Was McDonald's 'Signs' Ad on the Golden Globes Inspiring or Abominable?

McDonald’s really wants people to think it cares about community. But go figure, not everyone is convinced.

The brand’s new ad from Leo Burnett, which aired Sunday during NFL games and on the Golden Globe Awards, focuses on McDonald’s franchises that have, over the past 20 years, used their roadside signs to support, celebrate or otherwise acknowledge local and national events, both happy and tragic—everything from 9/11 to the homecoming of troops to a nearby base to Boston’s spirit in the wake of the marathon bombing to the 30th wedding anniversary of a couple who’ve celebrated every year of marriage at a McDonald’s. (The campaign includes a Tumblr page that explains some of the more specific examples.)

The centerpiece spot, part of a broader brand refresh that began with the quite well-liked “Archenemies” ad, got a less-than-enthusiastic response on Twitter during NBC’s Globes telecast.“McDonald’s is presenting itself as the face of corporate kindness? PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES A LIVING WAGE,” said one detractor, in a post retweeted more than 80 times. Said another, “@McDonalds I just threw up in my mouth watching your commercial… Desperate attempt to rescue your image.”

To be fair, some viewers enjoyed the spot. “This McDonald’s marquee sign is fantastic!” tweeted the handle of Des Moines radio station Star 102.5. But the backlash around the fair pay debate is predictable, given the high profile of the recent Fight for 15 protests. And that makes a sign like “Keep Jobs in Toledo” seem kind of tone deaf, even if it technically refers to a nearby factory at risk of closure.

Plus, the soundtrack—a children’s choir covering indie pop band Fun’s “Carry On”—makes such a clumsy grab for the audience’s heartstrings that it’s hard not to think of crocodile tears. In the words of another viewer, “I’m not lovin’ it.”

See more of the Twitter reaction below. What do you think of the ad?

 
LOVIN’ IT

 
NOT LOVIN’ IT



Newcastle Begins Ambush of This Year's Super Bowl by Crashing the Doritos Campaign

You might remember Newcastle Brown Ale’s antics around last year’s Super Bowl—a little stunt from Droga5 called “If We Made It” that imagined what a Newcastle Super Bowl ad might have looked like if they could have afforded one.

The whole thing went pretty well, to say the least.

Given that success, Newcastle obviously had to screw with this year’s game, too. And so it begins its 2015 Super Bowl ambush with the video below—in which the brewer, which still doesn’t have $4 million lying around, pretends to crash a certain “Crash the Super Bowl” contest by a certain unnamed snack maker (OK, Doritos), so that it can get on the Super Bowl for free.

Newcastle’s fake Doritos ad, also made by Droga5, is amusingly bad—which frankly is a step up from some of the actual Doritos finalists, which are short on the amusing part. It’s full of stupidly obvious Newcastle product placement, in keeping with the brand’s ethos of undercutting typical marketing tactics. There’s even a case study (see below) about the “failed attempt to infiltrate a snack chip contest.”

“We had such a good time almost making that Huge Sports Match ad last year, we decided we’d stop at nothing to finally make our way into the Really Large American Football Contest in 2015. Even if we still can’t afford it,” the brand tells us.

It’s a bit of a convoluted premise—Newcastle’s meta anti-advertising stunts often have a kind of pretzel-like structure to them. But the brand confirms there’s more silliness to come in the next few weeks, so it should be fun to see what else they have in store.

CREDITS
Client: Newcastle Brown Ale
Campaign: Newcastle: Chores. A beer ad disguised as a snack chip ad.
Title: Chores

Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Group Creative Director: Scott Bell
Senior Art Director: Dan Kenneally
Senior Copywriter: Ryan Raab
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Senior Broadcast Producer: David Cardinali
Broadcast Producer: Bill Berg
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Head of Strategy: Chet Gulland
Strategist: Nick Maschmeyer 
Social Strategist: Rebecca Russell 
Communications Strategist: Kevin Wang  
Group Account Director: Dan Gonda
Account Director: Nadia Malik
Account Manager: Ashton Atlas

Client: Heineken USA, Newcastle Brown Ale
Senior Director, Portfolio Brands: Charles Van Es
Brand Director: Priscilla Dohnert
Brand Manager: Brett Steen

Production Company: Droga5 Studios | Film
Director: Mike Long
Line Producer: Jessica Bermingham
DP: Brian Lannin

Editorial: Droga5 AV
Editor: Joseph Schulhoff



Baby Animal Choir Sings Yaz's 'Only You' in This Ridiculously Cute Christmas Ad

McVitie’s Victoria, the British biscuits brand, has been using puppies, kittens, tarsiers and owls in ads over the past year. Now, Grey London expands the baby-animal menagerie dramatically for McVitie’s first Christmas ad in 30 years.

