Pepsi famously dialed back its volume of TV ads for this year's Super Bowl to focus on its sponsorship of the halftime show. Here's the ad from Mekanism that will run right before the halftime show begins. It shows New York City springing to life with music, with its landmarks serving as instruments. NYC is such a rich, inspiring place for this kind of approach. Nothing revolutionary, but a nice little opening number for Bruno Mars.
UPDATE: Anheuser-Busch released the 60-second spot on Friday morning, along with a longer five-minute documentary. See both videos below.
Anheuser-Busch InBev is certainly personalizing its Super Bowl commercials this year.
While its Bud Light work will depict an elaborate prank on a single unsuspecting person, the brewer revealed Tuesday that one of its two Budweiser spots will feature a single U.S. serviceman, Lt. Chuck Nadd, receiving a surprise hero's welcome home—from Bud and his entire town of Winter Park, Fla.
"The festivities included a full ticker tape parade, complete with marching bands, antique military vehicles, the VFW motorcycle club and an appearance by the world-famous Budweiser Clydesdales—all a complete shock to Lt. Chuck Nadd, who expected only to see his family waiting for him," the brewer says.
A-B says it was originally planned as a 30-second spot, but expanded to a :60—bringing the company's total time in Sunday broadcast to four full minutes. Its other spot, "Puppy Love," also a :60 and a sequel to last year's "Brotherhood" ad with the baby Clydesdale, is expected to hit YouTube on Wednesday morning.
Newcastle Brown Ale, which didn't buy airtime in Sunday's Super Bowl but is doing a wonderfully silly campaign about how it almost did, rolled out more content from Droga5 this week—including the hilarious endorsement below by Anna Kendrick.
Just like last week's Newcastle trailer was the year's best Super Bowl teaser, Kendrick's performance will surely be the funniest among this year's celebs.
Newcastle has done a lot of great stuff around this faux Super Bowl campaign, including a brilliantly self-mocking native ad on Gawker as well as bogus focus-group videos and another endorsement video starring Keyshawn Johnson.
"It seemed like the obvious thing we had to do, and unfair to the world if we didn't," Newcastle brand director Quinn Kilbury said of the Super Bowl ambush. "The Super Bowl is great. The game is amazing, everyone loves the game. But it's become much more about marketing in some ways, and the over-the-top ridiculousness that surrounds it. I saw a lot of that when I was doing the real Super Bowl marketing stuff over at Pepsi, so it's close to my heart, and it is a little ridiculous sometimes. For a brand that likes to poke fun at marketing, we had to poke fun at Super Bowl marketing at some point."
He added: "The brief to Droga5 was, essentially, hijack the conversation around Super Bowl marketing. We had a couple of ideas, but essentially that was it. At first I think we saw doing something around the game itself, but then we thought if you're going to do the Super Bowl, or the Super [Bleep], as we're calling it, you have to be true to the whole marketing show. You have to treat the commercial like it's a $100 million blockbuster."
BBDO New York is on a roll with Guinness. Following last year's "Basketball" spot, truly one of the best of 2013, here's a great new commercial starring U.S. biathletes Tracy and Lanny Barnes. If you don't know their story, just watch the commercial—it's remarkably affecting, given that it's mostly just a static image and some text coming and going.
The spot is on YouTube for now, but will be pulled off the site at midnight Wednesday (Jan. 29), Guinness confirmed. That's because Guinness is not an Olympic sponsor and cannot air advertising featuring Olympic athletes between Jan. 30 and Feb. 26.
Credits below.
UPDATE: The ad was made private on YouTube last night, but you can still see it, for now, at the non-YouTube embed below.
