Back in January, Red Robin basked in the glow of good publicity after the manager of one of its North Carolina restaurants comped a pregnant patron $11.50 and added a good-luck message to her bill. Aww! The coverage this week, however, is closer to aww-ful, as the chain is taking heat from vegetarians for a commercial touting its 24 burger options. The 15-second spot includes the line, "We even have a garden burger … just in case your teenage daughter is going through a phase." The actress's overdone delivery, probably intended as conspiratorial, comes off as condescending. Now, you'd think vegetarians would be too scrawny and weak to kick up a fuss, but they flocked to social media (where else?) and accused the chain of being disrespectful and callous, demanding that it pull the ad and/or apologize. On Monday, Red Robin's communications chief, Kevin Caulfield, told the Huffington Post that the ad "is planned to be out of rotation and no longer on the air very soon." The controversy will have no lasting impact, and I expect any ill will to vanish as soon as the commercial does. It's not like the chain's employees posted videos of themselves licking garden burgers or sticking their toes in the lettuce—yet. Behave, burger people! See a few more spots from the campaign after the jump.
red robin says it offers a gardenburger "just in case your teenage daughter is going through a phase." how many groups did it just insult?
Kraft's saucy ad campaign (via ad agency Being) for its Zesty Italian salad dressing launched in early April, but it's taken a rebuke from One Million Moms to give it a sudden enormous boost of visibility. The moms are super pissed off about the print ad above, featuring the campaign's hunky model, Anderson Davis, enjoying a naked picnic. The ad is far from subtle—the picnic blanket has pretty obviously been pulled over Davis's privates in such a way that it looks somewhat obscene. This infuriated the moms, which write on their website: "Last week's issue of People magazine had the most disgusting ad on the inside front cover that we have ever seen Kraft produce. A full 2-page ad features a n*ked man lying on a picnic blanket with only a small portion of the blanket barely covering his g*nitals. It is easy to see what the ad is really selling." Nope, they can't even say the words naked or genitals. The moms add: "Christians will not be able to buy Kraft dressings or any of their products until they clean up their advertising." Kraft responded with this statement: "Our Kraft dressing's 'Let's Get Zesty' campaign is a playful and flirtatious way to reach our consumers. People have overwhelmingly said they're enjoying the campaign and having fun with it."
Mother New York made up a word, "MIDWULS," using the last seven digits of Optimum's phone number, and created an integrated campaign around it. MIDWULS, we're told, is "that incredible feeling that comes when you get a great deal on TV, phone and Internet" by signing up with Optimum. The launch commercial shows folks in different situations saying "MIDWULS," and goofs on sci-fi-game addicts, Game of Thrones fanatics and Web-lovin' street gangs ("Yo, this is our hotspot!"). The campaign goes all-in, with a Wikipedia page (it's been deleted), a Tumblr (fairly amusing), an online store (every item is "sold out"—ha!) and the requisite #MIDWULS hashtag. (It's possible that Michael Bolton's next album will be titled MIDWULS.) I initially wondered if perhaps Mother deleted the Wikipedia entry itself as a postmodern, meta media move. Then I realized, even if they had, it would be a meh-ta move at best. The work tries a little too hard to be clever, like I just did with "meh-ta," and already feels played out. "MIDWULS" is amusing as a one-off, but I doubt it will spell success in the long run.
A year ago this week, Max Page—known to ad geeks as the 8-year-old actor who played Little Vader in Volkswagen's 2011 Super Bowl ad—had open-heart surgery for a congenital heart defect. He's had eight surgeries in all at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Now, People magazine has an update on how he's doing. In short, he's healthy—and making a difference. "He's doing remarkably well," his mom, Jennifer Page, says. "He's a full-throttle kid who loves doing charity work, making appearances in hospitals nationwide, raising funds and cheering up other kids." Max serves as a junior ambassador for Children's, and has raised more than $50,000 for the hospital. "I love being able to help kids who are less fortunate," he says. "It's all about giving back." It looks like the Vader suit comes along with him, too. "It was fun filming it," he says. "It's never going to get old to me."
