Agency Walton Isaacson (rather than the brand’s usual agency, Team One) crafted a 30-second Super Bowl spot promoting the Lexus NX, entitled “Make Some Noise.”
The spot employs a Stomp-like approach, building a soundtrack from sounds made by the vehicle, such as a beep from the car unlocking, the sunroof opening and the sound of the engine revving. Highly stylized shots of the vehicle, interspersed with dancers, accompany the sounds until a voiceover announces, “Go beyond utility: introducing the Lexus first-ever NX Turbo and Hybrid from Lexus. Be seen. Be heard. Make some noise.”
“Make Some Noise” will run during the first half of the Super Bowl, making Lexus one of only a few automakers advertising during this year’s game, along with Toyota, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz. General Motors, Volkswagen and Lincoln will be conspicuously absent. Lexus last ran a Super Bowl ad in 2012, promoting the 2013 Lexus GS.
Credits:
Agency: Walton Isaacson
VP, Group Account Director: Ayiko Broyard
Creative Director: Cenon Advincula
Copywriter: Colin Costello
Art Director: Cenon Advincula
Music Supervisor: Andrew Logan
Producer: Shauna Williams
Production Company: Radical Media
Director: Dave Meyers
Executive Producer: Jim Bouvet
Producer: Scott Cunningham
Director of Photography: Christopher Probst
Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Executive Producer: Angela Dorian and Dave Sellars
Universal McCann teamed up with Sony Picures, and DNA directors Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, 500 Days of Summer) and Rich Lee to create “Amazing Delivery,” a new Spider-Man themed spot for USPS designed as a tie-in promoting the May 2nd release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
The 30-second spot features Spider-Man slinging himself through New York City to deliver a package for a distressed Hollywood director. “Amazing Delivery” follows Spider-Man’s path through the city leading to the package’s delivery to Stan Lee at the premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The cinematic spot’s charming ending really ties everything together, and it’s evident that everyone involved was excited to work with Spider-Man’s creator, a fact corroborated by director Rich Lee, who said, “Everyone wanted Stan Lee to sign their prepro books and get a photo with Spider-Man…it was actually really sweet and fun to see everyone get so excited around those two. You could see the childlike glints in everyone’s eyes. It was awesome.”
Webb and Lee, who have collaborated in the past, based the spot on the idea that, like Spider-Man, USPS is “speedy, efficient, and there when you need it the most,” drawing on this link to expand upon the creative brief and bring the spot to life. “One of the interesting things about both Spidey and the USPS is that they are both iconic, public servants,” said Rich Lee. “They’re for the people, helping them in their own way. So there is a nice synergy there.”
This past October we covered 72andSunny’s exhaustivecampaign for Activision’s Call of Duty: Ghosts. Now, 72andSunny is back with a new campaign promoting Call of Duty: Ghosts‘ new downloadable content pack, Onslaught.
72andSunny’s long spot for Onslaught, entitled “CODnapped,” imagines a task force, led by a CODnapper played by Stephen Graham of Boardwalk Empire, sent out to kidnap men from such terrible duties as work, child rearing, and spending time with their significant other, so that they can be brought to a room with comfy chairs and snacks to play Call of Duty. The elaborately imagined scheme runs for over three minutes, before the rest of the spot is devoted to Onslaught gameplay. It’s kind of a clever (although ridiculous and entirely sexist) concept that highlights gamers’ desire to spend time with the new content free of any real-life distractions. And although the spot is quite dragged out, at a 4:51 run length, fans of the franchise have responded. The video was uploaded to YouTube yesterday, and has already racked up almost 400,000 views. By the time of Onslaught‘s January 28th release, it could top the one million mark. Credits after the jump. continued…
Just two weeks ago, we were covering the first wave of Nabi spots from Draftfcb, a pair of 30-second ads that favorably compared kid-friendly Nabi tablets to Kindle devices a la Microsoft vs. Apple. Our Erik Oster found them to be informational and appealing. However, these two new spots, “Fear Not Question” and “Swagger,” drop the comparison technique for an unconvincing plea for Nabi to be a lifestyle brand.
“Fear No Question” presents the Nabi brand as classroom-friendly, going right after a parent’s sense of idealistic learning, so in turn, that parent will go right for his/her wallet. It’s a boring and safe play that may have worked out if Draftfcb hadn’t already launched the Kindle attacks that are much more memorable.
“Swagger” goes straight after the kids. Promoting Nabi headphones – think Beats for kids – the spot shows a little kid walking down a school hallway in slow-motion as he gives headnods to his friends and long stares to the girl he probably has a crush on. This is more Fubu than Fuhu. This is also just a bad commercial, corny and overdone, even for a children’s market. The tagline of “Everyone Needs a Theme Song” actually has a nice ring to it, but the visual execution is too silly. The clip almost plays like a mocking comedy skit of itself.
