This year, Y&R New York went a step too far to ensure their clients’ products found their way under the Christmas tree, tapping a “Sellout Santa” to hock their products.
In the agency’s holiday video card, “Sellout Santa” speaks with a group of children, ignoring their Christmas wishes and handing them a product from one of Y&R’s clients instead. That little girl who wants a dollhouse? Nonsense, she’d much rather have a Range Rover Sport. Instead of toys, how about a Twinings tea bag? You get the idea. The concept may run a little thin by the end of the 3:27 video, but luckily there’s a funny kid with a glazed over look on his face to keep things amusing. Enjoy.
Boston-based agency Viewpoint Creative has delivered one of the crazier (in a good way) agency holiday cards with their video imagining the worst that can happen from not unplugging the tree. Their funny, monstrous scenario is animated, if you can call it that, with toys. It’s one of the more original takes on the holiday card this year, and one of the most entertaining. The DIY amateurishness of the process only adds to the whacky charm.
The video begins with Lenny’s significant other reminding him to unplug the Christmas tree. Lenny doesn’t heed her warning, and as a result all hell breaks loose. We won’t give away too much, but there’s a giant New Year’s baby and a demonic Santa involved, so why not check it out?
Making bad advertising is easy. But, every now and then, somebody produces something so atrociously heinous that it almost makes you want to stand up and applaud.
Congrats, Samsung. “Are You Geared Up?” may be the absolute worst thing we’ve seen this year. You found rock bottom, and you dug even deeper. You combined bad acting with a nonsensical script, added in a dash of uncomfortable pacing and stretched the whole thing out to a cringeworthy two-and-a-half minutes.
Not only did you create The Room of online advertising, but your ad was so shitty that it went viral. Your spot was featured on the front page of Reddit under the headline “Hands down the worst ad I’ve ever seen. Take a bow, Samsung.” On top of that, the online legions have taken to your Samsung Mobile YouTube page, where you’ve received 13,000 thumbs down votes to 2,000 thumbs up votes. And, some genius left the comments on, which just adds to the chaos of terrible. Here are just a smattering of some of our favorite comments:
“There’s no way this is a real ad from Samsung. That would mean someone from Samsung had to actually watch this train wreck of a commercial and approve it. So it has to be fake. Right?”
“I feel like I just watched porn without the porn.”
“I’m almost speechless because of how terrible this is. I’m embarrassed that it’s for an Android product.”
“Thanks Samsung, I forgot for a moment that women are prizes that can be won through the creative use of technology and being creepy as fuck.”
“HAY GURL CHECK OOT THEESE COOL PICS I TOOK OF YOU SEECRETLY WHILE I FOLLOWED YOU. TEE HEE YOUR PICTURES OF ME ARE SO FLATTERING HERE IS MY CONTACT INFORMATION ANONYMOUS STRANGER I WILL BE ALONE IN MY HOTEL ROOM TONIGHT. HAHAHA I AM GOING TO HAEV SEX WITH YOU BECAUSE MY WATCH IS A PHONE!”
In other words, it’s been a pretty fun morning. However, one Reddit-er has an interesting theory for why this terrible, terrible thing exists:
This was shot in Korea (that’s why everyone has a Russian accent). It was probably never meant to be seen in English. The main audience will see this with a Korean dub (that’s also why the actors speak so slowly).
The English script was probably written and edited by non-native speakers, and the company probably doesn’t give a shit what the English version sounds like, because the Korean dub is the one that will be seen. All that matters is that the white people look cool and pretty. It’s like that other commercial with the Samsung hard drive or whatever.
It’s an interesting theory, but as one commenter replied, “I wonder if Samsung has heard of the Internet.” Judging by this, it seems unlikely. If anyone has any info on the agency behind this, or would like to nominate anything else for Worst Ad of the Year, please do so in the comments.
MRY, the New York-based shop that merged with LBi earlier this year, has done something a little different for their holiday card. Instead of just including all the winter holidays, they’ve gone ahead and created an Alliday Card with “13 days to celebrate the magic of mergers.” They decided that they like their holidays like they like their agencies: merged . So they merged together a bunch of holidays to create 13 “Alliday” celebrations.
