Advertising Agency: BEI Confluence, New Delhi, India
National Creative Director: Anwar Abbas
Creative Director: Ammar Mohammed
Art Director / Illustrator: Dheeraj Singh
Copywriter: Ranit Mukherjee
The post Costa Coffee by BEI Confluence appeared first on desicreative.
"Will somebody please feed Miley Cyrus?"
That's the request from one anthropomorphized Beats Pill speaker to another in the commercial below, which aired Sunday on MTV after the pop singer's controversial performance on the Video Music Awards. To which the other speaker opines: "Don't you need ass to twerk?"
Actually, Beats, feeding Miley would be your job.
First off, hat tip to sci-fi writer Tim Maughan for pointing out the Miley-mocking video on the Beats page. The brand is involved with plenty of pop and hip-hop stars at the moment, but the confluence of Miley and Robin Thicke at the VMAs was a branding bonanza for the electronics maker.
Beats Electronics is, of course, the brainchild of rapper and producer Dre, whose Beats by Dre headphones have been a huge success. The company's next big thing is a wireless speaker called the Beats Pill, voiced in commercials by Eminem, Chris Rock and (it sounds like, at least) Tichina Arnold from Fox's late, lamented Everybody Hates Chris. The speakers have been prominently featured in music videos, notably Miley's, and Thicke starred in a full-blown RadioShack ad for them with his accessories—I'm sorry, backup dancers—using the speakers to do more or less everything except speak.
Anyway, on Sunday, Miley and Robin got down and dirty on stage in a way that offended millions of people who were doubtless being forced at gunpoint to endure the spectacle. Beats, meanwhile, was ready—like, really, really ready (thanks to the digital wizards at Framestore)—to whip up a video showing two Pills asking where "all the thick girls" have gone while watching clips from Thicke's video and then suggesting Miley should have more material to twerk with. "Somewhere, Sir Mix-A-Lot is crying his eyes out," says one.
This actually wasn't the only time Beats teed off on a pop star during the show. It also found time to make fun of Katy Perry (who doesn't appear to be sponsored by the company) in a video with Barclays Center seats visible behind the two big-mouthed little speaker dudes. And Dre protege Eminem announced a new album at the VMAs, which Beats immediately promoted with a 30-second clip from the rapper's new single.
Check out all three videos below. It was a well-orchestrated campaign of pop-culture mockery—as well as pop-culture sponsorship, individual-artist sponsorship, cross-platform synergy, album promotion. So, y'know, don't confuse it with satire.
Here's a question: When, during the VMAs, weren't you watching an ad? Yeah, we're going to go with "never," too.
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New York ad agency Barton F. Graf 9000 has turned its roguish attention to the issue of climate change, and helped activist group 350 Action with the amusing video below. According to the YouTube description: "Since 1954, the World Meteorological Organization has been naming extreme storms after people. But we propose a new naming system. One that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the policy makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy. If you agree, sign the petition at climatenamechange.org." The snarky tone preaches to the choir, but it's hard to resist lines like, "If you value your life, please seek shelter from Michele Bachmann." Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: 350 Action
Contact: Daniel Kessler
Agency: Barton F. Graf 9000
Chief Creative Officer, Founder: Gerry Graf
Executive Creative Directors: Eric Kallman, Brandon Mugar
Creative Director, Copywriter: Dave Canning
Creative Director, Art Director: Dan Treichel
Senior Designer: Matt Egan
Head of Production, Executive Producer: Carey Head
Creative Technology Director: Jonathan Vingiano
Account Director: Jennifer Richardi
Business Affairs Director: Jennifer Pannent
Planner: Danielle Travers
Production Company: Furlined
Director: Ted Pauly
VP, Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Executive Producer: Dave Thorne
Executive Producer of Sales: Meghan Lang
