Hasta La Creative!

Live from New York … it’s Jason Sudeikis!

The former Saturday Night Live cast member appears in “The Tourists,” a 45-second video from BBDO promoting AT&T’s sponsorship of the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs through April 26 (and features three movies starring Sudeikis). In the clip, the actor encounters two out-of-towners who start “directing” him, Hollywood style, as one of them captures the moment with a smartphone.

The tagline: “There’s a film lover in all of us.”

Sudeikis “prepped” for his role a few years back when he and his fiancee, Olivia Wilde, made news—and I use the term loosely and with extreme irony—by giving directions to some real tourists in NYC. (They directed them to someplace in Manhattan. Nobody yelled “Action!” as far we know.)I suppose the festival promo says something about our celebrity-crazed, media-mad culture. Mobile technology turns us all into would-be auteurs, roving the streets in search of a scene that just might go viral. Celebs, of course, make great subjects, and they’re always glad to do a few takes when fans whip out recording devices.

Oddly, the spot tacitly acknowledges that much of today’s compelling content isn’t made by professional filmmakers or entered in festivals. Increasingly, it’s being created by average folks when opportunities arise—and distributed online, with a few clicks as the price of admission.

The ad is running on YouTube, in theaters prior to every feature screening at the festival, on Taxi TV, mobile pre-rolls and elevator screens.

CREDITS
Client: AT&T
Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officers: David Lubars (worldwide), Greg Hahn (N.Y.)
Executive Creative Director: Matt MacDonald
Senior Creative Director: John LaMacchia
Senior Creative Director:  Simon Foster
Associate Creative Director: Geoff Proud
Senior Art Director: Will Holmes
Group Executive Producer: Julie Collins
Executive Producer: Alex Gianni
Producer: Gillian Burkley
Managing Director: Mark Cadman
Senior Director: Brian Nienhaus
Account Director: Gail Curtis
Account Executive: Sigourney Hudson-Clemons
Production Company: O-Positive
Director: Brian Billow
DP: Joe Zizzo
Executive Producer: Ralph Laucella
Executive Producer: Marc Grill
Producer: J.D. Davison
Edit House: Mackenzie Cutler
Producer: Sasha Hirshfeld
Editor: Ryan Steele
Assistant Editor: Jean Taylor
Color Correction: Company 3
Colorist: Tim Masick
VFX: Schmigital
Flame Artist: Jim Hayhow
Flame Asst: Joseph Miller

Anheuser-Busch InBev introduces Oculto, a new high-alcohol lager, with a roomful of men and women wearing masks inside a dark club in this spot from Mother New York.

The mood is mysterious and reminiscent of the party scene in Eyes Wide Shut. Not much happens, but Oculto’s ghoulish clear bottle appears prominently, and with good reason: It’s a cool piece of marketing in and of itself. The eye sockets of the skull light up when the beer is chilled. (Another shop, Antista Fairclough, worked on the packaging.)

Beyond this initial online ad, which was directed by Prettybird’s Melina Matsoukas and breaks Friday, the campaign includes events, social media marketing, outdoor ads and print ads, with a particular focus on the Miami market. The brand, which rolled out last month (on Friday the 13th, no less) is targeting 21- to 34-year-olds who are ambitious, free-sprited and “love the idea of a mashup,” said Harris Rabin, vp of global marketing on new brands at A-B InBev.

Oculto represents a new category for A-B—a 6 percent alcohol beer that’s infused with agave by being aged in barrels that are used to make tequila. The brewer’s marketing leaders are bullish about its prospects, though they declined to share sales expectations.

“This is obviously a big priority for the company. The level of investment is consistent with other big bets that ABI has made,” said John Steed, a marketing director at A-B InBev. Added Rabin: “For us, it’s all about unlocking the potential of nights out—those really special nights out with friends.”

If you thought Coke Zero’s drinkable billboard was impressive, Carlsberg would like to serve you some outdoor advertising with a bit more kick.

The Danish brewer, with help from ad agency Fold7 and design company Mission Media, unveiled a beer-dispensing billboard at The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in London. The billboard was emblazone with the headline, “Probably the best poster in the world.” The brand was on hand to monitor the drinkers, making sure no one was under 18.

“We want to get the Carlsberg brand in front of as many beer drinkers as possible,” says Dharmesh Rana, senior brand manager at Carlsberg U.K. “To do this, we have to think differently with our approach and can’t just rely on great TV advertising.”

Ikea nicely contrasts its colorful design sense with the drabness of the world at large in these print ads from TBWA in Portugal. Apparently, going with Ikea means you get a balcony in buildings that otherwise don’t have any.

The approach recalls Jung von Matt/Elbe’s outdoor ads for home-improvement chain OBI. A splash of color in a gray landscape is so good at communicating a freshness of vision.

Full ads below. Via Ads of the World.

Click the images to enlarge.