If you are male, the moment you have a child you are required to drastically alter your sense of humor in ways both profound and irreversible. Where before you were witty and sharp, you must now become broad and pun-heavy. This is mostly so you can embarrass your offspring, although, counterintuitively, it is also guaranteed to make them love you more. (The whole thing is probably evolutionary in some complex way.) This Sunday, for Father's Day, Heineken will celebrate this oddity of the human condition with a #dadjokes campaign from Wieden + Kennedy in New York. You submit your cheesiest dad joke with that hashtag to @Heineken_US, and the brewer will meme-ify its favorites—posting your joke next to stock photos of awesome dads through the ages. Heineken will add its own #dadjokes throughout the day, too, and all of them will be archived on a special #dadjokes Tumblr. Join in Sunday, and make it the most groan-inducing site on the Internet. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Heineken Project: #dadjokes Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal Creative Directors: Erik Norin, Eric Steele Creatives: Mike Vitiello, Jessica Abercrombie Designer: Cory Everett Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Jacqueline Ventura Brand Strategist: Jeremy Daly Art Producer: Michelle Chant Interactive Producers: Mutaurwa Mapondera, Victoria Krueger Director of Integrated Production: Lora Schulson Director of Interactive Production: Brandon Kaplan Business Affairs: Quentin Perry
Fox's Family Guy has a new "For Your Consideration" ad for this year's Emmy Awards, because Seth MacFarlane's unfunny Rat Pack schtick hasn't ruined enough award shows yet. The latest ad references an episode of HBO's Girls in which someone received a pearl necklace. Hence the Family Guy headline: "Here's a load of comedy to shoot on your chest." Groan. It's better than the lazy Jew-baiting that MacFarlane and company have been relying on lately, but that Girls episode was beaten to death long before they got to it. But that's to be expected from a show that hasn't been funny since I was in college.
Here's a fun Twitter stunt from Germany for Fiat's Abarth 500 turbocharged hatchback. If you try to follow the vehicle's official Twitter page, you get a direct message saying that no one can follow the Abarth 500, because it's just too fast. (Its follower count, which briefly clicks up to 1 when you follow, soon goes back down to 0.) Clever. The upside, of course, is all the earned media. The downside? You know—no Twitter followers.
I doubt I'm alone in believing that Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman's mustache) is one of the best characters in TV history. The folks at O'Charley's seem to be such fans that they've created their own "spokes-patron" who seems to be an homage to television's favorite steak-devouring Libertarian. The "Brock Roland" character appears in two new spots for O'Charley's. In one, Roland introduces himself by saying he'll gamble on push-up contests and love, but not on steak. In the second spot, he adds an order of chicken fingers to his cowboy sirloin, which might get a nod of respect from Swanson, who likes to order his steaks in threes and once asked a diner for "all the bacon and eggs you have." Check out one of the O'Charley's spots below and another after the jump, where you'll also find a few of our favorite Ron Swanson food moments.
Huggies and Ogilvy & Mather Argentina made a belt for men that allows them to feel their unborn baby's kicks. The belt is synced up with the real-time movements of the baby in the mother's belly, apparently through some kind of wireless sorcery. It's a neat idea, although the description of it as "something special to compensate fathers" is a little weird, like pregnancy is some kind of cakewalk that they're missing out on. But, whatever. It's hard for me to get on my high horse about this when things like the Daddle exist.
Adam&eveDDB once again gambles on an unconventional approach for Volkswagen in this new U.K. spot, which offers cornball renditions of "My Way," including one performed on pan pipes, for the first 40 seconds (more than half its running time) while keeping the Golf GTI out of sight. Then—badda bing!—Frank Sinatra's iconic version of the song kicks in, and the car's in every freaking frame, zipping around the Las Vegas strip and hot wheelin' on the roof of the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino. This segue from weird home-video/YouTube fodder to big-bucks commercial glitz could've been jarring, but is handled so smoothly that it pays off in an ad that's different enough to be memorable without seeming ridiculous. There's a making-of clip for viewers who wish to double down. Also, have a look back at adam&eveDDB's VW spot from last month, when it really hit the jackpot with an unusual and compelling commercial highlighting the automaker's fuel-saving start/stop technology.