The 60-second ad shows a family’s understandable surprise when Dad opens a box of McVitie’s Victoria biscuits and a bunch of adorable animals crawl out of the pack. The interlopers include an Alaskan Malamute puppy, a micro piglet, a Persian kitten, a baby rabbit, a duckling, a ginger kitten, a Pug puppy, a baby hedgehog, a baby reindeer and a tiny narwhal hiding in the punch bowl.

Turns out they’re talented animals, too, as they join together to sing a Christmassy rendition of the ’80s hit “Only You” by Yaz (or Yazoo, as they were known in the U.K.).

The spot breaks Thursday night on British TV. As in past ads, the baby animals are meant to reflect the cuddly, snuggly feeling you get when you open a box of McVitie’s.

“We’re delighted to introduce the latest additions to our McVitie’s Sweeet family, and hope that it brings chocolatey cheer to biscuit loving households across the UK for the festive season,” says marketing director Sarah Heynen.

CREDITS
Cient: McVitie’s
Marketing Director, United Biscuits: Sarah Heynen
Creative Agency: Grey London
Creative Director: Hollie Newton
Copywriter: Hollie Newton
Art Director: Hollie Newton
Account Team: Nicola Wardell, Kate Ilott
Agency Producer:  Thea Evely
Assistant Agency Producer: Jen Gillen
Creative Producer: Lucy Dunn
Planner: Daniel Sherrard
Media Agency: MEC
Media Planner: Nicola Tracey
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Randy Krallman
Editor: Mark Edinoff at Work
Production Company Producer: Gustav Geldenhuys
Designer: Chris Chapman
DoP: Jean Noel Mustonen
Postproduction: Framestore
Soundtrack Composer: Vince Clarke
Audio Postproduction: Wave



Diet Racism: The Official Drink of Brands That Just Don't Get It

The official drink of the Washington Redskins … and Dave & Buster’s?

College Humor created this fake ad a little while back for Diet Racism—the drink that has all the sweet ignorance of regular racism but with none of the guilt or self-awareness. It’s the drink of choice for people who don’t realize that the phrase “I’m not racist, but …” doesn’t magically make whatever comes after it less racist.

It’s actually been quite a year for discussions of racism involving brands. Maybe this fake commercial could be a good hiring tool for potential brand or social media managers. If they laugh, maybe they’ll be a little less likely to go full-on racist in a tweet.

If they tell you the Irish really were persecuted too, well, there’s a red flag.



Dave & Buster's Just Posted a Tweet It's Going to Regret for a Long Time

And your massive brand Twitter fail of the day goes to … Dave & Buster’s!

To advertise its Taco Tuesday, the restaurant chain made a joke that pretty clearly went over the line, prompting incredulity from its Twitter followers. “I hate tacos, said no Juan ever,” the tweet read.

Obviously, this isn’t the first time a brand has tweeted out something outrageous—in this case, racist. But the question remains: How does this kind of stuff make it into the actual world?

See some of the reaction to the tweet below. As of 1:40 p.m. ET, the tweet is still live—40 minutes after it was posted. Apology surely coming soon.

UPDATE: The tweet was deleted at around 1:41 p.m. ET.
 



This Apple Store in London Looks Just Like a Regular Apple Store, Except It Sells Real Apples

Don’t come looking for free Wi-Fi. This Apple Store doesn’t have it.

That’s because it sells real apples—the nontechnological kind.

London’s Borough Market, one of the oldest markets in the U.K., is marking its 1,000th anniversary this year. (Yes, it’s been around for a millennium.) As part of the celebrations, it treated shoppers to a delightful concept—creating a “Real Apple Store” for the weekend that was a clever copy of Apple’s iconic retail establishments.

Actual apples were displayed on lucite pedestals just like an iPhone or iPad would be, but instead of technical specs, the signs showed each apple’s unique flavor notes and history.

Take a look below at some more photos of this great little shop. It remains unclear whether the apples themselves were marked up tp 500 percent of their actual value.

Via Design Taxi.



Wil Wheaton, Giant Beer Geek, Humorously Introduces Newcastle's Scotch Ale

Newcastle has tapped Wil Wheaton as its latest anti-advertising star, enlisting the actor and Internet folk hero for a couple of amusing online videos introducing a new Scotch Ale.

