Hasta La Creative!

W+K has a new spot for Old Spice’s “#SmellcometoManhood” campaign entitled “Dadsong,” a follow-up to to the goofy musical “Momsong,” in which mothers lament Old Spice turning their sons into men while engaging in some pretty creepy behavior.

The follow-up, with music and lyrics written by Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords, The Muppets), reprises the sad moms of that spot, but with an answer from the dads. It opens on one of the moms from “Momsong” singing, “Where’s my little boy, I miss him so? Who’s this man living in our home?” while clutching her sons teddy bear as he slow dances with a girl. Soon a chorus of fathers replies that they’re “overjoyed” that they’ll be using their son’s room “for storage pretty soon.” The song is a step up from its predecessor — not a surprise given McKenzie’s involvement — and strikes more of a balance between goofiness and creepiness (which mostly comes across through visual gags). And while it deals in over-the-top portrayals of stereotypical motherly clinginess and fatherly aloofness, it’s also pretty clear that it isn’t dealing in anything resembling reality. Fans of McKenzie’s distinct style of musical comedy, and anyone who enjoyed the original “#SmellcometoManhood” installment, should get a kick out of “Dadsong.” (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

W+K New York enlisted the voice acting services of Donald Sutherland in their latest effort for Delta Airline’s “Keep Climbing” campaign.

Cleverly titled “No Bag Left Behind,” the spot derives from the insight that Delta flies more people than any other airline. Positioning this insight in an emotional context, the 60-second broadcast spot breaks from the more rational, documentary-style tone “Keep Climbing” has taken in the past, also employing the use of color for the first time in the campaign.

Directed by Noam Murro, the ad follows the bear-shaped bag of a small girl as it is cared for by Delta employees ensuring its safe delivery. Sutherland’s voice provides the perfect calm cadence to narrate the spot, concluding with the line, “…but when you’ve got an entire company who knows that the fewest cancellations and the most on-time flights are nothing if we can’t get your things there too, it’s no wonder more people choose Delta than any other airline,” delivered as the very relieved girl picks up her bag. The spot, which launched yesterday, will run until the end of November. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Venables Bell & Partners have an off-center campaign for Skyy Vodka, introducing the new tagline “West of Expected” for the California brand.

The new campaign sees improv actor Paul Welsh play a spokesman for the brand, lecturing in some kind of planetarium setting and using cosmic terminology as an analogy for drinking/bar culture. In the 30-second “Tipping” for example, Welsh explains that tipping (in this case giving a mouse in a maze a piece of cheese, for some reason) brings order to chaos, forming a connection with the bartender and getting you good service all night. In the similarly-toned “Attraction” a wing lemon (used to exemplify a wing man) bring together opposites: apples and oranges. It’s a strange approach, for sure, but then Skyy Vodka is an unusual brand — a California company with mostly Old World competition. The “West of Expected” tagline fits Skyy perfectly, and leaves room for a wealth of different approaches going forward.

“In the industry as a whole, and especially vodka, everyone is trying to out-cool themselves and appeal to people’s ego and vanity,” VB&P Executive Creative Director Will McGinness told Adweek. “We wanted to push off the industry norms and the Russian or Eastern European vodka companies and do our own thing and celebrate this different kind of vodka.”

Stick around for “Attraction”and credits after the jump. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Karmarama created “The Boss” in a new campaign for Cobra Beer (not to be confused with Anheuser-Busch’s disgusting King Cobra brand of malt liquor, something of an undergraduate staple in the states).

The titular character is an always on the job owner of Cobra Beer and a successful brassiere company BraCo by night. (It’s an anagram, get it?) As you may have already gathered, the concept is more than a bit reminiscent of Havas’ popular “The Most Interesting Man in the World” character for Dos Equis. While Karmarama are certainly not alone in borrowing from Dos Equis, their “The Boss” is probably closer to Jonathan Goldsmith‘s character than anything else we’ve seen. (Perhaps a little too close?) He shares with Dos Equis’ spokesman both an underlying elegant cool, and seemingly superhuman capabilities — “The Boss,” the spot elucidates “never sleeps, because he’s living the dream.” Like Dos Equis’ campaign, “The Boss” also relies on tongue in cheek humor (such as when employees rearrange the Cobra letters above the entrance) to deliver its message with “broad appeal to their target audiences.”

“This was a sprawling international shoot and it was such a fun concept and a great team – Dave Buonaguidi, Rich Connell, Clem Woodward and Jenny O’Connell of Karmarama were great to work with and very involved in all the right ways,” says Biscuit director, Mike Maguire. “The concept was always about The Boss and his two companies, but the simplicity of this great play-on-words, it just took the humor to a new, wildly absurd and fun place.”

Stick around for credits after the jump, and let us know what you think of the spot in the comments section. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

StubHub’s Ticket Oak is back from hiatus with some advice for a bored couple, which for this particular plant means a concert ticket giveaway. “Not everyone has a Ticket Oak, but everyone has StubHub,” the ad from SF-based Duncan/Channon ends. In past, Ticket Oak has presented sports game tickets and orchestra-center tickets for a sold-out show. He’s a generous character, made even more loveable through his social media presence. He carried on a multiple-tweet conversation about kittens with @zachford2 and made lady oak jokes on Facebook.

Ticket Oak also showed up naked in ESPN’s Body Issue, on the side of StubHub food trucks, and will be appearing in pop-up shops for fans to take selfies with the big guy. It’s a sweet campaign for a ticket company, endearing users instead of estranging them. With help from their foliaged friend, StubHub will keep on growing.

Credits after the jump

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.