CREDITS Client: Guinness Spot: "Barnes Sisters"
Agency: BBDO, New York Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn Executive Creative Director: Tom Darbyshire Associate Creative Director, Copywriter: Jon Yasgur Associate Creative Director, Art Director: Jim Cancelliere
Director of Integrated Production: Dave Rolfe Producer: Whitney Collins
Editorial, Animation: My Active Driveway Creative Director: Steve Choo
Music: Andrew Knox Music Music Producer: Loren Parkins
Lakemaid Beer, a beer created from scratch by ad agency Pocket Hercules and sold throughout the Midwest, put out a fun new ad that explains who their primary demographic is—ice fishermen wearing dorky hats. It also shows the brew's cool new beer-delivery system—courtesy of drones.
Sadly, the awesome quadcopter delivery isn't a service they're actually providing, but there are seasonally appropriate icons on the underside of each bottle cap (fish, a weather condition, snippets of fishing lore, etc.) that are part of a cryptic bottle cap game.
As neat as this ad is, I wish they'd focused more on the bottle caps instead of the cool thing they're not doing. Via The Denver Egotist.
While the Broncos and Seahawks battle it out Sunday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Coca-Cola will visit an almost completely deserted Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis.—in one of its two 60-second Super Bowl commercials.
Coke released the first spot online Monday, and it's a cute tale of a small kid named Adrian who goes from benchwarmer to star of his high school football team with one impressive fumble recovery and return for a touchdown. In fact, he doesn't stop there. He keeps running from Ashwaubenon, a suburb of Green Bay, all the way to Lambeau, where he does a touchdown dance and a little Lambeau Leap—and gets an ice-cold Coca-Cola from the groundskeeper (played by the actual Lambeau groundskeeper of 17 years).
Most of the cast consists of Green Bay-area residents, the soda maker said, and the spot as a whole is meant to celebrate Coke's connection to modest communities across the country. " 'Going All the Way' is a story that celebrates a young man accomplishing his dreams. It's also a celebration of the amazing town of Ashwaubenon, Wis., coming together and our wonderful partnership with the city of Green Bay," Katie Bayne, president of North America Brands at Coca-Cola North America, said in a statement. "While Coca-Cola is a global brand, this ad illustrates the deep roots it has in every community where it does business. We are in every city and every town across the country, ready to provide the kind of refreshing, uplifting moments of optimism Adrian enjoys after his journey to Lambeau Field."
The ad, created by Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., and RSA director Jake Scott, will air in the second half. For a Super Bowl commercial, it's cute but pretty quiet. You'd expect the other :60, in some form or other, to be splashier than this. The other spot will air during the second quarter.
Super Bowl halftime sponsor Pepsi decided to get an early start on Sunday night when the gridiron met the Grammys for an NFL-style extravaganza featuring the musical stylings of football stars.
"You music artists, you're always giving football the best halftime shows," Deion Sanders announces to a faux Grammy crowd. "So tonight, football is paying music back." The result, from agency Scratch, is about as over-the-top and occasionally cringeworthy as you might expect, with performances from Terry Bradshaw, Shannon Sharpe, Mike Ditka and more.
Maybe we'll get lucky and this Sunday's halftime show, featuring Bruno Mars, will pack all of its anticipated insanity into a mere two-and-a-half minutes as well.
Pepsi is expected to air a single 30-second spot, created by ad agency Mekanism, during the Super Bowl broadcast.
If there was one big winner at last night's Grammy Awards that was even more surprising than Daft Punk getting Album of the Year, it was Arby's scoring the tweet of the night.
The sandwich chain's post about Daft Punk collaborator Pharrell Williams' sartorial selection ("Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back?") was a responsive-marketing coup de grâce, with 75,000 retweets and more than 40,000 favorites by Monday morning.
To be sure, jokes about Pharrell's hat, which looked borrowed from Smokey Bear, had been flying around Twitter for more than an hour before Arby's made its post. But man, what a post.
Many marketers attempted to tie their brand messaging in with the Grammys, but as you can see in Digiday's roundup, few succeeded. Arby's even merited praise from global brands like Pepsi and Hyundai, which is an odd new level of meta marketing.
But when it comes to responsive marketing to celebrity antics, the best a brand can hope for is a response from A-lister him- or herself. And that's exactly what Arby's got in the early hours of this morning, when Pharrell asked on Twitter, "Y'all tryna start a roast beef?"
