Remember that time you thought babysitting for a few extra bucks was a great idea? What could be so hard about putting an 8-year-old to bed, right? Fast-forward a few hours, and Mikey's got his head caught in the stairs. Sarah's got a wad of gum in her hair. You're fashioning a makeshift diaper out of duck tape for the one whose name you forgot. Or worse, the house catches fire. Seriously, anything can happen. Have you seen The Sitter?
Lucky for you, the Red Cross has developed "Babysitting Basics Course," an online tutorial that teaches you how to handle—or better yet, avoid—babysitting blunders. Oh, and they teamed up with BBDO Atlanta and director Daniel Strange to produce the PSA below. The spot is a charming and adorable one-minute piece about the potential hazards of babysitting. And those cute little tykes are clearly more aware of them than their absent-mind teenage babysitter. So, to you would-be sitters out there: Before you decide to conquer you neighbor's living room, hear the warning of unlucky kids, go online and take the course.
Pereira & O'Dell's social film "The Beauty Inside" for Intel and Toshiba was a major success—an engaging episodic tale with a delightful premise that propelled the small San Francisco agency onto the world stage when it won a Daytime Emmy and three Grand Prix at Cannes last month. So, what do they do for a sequel? They have Harvey Keitel battle zombie alien mustaches, of course.
"The Power Inside" stars Harvey Keitel, Craig Roberts, Analeigh Tipton, Reid Ewing and Zack Pearlman in the apparently somewhat campy story of aliens who disguise themselves as mustaches or unibrows and attach themselves to unsuspecting humans, turning them into unthinking drones. With the help of his friends and technology—and you—the main character, Neil, discovers he’s the only guy who can stop the invasion. (Intel-inspired Ultrabook devices by Toshiba play an important role, we're told.)
Check out the trailer below, and visit thepowerinside.com to audition to be in the film—as a Urick (bad guy) or Guardian (good guy). The six-episode series premieres Aug. 15 at facebook.com/insidefilms.
If I ever want to drive up Pikes Peak in Colorado fairly fast, I guess I'll buy a Range Rover.
That's my takeaway from this five-minute video showing the 2014 Range Rover Sport setting records for both production-standard SUVs and standard vehicles of any kind on the 12.42-mile Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course. In June, performance and stunt driver Paul Dallenbach, who has won several events on Pikes Peak, took 12 minutes and 35.61 seconds to climb the hill, traveling at an average speed of about 60 miles per hour.
It's a twisty track with dense forest below. This is Dallenbach's first time back since he crashed there last year during a race while driving a different type of vehicle. Footage of that accident is re-run, and race officials, a safety crew member and a Pikes Peak Ranger are on hand to discuss how perilous the course can be.
The clip—the first in the automaker's "The Driven Challenges" series—makes every effort to play up the drama and danger. And while it's a solid piece of work, I still felt dissatisfied.
I mean, they'd never post the video if Dallenbach drove off a cliff and smashed the SUV in a flaming heap on the rocks below, now would they? We know that he and the SUV are going to be just fine, which makes the whole approach feel strained.
The film uses cinematic tools to build suspense where none really exists in the first place. Misty mountain tops and fast-moving cars are intercut with lingering shots of worried or thoughtful faces. Moody musical cues suggest danger in every note. The intensity peaks, so to speak, around the 2:15 mark, with the scene cutting from the starter to Paul … from the starter to Paul … from the starter to … just drive the damn truck already!
Contrast this with "Desire," Jaguar's 13-minute branded film from a few months back. (Jaguar and Range Rover are part of the same company.) "Desire" stars Damian Lewis as a mysterious "delivery man" searching for the new owner of a red F-Type sports car. There's action, gunplay and a twist at the end. Of course, it's complete fantasy, a schlocky story and utterly derivative at that. Yet on first viewing I found myself riveted by the tricky plot. I really did want to see how it all worked out, and those 13 minutes raced by.
Dallenbach probably was a bit on edge in that Range Rover on Pikes Peak. He'd crashed there recently. The potential for disaster was real. Still, in the video, a happy denouement is assured. Subtract any true tension, and what remains is a film about a guy driving a truck up a hill. The fact that it's a most impressive hill, and that he set some obscure speed records, didn't particularly pique my interest.
