Hasta La Creative!

The ivory trade isn’t just killing elephants. Humans are the victims, too, because poaching helps to fund terrorist organizations like al-Shabaab and Boko Haram.

That’s the message of Last Days, a three-minute film by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, best known for the features Zero Dark Thirty and Hurt Locker. Produced in conjunction with WildAid and Annapurna Pictures, Last Days ranks among the year’s most provocative PSAs. Its atmosphere is heartbreaking, and there’s some disturbing imagery.

Bigelow uses simple, cut-out-style animation to tell a complex story in reverse chronological order. We start at the end of the sordid tale, in an exotic boutique that sells trinkets. A question flashes on screen: “When you buy something made of ivory, where does the money go?” The ivory is traced back to its source—slaughtered African elephants—in painstaking detail. At one point, dark, indistinct figures pack tusks into shipping crates stamped with the word “Coffee” on their sides. These crates resemble coffins.

“To make a feature film about such a topic would likely take years, during which more elephants would die,” says Bigelow. “So instead, I approached a team of fellow filmmakers and we made Last Days as an animated piece, which we thought would give it a broader audience.”

In a jarring sequence, animation gives way to security-camera footage from the 2013 Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi, Kenya. We’re told that al-Shabaab, which claimed responsibility for the attack, makes $600,000 a month from illegal ivory. Later, we see the mutilated bodies of elephants, bloody tusks freshly hacked from their faces. Though animated, this segment stands as a shocking testament to senseless slaughter.

“An elephant disappears every 15 minutes,” said Bigelow, and they could be extinct in the wild in little more than a decade. “It is our hope that this film helps to bring an activist into existence at least that often.” There’s also a website to visit for more information.

Tying the murder of elephants to terrorism and human suffering is a powerful way to build empathy. This approach clearly illustrates cause and effect, and suggests all living things share a deep connection. By butchering another species, or allowing such horrors to take place, we ultimately brutalize ourselves. Each rifle blast and machete stroke makes us less human.

It hasn’t been the best year for the image of police officers. But the police force in Lowell, Mich., is ending the year on a high note by handing out Christmas presents to people they pull over for traffic violations.

Videographer Rob Bliss, who also worked on the famous “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” video, helped to produce this new spot—which is part of UP TV’s “Uplift Someone” campaign this holiday season.

It’s professionally done, with all the prank-stunt trimmings. The officers chat with the drivers about what they and their kids want for Christmas, and the info is secretly relayed to co-conspirators at retail stores, who quickly buy the stuff and get it over to the cars. (It must have been a little odd for the drivers to just sit there for minutes on end, but they all seem happy enough by the end.)

Cops in California’s Plumas County did something similar earlier this year, handing out ice cream to drivers at traffic stops. That effort got a mixed reaction—some people flatly feel that police shouldn’t be putting resources into pranks like this. But it will take a special kind of grinch to hate on the new video, particularly at a time when positive images of police are pretty sorely in demand.

Classroom lockdown drills—at my first grader’s school and every other school in America—have become the norm since the tragedy at Newtown, two years ago this Sunday. The powerfully sad PSA below from Grey Toronto, unveiled today, takes place during just such a lockdown—and highlights a depressing statistic: There have been nearly 100 school shootings since Newtown, yet there has been almost no movement on gun control.

The end line nicely captures what has changed since Newtown—the level of fear in classrooms with young children. A 60-second version of the ad will air in digital and broadcast media leading up to the anniversary of the Newtown massacre.

“The inconceivably tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook woke up millions of Americans to our country’s pervasive culture of gun violence,” Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said in a statement. “We do not send our children to school to learn how to hide from gunmen, nor should we expect sharpshooting to be a job requirement for educators. For far too long, our lawmakers have asked children and teachers to stand up to gunmen because they are too afraid to stand up to the gun lobby.”

