Hasta La Creative!

Warren Buffett is known for many things, but singing hasn’t been one of them—until now.

Buffett played “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” on a custom ukulele (presented to him recently by Wieden + Kennedy) in a video Wednesday that opened the company’s annual meeting as it celebrates its 100th birthday. 

Odd? For sure. But certainly on brand. The billionaire investor and philanthropist does love Coke. Not only does he own $16 billion in Coca-Cola stock, but he told Fortune in February that he’s “a quarter Coca-Cola” and drinks five 12-ounce servings of the soda daily.

The custom ukulele, which has a sound hole in the shape of the classic Coke bottle, was made by Portland-based luthier Mark Roberts. Crafted in five weeks out of European Carpathian spruce from Romania, reclaimed Honduran mahogany and Malagasy ebony, the red ukulele was given to Buffett last month at his Berkshire Hathaway office in Omaha.

“He picked it up and practiced the song, changing the key a few times,” said Thomas Harvey, account director at W+K. “You can see him tuning up and singing at the start of the film. The whole process only took about 30 minutes.”

Maybe you saw the billboard, or the documentary about Frank La Rant, or the lookbook. If so, you were probably disappointed to learn that Plastique, the high-end plastic pants supposedly designed by La Rant, aren’t real. And that the whole thing was a spoof by Fruit of the Loom.

The spoof by Crispin Porter + Bogusky originally came from the brand’s TV ad in which Fruit of the Loom purportedly tested its boxer briefs by having people wear transparent plastic pants. (If anything would make underwear ride up, it would presumably be that.)

From there, CP+B launched a full-scale high-fashion parody—poking fun at underwear brands like H&M that pretend to be all glamorous in selling the most basic attire out there. The campaign included fashion ads, outdoor, digital, a web experience, social media accounts, and even men in Plastique parading around SoHo and Rodeo Drive.

“Throughout the campaign, Fruit of the Loom held the position that they didn’t really get how you could call plastic pants fashion,” the agency says. “But it was very clear that they were behind (and underneath) this entire story, giving this long time underwear maker the innovation and style cred they deserved.”

See more from the campaign below.

Call it branded oral surgery.

In a ridiculous, hilarious and, yes, very real campaign from Ogilvy Argentina, Salta beer has designed tooth implants for the country’s rugby players who have lost teeth in games. And very special implants they are—they function as bottle openers.

Check out the video below, which really goes into detail about how this is done. In other words, be warned—it’s not for the squeamish.

CREDITS
Client: Salta
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Argentina
Executive Creative Directors: Javier Mentasti, Maximiliano Maddalena
Head of Art: Diego Grandi
Creative Directors: Juan Pablo Carrizo, Patricio Elfi
Art Director: Bruno Franchino
Copywriters: Horacio Sormani, Damian Martinez, Alejandro Juli
General Account Director: Natalia Noya
Business Intelligence Director: Carolina Coppoli
Head of Planning: Rodrigo Garcia
Responsible for the Client: Nicolás Rubino
Head of Production: Valeria Pinto
Agency Producer: Alejandro Travaglini
Production House: Huinca Cine
Director: Fernando Roca
Executive Producer: Diego Turdera
General Production: Merlina Scalice, Cristian Izzi
Postproduction House: ControlZ
Postproducer: Cristian Martino
Director of Photography: Martin Nico
Editor: Rulo Gomez
Locution: Juan Antonio Middleton

A wedding day is among the happiest moments in a person’s life, a milestone to look back on for years to come—which makes it all the more strange that people are still denied the right just because they love someone of the same sex.

“Nobody’s Memories,” a new ad from FCB for LGBT advocacy group PFLAG Canada, imagines—and laments—the joys missed by couples unable to legally marry in years past. They’re seen walking down the church steps to applause, piling into the wedding car, sharing a bite of cake at the reception, and the myriad other little images and traditions associated with the big day.