Vending machines have been developing unique personalities for some time. We've had generous ones, sadistic ones, patriotic ones. Now, we've got an exceedingly empathetic one. Check out the video below from a South African airport, where coffee roaster Douwe Egberts rigged up its vending machine with facial-recognition software to dispense free cups of coffee to anyone who yawned. It's a nice stunt that turned those yawns to smiles. The fittingly named agency behind it: Joe Public. Via Foodbeast.
They say celebrity endorsements are a questionable investment, but as you can see below, they can be staggeringly successful—if the celebrity is Dikembe Mutombo and the target market is this particular baby. The Martin Agency will enjoy this. Wonder what the kid thinks of the "Hump Day" spot.
Mini is making the most of the summer season by introducing three incredible concept cars specially designed for campers—though you can't buy any of them (yet). And if they seem hard to believe, no wonder. At least one of them was previously unveiled as an April Fools' joke in 2012, but all three are now official Mini concept vehicles.
The most amazing is probably the Mini Cowley Caravan, an adorable trailer that comfortably sleeps two and comes with a twin-burner gas stove; a water tank with pump and sink; and a solar panel that charges the on-board battery, with a 230-volt connection that powers a fridge, TV and audio equipment.
The two other concepts are cool as well. The Countryman ALL4 Camp has a roof rack that cranks up into a tent.
The Clubvan Camper is almost a home on wheels—it has a spacious sleeping area for one; an extendable kitchenette with propane stove and chest fridge; a hand-held shower with water tank; a glass panel that can be opened for ventilation or stargazing; a kayak-looking storage rack on top; and a television and auxiliary heater.
Now, they just need to sell these things for real.
I both love and hate the fact that "bad/offensive car dealership ad" is an accepted genre of TV marketing now. I mean, nothing sells me on a car faster than terrible acting, crappy sound and cartoonish ethnic stereotypes, and Charlie Clark Nissan employs all of those in a series of ads that are basically Hearst newsrag political cartoons from the 1930s. Also, the bald guy in the Tonto ad—which has been pulled from YouTube—looks like The Creeper from The Suffering: The Ties That Bind, which leaves me even further disinclined from ever buying a car at this place. Free marketing tip for these guys: I know you think any publicity is good publicity because you're raising awareness/generating buzz, but that only works when your target audience doesn't think you're all racist halfwits. Via Deadspin.
This hilarious promo for the final season of CBS's How I Met Your Mother takes the show's weird framing device to its logical and deeply unsavory conclusion. The premise of the show is that our narrator, Ted, years from now, is actually telling his kids the extremely long-winded story of how he met their mother. Thing is, the show's been on for eight years. So, if you think about it, Ted has spent all that time recounting an endless series of women he slept with while his kids were trapped on the living-room couch. In this bleep-laden promo, Ted's adorable children, now surly teenagers, point out that in the past eight years they've gone through puberty, survived by crapping in a bucket, drinking rainwater and eating spiders, and are starting to have disturbing feelings of sibling lust—and he still hasn't gotten to how he met Mom. As the series finally ends, all of us, but especially Ted's kids, are excited to hear the motherf**king ending. The final season premieres Sept. 23.
Bucharest is many things. But one thing it is certainly not is Budapest. That's because Bucharest is the capital of Romania, and Budapest is the capital of neighboring Hungary. You could easily confuse them, of course, which is why Romanian candy bar ROM is out to end the confusion once and for all—with a new ad campaign from McCann Bucharest and MRM Romania.
As illustrated in the video below, it was all Michael Jackson's fault. In 1990, he started the trend by shouting "Hello, Budapest!" at his concert in Bucharest. In 1995, Iron Maiden did the same thing. They were followed by Morcheeba, Lenny Kravitz, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake and others. The problem reached comic proportions in 2012, when when 400 Athletic Bilbao fans missed the Europa League final after mistakenly flying to Budapest instead of Bucharest.
Bucharest didn't get mad, but now it wants to get even. Billboards have gone up in both cities, reminding everyone of which is which. A browser add-on adds the words "Not Budapest" next to every instance of "Bucharest." And fans on the ROM website are encouraged to share their Bucharest/Budapest stories and tag them #BucharestNotBudapest.
"It's a confusion that upsets us all, and if there is a brand that can take legitimate action towards this error, that brand is definitely ROM, because it's Romanian, authentic, daring and because it has BUCHAREST written on it," says client marketing manager Gabriela Munteanu. (You may remember ROM from the 2011 Cannes Lions festival, when it won two Grand Prix for a campaign that pretended to Americanize the candy bar, much to the horror of its fans.)