Watts adds: “You may not have heard about all of these shooting incidents on the national news, but when a lockdown is announced over a school intercom—for whatever reason—it strikes fear across the community. We will not allow the constant threat of gun violence at our schools to become the new normal—it’s time our elected leaders take a stand for the safety and future of our children.”

CREDITS
Client: Moms Demand Action
Agency: GREY Toronto
Chief Creative Officer: Patrick Scissons
Copywriter: Patrick Scissons
Agency Producer: Erica Metcalfe
Account Director: Darlene Remlinger
Production Company: Untitled Films
Director: Phil Brown
DOP: John Houtman
Executive Producer: Lexy Kavluk
Producer: Trudy Turner
Editorial: Saints/Griff Henderson
Audio: Eggplant/Roc Gagliese, Nathan Handy
Colorist: Alter Ego/Wade Odlum
Online: Topix VFX/Marco Polsinelli

Is Santa Claus a hipster? He’s got the unkempt mane and alternative lifestyle down pat. Yet he seems too obsessed with consumer goods and fourth-quarter commerce to qualify.

It feels like hipster humor played out years ago. Still, there’s much to enjoy in “Hipster Santa Goes South,” an affable two-minute spoof from Door Number 3 that celebrates the holidays and the independent Austin, Texas, agency’s 20th anniversary—which happens to be today, Dec. 9.

“We thought about throwing a party,” says agency president M.P. Mueller, “but creating something fun to share beat out warm beer, flowery speeches and tepid toasts.”

Bill Wise—a bespectacled, middle-aged dude rocking a plaid scarf, matching sneakers and just a smidge of facial hair—plays Kringle. His laid-back, cranky delivery really scores as he bikes around East Austin, quipping about “free-range reindeer” and his sled running on “penguin tears and pure Santa sweat.” At one point, he informs a young passerby, “I made my list, I checked it twice—you still have to move back to California.”

“Bill generates one-liners like he’s just picking dog hair off his pants,” says Mueller. “He could make a sudoku tournament funny.” (Wise most recently played Uncle Stevie in Richard Linklater’s Boybood.)

Hipster Santa even has some helpful advice for folks planning to make him a snack on Christmas Eve: “If you’re leaving milk and cookies, I’m lactose intolerant—make it soy, gluten free. And as far as fruitcake bars are concerned, I’m into cleanses, but just not this time of year.”

This schtick—directed in suitably casual, faux-doc style by Steve Mims—rates a six-pack of PBR at the very least. Though purists say that a different hipster is more emblematic of the season. Ho!

CREDITS
Agency: Door Number 3
Executive creative director: M.P. Mueller
Copywriters: Bill Wise, M.P. Mueller, Steve Mims, Karen Reiner
Art directors: Ines Morel, Sally Robb
Director, editor, cinematographer: Steve Mims
Cinematographer: Steve Mims
Production artist: Nicole Eckles
Production coordinator: Melissa Hilgendorf
Sound: Alex Herrera
Gaffer: Kakii Keenan
Assistant camera: Christian Benavides

Facebook, at long last, finally seems to be getting the hang of the whole advertising thing.

In addition to the pleasantly whimsical “Say Better” ads, which have been rolling out in recent weeks, the social network has also been working on a cute series of tutorials called “Just In Case Studies”—which use quirky storytelling to explain how to accomplish various technical steps on the Facebook app.

Four videos have been released so far. The best of the lot is “How to Block Someone,” which shows a girl doing just that with her boyfriend after a painful breakup—though it doesn’t exactly go as planned. Like all the videos in the series, it’s quietly amusing, relatable, nicely shot and charmingly self-conscious—with a voiceover that’s just as halting as our heroine.

The tutorials, made by Facebook’s in-house creative studio The Factory, also include “How to Edit a Post,” “How to Share With Just Friends” and “How to Untag a Photo.” They’re not ads, per se—but they have the same bemused tone as the “Say Better” spots.

And that’s a good thing.

If you’re excited by rumors of a Salt-N-Pepa reunion album, you’ll thoroughly enjoy this Geico ad where Salt, Pepa and DJ Spinderella don their famous jackets and tell everybody to push it.