Among the new creations are Momukah, Dia De Los Muertes Presidentes, 4Fathers20, Groundependence Day and Cat Tuesday. It all kicked off yesterday with Rosh Hashinese New Year; today is Black Friday the 13th, tomorrow is Diwalintines Day, and it concludes with Christombus Day. For each Alliday, MRY tells you how to celebrate (for Rosh Hashinese New Year have some egg drop soup with matzo balls), includes an Alliday greeting, and a gift you can bid on (like “8 days of phone calls from a handsome, well-educated Jewish son for Momukah).
MRY’s lighthearted take on the holiday card is certainly one of a kind, and the Allidays are mostly pretty funny. A few of them — Cat Tuesday, anyone? — even sound like a lot of fun. A funny holiday card that’s out of the ordinary, merges holidays, and has little to do with Christmas? Believe me, that’s much appreciated.
LA-based agency Ignited created one of the best agency holiday cards of the year by turning to holiday card guru (and sloth enthusiast) Guy Holiday. Holiday lays down some agency holiday card rules that we hope agencies everywhere will take to heart, while also managing to make us laugh and share his love for sloths.
Ignited describes Guy Holiday as “if BuzzFeed had a baby with Ron Burgundy and then that baby was raised by, well, Agency Spy.” We’re not entirely sure how to take that description, but we think Holiday is a funny character with some good advice regarding agency holiday cards. Guy’s first rule is to “always include a cute animal” because “animals are like mother nature’s stuffed animals.”
This seems like some pretty solid advice. Everybody likes animals, and including one makes your card more memorable. This should be a new requirement for submitting holiday cards: if you don’t have an animal in your video, don’t bother. Preferred animals include foxes, cats and sloths. In denouement, Guy says, “The holidays are about reflection.” Have one sloth? You can use reflection to make it look like there are two sloths. We’re glad Guy brought this up: we have not seen enough reflection in holiday cards this year, so please take his advice and throw a bunch of mirrors into your holiday card next year. Or a bunch of sloths, either way.
Ignited will donate five cents to the American Red Cross for every view, up to $2,500. So, share this video with your friends and co-workers, and help Ignited raise some money for a good cause. It’s funny and it’s only about three minutes long, so you don’t really have any excuses. And please consult Guy’s handful of rules before making any holiday cards.
Everyone loves a good trailer, but all too often these days movie trailers reveal the plot in its entirety.
Unfortunately, such is the case with the recently released trailer for Netflix’s “Fireplace For Your Home.” Initial shots of the fireplace setup cause viewers to wonder if the spark will catch fire and spread, offering a great teaser to the new home fireplace simulation you can stream on Netflix whenever you please, before they go too far and show [spoiler alert] that the fire does indeed spread to the other logs. The tongue-in cheek trailer was put together, we hear, by San Francisco-based agency Muhtayzik Hoffer, who also offers up a behind-the-scenes documentary.
Hoffer employs a good deal of deadpan, self-effacing humor in the behind-the-scenes video, exploring the wood selection process that went into the making of the fire (and the video), while the director offers up his take on “foreground logs” versus “background logs” as well as commentary about happy accidents that occurred during the day of filming. “None of this ashing here on the left was written in,” he explains, “It just kind of happened on the day.” The 2:22 mockumentary, featured after the jump, is well worth a quick chuckle for its look at Hoffer’s supposed idiosyncratic process. continued…
Chances are, this is literally the most gangsta advertising news you’ll read today. Employees at McCann Hong Kong paid tribute to their old office in a video that serves as an homage to John Woo 1986 crime classic, A Better Tomorrow.
The building, Sunning Plaza, has been McCann Hong Kong’s home for over thirty years, and its entrance was actually used as a location for Woo’s film. McCann was one of the very first tenants of Sunning Plaza following its construction and their heartfelt tribute makes it seem they will really miss their former home — and that they really know their Hong Kong gangster films. Sunning Plaza is being demolished for redevelopment, much to the dismay of its tenants (McCann and otherwise). McCann Hong Kong has already moved into its new office at Hysan Plaza, where they threw an office warming party last Friday. You can watch the tribute video above, in which McCann Hong Kong employees walk out of the building in much the same manner as characters in A Better Tomorrow, set to music from the film. These guys certainly know how to make an exit.
As an agency, the folks over at Baltimore’s Planit live by the mantra that “the best ideas should scare you.” So this year, for their annual outlandish holiday card, they decided to scare their employees and record their priceless reactions for the enjoyment of friends and clients.