The moon isn't made of cheese. It's made of lime. Corona and ad agency Cramer-Krasselt have put up a fun billboard in New York City which—on certain nights of the month, from a certain angle—makes the waxing crescent moon look like a slice of lime resting in a Corona bottle. The next public viewing of "Luna Corona," at 15th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan, will happen this Friday and Saturday nights, if you're interested. For the promo video below, the agency trots out scientific types, who explain in hushed tones how difficult it is to get the precision just right for this. I'm not an astronomer, but wouldn't it be easy to line up the moon and the bottle throughout the evening by walking around with your camera to a different spot on the street? The billboard is cool enough on its own without making it seem too much like a true celestial event.
Drones are in the news for all sorts of horrible reasons, but Domino's might salvage its reputation somewhat by eventually—someday—using them to deliver pizza. The company's DomiCopter—a joint effort by U.K. drone specialist AeroSight, Big Communications and creative agency T + Biscuits—is an eco-friendly machine capable of carrying pizzas in heatwave bags for impressive distances without refueling, similar to how a swallow would carry a coconut. Sadly, it's also a threat to the labor force of guys who get stoned in their cars and forget where you live.
Beef jerky raining down from the sky. We've all dreamed about it. I'm pretty sure it's prophesied in the Bible somewhere. Well, Jack Link's and ad agency Carmichael Lynch brought the fantasy to life on Tuesday night to celebrate the second annual National Jerky Day, which, of course, is today (as if you didn't already know). Thousands of Jack Link's packages with tiny parachutes were dropped from a helicopter over the Omaha Champions Village baseball complex. This is what passes for entertainment in Nebraska. More salty, meaty events are planned for today nationwide. The brand's Sasquatch mascot will hand out samples at the Hollywood & Highland Center, though passersby might just think it's Kevin Smith. The jerky drop was the culmination of "Operation Sky Meat," which featured teaser videos of a pigeon, plane, rocket and radio-controlled toy chopper attempting to sky-drop Jack Link's products, though all climaxed in fiery explosions. Yes, I spoiled the endings, and I've had a crap attitude through this entire post. It is Jerky Day, after all.
While most gamers were focused this week on learning what the new Sony PlayStation 4 will look like and how much it will cost ($399), ad geeks were treated to their own big reveal: the console's new marketing campaign. "Greatness Awaits" will be the launch tagline for the PS4, and the campaign rolled out this week with a suitably epic 90-second anthem spot from BBH New York. The agency won the PlayStation account earlier this year, succeeding longtime creative lead Deutsch/LA, whose ads featuring fictional PlayStation vp Kevin Butler were roundly beloved until ending awkwardly with a lawsuit against the star talent. The new guard's inaugural work for the PS4 features actor Taylor Handley (from CBS's recently canceled series Vegas) delivering a long-take soliloquy on embracing your greatness. Speckled with cameos by game characters and self-destructing set designs, the ad ends with the actor diving into the fray to break some pirate legs and clothesline a few clowns. If those are both part of the same game, I'd be willing to pre-order a PS4 today. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Sony PlayStation 4
Agency: BBH New York Chief Creative Officer: John Patroulis Executive Creative Director: Ari Weiss Creative Director: Nate Able Copywriter: Rick Herrera Head of Integrated Production: Justin Booth-Clibborn Senior Producer: Jennifer Moore Bell Production Assistant: AJ Gutierrez Head of Account Management: Armando Turco Account Director: Melissa Hill Account Manager: Georgie Gooley Account Coordinator: Marshal Kerns