Divorcing the song from its sexual connotations, the ladies are now here to help anyone who needs some encouragement with their pushing. They help a man who tries to pull open a door that needs to be pushed. They help a lady in an elevator who needs to select a floor. They show up at a Lamaze class, then on a football sled, and finally they dance after a poor man trying to mow his lawn.

It’s pure silliness. But it certainly is memorable. And since Geico doesn’t have to use its ads to tell you what it does (save you 15 percent on car insurance, as everybody knows), it might as well have fun with it.

Also, you’re not going to be able to push “Push It” out of your head for the next few hours.

CREDITS
Client: Geico
Vice President, Marketing: Ted Ward
Manager, Broadcast Production and Agency Relations: Amy Hooks
Marketing Planner: Amy Ruddell
Marketing Coordinator: Katherine Kalec
Marketing Coordinator: Tom Perlozzo 

Agency: The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va.
Chief Creative Officer: Joe Alexander
SVP/Group Creative Director: Steve Bassett
SVP/Group Creative Director: Wade Alger
SVP/Creative Director/Art Director: Sean Riley
Senior Copywriter: Ken Marcus
VP/Agency Executive Broadcast Producer: Molly Schaaf
Bid/Prep/Shoot/Edit Producer: Alex Scheer-Payne
Vfx/Finishing Producer: Sam Tucker
Agency Junior Producer: Emily Taylor
Business Affairs Supervisor: Suzanne Wieringo
Senior Integrated Production Business Manager: Amy Trenz
VP/ Group Account Director: Brad Higdon
Account Supervisor: Parker Collins
Account Executive: Meg Ingraham
Senior Project Manager: Jason Ray    

Production Company: Hungry Man
Director: Wayne McClammy
Director of Photography: Bryan Newman
Executive Producer Mino Jarjoura
Producer: Nate Young

Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Ian MacKenzie
Assistant Editor: Nick Divers
Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfield
Editorial Producer: Evan Meeker

Telecine: The Mill
Colorist: Fergus McCall

Audio Post Company: Rainmaker Studios
Engineer: Jeff McManus

Push It:
Conform: Running With Scissors
Conform Artist: Chris Hagen
Executive Producer: Scott Friske
Producer: DeeDee Ray

Talent:
“Push It”
Cheryl “Salt” James Wray
Sandra “Pepa” Denton
Deidra “Spinderella” Roper
Door Guy – Sergio Cilli
Elevator Woman – Suzy Nakamura
Lamaze Wife – Chala Savino
Lamaze Husband – Lonny Ross
Lawnmower Guy – Mike McCafferty
AVO – Jon Curry
Music – “Push It”

Ladies and gentlemen, now appearing in the center ring … a sad-ass clown with a heavy case of unrequited love.

The unhappy hero of this bleak but beautiful 75-second ad for Danish flower-delivery service Interflora tries letters, balloons and gifts to charm the object of his affection—an aerial artist who is apparently the shining star of this particular show. But something goes wrong every time, and she barely knows he’s alive.

Brandhouse in Copenhagen created the spot, which lots of deft touches that underscore the clown’s despair, such as the moody interplay of muted light and shadow, and shots of shabby wood-paneled circus trailers.

“The idea was to find the most heartfelt situation with the deepest possible feelings,” agency creative director Mikkel Elung tells AdFreak.

“We needed to find a person who would have the most difficulties in expressing his love. And we couldn’t find a better character than a clown who is in love with the beautiful circus ballerina. They are miles apart in every possible way, and traditionally they are not meant to be together, which increases the drama.”

Shot in dull hues by Bacon director Martin Werner—with a downer soundtrack by Louise Alenius—the cinematic effort oozes melancholia (this is Denmark, after all), but it’s also memorably affecting.

“We think there is hope,” says Elung, “we just stop the story before it becomes advertising. The idea is to tap into every human’s experience with how difficult it can be to express your feelings to the love of your life.” What’s more, he adds, “it’s a tribute to real life and to the ones that keep trying—and a reminder that Interflora is here to help.”