Wheaton does an amusing job of delivering the pitch under duress, as the Droga5 production is self-consciously faux-low-budget. He’s also a well-known home-brew geek, and mixes some knowledge in with the humor.

“Newcastle Scotch Ale is a well-balanced, malt-forward brew with a delightful velvety finish,” he says in the press release. “Basically, Newcastle and Caledonian made a kick-ass beer that does not suck.”

The Scotch Ale is the first in a series of what Newcastle is calling “collaboration edition” beers made in partnership with some of Europe’s finest and oldest breweries. This first partnership is with its Edinburgh-based sister brewery Caledonian.

“One of our dreams is to get rid of the ‘intimidation’ factor that prevents so many people from foregoing boring ‘yellow beer’ and enjoying more interesting brews,” says Brett Steen, brand manager for Newcastle Brown Ale. “Wil is an inviting and knowledgeable guy, and we’re stoked that he’s taking this herculean effort of humor and wisdom onto himself so we don’t have to.”



Concord Grapes Become Chatty Sitcom Characters in Welch's New Campaign

Is the time ripe for a sitcom starring a bunch of grapes?

The VIA Agency’s new campaign for Welch’s mimics/spoofs the prime-time sitcom format to deliver the message that grape juice has heart health benefits, just like wine. These aren’t animated pieces of fruit or actors in purple costumes. They’re real Concord grapes, just hangin’ on the vine, making with the breezy, brand-centric banter.

According to VIA, the “Just Hangin’ ” idea “opens up huge possibilities for the development of episodic video content across our digital and social channels, and allows the brand to react and produce content quickly to maintain relevance with current events. We are essentially giving each grape a personality and a voice.”

brightcove.createExperiences();

Lead grapes Tina, Phil and Merlot (he’s French) are appealing, and the theme song’s pretty fresh. Given the sorry state of network TV, these grapes just might get picked up. Hopefully the fickle public won’t souring on the concept.

This first spot breaks nationwide later this week. Welch’s and VIA will continue the development of the grape characters in TV and digital into next year. Welch’s previous ads featured food historian and Food Network star Alton Brown.



Can You Make a Great-Looking Fast-Food Ad Using Actual Fast Food and an iPhone?

It’s an accepted truism that the food in fast-food ads looks nothing like the food in real life. But can it be made to look that way? Is it possible to transform a regular McDonald’s burger into food-porn perfection using only a couple of iPads and an iPhone??

That the challenge the guys at DigitalRev TV set for themselves. And they do a pretty decent job of replicating actual McDonald’s product shots. Though you wouldn’t want to run extreme close-ups of their creation, like they do in France.

Check out the process below, and skip to 3:00, where the action really starts.

Via Design Taxi.



Pepsi Max Did the One Halloween Prank That Was Pants-Crappingly Awesome

Welp, it’s basically Christmas now, but we’ve got one more Halloween ad to share with you. Yeah, it’s November now, but this gem is still as fresh as that stash of Twix bars you stole from your child. 

PepsiMAX, no stranger to scaring the crap out of people with ad pranks, delivered what might be the coolest use of tech for nefarious purposes this Halloween. Watch below to see how the brand really freaked out unsuspecting moviegoers at a London cinema. 

And try to imagine not soiling yourself.



Carl's Jr.'s Latest Sexed-Up Burger Eater Is Less Classically Beautiful Than You Might Expect

If you thought there was no way to top a Paris Hilton-Hannah Ferguson slow-motion car-washing, sex-eating burger-palooza, you’d be wrong, Carl’s Jr. want to tell bros.

Supermodels and celebutantes don’t have the market cornered, after all, on using their scantily clad bums, stripper moves and garden hoses to hawk fast food. Along comes Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Carl Brutananadilewski, a husky, hirsute late-night star, to show everybody how it’s done.

Just don’t eat that burger before you see the new commercial, airing online and during Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, where Aqua Teen Hunger Force anchors the block and Carl regularly heckles his neighbors Meatwad, Master Shake and Frylock.

Though lacking in the bronzed beauty and sex appeal of the burger joint’s former brand ambassadors—Padma Lakshmi, Heidi Klum and Kate Upton among them—Carl “brings a certain willingness to the role and a unique interpretation of fresh baked buns,” said Steve Lemley, svp of field marketing and media at Carl’s Jr. and sister chain Hardee’s.

