Hasta La Creative!

If you’re as forgetful as we are, let us just remind those of you based in NYC who didn’t make the trek out to Nice that the Wrath of Cannes returns this Thursday. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, competition and judging returns for the seventh annual installment of Woods Witt Dealy & Sons’ annual event, which focuses on the agency’s new brew, Wrath of Cannes Bitter Ale. While WWD&S has a recipe, label design and brewer in tow, the agency needs funds to bring its Bitter Ale to life, hence why it’s going the Kickstarter route. The Wrath 7 competition itself is explained in this brief, which asks participants to devise a social media campaign to drive folks to Kickstarter and ultimately donate.

Those who feel like competing can submit ideas directly at this Thursday’s event, which takes place at 200 Orchard from 7-11 PM. You can get further updates by following WoC7 here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In case you didn’t scan yesterday’s Sports Business Daily, the trade reports that BBDO New York has been named creative agency for the ING New York City Marathon, which is returning after being cancelled last year of course due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy. Speaking with SBD, Ronnie Tucker, VP of marketing for NYC Marathon organizers the New York Road Runners, says, “We were looking for some new thinking because of our feeling this is a unique opportunity; we have to get it right. From the beginning, BBDO showed a lot of passion for the marathon.”

We’ve also obtained a memo from sources sent from BBDO NY president/CEO John Osborn, who says among other things, “We will be responsible for developing a multi-platform communications campaign to drive awareness, tune-in, and engagement of the 2013 Marathon. We were selected for a number of reasons, not the least of which was our knowledge and success handling other key New York activities, ranging from the New York Miracle to our current efforts on behalf of New York State.  Thanks to everyone involved who helped bring home this business.”

As mentioned in the Sports Business Daily item, BBDO NY’s multimedia campaign for the NYC Marathon will launch in late September.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I don’t get Vine. I don’t get the appeal of six seconds worth of jump cuts and amateur shaky cam, when our mobile photography capabilities are so advanced. But, if Vine has any redeeming qualities, it’s unusual format does open the door for creative contests. Well, maybe more curious than creative, since how much can you really say with poor quality videos in six seconds? Nonetheless, MRM Worldwide just held its 2nd annual “I am MRM” contest where agency employees under 28 could produce a meaningful Vine and win a trip to Cannes.

The finalists, including winner Anna Chechetka, did get quite creative, incorporating text, art, sound effects, and stop-motion. You can watch all of the finalists’ videos here. My personal favorite, complete with fire-breathing dragon, comes from Yi Xiu Lim. It turns out that Chechetka, meanwhile, learned she had won in a personal call from MRM CEO, Bill Kolb. Before getting on the phone, Kolb — who was recently promoted to chairman/CEO of McCann Worldgroup’s GM account — looked at his secretary and in a grumbly old-man voice said, “What is this silly Vine business?” That last part is probably not true; I just made it up to project my Vine feelings on to someone else.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

And rightfully so, we believe–well, at least as an outsider looking in. The headline basically sums it up, but let the Art Directors Club’s executive director, Ignacio Oreamuno, drop some science above about the need for gender equality in the ad industry, not just from an agency infrastructure standpoint, mind you, but award show juries, etc..  And yes, the ADC Gallery in NYC (see here for handy Yelp review/coordinates) is hosting an all-girl photo shoot at the event, which takes place at 12:30PM EST tomorrow and will include the likes of industry notables such as Cindy Gallop, Ale Lariu and more.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While we’re pretty sure John Williams movie soundtracks wouldn’t be classified as classical music by most purists, when you’re the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB) trying to boost attendance before your entire audience dies, bending the rules a a little bit isn’t an issue.

Combating the fact most of the OSB’s orchestra is over the age of 65, Brazilian agency Artplan shot the OSB playing classic (again. a stretch of the word) movie soundtracks, linked to it from YouTube clips and, as a result, claim to have increased the number of young people attending OSB concerts by 40%. As well as achieving a sell out for the entire season.

Not bad for a little rule bending.