If roses don’t do the trick, maybe the clown can take voice lessons and impress her with an aria or something. (That worked out great in Pagliacci. Didn’t it?) Or if he really can’t stand the pain, ol’ baggy pants can always quit the Big Top, hit the highway in his comically small clown car and work birthday parties instead.

Actually, according to Elung, the clown was spared an even crappier fate in the final edit. “We had planned to incorporate an elephant in the commercial. It was on set, and we got a lot of footage of it,” he says. “But in all the usable scenes, it had a tendency to poop, so we ended up cutting that out.”

CREDITS
Client: Interflora
Agency: Brandhouse
Creative Director: Mikkel Elung
Art Director: Sigurd Bjerre
Copywriter: Simon Kragh
Director: Martin Werner
Production Company: Bacon
Producer: Malene Dyhring
DOP: Lasse Frank
Editor: Rasmus Gitz-Johansen

Designers always eagerly await Pantone’s December announcement of its Color of the Year, predicting which hue will be ubiquitous in the year ahead. The 2015 Color of the Year, unveiled Thursday, is Marsala—a deep reddish brown. And it has some critics seeing more red than brown.

“It’s a color that makes you want to go to Olive Garden or order Tampax in bulk,” says New York Magazine’s The Cut blog in perhaps the most scathing critique.

And for its part, Olive Garden seems elated.

@Joepardavila @Pantone We couldn’t be happier with the choice! We are lobbying for a new shade for 2016 called “Freshly Baked Breadsticks”.

— Olive Garden (@olivegarden) December 4, 2014

Not all of the reaction to Marsala has been negative, but it does feel muted—perhaps appropriately so—compared to previous COYs like Tangerine Tango (2012), Emerald (2013) and Radiant Orchid (2014).

Marsala, meanwhile, is “a naturally robust and earthy wine red,” Pantone says.

The executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, Leatrice Eiseman, further elaborates:

“While PANTONE 18-3224 Radiant Orchid, the captivating 2014 color of the year, encouraged creativity and innovation, Marsala enriches our mind, body and soul, exuding confidence and stability. Much like the fortified wine that gives Marsala its name, this tasteful hue embodies the satisfying richness of a fulfilling meal, while its grounding red-brown roots emanate a sophisticated, natural earthiness. This hearty, yet stylish tone is universally appealing and translates easily to fashion, beauty, industrial design, home furnishings and interiors.”

Pantone’s agency of record, experience design firm Sub Rosa, created the brand’s overarching “Make It Brilliant” platform—and did the creative for the Color of the Year campaign, including all of the images here.

“To bring the color to life, Sub Rosa was tasked with creating a series of images that were as bold and exciting as the color of the year itself,” the agency tells AdFreak. “To do this they created a print and social campaign that makes Marsala the star. The creative team worked closely with Pantone to ensure the tone and energy would drive the mood of an imagined ‘place.’ Sub Rosa organized this story through food, drink, cooking and friends coming together at various stages of an evening meal: appetizers, dinner and dessert.”

“In each vignette, Sub Rosa meticulously planned details to create multiple layers that speak to the broad design audience. As this party moves from appetizers on the deck to dessert by the fireplace, Sub Rosa played into varying elemental associations and feelings that Marsala evokes by appropriately adjusting the character and contents of each ‘room.’ “

So, what do you think of the choice of Marsala?

Wherever you travel around the world, you’ll always find Canadians gathering together, sharing stories and racking up an impressive bar tab. But this batch was especially lucky.

Last week, Air Canada dropped by “Canada Night” at London’s Maple Leaf pub to surprise a bustling crowd of ex-parts with a holiday gift they certainly couldn’t have expected.

Organized by agency JWT Canada, the stunt took place Nov. 27 and sparked some fantastic, emotional responses from the unsuspecting Canadians who’d gathered together that night. And while these holiday videos often feel staged, everything from the crappy hand-held camerawork to the off-key anthem singing make it clear that this one’s legit.

