CP+B Warns Parents on Behalf of Boys and Girls Clubs of America

This CP+B PSA for Boys and Girls Clubs of America, which received a New York Times writeup today, is a little frightening.

It’s far cry from the generally upbeat messages this group has shared in the past. If anything, it reminds us of the famous “It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your children are?” line (which was not a paid ad but was created by an on-air promoter).

The copy goes on to clarify:

“…they’re out on their own, out with nowhere to go, out with nothing to do, out all afternoon when anything can happen.”

Now we’re scared–and we always knew not to play on the train tracks or accept gifts from strangers.

CP+B CD Sue Anderson told Andrew Adam Newman that it’s all about fundraising, because parents will be more likely to give when they sense that the kids’ safety depends on their donations.

Effective! For the music snobs in our audience, we’d also like to note the excellent use of “Fratres” by our greatest living composer, Arvo Pärt. Yes, we hate superlatives too, but it’s true.

(more…)

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CP+B Changes A.1.’s Relationship Status with Steak

As we mentioned in Stir yesterday morning, Kraft has decided to drop the “steak” from A.1.’s title, now calling it A.1. Original Sauce. Now we have an online spot from CP+B to go along with the name change, explaining the nature of A.1.’s evolving relationship with steak.

In CP+B’s “New Friend Requests,” the Boulder-based agency imagines A.1. rethinking its commitment to steak via Facebook. We see posts of the two together, one of which contains the line “It’s just you and me forever.” But then A.1. gets new friend requests, first from pork, then from myriad other foods. This leads to the sauce changing its relationship status with steak to “It’s complicated,” citing a need to “see other foods.” Initially steak doesn’t take too kindly to this, but eventually steak and A.1. reconcile, with the spot ending with the tagline, “For almost everything. Almost.” The idea is about equal parts clever and goofy, but CP+B mostly make it work, although the spot could have benefited from a shortened run time (it clocks in at 2 minutes). Both the name change and the “For almost everything. Almost.” campaign stem from insights into diehard A1 users, who use the sauce on everything from chicken, pork, and fish to vegetables.

The “For almost everything. Almost.” campaign will also include TV spots, which debut Monday, the first from the brand in five years, in addition to digital, social, radio, out of home and in-store activations. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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First-Ever Award Show for GIFs Launches Today

GIFYSThe .GIFYs launch today, the first-ever award show dedicated to the animated .GIF format.

Created by a team at CP+B LA “in order to honor GIFs as a medium, social commentary and art form,” the .GIFYs nominees were selected by “a panel of internet experts from Buzzfeed, Gawker, Tumblr, Mashable, Joystiq, The Daily Dot, Engadget and more, who have pulled from their own archives, reached out to their hundreds of thousands of twitter followers and endlessly scoured the Internet to curate the best of the best animated GIFs.”

Starting today, the .GIFYs crew has opened up voting to the public to select winners across 12 categories: Animals, Art+Design, Can’t Look Away, Cats, Film+TV, Mashup, Nature+Science, News+Politics, Reaction, Sports, WTF, and GIF of the Year. “The GIF is now 26 years old, and there are millions of them online. It’s time they received their due respect with a proper awards show,” explained .GIFYS co-founder William Sawyer at CP+B Los Angeles. “We recruited some of the top names in internet culture to curate the best, and we’re looking to the whole internet to decide the winners.”

Needless to say, many of the nominees are hilarious, and most of these categories should be hotly contested. Head on over to the .GIFYs site to make your voice heard, and don’t forget to vote for the GIF of the dude pouring Dr. Pepper all over himself behind John Kruk in the News+Politics section. Voting for the .GIFYs lasts a week, and the winners will be announced on the site later in the month. Stay tuned for credits after the jump.  continued…

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