Hasta La Creative!

“Brand builder, leader and consummate strategic thinker” Kofi Amoo-Gottfried joins FCB Garfinkel today as chief strategic officer, replacing Sara Bamber. He will work in tandem with chief executive officer Lee Garfinkel.

Amoo-Gottfried joins FCB Garfinkel from Bacardi Rums, where he worked as a global communications director out of London. The Ghana native “created and launched the first majority-owned network agency on the African continent” while working as a managing director at Publicis West Africa. He began his career at Leo Burnett Chicago as an account supervisor and communications manager, where he worked alongside current FCB Worldwide CEO Carter Murray. The team later reunited while at Publicis. Amoo-Gottfried cited Murray as a key motivator for joining the agency. “I have a lot of faith in his ability to turn places around, to inspire and motivate,” Amoo-Gottfried said. “We are very similar. I, too, am all about creating a culture that brings people together to focus on creating incredible work, and having fun doing it.”

Amoo-Gottfried also worked as a senior strategic planner at Wieden+Kennedy, where he crafted the strategy for Nike’s global Beijing Olympics campaign. In January, he was named to Ad Age‘s “40 Under 40” list of young marketing stars. Lee Garfinkel says Amoo-Gottfried “doesn’t know where planning ends and creative begins, and that’s a formula for success.”

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FCB Zurich combined emotions and typography in their “Emography” project for MTV Mobile, a new Facebook app that allows users to express their emotions via typographical selections, eliminating the need for emojis or abbreviated summations of emotions — at least in theory.

To accomplish this, FCB Zurich created a special font for each of the eight basic human emotions: curiosity, surprise, fear, sadness, contempt, rage, happiness, and disgust. Users select a recipient in the Facebook app, type their message, and select their chosen Emography, which is displayed as a video message. Some of the Emography choices are more successful than others at conveying their intended emotions. Emographies for sadness (The Crying Font) and rage (The Broken Glass Font), for example, make sense as visual displays of those emotions, and convey them well. The Confetti Font, however, used for surprise, doesn’t really fit that emotion particularly well. Others, such as the Emographies for contempt and curiosity, work better in theory than in practice. Additionally, FCB Zurich missed out on the opportunity to somehow convey laughter in typographical form and free users from the ubiquitous “LOL,” which is too bad. Still, it’s a pretty cool idea, and with the service, “MTV mobile demonstrates not just technical know-how as the first Swiss provider of a dedicated text message service, but also gives the young target group an effective tool with which to communicate all emotions.” Check out the video above to learn more about the app, and stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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FCB San Francisco gets a bit suggestive in their latest spot for online residential real estate site Trulia.

The 30-second spot, “Shower” shows a couple deciding whether or not they want to make an offer on a house. Said couple is in the bathroom admiring the tub when the woman makes a push for them to submit an offer. The guy isn’t so sure, but she reminds him that he was crazy about the garage, and also that the mortgage is the same as their rent. She adds that it’s in a great school district, which is important because they’re going to “start making babies,” and then adds “Let’s do it.” The guy, understandably mistakes her meaning and points out that the owner is right in the other room. It all feels a little forced, as if FCB wanted to break out of the usual real estate advertising rut but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. The claustrophobic spot (feeling like you’re in a bathroom with two other people doesn’t exactly make for a pleasant viewing experience) also doesn’t do much to differentiate Trulia from the competition. “Shower” ends with the “That’s your moment of Trulia” tagline and an announcement of a $50,000 giveaway. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Taking your kid to the beach means worrying he or she will wander off when you're not looking. Enter sunscreen brand Nivea and FCB São Paolo with a campaign that basically provides you with a LoJack for your child.

Titled "Sun Band," the combination print-and-mobile execution lets you pop a bracelet out of the magazine ad, wrap it around your child's arm, download an app, sync them and set a perimeter. If your kid wanders outside the safe zone, an alarm sounds, so you can go chasing after him or her. (Presumably, if you lose your phone, too, just whip out your tablet and Find My iPhone to recover your gadget, and then your child.)

The ad ran in April in select copies of Veja Rio magazine sent to a group of subscribers. The bracelet is supposedly "humidity resistant" and reusable, though one has to wonder how much water it can really withstand.

Anyways, it's a fun idea that effectively signals the brand's devotion to protecting your offspring. If you're still not satisfied with the mechanics, you can always do it the old-fashioned way and get a harness and a leash—or, you know, just stay close and pay attention to your child.

CREDITS
Client: Nivea
Agency: FCB Brasil, São Paulo
Executive Creative Directors: Joanna Monteiro, Max Geraldo
Digital Creative Director: Pedro Gravena
Creative: Victor Bustani, Raphael Leandro de Oliveira, Andre Bittar
Digital Production: Geek Group
Art Buyers: Tina Castro, Daniel Gonçalves
Photographer: Lucio Cunha
Image Treatment: Boreal
Graphic Production: Edgardo Pasotti, Diego Bischoff
Graphic Design, Development: Companygraf
Media: Alexandre Ugadin, Tiago Santos, Sergio Brotto, Rachid Antum, Caio Melo
Project: Lia D’Amico
Technology: Gerson Lupatini, Caio Mello
Creative Technologist: Márcio Bueno
Account: Mauro Silveira, Cristiane Pereira, Tania Muller, Mariana Mozzaquatro, Vitor Borragine
Planners: Rapha Barreto, Lia Bertoni
RTV: Viviane Guedes, Ricardo Magozo
Production Company: Edit 2
Director: Rodrigo Fleury
Account Production: Daniela Andreade
Finishing Production: Priscila Prado
Animation: Rodrigo Resende, Eduardo Brandão
Composition: Eduardo Brandão
Editor: Rodrigo Resende
Finishing Production: Edit 2
Audio: Satélite Audio
Sound Producer: Equipe Satélite
Audio Account: Fernanda Costa, Marina Castilho
Client Supervisors: Tatiana Ponce, Patricia Picolo, Beatriz Vale, Lilian Cruz, Ana Borges, Katia Margy, Julia Sabbag

Ace Hardware tapped FCB Chicago to help introduce The Paint Studio, which seeks to provide a “more style-inspired and personal paint shopping experience” for Ace customers with exclusive paint collections from Clark+Kensington, Valspar Optimus and Valspar Aspire. The resulting campaign, “Helpful Is Beautiful” is the largest ever for Ace Hardware, spanning television, radio, print, social and digital.