CREDITS

Agency: JWT Canada
Chief Creative and Integration Officer: Brent Choi
Vice President, Creative Director: Gary Westgate
Vice President, Associate Creative Director: Don Saynor
Vice President, Integrated Broadcast: Andrew Schulze
Art Director: Alex Newman
Copywriter: Patrice Pollack
Producer: Caroline Clark
Brand Engagement Director: Victoria Radziunas
Account Team: Scott Miskie, Gavin Wiggins, Lindsay Hill
Client Team: Craig Landry, Selma Filali, Dani Bastien, Annie Couture, John Xydous
Production Company: The Solidarity Union / Soft Citizen
Executive Producer: Rob Burns
Director: Shaun Anderson
Producer: John Scarth
Director of Photography: Byron Kopman
Editing House: School Editing
Editor(s): Chris Van Dyke and Brian Wells
Editor Assistance: Mark Lutterman, Nicole Sison, Steve Puhach, Drew MacLeod and Lauren Piche
Editorial Producer: Sarah Brooks
Online: Online: Fort York VFX
Audio: TA2
Audio Director: Steve Gadsden

Media Agency: Mindshare

You remember “Camp Gyno,” the 2013 viral video for tampon subscription service Hello Flo in which the first girl to get her period at summer camp becomes a tyrant, dispensing products and advice like she’s dealing drugs.

The star of the ad, Macy McGrail, was a big part of its success. (It has almost 10 million YouTube views to date.) She had just the right mix of adorableness and menace, and made the character hilarious and memorable.

Well, now McGrail is back in another interesting ad—an almost three-minute-long, impressively cinematic trailer for a book called Surviving Middle School, which her father, Dave McGrail, has published as a kind of entertaining guide book for 4th to 7th grade girls.

Watch the trailer for below. It’s quite well done—decent trailers for books are still pretty rare, after all—and features McGrail playing future versions of herself after she’s gone down the wrong path, apparently beginning with poor decisions in middle school.

Dave McGrail tells AdFreak the idea for the trailer came from Tommy Henvey, an executive creative director at Ogilvy & Mather in New York and a relative of his wife’s, at a Christmas party last year. Henvey enlisted other talent, including Tim Wilson at Friendshop!, who served as director and editor. “I was drawn to the idea not just to sell the book but also as something fun that Macy and I could do together,” McGrail says of the trailer.

A cast and crew of about 30 filmed in five locations in Brooklyn in September. All of the actors, including Macy, are SAG-AFTRA, with one exception—Dave himself makes a cameo as the father in one of the final scenes.

The book itself “evolved from a journal I was keeping for Macy, some writing just for fun, and the fact that I wanted to convey the important message that choices matter,” McGrail says. “It is about the empowerment that comes with making tough decisions.”

The book is “interactive,” much like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, with choices that lead in different directions (e.g., “Turn to page 43” or “Turn to page 45”). The book addresses real-world issues, including a number of technology-based issues—like Instagram, phones/privacy and online plagiarism.

“Though some of the issues—bullying, dieting, cheating—are serious, the narrative is light, with a good dose of humor,” says McGrail. “I hope the unique tone and format of the book captivates young readers and spark discussion on how to navigate tricky middle school issues.”

Credits for the trailer are below.

CREDITS
Director/Editor: Tim Wilson, Friendshop!
Writer: Tommy Henvey
Producer: Patti McConnell
Director of Photography: Joe Victorine, Graham Willoughby
Executive Producer: Melissa Mapes, Friendshop!
Producer: Garrett Crabb, Friendshop!
Executive Producer: Eli Heitin, SuiteSpot
Producer: Gaye Lirot, SuiteSpot
Telecine: Mikey Rossiter, The Mill
Producer: Clairellen Wallin
Music: Able Baker
Mixer: Elizabeth McClanahan, Heard City