It’s a simple, powerful illustration of why the right to gay marriage matters in societies that purport to pride themselves on ideals like freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness. (The fact that whole thing looks like it was shot through various Instagram filters, much of it with shaky homestyle hand cams, could border on distracting, but actually sets the right, intimate tone).

Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Canada, as well as 36 states in the U.S., Washington D.C., and some 15 other countries around the world. But with the U.S. Supreme Court currently hearing arguments on the constitutionality of other states’ bans on the right, the spot certainly makes for a timely reminder of what’s at stake.

And for anyone who’s having trouble wrapping their head around it, it’s also a good cue to remember that gay marriage, in fact, does not spell the end of the world.

CREDITS
Client: PFLAG Canada
Title: Nobody’s Memories

Agency: FCB Toronto/FCB Chicago
Creative Director: Jon Flannery Chief Creative Officer & Jeff Hilts Creative Director
Writer: Krystle Mullin
Account Team: Cynthia Roach, Rebecca Gorveatt
Print Producer: Victor Carvalho
Media: Initiative Shannon Pluem, Ryan Ghaeli

Production Company: Lord + Thomas, Duckpond Creative
Executive Producer: Katie Roach, Josh Greenberg
Line Producer: Carra Greenberg
Director: Ben Flaherty
Editing House: LORD&THOMAS
Editor: Ilsa Misamore
Music House/Sound: RMW
Sound Engineer: Jason Ryan
Executive Producer, Audio: Jared Stachowitz

Extra Space Storage—which offers storage space for your old drum set and boxes of Beanie Babies, not your digital files—created this ad, believe it or not, about the joys and woes of parenting.

In “10 Things I Wished I’d Known Before Having a Baby” (created by Utah agency Issimo), parents run through pieces of advice like “Take time for yourself” and “Be prepared for the unexpected.” It gets increasingly emotional (watching the parents choke up stirs up some feelings) and ends with the No. 1 poignant piece of advice—about love.

It’s an interesting (strange?) angle for a storage company to take. But it’s clearly resonating, having already topped the 1 million view mark on YouTube. And Extra Space Storage quietly ties it together with simple copy: #makeroomforlife.

McDonald’s in France makes some of the most spare, striking outdoor ads anywhere. For the past couple of years, the OOH ads have shown just the menu items, with almost no branding at all—first in closeup photography, then with simple drawings of the products.

This summer, the brand, working with TBWA Paris, is evolving the campaign by adding emojis to the images. (Emojis are now a requirement of every ad campaign everywhere, by the way.) The product drawings are now made up, pointillist style, of tiny emojis—reflecting the emotion stirred by the products.

For example: The Big Mac is made up of hundreds of little thumbs-up signs; the fries are made from smiley faces; the sundae from musical notes; and the Happy Meal from heart symbols. (Those are the only four menu items highlighted this time. The Happy Meal is new to the campaign, while the Quarter Pounder, Filet-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets have been dropped from the ads.)

McDonald’s says the “pictograms” campaign has “placed the brand at the heart of the pop culture.” Indeed, the marketer clearly believes the work is practically high fashion. This year’s campaign includes a McDonald’s collection at Colette, the Paris fashion and lifestyle store, consisting of six products bearing the campaign’s imagery—T-shirts, tote bags, scarves, iPhone cases, notebooks and postcards.

See the rest of the images below.

The outdoor ads:

 
The Colette collection:

The best marketing embodies, rather than just projects, the message it’s trying to deliver. And 360i’s new tourism campaign for New Orleans is a good example of that.

Three TV spots all use the same voiceover script, but completely different characters and locations, to cleverly communicate the point that you can have all sorts of diverse experiences in the city.

Check out the ads below, directed by Henry Mason and produced by Chelsea Pictures, with an original score by David Torkanowsky and renowned New Orleans musicians:

The ads, for the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, must be played sequentially to make the most sense, and that’s the plan on TV and digital (via Facebook) in 35 target markets.