In fact, the ad largely plays out the same as 2012's Oikos Super Bowl spot, focused on Stamos romantically sharing a yogurt with a ladyfriend. But this time, instead of getting headbutted, he gets cockblocked (sorry, mom, there's no other word for it) by his Full Housemates.
For a :30, it's a lot of setup without much payoff. But then again, the same could be said of Stamos' multiple attempts at dairy-centric seduction.
If you're still craving more Stamos-Saget-Coulier shenanigans, check out Dannon's "Bromance" microsite, where you can find a few low-budget clips of the TV uncles clowning around. Or just cross your fingers and hope that the 2015 Super Bowl's inevitable Family Matters reunion turns out more fulfilling.
Here's this year's Super Bowl ad for Oikos:
And here's the 2012 Super Bowl's largely similar ad for Oikos:
As celebrity Super Bowl endorsers go, Stephen Colbert is somewhat unique because he's actually funny. He's amusing even in the few seconds of the teaser below for his Wonderful Pistachios ad airing on the Feb. 2 game. (These teasers, as we've learned lately, are not always terribly enjoyable.)
Just to be safe, though, the brand has also rolled out several minutes of a behind-the-scenes Colbert Q&A, also posted below. He doesn't reveal much about the ad, but does say: "I'm in it three times, and one of me is edible." Judging by the teaser, he may also have a co-star in the finished spot. But just who is that squawking off-camera beast?
A year after the Red M&M belted out Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)," it's Yellow's turn to take the spotlight during the Super Bowl.
The Mars candy brand just released a teaser for its 30-second spot, set to air in the first half of the Feb. 2 broadcast. Not much is revealed, aside from some aerobics and an abduction via tranquilizer dart.
The spot, from BBDO New York, will promote peanut M&M's.
"It's about time we remind the world how irresistible M&M's Peanut really is," Seth Klugherz, senior director of M&M's Chocolate Candies, said in a statement. "Each M&M's Peanut is literally 1 in 100—meaning we have to sort through 100 different peanuts, just to find one that's lucky enough to make its way into a bag of M&M's Peanut."
CREDITS Client: Mars/M&M's Title: "Abduction"
Agency: BBDO, New York Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars Executive Creative Directors: Tim Bayne, Lauren Connolly Senior Art Director: Eduardo Petersen Art Director: Jamie McCelland Copywriter: Roberto Danino Senior Producer: Regina Iannuzzi Producer: Sofia Doktori
Senior Account Director: Susannah Keller Account Director: Carrie Lipper Account Manager: Tani Nelson Account Executive: Alyce Regan
Production Company, Visual Effects: Laika, House Executive Producer, President: Lourri Hammack Director: Kirk Kelly Producers: Zilpha Yost, Julie Ragland Editing House: PS260 Editors: Maury Loeb, Ned Borgman Assistant Editors: Matt Posey, Colin Edelman Senior Producer: Laura Patterson
God bless Newcastle Brown Ale. As much as we all enjoy advertising when it's good, so much of it—as Newcastle would say—is bollocks. The British brewer (with help from Droga5) has always excelled at skewering irritatingly transparent marketing tactics, and now it sets its sights on the Big Kahuna itself—the Super Bowl.
The faux teasers below launch an "If We Made It" campaign, celebrating the Super Bowl commercial the brewer would have made—if it had been able to afford one. The deadpan copy is spot on, and as ambush marketing goes, the whole campaign is hilariously done as it takes down the overblown process of Super Bowl ad rollouts.
Gird your loins for more content to roll out into the middle of next week.
Cadbury has invented a trench coat that basically dances when you eat the brand's chocolate. Because eating Cadbury chocolate brings euphoria so intense that it makes even your clothes dance, or something. Or mostly because Cadbury wanted to try to grab people's attention with an oddity it hopes will help it sell more candy bars.