Line Producer: Jennifer Gee
Director of Photography: Kris Kachikis
Editing: Big Sky Edit
Editor, Sound Designer, Mixer: Chris Franklin
Co-Editor, Colorist: Dave Madden
Senior Assistant Editor: Liz Bilinsky
Junior Assistant Assistant Editor: Megan Elledge
Graphics, Effects: Ryan Sears, Steve Kutny
Executive Producer: Cheryl Panek
Assistant Producer: Grace Phillips
Music: APM Music
Account Executive: Lauren Bell
Stock Video Footage: T3Media
Senior Account Manager: Amy Geisert
Photography: Magnum Photos
Corporate Sales Manager: Diane Raimondo
Photographer: Paolo Pellegrin
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Devin Graham has always seemed right up Mountain Dew's alley. The director, aka Devin Supertramp, who specializes in building giant outdoor contraptions that fling attractive young people into the air, was even apparently the inspiration for a 2011 Mountain Dew spot—its footage of BMX bikers launching themselves into a lake sure looked a lot like this 2010 Graham production. Now, Mountain Dew has officially teamed up with Graham for a new video and an upcoming tour. The video, below, presents lots of woozy footage of people flying back and forth on a giant catapult—with plenty of Mountain Dew signage and products around. (One guy empties a bottle of the stuff on his face mid-'pult, adding to his own personal horror.) Attractive young people who missed out on this stunt, worry not. Dew and Devin are going on a road trip! As Graham writes on his site: "On September 1st, we're jumping into an RV full of Mountain Dew and all the equipment we need to pull off some seriously amazing stunts. And the best part is, YOU will be planning the locations and the stunts themselves right along with us!" Graham has worked with brands before—on stunts like this neck-breakingly awesome lake-jumping waterslide, co-branded by Vooray.
Check out the eight-minute behind-the-scenes video below, in which it takes all of 25 seconds for someone to suggest trying "two girls at the same time."
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If you were a car, and you could travel back in time and kill Hitler when he was a boy, would you do it?
Well, if you were a Volkswagen, the answer would probably be no, since you'd be murdering your own father, and you'd probably cease to exist. A C-Class Mercedes-Benz, however, would suffer no such temporal paradox, and that's the vehicle of young Adolf's destruction in this well-made though extremely odd commercial parody, created as a thesis by some German film students.
In the 80-second clip, the driverless car avoids various kids in Hitler's picturesque Austrian hometown but mows down young Adolf. The vehicle's Collision Prevention Assist technology, we're told, "detects dangers before they come up." The final image of the school-age never-to-be-Führer lying on the ground, limbs splayed out like a swastika, is memorably intense.
Mercedes parent Daimler is understandably miffed, and forced the students to add blaring disclaimers that identify the project as a spoof. The controversy has helped the clip go viral, with almost 700,000 YouTube views since Friday. Couching the film as an ad for a real automaker also provides, perhaps unintentionally, extra layers for interpretation by bringing the global corporate/industrial/media complex into the picture.
The filmmakers—Tobia Haase, Jan Mettler and Lydia Lohse—have said they wanted to explore the morality of technology by asking what would happen if machines had souls. I wonder what the world would've been like had Hitler had one.
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Mexican stationery company Scribe won a Bronze Lion in Cannes for its "Scribe Billboard" campaign, in which artist Cecilia Beaven lived inside a blank billboard like a shoemaker's elf for 10 days and added illustrations to it based on tweets from the public. (The finished work can be seen above.) The illustrations have now been turned into a 60-second cartoon by Vetor Zero/Lobo, and the results—featuring characters like a rabbit DJ, a surfing giraffe and a taxi driving Pegasus—wouldn't be out of place on Adult Swim. Really. I could see something like this paired with Adventure Time, no problem. Via The Inspiration Room.