The campaign continues the “Follow Your NOLA” theme and showcases the city as a unique, one-of-a-kind experience. It will also use radio, influencer marketing, mobile and live events to court travelers. On mobile, the upgraded followyournola.com will feature curated itineraries for each of the TV ads, as well as celebrity itineraries by Anthony Bourdain, Emeril Lagasse and John Besh.

NOTMC is also getting social influencers to create their own ideal New Orleans trips and share them on Instagram, YouTube and their own blogs.

“New Orleans has an incredible range of experiences and attractions for people of all mindsets and interests—that’s the insight at the heart of ‘Follow Your NOLA.’ Our challenge was to bring this to life with stories that live up to the beauty and creative spirit of the city itself,” said Pierre Lipton, chief creative officer at 360i.

“The result is an integrated campaign with digital at the core. Our videos and TV executions illustrate visitors’ top interests discovered through social listening; the mobile site showcases itineraries featured in the spots; social influencers bring their own NOLA trips to life online; display and mobile ads target the right people at the right time; and the events bring the NOLA experience to life across the country.”

As brands continue to use popular YouTubers for ad campaign, Durex has found the perfect endorser with Hannah Witton—a vlogger whose non-branded content already includes plenty of talk about sex and relationships.

Durex used the hashtag #DurexHannah to solicit questions from fans, which Witton—a 23-year-old British YouTuber with 120,000 followers—answers in the video below. Witton, who already counts a sex education series among her regular pursuits, had full editorial control, Durex says, choosing the products she wanted to feature in the video and doing the filming for the campaign herself.

She also reveals a special discount code for Durex products in the video. The campaign was devised by TMW Unlimited and assisted by ChannelFlip Media.

Do the Spanish have a tough time pronouncing “Ogilvy & Mather.” Apparently so, judging from this comical video series from the agency’s Spain operation—aimed at getting people to pronounce the agency’s name “like a lord.”

Along the way, we get a little bit of Ogilvy history and one unexpectedly swift kick in the balls. There’s also a website, ogilvyandwhat.es. A funny and peculiar campaign, indeed. See, your work isn’t over when you get that Induction Box.

Via Ads of the World.

Click fraud is a big problem, but it’s also an exceedingly boring topic. So, how do you liven it up to warn marketers about it? The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau has tried a bit of comedy in the hopes that it will get more attention than a white paper.

Check out the video below—a fake newscast about a man who finds out he’s a bot. And yes, the phone number at the end is real. Give it a try: 1-844-AM-I-A-BOT

We spoke to Danielle Delauro, svp of strategic sales insights at CAB, about the video.

AdFreak: Fun concept. Where did you get the idea?
Danielle Delauro: We present a lot to advertisers and agencies, and we always get questions about the extent of bot traffic online. We started out thinking, how can you tell when it’s a bot? We started tossing around ideas, and the video took direction pretty fast.

What appealed to you about a fake newscast?
We’ve seen a number of networks tackle serious issues in a fake news setting, and do it successfully. We thought the setup would help us highlight a serious industry issue that is so pervasive it’s almost absurd. On one level, you can’t help but laugh.

Do you think this approach will break through where more rational attacks might not?
We hope so. There’s been a lot of official reporting on the topic—white papers, studies, articles—that have exposed the issue rationally. We thought something funny could touch a nerve and get people to feel the issue rather than just think it, and then share it with friends and colleagues. It’s a lot more natural to share a short video that makes you laugh than a long white paper. That’s why the 1-844-AM-I-A-BOT number is important. It creates another level of sharable experience.

How committed is CAB to exposing click fraud? Is putting digital’s purported reach in perspective a major priority these days?
We’re committed to helping advertisers sell more stuff, so we’re advancing reality in all things video. Marketers need real audience at real scale, and bots don’t have credit cards. So we’re prompting marketers to put the video options in the right balance, by putting audience claims in perspective.