A pair of the so-called "Joy Jackets," created by digital shop Hirsch & Mann for Cadbury PR agency Golin Harris, also play music and puts on a light show. Yes, each jacket's moves are choreographed to its tune. The hem shimmies itself up. The shoulder flaps fan open. The Cadbury-purple collar pops out like peacock feathers before a confetti gun goes off. The cameras built into the jacket reportedly trigger the sequence if you're eating one of two Cadbury candy bars (though a pair of brand integrations featuring a British YouTube duo shows parts of the jacket's tech "responding" to other types of fun, like puppies).
It's a cool and endearing bit of technology, if perhaps seeming like a little more trouble than it's worth. As branded, wearable computers go, Ballantine's Internet-enabled T-shirt looked like a much better time.
In Starburst's "Miniminneapolis" spot, a construction worker tries to explain the robust fruit flavor of the candy's new Minis by theorizing that the candy gets shrunk down in a miniature factory. The cutaway scenes of factory workers bonking their heads on low ceilings, struggling with miniature controls and stooping to get through tiny doorways are pretty funny, as is the exasperated question of "Why is this factory so small?" It's not unlike watching Calvin's dad explain that the sun is actually the size of a quarter, and it crumbles under scrutiny with the same charm.
If you like bizarre flavors, talking food and generally feeling like you're having an acid flashback, Lay's is happy to oblige. A new spot from the snack brand features animated dishes like hoagies, meat loaf and sushi, singing about how delicious they could be in potato chip form.
The goal? To get you excited and perhaps slightly freaked out by the return of Lay's crowd-sourced product-development promotion, Do Us a Flavor. Created by Deep Focus, the contest invites you, friendly consumer, to submit (or at least vote for) a potential new flavor of Lay's potato chips.
Over at the promotion microsite, the suggestions so far include Maple Bacon, Fluffernutter, Meatlover's Pizza, and Pumpkin Blood … whatever that is. If the promise of snack food fame isn't incentive enough, the dangling carrot of $1 million (a la Frito-Lay's better-known Crash the Super Bowl contest) might help encourage you to plug your Facebook profile into the campaign.
Overall, its a fun concept. It also gets a little dark when your pal the ice cream cone melts all over the table while moaning about needing the money, and the attention-grubbing hamburger clubs the halved tomato out of the frame.
Earlier this week, improv comedian Wayne Brady helped kick off the promotion by making up impromptu songs for 25 potential flavors suggested by Lay's social media fans. Check out some of his clips after the jump.
Sorry, Bart. It looks like Butterfinger's first Super Bowl ad will have a theme better suited to those over 18.
The Super Bowl spot, by ad agency Dailey and director Clay Weiner of Biscuit Filmworks, will launch Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups. The Nestlé brand released a teaser on Tuesday showing peanut butter and chocolate going to couple's therapy in an effort to spice up their boring relationship (a not-so-subtle jab at peanut-butter cup market leader Reese's). The whole teaser is pretty suggestive, particularly when another couple, cheese and crackers, emerge from the therapist's office excitedly fondling a giant hard salami. Peanut butter and chocolate, meanwhile, begin to see the possibilities of a more satisfying union themselves by staring at the centerfold of a copy of Exotic Snacking magazine. "The cup is about to get crunchy," says the tagline.
The Super Bowl ad will be a different execution but with the same couple's therapy theme, the AP reports. For more, see the campaign site at www.butterfingercups.com.
The iconic M&M's candies call for filmgoers to turn off their cellphones and respect their fellow theater patrons in this mock blockbuster action-movie trailer from BBDO that marks the first time all six characters have appeared in a single spot.
Speed and Die Hard-type flicks are among those deftly spoofed in the 40-second PSA, which will run in theaters nationwide. "Cellphones ruin movies. Please turn them off" is the tagline. Lobby posters starring the Red and Yellow M&M's are also part of the push.
Sugar-coating the theme in such fashion is pretty sweet, and the approach actually makes me want to see the M&M's cast in a feature for real. They're always hanging around movie theaters anyway, usually in the snack case. And judging by the "trailer," the Blue M&M could out-act Vin Diesel any day of the week (though an M&M's wrapper could probably do that, come to think of it).