CREDITS
Client: Ikea
Agency: TBWA, Lisbon
Creative Director: Leandro Alvarez
Art Director: Julliano Bertoldi
Copywriter: Joao Ribeiro
Photographer: Yves Callewaert
Retouch: Whitelab

When you’re moving, you’re so beset by cardboard boxes that your life might as well be made of them. And now, Century 21’s new ad campaign actually is.

The new stop-motion campaign from Mullen uses cardboard cutouts to tell three stories about the travails of relocation. In the first ad, an emo cardboard kid in a red cap gets all broke up when his cardboard dad tells him they’re moving from one cardboard house to a bigger cardboard house. Luckily, there’s a cardboard real estate broker with a sunny yellow scarf to introduce the kid to another kid, with a blue cap.

In the second spot, a Century 21 agent saves the day by showing an elderly man who’s just moved to the city that there’s a nearby park where he can go hang out with the birds, without having to worrying about his lovely wife driving her boat of a car into the bushes.

The third spot manages a sideways dig at the enemy of real estate brokers everywhere—Craigslist—labeled not entirely inaccurately here as Creepslist. But the yellow-garnished hero helps a young single woman meet the rather fantastical criteria of a place that’s not infested by rats and has a roof with a view of red-hatted water towers (apparently enough to make the young woman cry).

The visuals, hand-cut by artist Elizabeth Corkery, are plenty endearing—simple without being boring, with nice, minimal use of color to highlight the emotional subtext. It also helps that the scenarios are all reasonably credible, and that moving, in general, really does suck. Then again, it’s all just part of modern life on this little spinning cardboard planet we call Earth (twee soundtracks not included).

A lot of brands attempt space-related stunts. But for all the wonder inherent in the heavens, many of these campaigns forget that just being up there isn’t enough. You need a human connection for any of it to matter to viewers. (This is why Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull stunt was such a juggernaut—it was all about testing what means to be human. It’s also why a lot fewer people cared when Jose Cuervo mixed a margarita in space.)

Hyundai just released its own little space movie, and it’s a great addition to the category. The automaker found a 13-year-old girl from Houston whose father is an astronaut. He’s away a lot, and she misses him. So, Hyundai orchestrated a sweet and pretty otherworldly stunt—using a fleet of Hyundai Genesis sedans to write a giant version of her message of love, in her own handwriting, across Nevada’s Delamar Dry Lake, so her dad could see it from the International Space Station.

It’s a pretty grand production. The resulting image—almost three and a half square miles in total—has been approved by Guinness World Records as the largest tire track image ever made. There’s also a pretty extensive online tie-in at amessagetospace.com.

Predictably, the film stumbles only when it tries to explicitly tie back to the Hyundai brand. (The on-screen line “Your stories inspire our innovative thinking” is just silly and should have been cut.) The vehicles speak for themselves, as they nicely become the instrument that makes the whole thing possible. (If you must know more, the press materials say the stunt “required a vehicle with outstanding engine performance, precise handling, a proven powertrain, and excellent driving stability to cope with the rough surface while creating the elaborate message.”)

It’s not meant to be a hard sell, though. Scott Noh, head of the overseas marketing group for Hyundai Motor Company, is right when he says the video is mostly about “demonstrating our caring vision to our customers.”

See the behind-the-scenes below.

Nike’s newest commercial captures the inner dialogue of a woman stuck behind a row of models during swim class; a runner through a half-marathon; and a beginner yogi unsure of her surroundings.

The spot, by Wieden + Kennedy, launches a campaign called #betterforit, which Nike says is its largest initiative yet in supporting and motivating women’s athletic journeys. It’s about “powering [women] to be better through services, product innovation and athlete inspiration, motivating each other to push to the next level,” the company says.

It’s a light, fun approach in contrast to more motivational Nike spots of the past, and it seems to be resonating with the average athlete. From the YouTube comments: “It’s not often I love commercials. But this one reminds us that everyone has insecurities and that we can accomplish anything, and I think that’s a really special thing to focus on in an ad.”

This first spot, “Inner Thoughts,” aired during the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night. It looks like Nike is positioning “Better for it” as the less aggressive (but maybe equally motivating) alternative to “Just do it.”

More videos and images below, plus credits.

