Hasta La Creative!

Whenever I write about zombies, I tend to bury the lead. That's a grave mistake. Anyway, here's a case study about how the Darewin Agency used social media to make The Walking Dead a hit on France's NT1 TV network. On its Walking Dead site, NT1 advised people to avoid a "zombie virus" by avoiding the #walkingdeadNT1 hashtag, which naturally prompted people to use it. Within moments of posting the hashtag on Twitter or Facebook, users were suddenly followed by hoards of virtual zombies. (Maybe those new followers were just average French people. Undead or Parisian … it can be tough to tell.) Contrast this campaign—in which 30,000 users were "attacked" by zombies in less than two weeks, with 550,000 impressions tallied—with this Walking Dead stunt from Toronto, where a finger was chopped off a pair of giant zombie hands each day until the series' return to TV. Effective for sure, but the French effort required more braaaains. Via Adverve.

Mad Men returns to AMC on April 7 for Season 6—with a special two-hour premiere written by showrunner Matthew Weiner and directed by executive producer Scott Hornbacher. Check out the first on-air promo below, which began airing on Sunday. There's not much to go on, plot wise, although Don looks as conflicted as ever.

Separately, the other big Mad Men news this week is that Gita Hall May, a model from the 1950s and '60s, is suing Lionsgate over the show's opening credits. May, who is now 79, claims the opening segment uses an image of her without her consent. The image, below, was taken by Richard Avedon and used in a Revlon hairspray ad.

Oreo just released the second video in its Oreo Separators series from Wieden + Kennedy, dedicated to finding absurdly mechanical ways of separating the cookie part from the creme part. The first video featured "physicist" (also, W+K creative) David Neevel, who came up with a seriously involved contraption in his Portland, Ore., workspace. This time, the intrepid experimenters are Barry Kudrowitz and Bill Fienup, described as "toy scientists" from the Midwest. And you have to hand it to them—their machine is a lot slicker, and simpler, than Neevel's. Their solution involves popping off the top cookie with a swift jab of plastic, then melting and spraying off the creme part. Fienup, the creme lover, gets a little messy in the process, but it's worth it. It turns out these guys were perfect for the job. As students at MIT in the mid-2000s, they helped create the MIT Toy Lab, funded by Hasbro, which developed new concepts for Nerf and Supersoaker products. (The idea for the Nerf Atom Blaster came from the lab.) As he mentions, Kudrowitz is a product-design professor at the University of Minnesota now, though his areas of research are decidedly offbeat, including "play and humor in design." Kudrowitz and Fienup's previous collaborations include a remote-controlled ketchup-squirting car.

Oh grow up! This ad from Argentina's Schneider beer focuses on the time needed for the "slow-brewed" draught to achieve its optimal consistency and flavor. It does so by showing lots of guys who haven't quite matured. Doofus dudes urinate in the bushes at parties, play annoying air-guitar solos, hit on women in asinine ways—and in a brazenly un-P.C. moment of the ad, can't help "taking a no as a yes." It's an amusing spot and well made, but perhaps Ogilvy Buenos Aires should have aged the concept a tad more. If the guys start out like jerks but ultimately attain some degree of maturity—opening car doors and pulling out chairs for their dates, using the bathroom when nature calls—the point would be that much clearer. Instead, their development is arrested throughout, and I couldn't help thinking that if these semi-sapiens cut down on the booze, their behavior might improve. The approach is entirely different, but the central idea recalls Paul Masson's iconic "We will sell no wine before its time" commercials, though thankfully Orson Welles never took a whiz in those ads. (Actually, he was filmed from the chest up—and often soused—so who can say for sure?) Via Adverve.