We’ve seen a lot of holiday cards here this month, but none of them feature a demonic-looking elf popping out of a large present to scare employees. So Planit definitely gets points for originality, and watching people get the crap scared out of them is always entertaining, so there’s really nothing not to like about Planit’s holiday card. We applaud their unusual approach to spreading holiday cheer fear. This kind of thing can only work once, though, as these employees will likely be apprehensive about any large packages, caroling, cameras, etc. in the future.
The holiday card for New York agency Seiden features the Harlem Shake, an old lady reading Fifty Shades of Grey, and just about every trend of 2013 that they could fit in 2:39.
Their card begins with a setup of Matt Seiden himself attempting a simple, holiday speech. He’s quickly stopped and told “You have to walk it, not talk it.”
“Let’s see what the agency can do,” Seiden says, and thus begins the barrage of 2013-ness. If you haven’t had enough of Macklemore, the Harlem Shake, YOLO, “What Did The Fox Say?” and other such trends, or you just want to see the Seiden crowd get goofy, check out the video above. And please don’t lick any hammers. Happy holidays.
Consider this a warning: you will not be able to unsee this.
Those Boulder-based, crowdsourcing-loving folks at Victors&Spoils may have just delivered the most unforgettable holiday video of the year, transforming a hot model into a bikini-clad Santa Claus.
But the video isn’t just disturbing for the sake of being disturbing, there’s a sort of feminist message behind it. It opens with the text “Ad agencies go to disturbing lengths to create the perfect image,” before referencing Tim Piper’s “Body Evolution” video showing a (already thin) model airbrushed into an anorexic stick of a woman. Then, Victors&Spoils admits, “Guess we’re no different” before showing the process of transforming said model into Santa Claus. It’s a pleasant holiday cocktail of funny and disturbing, and a nice parody of Piper’s “Body Evolution” video (that doesn’t mute the message of the original video, but rather builds on it). I’m always for anything calling attention to the unhealthy body image issues caused by photoshopping models and celebrities to unhealthy proportions, so a holiday video that does so with humor is going to win major points in my book. And who will be able to forget the slow transformation from bikini-clad blonde to bikini-clad Santa? No one, that’s who. Credits after the jump.
It will be a blue, piano-less Christmas in Toronto. We’re not sure how you lose a piano exactly, but the folks over at music/sound house Apollo Studios (which was founded in Montreal and also has space in LA) are facing sad times after misplacing theirs.
The above 5:05 mockumentary documents the studio’s beloved, lost piano and the sadness spread in its absence. It opens on Dave Douglass of Anomaly opining that there will be no emotive piano for their spot about “a kitten teaching a puppy to walk again after an accident falling down the stairs chasing a toilet paper roll.” You just can’t get the same kind of emotive, heartfelt track with woodwinds, he complains. Harry Knazan of Apollo can barely hold back the tears reminiscing of the piano’s use in tracks that were “so slow, so sensitive.” Tom Hutch opines that you “can’t replace a piano, just like that, it’s not a machine.”
So the Apollo team gets a forensic team in to look for any clues that can help lead to the piano’s whereabouts or a potential suspect, while other members of the team walk the city putting up fliers for the missing instrument. The team tries a slew of other instruments: harp, horns — but, as Jennifer Cursio puts it, “You can’t replace the piano with anything. Can you picture Elton John with a fucking marimba? It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.” The video references “The Marketer’s Anthem,” which we covered last week, and culminates with a smashed ukulele. Who doesn’t love watching a ukulele get smashed?
Apollo’s mockumentary is a nice, lighthearted piece of self-deprecating humor. It does such a great job taking on the advertising industry’s overuse of piano, we almost wouldn’t be surprised if fewer tracks used the instrument in the coming year — almost. More importantly, it succeeds at being funny. And during one of the most stressful times of the year we could all use a few laughs, right? Good luck finding your piano, Apollo. Godspeed.
If you have any clues to the whereabouts of the piano in question, please let the folks at Apollo know immediately. We’re not sure how much longer they can hold out without it.
Recently, Orlando-based Ikonik Studios filmmaker Luke Aker created a luxury car ad to sell his 1996 Nissan Maxima, as reported over at HappyPlace, and it’s pretty clever and hilarious.