The animated character is willing to wear a physique-inappropriate banana hammock, in other words, and writhe around on a Dodge Spyder while chomping a burger and slapping his ass.

The spot, written and produced by Aqua Teen Hunger Force creators with assists from 72andSunny and Initiative, promotes the chain’s bread, baked fresh in stores, which makes its buns “denser and a little sweeter” than competitors’ products, according to the press release.

Make that connection between the food and Carl’s lumpy posterior at your own risk.

Hungry yet?



Chobani Dresses Dogs Up in Costumes in Adorable Ad for Halloween

Petco had a whole Halloween contest around dressing up pets this month, but you don’t have to be a pet brand to get in on that action. Droga5 did this cute ad for Chobani, featuring pooches in their Halloween costumes—while enjoying the treat that is Chobani yogurt.

Check out the video below. Happy Halloween!



Peeps Do Their Best to Get Scary for Halloween

More sweet. Less scary. That’s the promotional campaign, not the ingredient list.

The perennial Easter favorite Peeps continue to try to become a year-round candy with these “peepified” illustrations for Halloween. The simple, colorful drawings are part of an ongoing campaign dubbed “Every day is a holiday,” launched earlier this year to introduce Peeps Minis, diminutive flavored versions of the original chicks. (They’re less than half the size of the flagship product, and come in bags, not the traditional cellophane-front flat boxes).

The airy sugar dumplings, made by confectioner Just Born, haul in an estimated 70 percent of their business at Easter and only a fraction on other holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day. There are ghost and pumpkin Peeps on shelves now, but they’ve never moved as briskly as springtime’s puffy chicks and bunnies.

The campaign for Peeps Minis, from New York ad agency The Terri & Sandi Solution, has included digital images on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with Peeps-centric drawings for obscure holidays like Mutt’s Day, Make Someone Laugh Day and National Singing Telegram Day. Fifteen-second TV ads celebrate National Take Your Pants for a Walk Day, Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day and other “holidays.” (Go ahead, Google them).

And about those ingredients: mainly sugar, corn syrup and gelatin. Boo!



This Is Hands Down the Most Messed-Up Halloween Ad You'll See This Year

You remember Vytautas Mineral Water. The Lithuanian water brand was the subject of the single craziest commercial of 2012—a spec ad from director Tadas Vidmantas that the client ended up loving and tacitly endorsing. (It ended up hiring Vidmantas to do ads in a similar lunatic style.)

Well, now Vidmantas is back with a Halloween spot for Vytautas. And it’s completely sick and twisted. Check it out below, and watch out for flying blood.

Credits are also below, and after that, the classic “It’s Earth’s Juice” ad from 2012.

CREDITS
Client: Vytautas Mineral Water
Agency: Superior
Director: Tadas Vidmantas
Producer: Asta Liukaityte



Diet Coke Prints 2 Million Unique Labels in Latest Stroke of Packaging Genius

You thought Coca-Cola was getting personal when it rolled out 250 bottle labels featuring people’s first names. Well, Diet Coke just went and individualized 2 million bottle designs.

Coca-Coca Israel created the campaign, with help from Gefen Team, Q Digital and HP Indigo. (In fact, it was Indigo, which was founded in Israel, that helped Coke solve the enormous production challenges around the “Shake a Coke” campaign when it first rolled out in Australia in 2011.) For the Diet Coke project, a special algorithm led to a unique design technique that allowed millions of designs to be completely auto-generated.

The resulting product conveys to “to Diet Coke lovers that they are extraordinary by creating unique one-of-a-kind extraordinary bottles,” said Alon Zamir, vp of marketing for Coca-Cola Israel. (Dr Pepper, whose whole campaign is built around being one of a kind, is going to be pissed about this.)

The concept nicely extended to the ad campaign, which featured hundreds of uniquely designed billboards, as well as point-of-sale stunts that sold T-shirts and other merchandise featuring your specific bottle design.

The genius of “Share a Coke,” of course, was how personalized it felt, rather than how personalized it actually was. (Your first name isn’t exactly unique, after all—and if it is, it wasn’t on a Coke bottle.) Still, the Diet Coke idea is a conceptual and executional triumph—the designs look fantastic, on top of it all—and a brilliant stunt, even if it won’t generate the same level of buzz.

Check out more images below, along with a case study video showing the process.

Via PSFK.



The Latest Crazy Vending Machine Has a Piano on the Side, and Gives You Free Drinks for Playing It

There’s a grand tradition of marketers building fancy vending machines, but it’s not every day you see one that doubles as a piano.