More about the billboard's creation:
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Been wondering what Alex Bogusky is up to? He's just put out this little video in his latest push for social good: the Million Jobs Project. Bogusky stars in and narrates the infographic short (with animation and art direction by Scott McDonald) that implores Americans to spend just 5 percent more on products made in America. Apparently, if we shift our buying habits by just that small amount, we will create 1 million new jobs. There are some nice lines ("They call it outsourcing, which is a fancy word for 'You're fired' "), but at four minutes, it's a bit long. Fortunately, there's a short list of some American manufacturers to buy from over at millionjobsproject.us, which is an easy read. Of course, it's not a new message, but it is well told here. Will it work? The video hasn't taken off yet, but maybe that's because the ask is slightly confusing. Are we supposed to always buy American, buy 5 percent more for American, buy just one thing that's American, or share the video with two friends? The answer is all of those things.
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Here's a nice little Twitter activation from Nike and BBDO Argentina. The marketer had Burrito "The Mule" Martinez, star forward for the Boca Juniors soccer team, wipe out all of his 92,000 Twitter followers and start over from zero with the goal of regaining all the followers he erased. "Today I erased my 92,112 followers with the idea of winning them back by playing every match as if it were my first," he wrote in his first message back. (He's back up to 32,000 followers or so—so people apparently aren't too annoyed at having to re-follow him.) The stunt also ties in thematically with Nike's recent TV spot "Baptism" (below) in which veteran Boca Juniors players shave their heads—a ritual usually reserved only for rookies—to demonstrate their ongoing allegiance to the club.
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Reddit has declared that the Samsung promotional video below features "possibly the world's worst actors," a description that might not be literally true but is close enough. In the ad, for Samsung's 840 EVO solid-state hard drive, three animatronic stereotypes—baffled housewife, studious Asian gamer and corporate ladder-climber—robotically recite a script about how amazing the product is. The result is something that can't really be described in writing, so watch it for yourself below. The original was pulled from YouTube after it became a laughingstock on Reddit, but mirrored versions continue to circulate so that the world can appreciate this impressive feat of faux sincerity.
UPDATE: Here's a note from the Reddit thread, apparently from the "corporate" actor in the spot:
"Hi. So I'm an actor/model living in Seoul, and im playing the 'businessman' in this promo. now, admittedly its not my best work lol, but most people arent aware of just how many factors go into making it this bad. Allow me to elaborate. They force us to speak slowly since this will be dubbed over in Korean, and even when it isnt, most people viewing it will be Korean. They ask us to exaggerate since many Korean people feel thats how we 'naturally' act (most people here are not very expressive). Ive worked many jobs where I tried to act naturally only to be told by the director to act more 'bright' (ie exaggerate). its how the director and client (in this case, Samsung), WANT us to act. the script is brutal. written by non-native english speakers, and sometimes the PD or director wont even take our suggestions to change some parts so they sound like something a normal native english speaker would say. its a promotional video, not a tv commercial, meaning it will be shown at conventions and expos and in-house. most of the people watching it are korean and thats why they make us do all of the above. edit: almost forgot, shooting took place from 730am – 3am the next day, and by the time they shot the scenes with the girl, she was literally falling asleep in her chair, hence the stoned expression and tone :)"
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Advertising Agency: Makani Creatives, Mumbai, India
Creative Directors: Ashish Makani, Sameer Makani
Art Directors: Rahul Patel, Prasad Rao
Copywriter: Shivnay Sabharwal
Illustrators: Siddhartha Choudhary, Sameer Surwad
The post Graphology by Makani Creative appeared first on desicreative.
There isn't a public event that Apple and Samsung users can't spoil by fighting with each other, according to Crispin Porter + Bogusky's hyperbolic but still amusing campaign for the Windows Phone—which continues with the spot below, again directed by Roman Coppola and set to air Sunday during MTV's Video Music Awards.
Coppola directed the earlier spot, "The Wedding," which was a big success (more than 6 million YouTube views), and he brought back many of the same actors for "The Recital." In the new spot, Apple and Samsung users again jockey for position to get the best photos, and are soon ridiculing, head-butting and otherwise trying to take each other down. (On the plus side, at least they seem interested in the school play and aren't just falling asleep.) The spot pushes the Nokia Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixels and reinvented zoom, which apparently helps you get better pictures and also just be a nicer person.