We will have an early indication of whether the Bucharest/Budapest campaign is working, as Iron Maiden returns to Bucharest on Wednesday as part of their current world tour.
Apparently unable to think up a new idea vapid enough for its liking, Abercrombie & Fitch—the self-proclaimed brand for the cool kids!—revisits its "Stars on the Rise" campaign from the early 2000s, now with new faces. Jacob Artist of Glee, Alexander Ludwig of The Hunger Games and Lily Rabe of American Horror Story are among those featured. Ludwig is shirtless. It looks like he works out. "For many of our consumers today, they might not know what we did in 2005, so it seemed relevant to discuss this concept we've done in the past," Abercrombie director of marketing Michael Scheiner tells BuzzFeed. Strange, he used the word "relevant." Without irony. I think. The monochrome print campaign, shot by Bruce Weber, also features famous dogs, like the Jack Russell terrier from The Artist, for no particular reason. Now, you might say it's just too easy to criticize soulless fashion and fragrance advertising, that there's no sport to it, and that doing so shows a certain intellectual laziness on my part. Well d'uh! The original version of the campaign thrust Taylor Swift and Ashton Kutcher into the limelight. Haven't we suffered enough already?
When copywriter Matt Bull was given free use of a Dallas billboard for a month, he did what many of us would do: He devoted it to sloth-related violence. Since the billboard was a reward from Clear Channel for Bull's quirky creativity, he chose to advertise SlothPunchClub.com, a URL he offered to hand over to whomever could come up with the best proposal for how it should be used. This week, Bull announced the winner: artist Timmy Hamm, aka "Sloth," who plans to create a series of sloth-related custom shoes and give them away to lucky monthly winners.
"Timmy plans to keep the community-driven/freeware/contest spirit of this enterprise alive, which is cool," Bull writes on his startup agency's website, DepartmentOfPersuasion.com. "His idea for Sloth Punch Club is to create one pair of shoes every month featuring a sloth punching something, and give them away. Each winner gets to be a member of the very exclusive Sloth Punch Club, and also gets to choose what exactly the target of the sloth's fists will be on the next pair of shoes Timmy gives away. It's simple and stupid and I love it."
As for Bull, who rapidly rose to Internet prominence when his first solo client work went viral, he reports his major source of life stress has shifted from finding paying work to simply getting all his new work done. So congrats to Matt, and to Timmy, and to the future members of the highly exclusive and well-shod Sloth Punch Club.
Ad agency: Ogilvy & Mather, New Delhi (Gurgaon), India.
Client: Qalamkaari Creative Calligraphy Trust
Art Director: Nasheet Shadani
Copywriters: Riazat Ullah Khan, Ajay Gahlaut, Nasheet Shadani
Calligraphers: Mushtaq Ahmad, Nasheet Shadani, Srikant Behera
AV coutesy: Team Saheb Productions, KcPandey
Festival Videos and Photos: Aseem Asha Foundation, Flying Birds of India.
Creative Director: Preeti Koul Chaudhry
Executive Creative Director: Ajay Gahlaut
Pulse-pounding thriller music and dramatic editing capture all the "excitement" of cable-access city-council broadcasts in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, in this tongue-in-cheek (but 100 percent real) promo. The commercial is nearing 80,000 YouTube views in a week. That's more than three times the town's population. High-impact scenes from the Monday-night broadcasts on Community Cable 9 include: a finger tapping a microphone to make sure it works; people writing on sheets of paper; pitchers of ice water sitting on tabletops; middle-aged, graying counselors entering the chamber and, ultimately, sitting down. The spot is so faux-intense, I kept expecting Peter Stormare to burst in … and pour himself a glass of water (though if he ever finds himself on this particular show, he should fire his agent). The highlight is Mayor Dan Curtis announcing that an additional $15,000 was made available to the local museum. Holy cow, what's next, a non-binding referendum on curbside recycling? Tune in Monday to find out, same Whitehorse City Council time, same Whitehorse City Council channel!