For the Alfa Jazz Fest in L’viv, Ukraine, this past June, mineral water brand Borjomi and its agency, Banda, set up a publicity stunt inviting passersby to play a sideways keyboard in exchange for free product.

The new video below shows some people eking out melodies and others banging out full-blown performances while crowds gather and cheer. It has some of the dubious over-enthusiasm of heavily edited case study videos—people get really, really excited, and jump up and down—despite (or maybe because of) how awkward it must have been to hit the right notes while craning over.

Then again, a piano-playing machine made of razors is probably still weirder.



Agency Gives You Free Beer for Filling Out Your Timesheets, Because Nothing Else Ever Works

The industry is rapidly changing, but one thing remains the same: Literally the only thing that gets agency people to fill out their timesheets consistently is free beer.

The latest example comes from Minneapolis, where Colle+McVoy has built a wondrous machine called the TapServer—a “multi-keg beer deployment system” that uses RFID and custom-written software to verify whether you’ve stopped being a lazy git, finished your timesheets and earned your free pint. (According to the agency, the technology used includes “several Arduinos, a Node-based server, solenoids and a Raspberry Pi.” For all we know, so could the beer.)

Check out more pics below. And yes, similar things have been done before, including the beer fridge at JWT agency Casa in Brazil that unlocks only when timesheets are done.



Snickers Gives You an Early Halloween Treat With This Truly Twisted Ad

Halloween is like Christmas for candy brands, and Snickers usually swoops in, batlike, with some fun and spooky advertising (most notably, perhaps, BBDO’s truly odd “Grocery Store Lady” spot from 2010).

And this year, it’s Spanish-language Snickers spot that’s giving people chills.

Everything about the ad is great—the premise, the visual effects, the guy at the end bellowing about his TV show. A real treat from LatinWorks.



David Beckham Invites You to Travel the World, Drinking His Scotch, in Ad From Guy Ritchie

If you’re the type of jet-setter who flies a seaplane to a Scottish estate so you can put on a tuxedo and have a drink with a handful of your posh friends, David Beckham would like you to buy some of his new whisky.

The recently retired soccer icon stars in this glitzy launch ad for Haig Club, a single grain scotch that Beckham produced with liquor giant Diageo and American Idol creator Simon Fuller. Filmmaker Guy Ritchie, a friend of Beckham’s—who directed him in this H&M ad last year—directed this one, too (and makes a cameo as the fisherman under the bridge).

It’s worth watching mostly for the gorgeous scenery (shot in the Scottish Highlands, at locations like Glen Affric). The people are pretty, too. Alt-J’s “Left-Hand Free” serves as the soundtrack. The storyline is thin, leaving you free to focus on the lush trappings—not unlike a fashion or perfume ad. That’s all the more appropriate, given that the bottle looks like it should hold something you splash on your person, not pour down your gullet.

Regardless, you should also be ready to drink it at the Great Wall, Easter Island, the Egyptian pyramids and Antarctica, among other places. In other words, get your travel budget in order—and don’t forget to bring your point-and-shoot camera, because everyone still uses those.



What's in McDonald's Food, Anyway? Ex-MythBuster Grant Imahara Is Hired to Find Out

Does McDonald’s put horsemeat in its burgers? What about pink slime? Would you feed McDonald’s food to your kids?

So many questions. But now, taking its cues from a well-received transparency campaign from McDonald’s Canada, the chain is responding to whatever hate its American critics want to throw at it. And it’s hired former MythBusters host Grant Imahara to be your third-party, completely unbiased, totally trustworthy, quasi-celebrity McMyth investigator.

Grant’s first three videos have already dropped, where he visits a Cargill plant and answers the following: Is McDonald’s beef real (and are there eyelids in there)? Why are the patties frozen (when fresh should theoretically be much tastier)? Why are the burgers so cheap (you get what you pay for, right)?

It’s everything you’d expect from a hard-reboot, Domino’s-style brand turnaround. What I most admire is that they’re letting the comment feed on YouTube be just as brutal as it wants to be. And man, is it brutal. It’s hard to tell the legit processed-food concerns from the horsemeat crazies.

Though honestly, that’s good for Micky D’s. The more they can discredit the really nutty folks by letting them be themselves—and there are some excellent conspiracy theorists blowing up the feed—the less McDonald’s itself actually needs to say.

That said, I’m probably not going to bite the bullet like Grant and munch a Big Mac anytime soon. But those sodium acid pyrophosphate fries, man. Who can resist those fries?