Credits below.
CREDITS Agency: BBDO, New York Client: Mars/M&M's
Video Credits Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars Executive Creative Directors: Tim Bayne, Lauren Connolly Senior Art Director: Eduardo Petersen Senior Copywriter: Christopher Cannon Senior Producer: Regina Iannuzzi Junior Producer: Samantha Errico
Senior Account Director: Susannah Keller Account Director: Carrie Lipper Account Manager: Tani Nelson
Production Company: Traktor Director: Traktor/Sam Producer: Richard Ulfvengren Head of Production: Rani Melendez
Visual Effects: Laika/House President, Executive Producer: Lourri Hammack Animation Director: Kirk Kelly Producer: Zilpha Yost Producer: Julie Ragland Editing House: PS260 Editors: Maury Loeb, Ned Borgman Assistant Editors: Matt Posey, Colin Edelman Senior Producer: Laura Patterson
M&M'S 2013 Cinema "Teeth" Poster Creative Credits
Print Credits: Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars Executive Creative Directors: Tim Bayne, Lauren Connolly Art Directors: Jonathan Bjelland, Vanessa Castaneda Copywriter: Tifanni Lundeen
Executive Art Producer: Betsy Jablow Print Production Manager: Michael Musano Retoucher: Steve Lakeman
Senior Account Director: Susannah Keller Account Director: Carrie Lipper Account Manager: Tani Nelson
CGI Rendering: Laika Animation Director: Kirk Kelly Producer: Zilpha Yost
The scene opens with a young couple on an awkward date. We assume it's awkward because the guy is shirtless and gently cradling a purple stuffed giraffe that he's brought along. Needing something to fill the silence, the girl takes out her grape-flavored Rio Burgundy mints, and he accepts one. A moment after he pops the mint in his mouth, the giraffe's tongue grows and begins to caress the guy's nipple, causing him to moan in pleasure. We can't look away. Neither can his date who bites her lip, bounces up and down and finally looks forward with a smile, seemingly titillated by the whole experience.
If you are, too, enjoy the extended outtakes below, where the actor really gets in touch with his O face. Does the nipple-licking puppet approach work? Well, what are you really going to say about mints?
Twitter is a tough crowd during any high-profile live TV programming, when snark levels always spike. Cheerios learned that the hard way during the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday when it aired a six-month-old commercial from Saatchi & Saatchi in New York that aimed for heartwarming but came off, to many, as depressing.
The ad shows a mom and her son having breakfast, when the boy pipes up and asks, "Did Nana ever give you Cheerios when you were a little kid?" This seemingly innocent question leads to an exchange that's supposed to be cute, though it leaves Mom practically in tears by the end—and got Twitter fuming.
Check out some of the reactions below. The spot is, of course, super manipulative—but that's hardly out of line with what Cheerios always does in its advertising. The General Mills brand blatantly manufactures emotion, sometimes more deftly than other times. We didn't think this one was actually that bad. (And in fact, a number of people praised the ad on Twitter last night, or at least said it made them teary.) But the difference is, during an event like the Globes, you're much more likely to get abused on Twitter for that kind of manipulation.
The Applebee's in Barrie, Ontario, has a Facebook strategy that's familiar for chain restaurants. It posts a lot of images of food and asks the blandest questions imaginable of its 2,000-odd fans. "Who is coming in for an Early Bird Special today? "Which of our burgers is your favorite?" "Happy New Years! Any resolutions that you care to share?"
Chip Zdarsky, a comic book artist, discovered the page when both of his parents liked the same photo of a hamburger, and found it endearingly sad. No one was replying to the questions. So, he figured he would step in and really make friends with the page. Of course, he was making fun of it—but what emerged over months of his "Applebee's & Me" project was a curiously affectionate relationship.
Read below to see the interactions, and check out Digiday's fun interview with Zdarsky, who admits the "politeness in every exchange was just strangely sweet."
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