There's less snappy dialogue this time, though it's a fun moment at the end when the woman who's literally spouting Apple's recent advertising copy gets thumped to the floor.
Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Microsoft
Spot: "The Recital"
Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Rob Reilly
Executive Creative Director: Dan Donovan
Creative Directors: Dave Swartz, Dave Steinke
Associate Creative Directors: Paul Sincoff, Kyle Jones
Art Director: Jeff Hunter
Copywriter: Aaron Cathey
Integrated Head of Video: Chad Hopenwasser
Executive Integrated Producer: Sloan Schroeder
Senior Integrated Producer: Laura Keseric
Production Company: Directors Bureau, Los Angeles
Director: Roman Coppola
Executive Producers (Production Company): Lisa Margulis, Elizabeth Minzes
Producer (Production Company): Francie Moore
Director of Photography: Chris Soos
Postproduction: NO6LA, Santa Monica, Calif.
Visual Effects: Method, Santa Monica, Calif.
Executive Producer, Design: Robert Owens
Producer: Ananda Reavis
Editor: Jason McDonald
Music Company: JSM Music
Junior Music Producer: Chip Herter
Arrangers: Joel Simon, Doug Katsaros
Sound Design Company: Henry Boy, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Sound Designer: Matthew Hedge
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Taking "a trip to Belize" doesn't sound fun, at least the way the phrase was used on Breaking Bad last Sunday. But the small Central American country took the reference in stride and is out to prove that a visit to Belize isn't, in fact, a one-way trip to oblivion—by offering free vacations to Vince Gilligan and eight members of the AMC show's cast.
"Many of us are big fans of the show and can't wait to see what happens over the last six episodes," the tourism board (with help from ad agency Olson) wrote in its invitation. "While we hope that some of our favorite characters don't get 'sent on a trip to Belize' in the show, we do hope you will take us up on the following offer—we'd like to send all of you on an ACTUAL trip to our country after the season is over."
As Olson explained to us in an email, this is certainly a better response to the unflattering mention than just freaking out about it.
Hey @deanjnorris, not so nice what @mrbobodenkirk suggested last night. We’d love to have U for an actual trip anytime. #breakingbad #belize
— Belize Tourism Board (@belizevacation) August 19, 2013
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Vinny Guadagnino of Jersey Shore stars as a well-endowed yoga hunk in this decidedly unique Benefit Cosmetics spot for They're Real! mascara. The ad opens to hunky dude ogling, which is oh so trendy right now. But it wastes no time focusing right on their man candy, as all the ladies around them become visibly excited. Then the men reach into their pants and pull out … a handful of mascara tubes to toss to the women—delivering the message that their bulges might be fake but your lashes could be nice. Or perhaps the message is the tagline: "Laughter is the best cosmetic."
The agency, Portal A, also roped in actor Simon Rex (aka Dirt Nasty) and Vine-famous comedian Brittany Furlan to round out the cameos. Benefit is doing exactly the right kind of things to draw attention to its tiny, feisty brand, but the spot doesn't go quite far enough to be funny or outrageous. Vinny, in particular, comes off as inexplicably suave as he winks in tree pose. Maybe they should have just let Brittany make five six-second Vines and call it a day. Her Vines about the spot are hilars.
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The city of Toronto is offering prizes as part of its "What the Fact?" campaign promoting local museums and historic sites to young people. Unfortunately, those prizes are passes to the museums and sites in question, which should squash any interest among the target audience. Kidding, of course. But my snarky intro illustrates a very real problem facing the client: How do you market museums to a fickle audience that basically lives online?
Its answer is a campaign in 100 area bus shelters and online, headlined by the slogan "WTF?" in bold letters. The ads show historic artworks, soldiers' uniforms and other exhibits, and invite people to go to Facebook and guess what each item might be. Correct guesses get you free passes, which will be awarded once the campaign ends on Sept. 10, when the artifacts' identities will also be revealed.