This is the true story about how one agency locked three creative types (a copywriter, art director and creative technologist) in a room for 24 hours and challenged them to, you guessed it, “get creative.” The end result was a viral hit of sorts from a few weeks ago called “Couchella,” which debuted just in time to coincide wit the annual weekend-long music extravaganza in California. As we previously mentioned, the trio who were put to the test were Julie Matheny, Scott Blew, and Ivan Cash, whose experiment is captured in the clip above. The “Couchella” project, essentially an internet music festival, actually marks 72andSunny’s involvement with Portfolio Night 11, specifically the Los Angeles installment. Whether it worked or not is up to the audience that took part, but hey, at least “Couchella” provided a free alternative to the now-bloated event that inspired it.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

If you don’t feel like watching the whole 3-minute Portfolio Night Boston clip from SapientNitro above, here’s a brief summary: A hipper-than-thou ad creative pitches a wealth of concepts to an agency head. The problem is, that this mustache-sporting creative’s ideas hinge on a litany of buzzwords and tech-y hoopla, which the agency head (OMG! Look at his CLIOs! Look at Cannes Lions!) shakes his head at. The creative is then escorted out of the building, and we see the words “Idea Before Everything” flash across the screen.

You’ve probably seen this execution done hundreds of times before, many times made by agencies that see these little vignettes as an opportunity to advertise themselves as shops that “get it.” They do so by making fun of whatever new ad trends are the talk of the town right now, making sure that the viewer (who is generally either an employee or someone who works at another agency, like you) knows that they don’t buy into bullshit hype and that their work is somehow pure. But, let’s be honest, does anyone really believe that? Has anyone won new business that way? Can any of you say that you never worked at an agency that unironically bought into these kinds of hype-driven executions this video mocks? Sure, it has to done, because that’s what clients want, but let’s not pretend that all of us have clean hands.

I guess what I’m asking for is that agencies who preach innovation to start marketing themselves in an innovative fashion. That, or how about we actually practice what we preach and don’t make creative that actually does hinge on whatever buzzword Mashable puts on their homepage (not going to happen). For the record, I’m not calling out SapientNitro in particular. I’m just tired of seeing this idea.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

With Portfolio Night 11 drawing nearer, we’re starting to receive an increasing amount of content from agencies who are either hosting or just celebrating the fact that their city’s taking part in the annual global recruiting/review event. We’ll try to keep the coverage to a minimum since we actually have no stake in PN 11, but a few entries have caught our eye over the last week or so including Doner’s tribute to Eminem and 8 Mile.

The latest interesting submission comes to us from Sid Lee New York, which is serving as Big Apple host for this year’s event. As mentioned in the headline, the agency has decided to create a speed dating atmosphere for creatives complete with speed-dating style tables (with tablecloths) and chairs), ’90s-style name tags (whatever those look like), ’90s dating videos playing on a projector (think those old “Great Expectations” commercials), breath mints, disco ball, a car keys bowl for creative directors to leave business cards and even a photo/”kissing” booth. Considering the ’80s-style promo above (with a track that sounds like M83) and the disco ball, though, we’re not sure what decade Sid Lee is exactly waxing nostalgic about. Whatever the case, the agency will try to play Cupid in its NY PN 11 installment, which takes place at the Art Directors Club on May 22 in Chelsea. Get full info here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Since we’ve never been able to make it out to Cali for the annual, now-bloated Coachella festival (we went with “Couchella” this year), we’ll instead enjoy this birds-eye view–literally–from one Chris Crutchfield. The 6’7″ director/actor/motion graphic designer who strapped on a GoPro Hero 3 to give us a “Coachellavated” perspective of the musical extravaganza.

The project was creative directed by Scott T. Chan and produced by his L.A.-based creative studio Whirled, which is perhaps now best known for its annual “Zeitgeist” work for Google. Seeing as we’ll probably never make it out to Coachella though we’ve been saying otherwise every year, we will gladly take this three-minute diversion from the usual advertising news as we head into the late afternoon. Speaking of Coachella, Jimmy Kimmel and his crew getting attendees at this year’s fest to lie about liking bands that don’t actually exist.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As the opening moments states, viewer discretion is advised with this lengthy promo from RPA and Tool, who for the fourth year in a row are teaming up to hype the Newport Beach Film Festival. If you haven’t seen Corbin’s Bernsen‘s epic, award-winning (ok, not really) The Dentist saga or better yet The Marathon Man, consider this clip called “Mandible” the Cliff’s Notes version.

Again, this is not for the squeamish (though as a horror fan it’s not all that shocking; as a guy who’s got a dentist appointment next week, that’s another story), but in a statement regarding “Mandible,” RPA creative director Scott McDonald says, “We wanted to demonstrate the power of film by taking audiences to a heightened state of emotion and then pulling them back to reality, reminding them that they’re watching particles of light on a screen.” Perhaps what we’re seeing is how RPA felt during the recent Honda review, but who knows, they came out of it pretty OK and so will you. The Newport Beach Film Festival begins April 25 and runs through May 2. Enjoy the show, kids. Credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.