice cream trucks. This year’s version is all about LeBron and his family: his sons hanging out in the pool or on a driveway basketball court as his wife films from a Samsung Galaxy. ”The Next Big Thing is Here” flashes on the screen as LeBron’s son celebrates after swishing a jump shot. We get it, but it’s still fairly interesting to let two little boys take some of the spotlight away from the real star.

The spot is an easy watch, a relaxing tone that rubs off on the viewer. Life is good for LeBron, and even though I typically prefer product-focused ads to lifestyle ads, when the spokesman is one of the most famous people on the planet, customers may take notice. Smiles all around and credits after the jump.

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With a new NBA season comes new spots for Kia from David&Goliath starring L.A. Clippers superstar Blake Griffin. This season, though, Blake, aka “The Endorser” as he’s known in other campaigns, is joined by a small sidekick, Jack McBrayer, who is best known for playing the bizarre but sweet NBC page on 30 Rock.

While this spot, “Trailer,” adorably portrays Griffin and McBrayer as a noble superhero team saving citizens from purchasing non-Kia vehicles, it lacks what has made Grffin’s spots for Kia so memorable over the years: Blake’s inherent weirdness. Not once does Blake open his mouth to tell the camera something strange while giving his off-putting stare. Neither does McBrayer, whose unhinged 30 Rock performance allowed him to frequently stand out amidst a large cast filled with other unhinged individuals.

I certainly hope that “Trailer” is aptly named, released only to build excitement for forthcoming “feature presentations.” If we never get to see two superpowers of weird actually interact with each other, then all may be lost. The next spot, “Zipline” is slated to come out early next month. Credits after the jump.

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Last night, DDB Chicago launched a new Capital One campaign for the Quicksilver card, mercifully replacing the Jimmy Fallon Cash Card campaign with something that doesn’t make me want to throw things at my television. Not only that, but they replaced Fallon with the biggest badass on the planet. I speak, of course, of Samuel L. motherfuckin’ Jackson.

Gone is the Jimmy Fallon with a whiny baby approach, replaced by the “You’re going to get a Capital One card because Samuel L. Jackson told you to and when Samuel L. Jackson tells you to do something you don’t fuck around” approach. The spot, “You Can’t Beat It” (also the name of a Catholic anti-masturbation campaign) replaces the schticky formula from the Fallon campaign in favor of a relatively straightforward description of a card that has “no rotating categories,” “no quarterly sign-ups,” and “no games” and offers 1.5% cash back “on every purchase, every damn day.” In other words: no bullshit. Since Samuel L. Jackson is basically the spokesman for not putting up with bullshit, he’s the perfect fit for the new approach.

Does this mean Fallon is gone for good? We can only hope. You know what? Jackson should just go ahead and take over for him on Late Night, too. The world would be a better place. Credits after the jump. continued…

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It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Maude Standish, co-founder and managing director of Tarot, a millennial trend forecasting and strategy development company that’s the sister company of L.A.-based agency, Mistress. Now that she’s introduced herself with her call to arms for millenials, Standish turns her focus to arguably the most talked-about celeb in the past several months and how she’s taken over in terms of branding. We should note that while we’re not in the habit of republishing/repurposing content, the original version of this was published in the blogger section of HuffPo–though Standish did us a solid and added more to the mix. Read on if you will.

Sinead O’Connor is worried about Miley. So is Elton John. So are the bearded guys of Duck Dynasty. But I’m not. Because I know that Miley is a strategic genius and that brands actually have quite a bit to learn from her. You might not like the way her tongue hangs off to the side or the fact that her nipples have become commonplace water-cooler fodder. But you can’t argue with the fact that she has captured the world’s attention and aroused a response out of the best of us.

Before her now infamous MTV Video Music Awards performance, Miley Cyrus had never had a Billboard No. 1 hit—not a single one. In fact the song “We Can’t Stop” that she performed at the VMAs rose to the No. 2 spot, but could never quite break the barrier to be a Golden # 1. Instead, the song that broke that top-spot barrier was “Wrecking Ball,” which came after her controversial performance. “Wrecking Ball” didn’t just break a personal record, she also smashed the record for most views in a single launch day, with the music video getting more than 19.3 million views in just 24 hours, beating One Direction’s previous record by more than 7 million views. Just one week later the video had been watched 36.5 million times in the U.S. alone, Miley’s VMA outfit was being called the Halloween costume of the year, and a line of twerking Miley “bobble-butts” had gone into production for the Christmas season.

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Dodge and Paramount have joined forces in a co-branded campaign from W+K launching the new 2014 Dodge Durango featuring Ron Burgundy (of Anchorman and the upcoming Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, but you already knew that).

The campaign, which spans television, print, digital and social media, debuted October 5th online and on television. Be prepared to see it everywhere.

“With the personal involvement of Will Ferrell, our writer / director Adam McKay, the comedy team at Funny or Die, and the Dodge creative team at Wieden+Kennedy, we were able to create a truly epic partnership,” says CMO of Paramount Picture Josh Greenstein in a statement. But are the spots actually funny? Some of them — they really very widely in quality. Each of the spots takes advantage of the 70s aesthetic in the Anchorman films, taking place in a colorful, very 70s auto showroom. The first spot, “Horsepower” is a bit of a letdown. It resurrects the tired “comparing horse power to an actual horse” theme commonly used in spots for powerful vehicles.

The staring contest with the horse at the end is almost worth a chuckle though. “Glove Compartment” is a lot better: it features Ron Burgundy toting the Durango’s glove compartment, which can hold “two turkey sandwiches or seventy packs of gum.” Another spot finds Burgundy struggling with a script that touts the Durango’s “m.p.g.” performance. The highlight is definitely “Ballroom Dancers,” featured above, which has a comically angry showdown between Burgundy and dancers that he thinks may “live in the rafters.” A lot of this is stuff that only Ferrell could get away with delivering, and only about half of the time is the writing worthy of his talent, but when it works it works. Plus, it will whet people’s appetites for the Anchorman sequel, which is kind of the point.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues debuts in theaters December 20th. Credits and additional video after the jump.  continued…

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