"We wanted to find a way we could reach out to the general public and ideally a younger audience," museum services program designer Ilena Aldini-Messina tells the Toronto Star. "We find that social media is a great way to reach out to that audience."
Kudos for embracing interactivity, and for the quasi-questionable "WTF?" headline, which has predictably ruffled some feathers in the Great White North and generated free publicity for the cause. According to Inside Toronto, the campaign has already been shared or commented on 1,200 times—though I'm not convinced that will translate into more young people patronizing local museums and historic sites in the long run. The youthful target audience probably plans to sell the tickets to get cash for beer and earbuds.
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Microsoft's new back-to-school ad for Windows 8 tablets—here, the Lenovo Yoga in particular—is being touted, at least by CNET, as another huge diss against the iPad. It is, of course, but it's not as harsh as all that. The Yoga's ability to multitask is mostly compared to less impressive classroom behaviors, like fumbling around for a pen as the professor reads aloud from Keats's "The Second Coming," which he wouldn't do in real life. Sure, a lot of the ill-prepared students are using iPads, but the tone is more "The Yoga is great" than "Apple products are crap." Which is good, because it's hard for me to take a product named Yoga (that isn't actually yoga) seriously. How much more white and middle class could that name be? Will we be seeing ads for the Lenovo Mumford & Sons next fall?
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Dozens of women are featured in the captivating, Regina Spektor-driven opening credits for Netflix's Orange Is the New Black—but none of them are in the show itself. As Fast Company's Co.Design blog reports, showrunner Jenji Kohan wanted the title sequence to suggest that the show—about women incarcerated in a minimum security prison—would tell many stories, not just that of the main character, Piper. So, Venice, Calif., design company Thomas Cobb Group settled on a solution—it photographed real women who had been in prison in close-ups that would shield their identities while also feeling immediate and intimate.
Michael Trim photographed nine women in New York, while Thomas Cobb photographed 52 women in Los Angeles. TCG executive producer Gary Bryman explains: "Thomas directed each woman to visualize in their mind three emotive thoughts: Think of a peaceful place, think of a person who makes you laugh, and think of something that you want to forget. He apologized ahead of time for the last question but found it was incredibly effective in evoking a wide range of unfortunate memories. … Thomas found this really interesting sweet spot of cropped compositions that would not necessarily reveal who the person was, but at the same time provide a portal into their soul through their eyes."
Piper Kerman, who wrote the memoir on which the show is based, is the blue-eyed woman who blinks at the 1:02 mark. Check out the rest of the story at Co.Design.
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Barry Sanders has always been good at the vanishing act. He did it most famously in 1999 by retiring from the NFL at age 30, when he was just 1,457 yards short of the league rushing record. He does it again, comically, in this new Pepsi MAX ad from TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles and director Matt Dilmore. In the ad, Sanders, getting a shave at a barber shop, is about to reveal the real reason he retired—but suddenly he goes up in a puff of smoke, and reappears in the living room of some gamer who has "unlocked" him while playing Madden NFL 25, thanks to a code on a Pepsi MAX cap.
Sanders' involvement with Madden NFL 25 goes beyond the new ad. Though he's been retired for almost 15 years, the 45-year-old was recently voted by fans to be the cover athlete of the game's latest edition. "Being on the cover of Madden introduces you to so many new fans that never saw you play," he said recently. "It's been a thrill for me, and I just never saw it coming."
Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Pepsi MAX
Spot: "Disappearing Sanders"
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles
President: Carisa Bianchi
Chief Creative Officer: John Norman
Creative Director, Copywriter: Zach Hilder
Creative Director, Art Director: William Esparza
Senior Copywriters: Anne Sanguinetti, Kathleen Swanson
Art Directors: Kristina Krkljus, Jenn Tranbarger
Group Account Director: Grace Kao
Management Supervisor: James Aardahl
Account Executives: Erik Wade, Rohit Bal
Planning Director: Neil Barrie
Planner: Drew Phillips
Executive Producer, Producer: Anh-Thu Le
Associate Producer: Stephanie Dziczek
Director of Business Affairs: Linda Daubson
Senior Business Affairs Manager: Laura Drabkin
Talent Payment Manager: Maryam Ohebsion
Broadcast Traffic Coordinator: Eugene Gandia
Production Company: Epoch Films
Director: Matt Dilmore
Executive Producer: Melissa Culligan
Head of Production: Megan Murphee
Line Producer: Geoff Clough
Editing: Cut + Run
Editor: Graham Turner
Assistant Editor: Russell August Anderson
Executive Producer: Michelle Eskin
Senior Producer: Christie Price
Visual Effects: Framestore
Flame Artist: Trent Shumway
Executive Producer: Kati Haberstock
Producer: Mary Nockles
Telecine: MPC
Colorist: Ricky Gausis
Mix: Lime Studios
Mixer: Loren Silber
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Stealing cardboard cutouts of the David Hasselhoff from Cumberland Farms is all fun and games until someone gets seriously hurt.
It began innocuously enough last summer, when some 550 cutouts of the Hoff were stolen from the convenience store's locations in New England and Florida. At the time, a brand strategist for the chain brushed off the thefts, saying the company didn't encourage it but was nonetheless "flattered by the attention." The chain will be less flattered by an incident on Tuesday, however, in which a Cumberland Farms clerk in Shelton, Conn., was critically injured trying to prevent the theft of a Hoff cutout from the latest campaign.
According to a statement from the local police: "The initial investigation revealed that a black SUV pulled into the lot of Cumberland Farms. The victim later observed a white male get out of the vehicle and cut two 'David Hasseloff' [sic] advertisement signs off of a light pole. The male then put the signs in the back of the vehicle. The victim approached the vehicle in an attempt to get the signs back. The vehicle then sped away and the victim was dragged and then he spun around and flipped backwards landing on his head."
The victim, who has not been identified, is listed in critical condition at an area hospital. Meanwhile, a 19-year-old who is suspected to have been the driver has come forward and is cooperating with police.
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Chrissy Teigen, whom you may remember from her Sports Illustrated and Maxim appearances, was surprised by a Skittles waterfall during a recent photo shoot that was actually an ad stunt by Olson. It's generally a faux pas to dump candy all over someone without telling them first, but Chrissy took it in stride. She may have even welcomed it as a break from what was essentially the same retro pin-up photo shoot (with the same retro one-piece) that every other twentysomething girl in the country has been doing recently. "Surprise the Rainbow" is still a potentially dangerous piece of advice, though.
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Bryan Cranston, the DEA's No. 1 pain in the ass during his iconic run as meth kingpin Walter White on AMC's Breaking Bad, has been getting some press lately for his early-'80s work in the commercial below for Preparation H (a product that basically defined the Reagan Era). Cranston's earnest take on lines like "It accelerates the absorption of oxygen to help shrink swelling of inflamed hemorrhoidal tissue" is so unironic, it's ironic.
UProxx posted a bunch of his ads from that decade, and Cranston's vaunted range is on full display. He's a smarmy "high-paid fashion model" for JCPenney, a bugged airport runway worker for Deep Woods Off, and a B.O.-cursed bus commuter dressed up as a skunk for Shield deodorant soap. (In some of these, his glib line deliveries and feathered hair remind me of the late, great Phil Hartman.)
Breaking Bad co-star Aaron Paul also did some early commercial work, notably a mind-blowing Juicy Fruit ad with a telekinetic twist from 2000, also posted below. (I wish Paul would shill for Preparation H and coin the catch phrase, "For when it itches, bitches!") On Breaking Bad, Cranston and Paul's characters often escape by the seats of their pants, but with their peril growing as the show winds down to its final episode, it will take more than Preparation H to save them from a painful end.
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