At 30 seconds, both ads are easy to watch and easy to forget. ”Swagger” and credits after the jump.
Another day, another commercial from the Call of Duty: Ghosts marketing blitzkrieg. “Faboom,” a 40-second spot for UK audiences comes from 72andSunny and shows regular folk reenacting their favorite moments from the game at work, out to dinner, even in the doctor’s office during a proctology exam – well played, 72.
The spot comes a week after Eminem premiered his “Survival” music video that also acts as a Call of Duty promo. “Faboom” doesn’t have any white rappers – however, most of the people in the commercial happen to be white – but despite the lack of celebrity punch, the energy and occasional humor gives this ad a universal feel that should work whether televised or shown online. The clip evokes a bit of the Dave Chappelle skit about a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto. Clearly, the sentiment has aged well, and appealing to the human connection to video games, rather than just showing out-of-context graphics for 30 seconds, seems to be the new go-to technique for gaming ads. Call of Duty: Ghosts comes out September 5. Credits after the jump.
Fuhu has done incredibly well for themselves with the Nabi, a soft-edged tablet designed for children, even being named “the fastest growing company in America” by Inc. There’s certainly no change in strategy from Draftcb for these two new spots. “Good Morning” and “Glow in the Dark” tout the Nabi’s kid-friendly features via comparison with the Kindle, which comes out looking sorely lacking in the kid-friendly department.
If you are going to buy your kids a tablet, I suppose it should be one that’s made for them, right? These spots do a good job extolling the Nabi as the perfect option for children. In “Good Morning” (featured above) that means talking about the Nabi’s “time controls” — in this case, a good morning song to wake up to. The Nabi does its thing before asking a silent Kindle what its good morning song is.
“Glow in the Dark,” meanwhile, highlights Nabi’s glow in the dark feature. No surprise there. Also not a surprise: the Kindle does not glow in the dark. Score: Nabi 2, Kindle 0. Plus, the Nabi just looks like something a kid would want to play with. So make that Nabi 3, Kindle 0.
We see plenty of these “direct comparison to our biggest competitor” ads with tech gadgets, but few seem to take the wind out of the competition the way these ads sucker punch the Kindle. At least for the Nabi’s target audience. If I were shopping around for a tablet for a child, this campaign would have me convinced that the Nabi is the way to go. Thankfully, I won’t find myself in that situation any time soon. Credits and “Glow in the Dark” after the jump. continued…
It used to be that music video premieres from popular artists were a highly anticipated event. You know, back when MTV actually showed music videos, and before songs were streaming the second they were released. Now they’re advertisement fodder, as evidenced by Eminem’s new music video that doubles as a Call of Duty: Ghosts spot. Since August’s Call of Duty: Ghosts’ trailer featured Eminem‘s single “Survival” in the background, Slim Shady’s new single “Survival” features Call of Duty: Ghosts in the background. Tit for tat if you will.
The latest in the partnership between Activision, 72andSunny, and Eminem features projected footage from the game in the background as Eminem does his thing, in a (kind of) new song about surviving adversity. “This is survival of the fittest,” goes the songs’ chorus, doubling as a tag line for the aforementioned game, in which “the fittest” is some acne-scarred high school freshman who spends all his free time playing first person shooters while downing Doritos and energy drinks. There’s obviously some audience overlap between the popular shooter and the hip-hop vet, and this partnership takes advantage of that.
Since the launch of the new Call of Duty game is, arguably, more hotly anticipated than a new Eminem video, you may wonder why the game is featured so much in the background, but whatever the case, this is Eminem’s show. You could argue that he’s using the association with the game to sell his music at least as much as he’s helping to sell the game, so it works out pretty well for all parties involved. It’s really easy to overlook the COD footage unspooling in the background, especially since (if I’m not mistaken) the title of is never mentioned. But then that game’s fanboys will undoubtedly have remembered the song from the Call of Duty: Ghosts trailer, which may be why they’re watching the video in the first place. And anyone who can’t tell what the game in the background is probably isn’t buying the new Call of Duty in the first place.
The mix of violent gaming and explicit rapping should anger a few parents, so this video/spot has that going for it… Credits after the jump.
American Standard and Carmichael Lynch celebrate the indoors with their latest campaign. The TV spot “Movie Marathons,” directed by Albert Kodagolian, opens with a young woman dressing up as a vintage scream queen, seemingly in preparation for a night out. But it’s soon revealed that she’s “attending” a sci-fi movie marathon with her boyfriend and cat. The spot tries perhaps a little too hard to be cool, but one thing it definitely does well is cash in on people’s love of cats dressed up as stuff. I won’t give it away, but it’s particularly adorable. continued…
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