Not content with the traditional advertising methods of TV spots and simple product placement in movies, Canada's Labatt Brewing is financing a feature-length film through its Kokanee brand. The film is called The Movie Out Here, and it's a buddy comedy written by Kokanee's ad agency, Grip Limited. Check out the red-band trailer below (NSFW). The movie hits theaters in western Canada on Friday—30 of them, in fact. It's essentially a 90-minute content marketing experiment, so don't expect it to be any good—although judging by the trailer, it is plenty crass. Also, if you've been wondering what happened to the guy who sang "Informer," he's apparently one of the stars. (Oddly, there's no sign of Kokanee in the trailer—would that absence constitute false advertising?) Before this, Grip Limited was best known for letting 10-year-olds run the agency. That may partly explain the movie's juvenile humor.

Red-band trailer below has nudity and profanity and is NSFW.

Debi Austin, better known as the lady who smoked a cigarette through a tracheotomy hole in her neck in the infamous "Voicebox" anti-smoking ad, died Feb. 22 after a 20-year battle with cancer. She was 62. The California Department of Public Health released a statement about Debi on its website in which CDPH director Dr. Ron Chapman applauded her for showing "tremendous courage by sharing her story to educate Californians on the dangers of smoking." He's absolutely right about that. The "Voicebox" ad, from 1996, is a good example of how advertising can use real people's stories for the greater good, and without exploiting them. More to the point, Debi was brave for putting what many would call a weakness or personal failing to work as a public service, and for doing so with dignity and poise. She would also become a powerful anti-smoking advocate, and made two ads more recently—see those after the jump. May she rest in peace.

Drunk Driving Kills. Issued in public interest on the eve of New Year by Orbits.

Advertising Agency: Media Nexxt Inc., Mumbai, India
Creative Director / Copywriter: Ambar Prakash
Art Director: Shekhar
Illustrator: Himali Dighe
Brand Services Director: Nishith

The post Orbits : Drunk Driving Kills by Media Nexxt appeared first on desicreative.

Who said station wagons are for moms? Oh, how things change. Audi U.K. is changing that stigma with this "Ultimate Paintball Duel" between two new 2013 RS 4 Avants. Yes, they're station wagons. No, they're not your run-of-the-mill kid pushers. They're loaded with V-8 engines, 450 horsepower—oh, and huge hood-mounted paintball guns. The black vs. white, arcade-like duel is a gamer's dream come true, with fast cars, guns, high scores and Paul Engemann's "Push It to the Limit" as the soundtrack (bonus!). What's not to love? The spot shifts into gear as the cars commence in hot pursuit of each other, firing rounds on all cylinders. Paint flies, tires squeal and stunt drivers handle hairpin turns and evasive maneuvers to avoid direct hits. The spot even pays a brief tribute to James Bond with its neon-blue oil slicks and roadside paint bombs. Touché to Audi U.K. Now, let's see how the RS 4 will be introduced in the U.S. Making-of video after the jump.

Possibly in an effort to prove it's more than a Chuck E. Cheese for misogynists, Hooters hired Skiver Advertising for its new "Step Into Awesome" ad campaign. The work, including these "Burrito" and "Big Fan" TV spots, emphasizes the food (Hooters recently expanded its menu) and congenial atmosphere instead of just the state of its employees' undress. It also takes a pretty obvious stab at Chipotle in one of the ads. Both ads are disorientingly tasteful, and I guess that's a good thing. It's also good strategy for Hooters, because focusing more on the waitstaff would remind people of the chain's shady hiring practices, among other things. Fitzgerald+CO previously handled the Hooters account.

Crotches have been lethal for God knows how long. But traffic-safety officials in Alberta, Canada, are using new ads to highlight the most recent source of groin-related fatalities: subversive texting. In its new "Crotches Kill" campaign, Alberta's Transportation Department reminds motorists that every time you check that phone in your lap, your attention strays from the road for five seconds. "We know what you're doing down there," say the posters, part of an effort by agency RED that includes radio spots and banner ads as well. In somewhat related news, Rhode Island is also considering a law to ban pets from sitting in drivers' laps. We might just be entering an era of crotch common sense! Via Osocio and Copyranter.