“Helpful Is Beautiful,” which was developed by FCB Chicago in association with Ace and Valspar, riffs on tropes from beauty advertising in an effort to emphasize the more design-oriented aspects of The Paint Studio. The attempts at humor fall flat (painfully so), but the spots do get across the more personalized approach Ace’s new Paint Studio takes when compared to other hardware mega-stores. Still, the three 30-second spots are pretty tough to watch.

“For years, women have expressed loyalty to their favorite cosmetics brands and the inspiring shopping experience that comes along with it,” explains John Surane, executive vice president, marketing, merchandising, and sales for Ace Hardware. “Ace and Valspar recognize the emotional response evoked by color and built the ‘Helpful is Beautiful’ campaign and The Paint Studio at Ace around this connection as a way to offer consumers a differentiating paint shopping experience featuring the brands they know and trust.”

Ace also launched a new website for The Paint Studio today, created by GSD&M, and will be featuring special offers to get customers to experience The Paint Studio throughout the month of May. Stick around for credits and a second spot after the jump. continued…

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While the gay rights movement has clearly made major strides in the United States over the past several years, the transsexual community hasn’t received as much attention from the press.

For that reason, the new campaign marking a collaboration between FCB Toronto and advocacy group PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Canada is significant. As FCB Toronto CCO Robin Heisey writes in the release:

“Transgender issues are often overlooked in today’s society and sometimes not fully recognized within the LGBT community.”

The campaign is both thorough and challenging. Here’s the first TV spot:

A second spot and other elements after the jump.

continued…

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Fast food’s fattest conversation-starter is back for another round as this FCB spot kicks off the return of KFC’s breadless Double Down sandwich.

Unsurprisingly, the project relies even more heavily on social media for both concept and promotion than the 2010 original. KFC comms director David Menis told AdAge that the dialogue “mimics the way people talk about the product online.”

And yes, there will be a user-generated content contest calling on fans to submit related selfies and dances as the campaign competes to attract more attention than the brand’s recent “chicken corsage” stunt.

Note that KFC did not go with the vaguely nationalistic themes of this 2003 Double Down predecessor:

continued…

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Linda Dotson Wooley é a viúva de Wilhelm Wooley, um desconhecido astro do cinema. Mas como é que pode alguém ser um astro e desconhecido ao mesmo tempo? A resposta está em “Leave Wilhelm Alone”, campanha que a FCB criou para o Canal+ da Espanha: Wilhelm é a voz que você ouve em mais de 200 filmes, quando alguém grita. E sua viúva, Linda, simplesmente não consegue assistir a nenhum filme por conta disso.

De Toy Story a Star Wars, passando por O Senhor dos Anéis, Kill Bill e até Poltergeist, desde 1951 é a voz de Wilhelm que ouvimos – quando o filme não é dublado, é claro. Linda conta sua triste história em “The Woman Who Can´t Watch Movies”, um documentário curto que convoca pessoas do mundo inteiro a “doar” seus gritos para um banco de voz a ser utilizado em filmes, o que permitiria à viuva voltar a assisti-los sem a preocupação de ouvir seu falecido Sheb gritando em um deles.

É claro que o projeto todo é uma grande sátira, que de tão dramático e trágico se torna cômico. No site da campanha é possível ouvir alguns dos melhores gritos doados por filme. Para contribuir com o seu próprio grito, basta acessar o site, escolher três filmes, assistir à cena e começar a gritar. Quem será o próximo Wilhelm?

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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The newly Draft-less FCB worked with Canal+ to create a mockumentary on the famous “Wilhelm scream” entitled “The Woman Who Can’t Watch Movies.”

“The Wilhelm scream,” in case anyone needs a refresher, is the famous stock audio scream recorded by Sheb Wooley and named after the character Private Wilhelm in the 1953 western The Charge of the Feather River, although it was first used in the 1951 film Distant Drums. It saw a resurgence in popularity as a stock sound effect following its use in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It is now so ubiquitous (it has been dubbed in over 200 films) that it has become something of an in-joke, used in recent years in films by Pixar, the Lord of the Rings triology, and countless other movies. (There are rumors that directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino “maintain a bet as to who has used the “Wilhelm scream” more.”)

“The Woman Who Can’t Watch Movies” follows the (supposed) story of Sheb’s widow, Linda Dotson Wooley. Linda complains that she can’t watch movies anymore because she “just can’t bear to hear the sound of Sheb screaming out in pain over and over again.” After introducing Linda and her “condition” — a clever (although kind of sad) way to call attention to the sound effect’s ubiquity — the mockumentary introduces viewers to Canal+’s Scream Bank, “a catalog of donated screams for industry professionals to use in place of Sheb’s.” A few comically-off screams are then shown dubbed into a film, a great display of why the “Wilhelm Scream” has become such a well-worn cliche. The video is a teaser for Leave Wilhelm Alone, an upcoming documentary on the “Wilhelm scream.” Stick around for credits after the jump, and feel free to head on over to Canal+’s site and record a scream of your own. continued…

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