Production Company: MJZ Director: Rupert Sanders Director of Photography: Greig Fraser President: David Zander Executive Producer: Kate Leahy Producer: Laurie Boccaccio Production Supervisor: Adriana Cebada Mora Production Designer: Dominic Watkins Costume Designer: Mayes Rubeo
Local Production Company: Kinema Films de Mexico Local Production Co. Producer: Jose Ludlow
Editorial: Work Post NY Executive Producer: Erica Thompson Editor: Neil Smith Assistant Editor: Healy Snow
VFX & Finishing: The Mill NY Exec Producer: Jo Arghiris Senior VFX Producer: Charlotte Arnold VFX Supervisor: Iwan Zwarts VFX Supervisor: Rob Petrie Assistant Producer: Juan Handal Colour Producer: Heath Raymond Colourist: Fergus McCall 2D Lead Compositor: Iwan Zwarts 2D Compositing Artists: Kyle Cody, Dan DiFelice, Additional: Danny Morris, John Mangia, Ilia Mokhtareizadeh, Greg Spencer, Dan Giraldo 2D Conforms and Cut-downs: Jade Kim 3D Lead Artists: Rob Petrie and Joji Tsuruga 3D Lead Lighter: Olivier Mitonneau 3D Animators: Jeff Lopez, Alex Allain, Tyler Hurd 3D Artists: Olivier Varteressian, Per Bergsten, Ivan Luque Cueller, Billy Dangyoon Jang, Boris Ustaev, Hassan Taimur, Ruben Vandebroek, Tim Kim 3D MASSIVE: Wyattt Savarese, Ed Hicks, Hassan Tuimir 3D FX: Nick Couret, Ian Baxter, Phil Mayer, Cedrick Grousse Matte Painting: Can Y. Sanalan Title Design: Mario Stipinovich, Tetsuro Mise, Eugene Kolb
Additional: LIDAR services provided by Scanable: Travis Reinke Rotoscoping provided by: Trace VFX Sound Designer: Brian Emrich at Trinitite Music: Woodwork Music Music Producer: Andrew Oswarek Composer: Phil Kay Mix: Sound Lounge Mixer: Tom Jucarone
Gillette has a super-geeky Man of Steel tie-in and YouTube takeover going on right now, where they ask an impressive list of celebrities, "How does Superman shave?" Bill Nye, the science guy, offers a theory based in materials science. Super-geek movie director Kevin Smith suggests he uses a piece of the spaceship he came to Earth in (while detailing and dismissing some super other amusing theories, including the one from the comics that he uses his heat-vision reflected in a mirror to burn each hair off). The Big Bang Theory's Mayim Bialik (whom you may know as Blossom, and who also has a real Ph.D in neuroscience) puts forth that Superman has super-Nair. Finally, the MythBusters guys give five or six theories before landing on the Large Hadron Collider. Surprisingly, but not in a bad way, no one said with a Gillette razor. It's a smart idea and a great tie-in. Ad agency Concept One came up with the notion for Gillette. If you want to hash over your own theory, tweet at #HowDoesHeShave. Or just search it to geek out on the crazy pseudo-science theories. Asking comic-book nerds to argue an absurd bit of superhero minutiae on social media? Their evil plan just might work! More spots below.
After years of weirdness and grotesquerie, Skittles has found its calling—breaking Grandma's knickknacks. This enjoyable interactive YouTube video from DDB Chicago features a young man who breaks a porcelain unicorn after it promises it will turn into Skittles if he does so. Naturally, the interactive part involves clicking on, and watching the guy break, a bunch of other stuff, including two frogs, two birds and a monkey. It's pretty fun, and I'm glad to see Skittles run those anarchic creative tendencies of theirs through some quality control. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Mars/Skittles Agency: DDB, Chicago Ewan Paterson: Chief Creative Officer Mark Gross: ECD Alex Zamiar: ACD/Art Director Jonathan Richman: ACD/Copywriter Will St. Clair: Exec. Producer Jon Ellis: Exec. Digital Producer Matt Green: Producer Scott Terry: Production Manager Director: Harold Einstein, Station Film Editorial: Beast Editorial
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.