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CREDITS
Client: Nike
Project: “Better For It”

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte / Ryan O’Rourke / Dan Viens
Copywriter: Heather Ryder / Darcie Burrell
Art Director: Patty Orlando
Producer: Molly Tait / Julie Gursha
Executive Agency Producer: Matt Hunnicutt
Interactive Strategy: Jocelin Shalom
Strategic Planning: Tom Suharto / Irina Tone
Media/Comms Planning: Emily Dalton / Destinee Scott / Emily Graham
Account Team: Karrelle Dixon / Alyssa Ramsey / Marisa Weber / Jim Zhou
Business Affairs: Anna Beth Nagel
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff / Joe Staples

Production Company: Iconoclast
Director: Matthew Frost
Executive Producer: Charles-Marie Anthonioz
Line Producer: Caroline Pham
Director of Photography: Darren Lew / Joost Van Gelder

Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Angus Wall (“Inner Thoughts” :60 and :30) / Grant Surmi (:30/:15s)
Post Producer: Jared Thomas
Post Executive Producer: Angela Dorian

VFX Company: A52
VFX Supervisor: Jesse Monsour
Flame Artist: Brendan Crockett / Matt Sousa / Steve Wolf / Dan Ellis / Richard Hirst
VFX Producer: Jamie McBriety
Color: Paul Yacono

Music Supervision: Nylon Studios
Artist: Apollo 100
Track: Joy
Sound Designer: Barking Owl

Mix Company: Lime Studios
Mixer: Matt Miller / Dave Wagg
Producer: Jessica Locke / Susie Boyajan

Old Spice is tapping into the gamer community, which clearly overlaps with its own target, with an interesting campaign on Twitch—the live social video platform for gamers—in which viewers get to control a real human being dropping in a forest for three days.

Beginning Thursday at 10 a.m. PT, visitors to twitch.tv/oldspice will use the site’s chat feature to send commands to the man to perform. Users will work together to unlock achievements or activities for Nature Man. (“Arm wrestle an obviously fake bear? Hear stories from a wise tree? Stumble across interesting and good smelling characters? The scenarios are endless—and completely up to the participating gamers,” says Wieden + Kennedy, which built the experience.)

Beyond that, well, we’ll just have to see how it unfolds.

“Old Spice is thrilled to bring an outdoor gaming experience like no other to our fans and the Twitch community,” Kate DiCarlo, communications manager for P&G beauty care, tells AdFreak. “We’re always looking for new ways to entertain and build brand loyalty with our fans, and Twitch is the perfect partner to help us reach the gaming and live streaming culture in an authentic way. Plus, with scent names like Timber, Amber and Citron, we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate our new nature-inspired Fresher Collection.”

The stream will run from 10 a.m. to sundown PT on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Houston, we have a blower.

French agency Altmann + Pacreau gets cosmic in this ad for Stihl leaf blowers, employing astronaut imagery and the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme to fine effect.

“Having done many ideas with leaves in the past, we thought we should go for something less expected to stand above the competitors in an allegoric and funny way,” Olivier Altmann, the agency’s chief creative officer, tells AdFreak. Given the client’s premium pricing, “they need to reinforce their positioning about performance and make sure that customers ask for Stihl, instead of being left with just the price as the main criteria for making their decision.”

Other ads have launched products into the void, but few have done so as elegantly as this one. Here, smooth visuals memorably emphasize the leaf blower’s power, portraying yard work as the ultimate trip (or something).

No doubt, in some distant dimension, where the dead live again and, for reasons beyond earthly understanding, really need to tidy up their lawns, Stanley Kubrick is smiling.

CREDITS
Client: Stihl
Agency: Altmann + Pacreau 
Creative Director: Olivier Altmann 
Agency Management: Edouard Pacreau, Thomas Vigneron 
Production: The Gang Films 
Producer: Nathalie Le Caer

BBH London has made some brilliant ads for British juice brand Robinsons over the years—notably, this Wimbledon spot and, of course, the famous “Pals” ad from 2013, which really is one of the great twist-ending ads ever.

Now, agency and client are back with a fun new :60 that uses some mildly freaky CGI to illustrate the new theme “They grow up fast.”

We open on a mom, dad and baby boy. But within seconds, he’s always getting bigger and bigger, and trying to run away from them. While some of the visual effects are maybe a little creepy in an Evian-like way, there’s enough humor here that the spot works—and ends up being endearing.

The tagline is, “Play thirsty.”

The campaign launched Saturday on Britain’s Got Talent. The spot will be supported by out of home, digital outdoor and online advertising.

CREDITS
Client name and title: Helen Gorman, Brand Director
BBH Executive Creative Director: Nick Gill
BBH Creative Director: Dominic Goldman
BBH Creative Team: Nikki Lindman & Toby Brewer
BBH Business Lead: Heather Cuss
BBH Team Director: Rebecca Levy/James Rice
BBH Team Manager: Louise Long/ Joanna Rose
BBH Strategy Director: Lilli English
BBH Strategist: Damien Le Castrec

—Film Credits
BBH Producer: Natalie Parish
BBH Assistant Producer: Sarah Cooper
Production Company: Park Pictures
Director: Tom Tagholm
Executive Producer: Stephen Brierley
Producer: Fran Thompson
DoP: Luke Scott
VFX: MPC
VFX Producer: Amy Richardson
VFX Supervisor: Tom Harding
CG Supervisor: Carsten Keller
Grade: MPC
Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret
Editor/Editing House: Stitch

—Print Credits
BBH Producer: Katerina Gharraph
BBH Designer: Rob Wilson
Animation: Smoke & Mirrors