Utilizing pitch-perfect voice-over, the ad begins by declaring that “the most iconic monuments seem to be those that stand the test of time.” It isn’t until about twenty seconds into video that the object of the ad is revealed: a used 1996 Nissan Maxima GLE. The ad then begins touting the vehicle’s features, bragging that the Maxima is “fully loaded with an engine, wheels, tires, and an automatic transmission: a thrilling combination that has lasted over a decade.” The Maxima can “guarantee that it will get you from point A to B — most of the time.” The video manages to be simultaneously a perfect satire of the typical, ridiculous luxury car ad and an ode to shitty used cars.
If you’re interested in purchasing the vehicle (and who wouldn’t be after a sales pitch like that?), it appears to still be available, as Aker’s Craigslist ad is still up. On Craigslist, Aker mentions a few extra features, such as “steering fluid that has been designed to leak out from underneath the car when it has been exhausted from the majestic work that it has done.” He’s asking for $900, or best offer. That’s right: this majestic ride that is “as smooth as a Pegasus’ backside” can be yours for under one grand. What a steal.
Texas stalwart The Richards Group teamed up with Sugar Film Production and director Chris Smith to create a new, four spot campaign for H-E-B.
The 30-second spots – “One For Each,” “Laundry Sorting,” “Splendid” (featured above)– all feature those fundamental playoff perennials/San Antonio Spurs stars Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, and Kawhi Leonard in humorous scenarios. Each of the spots employs a type of self-depreciating humor too often absent from self-serious athlete endorsements. Even more refreshing is that the majority of the spots actually succeed at being funny. This is all thanks in large part to solid writing. The Richards Group delivers “scripts tailor-made…for the personalities and idiosyncrasies of the players…” and it really shows.
The funniest of the spots, “Splendid,” features Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili taking a steak dinner at home a little too seriously. “Laundry Sorting” is almost as amusing, highlighting Kawhi Leonard’s impressive laundry skills. “One For Each” and “Tough Talk” see the Spurs stars talking up H-E-B sauces and Mootopia (a type of post-workout drink) respectively. Stick around for “Laundry Sorting” after the jump.
If you were a fan of Draftcb’s almost-expletive filled “Ship My Pants” spot for Kmart, (which we covered back in April) you might be glad to learn that the agency has just released a holiday follow-up, “Ship My Trousers,” which hopes to recapture the viral success (over 20 million views) of that spot. Draftcb’s sequel follows the formula of the original very, very closely. In fact, “Ship My Trousers” uses the same actors, and most of the same lines, as the original “Ship My Pants” spot. It’s pretty much the same ad, just adapted for characters from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. If you enjoyed the original “Ship My Pants,” chances are you’ll find the sequel amusing as well. If you didn’t, you probably won’t want to bother watching “Ship My Trousers” above. Personally, while I don’t understand what characters from A Christmas Carol are doing shopping at Kmart, the “I just shipped my bed” guy’s delivery just about makes up for it. Idea for next time: hire the actor who played Clay Davis on The Wire to say “sheeeip.” Credits after the jump. continued…
We’ve got a goofy Friday video here from the folks over at New York agency Rooster, certainly no strangers to silliness.
In the latest Rooster original, Michael Luciano and Philip Matarese engage in some investigative journalism to explore the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. Matarese goes undercover as a woman (unconvincingly) to see firsthand what sexual harassment in the workplace is like. But Matarese and Luciano are disappointed to find that their co-workers mostly just ignore Matarese. They spend most of the 3:19 video hoping in vain for any sign of sexual harassment. The surprise is that Matarese enjoys playing the part of a woman a little more than expected. In the end, Luciano finds a very flimsy excuse to call out an employee for sexual harassment, and Matarese makes an important decision. As you can surmise, this is a lot of off-the-wall silliness from Rooser, but it suffers from one thing: a lack of chief Gavin McInness. McInness, now perhaps most famous for teaching us all how to fight a baby, was the key to the success of previous Rooster Originals, and the Rooster crowd has a hard time getting any laughs without him. Hopefully he makes a return in the next installment.
Operating under the assumption that marketers aren’t self-congratulatory enough already, Toronto-based creative shop Open created “The Marketers’ Anthem” for this year’s Marketer of the Year issue of Strategy. Luckily, Open had a sense of humor about the video.