Remember back when advertisers would blatantly mock women for being helpless without men? I mean, you're probably not old enou … wait, never mind, still happening. A recent ad for used-car pricing service TrueCar.com features women explaining how the site helped them purchase a vehicle without the help of a man. Because apparently women have to research pricing, while men have the magical ability to guess it on the nose like they're securing a spot on The Price Is Right.
"TrueCar makes it a lot easier to go in by yourself," notes one of the testimonials. Another woman lays out the service's benefit even more bluntly: "I don't need to bring a dude with me." The ad has earned its share of critics on YouTube and Facebook. "The most sexist commercial out there," notes one woman on TrueCar's Facebook page. "Wow. I guess all women are just scared, meek, docile little creatures that get intimidated by car dealerships." Here's another Facebook comment from a man named Richard: "As a man, you're [sic] commercials embarrass me. The notion that women need a 'dude' to navigate the apparent labyrinth that is the automotive market is not only incorrect, its out-dated and offensive."
TrueCar has responded to a few of the complaints with a boilerplate response saying the ad was about leveling the playing field for every car buyer, not just women: "We apologize if our ad came across the wrong way. Transparency is a core part of our business and we aim to improve the car buying experience for everyone by helping consumers make an informed buying decision." Hat tip to blogger Kelby Carr for sharing this ad on Facebook.
UPDATE: TrueCar's PR firm, PGCCampbell, sent us the following response, attributed to TrueCar founder and CEO Scott Painter:
"Regardless of race or gender, being a more informed car buyer benefits consumers. TrueCar supplies a hassle-free experience for both men and women by providing car-buying information the public can't get elsewhere.
"This particular ad is pro-consumer and pro-women. It was developed by our creative director, who is a woman, and it addresses a real consumer issue in the marketplace."
When you hear the words human hair orchestra, don't you just imagine Hannibal Lecter conducting? Not so for this Unilever-sponsored stunt in the Philippines from JWT Singapore and JWT Manila. To show the strengthening effect of its Cream Silk hair-care line, the marketer enlisted a custom bow-maker and used human hair washed with the products instead of the usual horsehair to string four violin bows. An all-female quartet then used them to play 40 songs over four hours in a busy Manila mall. They reported no broken strands through the four-set concert, which drew a crowd of more than 600 people. The live music's lovely, and the idea's unique, but doesn't the whole thing have a slightly creepy it-puts-the-conditioner-on-its-head vibe?
Advertising Agency: Draft FCB + Ulka, Mumbai, India National Creative Director: K. S. Chakravarthy Executive Creative Director / Copywriter: Kartik Smetacek Copywriter: Donavon D’souza Creative Director / Art Director: Devendra Mankame Illustrator: Rahul Arora
Coca-Cola's new "Smile Back" out-of-home stunt (scroll down to see it) is cute and nicely done, and everyone everywhere will love it. But let's overthink it for a moment.
Coke is famously skilled at being able to "Open happiness," as its slogan goes, through innovative real-world stunts. These have ranged from overly generous vending machines to splittable cans and personalized bottles. The typical transaction is that Coke gives you something of obvious value—a free drink or a fun, surprising experience—and that thing makes you happy, sometimes infectiously so. That's an honest interaction. This new stunt, though—produced and crowdsourced with Victors & Spoils and MOFILM—is different. As the company explains in the YouTube description:
"Coca-Cola sent our people all over the world, from Jamaica to the United Kingdom to Pakistan and more, to simply smile at strangers—to see who would smile back. As we passed others on the street, on the bus or in the park, we gave a smile, held up smiley face posters or did a silly dance with a grin on our faces, all to prompt a little friendliness in the mundane. When someone smiled back, they received a free Coke or some other fun prize: everything from sunglasses to hats to bicycles."
So, instead of a product, first you get a smile—from someone who, regardless of how awesome they may seem, has been paid to smile at you. (This is sometimes called a Professional Smile, and is clearly of dubious value.) Then, you must respond positively to this pretend display of affection (bribe) to get the reward that you previously got for free. The transaction has changed—it's backwards. You agree to be made happy by something false in order to have the chance to be made happy by something true. (You might get punched in the nose, actually, if you tried this in New York City.)
That distinction may sound like B.S., but you can sense the difference. It's why Coke's security-camera spot was so good—it captured moments that couldn't have been more genuine. And it's why the "Smile Back" video (and the earlier huggable vending machine from Singapore, which had similar problems involving misplaced affection) feels more manufactured. For all the happiness on display here—and yes, not all of it is bogus—the spot lacks the purity of concept that makes the best Coke work sing.
Happiness is infectious, but this stunt might not leave everyone smiling.
Pereira & O'Dell tells stories from the point of view of trash in its new "I Want to Be Recycled" pro-bono campaign for the Ad Council and Keep America Beautiful. (No Honey Boo Boo jokes, please.) In one spot, we follow a plastic bottle's long journey from an alleyway garbage can over highways, through forests and down urban thoroughfares until it winds up as part of a bench made from recycled materials that overlooks the sea. Another ad presents a discarded aluminum can that dreams of one day being part of a shiny sports stadium. The bottle and can narrate, and the ads close with the tagline, "Give your garbage another life," ultimately pointing viewers toward IWantToBeRecycled.org.
These well-made PSAs are certainly affecting and will probably resonate with many viewers. Still, I wonder if powerful copy like, "They said I couldn't dream. Called me a piece of trash and swore that's all I'd ever be," isn't at least somewhat muted when only bottles and cans are shown on screen. This approach is quirky and memorable and does, in fact, work just fine in the context of the campaign. That said, I don't find it especially compelling, nor does it do much to convince me to recycle. (Can't say I care if your dreams come true, Mr. Can. Frankly, benches and ballparks will be built regardless of whether I recycle. That's not much of an inducement for me to change my behavior.)
The campaign's stories seem human, yet they lack a personal touch. It's tough to empathize with plastic containers and soda cans, no matter how sharp the writing and evocative the visual storytelling. Close-ups of actors looking straight into the camera and reading the lines—"People think I'm trash, but they're wrong"—might have better captured my attention and perhaps taken the premise to the next level. Sure, that set-up would be a bit goofy, but no more so than having the trash itself provide the voiceovers. Shots of narrators intercut with the bottles-and-cans footage might also be more distinctive and riveting. (Check out "I Want to Be a Bench," a 90-second video in which Keep Iowa Beautiful executive director Gerry Schnepf explains the genesis of the campaign and discusses the importance of recycling. This guy's low-key, folksy, matter-of-fact style made me want to start recycling more than the actual commercials did.)
Keep America Beautiful's iconic Iron Eyes Cody anti-pollution spots from the early 1970s were enduring because of their intense humanity and one-to-one connection with viewers. It was never a stretch to see ourselves reflected in those weeping eyes and understand that we all share responsibility for the planet's well-being. "I Want to Be Recycled" appeals to our desire for second chances and rebirth—redemption, if you will, given the items involved—but for me, the can imagery falls flat and the bottle's half empty.
CREDITS Client: The Ad Council Vice President, Campaign Director: Rowena Patrick Campaign Director: Amanda Bagwill Assistant Campaign Manager: Dana Vielmetti
Client: Keep America Beautiful Senior Vice President: Lynn Markley
Agency: Pereira & O'Dell Chief Creative Officer: P.J. Pereira Executive Creative Director: Jaime Robinson Associate Creative Director, Copywriter: Eduardo Marques Associate Creative Director, Art Director: Rafael Rizuto Copywriters: Ross Cavin, Earl Lee Art Directors: Chris Adams, Arnau Bosch Project Manager: Katie Shesgreen Account Director: Ashley Brown Account Executive: Jennifer Wantuch Vice President, Director of Strategy: Nick Chapman Strategy Director: Justin Cox Strategist: Alina Shabashevich Executive Producer: Jeff Ferro Broadcast Producers: Judy Kreiter, Elisa Moore Print Producer: James Sablan Senior Interactive Producer: Erin Davis Business Affairs Director: Xandra Ess
Production Company: MJZ Director: Victor Garcia President: David Zander Executive Producer: Kate Leahy Producer: Greg Ferguson
Visual Effects: MPC Telecine Producer: Claudia Guevara Lead Nuke Artist: Alex Harding Lead Smoke Artist: Marcus Wood Compositor: Jonathan McKee Computer Graphics Lead Artist: Liam Griffin Colorist: Adrian Seery Audio: POP Sound Mixers: Zac Fisher, Stephen Dickson Music: Stimmung
Agency: BEI Confluence, New Delhi, India
Advertiser: Glide
Brand: Glide Razor
Art Director: Sonu Chandra
Copywriter: Manish Ranjan
Photography: Nitesh Chakravarti
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