Dedicated to “Consumer Whisperers, Mother Targeters and Brand Guardians” everywhere, the video is a well-produced and humorous homage to the men and women who “moved us to vote, follow, share, pin, tweet, re-tweet and like.” Open pokes fun at trends like adding “-vertising” to everything, and using acronyms like ROI for return on investment and KPI “instead of what KPI stands for.” (It’s key performance indicator, guys.) The good-natured humor and sarcasm are balanced out by an earnest call to action, and it’s this balance that makes the 1:30 video work. Because on the one hand, it’s impressive that digital marketers have invented a cookie that we can be friends with, but on the other hand, “Oh god, we’re friends with a cookie.” Credits after the jump. continued…
Last year, Austin-based T3 used 3D printing to create a cute stop motion video wishing everyone a happy holiday. This year, T3 is reinventing a Christmas tradition: decorating the tree.
Their reinvention, which they’ve dubbed “Techorating” involves “inviting web users to amp up the holiday spirit by sending tweets to launch ornaments at the tree.” Users tweet to suggest the techoration of their choice, be it tinsel, ball, bird, candy cane, nutcracker, or fruit cake. The techorations are launched, if the introductory video is to be believed, out of a candy cane shaped barrel, to land where they will on T3′s tree. If you’re interested in participating, head on over to T3′s Techorate The Tree site, and don’t forget to tweet your launch items during launch line hours (from 8AM to 8PM) on December 12th and 13th (that’s tomorrow and Friday). We see a lot of holiday items here at Agency Spy, but this one stands out as especially fun and out of the ordinary. As far as we’re concerned, firepower plus nutcracker plus Christmas tree is always a winning formula. Let us know your techoration choices in the comments section.
Seeing as how we’ve covered twospots using the poem commonly referred to as “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas” in just the past two days, we couldn’t be happier that someone created a Tumblr called “Stop Using “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.” We get that it’s something of a quintessential Christmas story, but it’s simply been done to death, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of Christmas material to borrow from.
The Tumblr produces a convincing list of the poem’s overuse, featuring the two we’ve covered in the past couple days and a long list of other ads using the poem, both old and new. Maybe a visual record of the poem’s overuse will help convince agencies to finally retire the practice. Whether or not they successfully curb the use of the poem, we applaud ”Stop Using “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas” for their much-needed public service. If you come across an ad using the ubiquitous poem, you can join the cause by uploading it to the site. Or you can just peruse their archive of ”‘Twas The Night Before Christmas” spots.
Since the site doesn’t offer up alternatives to the over-used poem, we thought maybe we could ask our readers what they’d like to see used in its place. Personally, if we must borrow from the classics, I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more homages to O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi.” Please share your ideas in the comments section. If the proper creatives see it, you just might spare us all another ”‘Twas The Night Before Christmas” commercial.
This feels like a Friday item, but if you have a spare moment, you might want to head on over to Pinterest and check out SS+K’s Secret Santa Shop. It’s simple to use: just look through their inventory of funny gifts, choose one and click through to its order form, then fill out the form and wait for it to arrive. You’ll be the best Secret Santa at your office, with gift choices like a pickle key chain, a bottle of Jameson, and a “Ring For Sex” bell. You might want to hurry though, because a lot of the best gifts have already been claimed — including the filthy cock soap, Pumping Iron DVD, “The Nutcropolis,” and the Potty Putter. Oh well, there’s always next year.
We’re not sure who is behind this one, but somebody has created a site that claims to sell “organic, grass-fed, free range, non-caged, small batch Christmas trees.” Check out the above video for an idea of what kind of ridiculousness to expect. It appears today is the day of Christmas parodies — unless, of course, this site is completely serious.
On the site, they calm any concerns you might have that your tree wasn’t given enough space. Each tree is given a 20 x 20 foot space so that they can “roam free in their spaces to fulfill their spirit.” That’s nice, but how were the trees fertilized? Well, that’s completely up to you. You can choose to have your tree fertilized by “organic cat, organic dog or organic cow manure”; or, if you order your tree six months in advance, you can “bring your own organic animal to fertilize your treeling.” You’ll also be glad to know that the trees are kept on a “strict grass, water and sunlight only diet,” so you can be sure they’re pesticide free. Head on over to http://organicchristmas.co/ to choose your customized organic tree now, and let us know how that works out for you.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
This one’s a bit personal…
