Hasta La Creative!

Lowe Roche respects the data. In a video for Strategy Agency of the Year Awards, the Toronto-based company provided some education on the habits of the ad employee demographic. Not just tidbits about dieting and working, but the juicy stuff: you know, alcohol and porn. As someone who works with data just about every day (for sports, not survey research) I definitely appreciate a math-based approach to an industry full of projects that often rely on intuition and copycat trends. Product-research data can always be manipulated or ignored or conducted incorrectly. Steve Jobs once said, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” and he was right. But demographic data is usually helpful and meaningful.

Here are a few lighthearted and self-deprecating mathematical takeaways from the clip, according to PMB Advertising Vertical Analysis 2013:

– Ad people drink nine times as much bourbon as the average Canadian.

– Ad people watch 1.7 times the amount of pornography as the average Canadian.

– And ad people are 1.6 times as likely to mute the sound in TV commercials as the average Canadian.

At least we can all agree that television commercials are typically bad. Buy some Jefferson’s Reserve. Drink up. Credits after the jump.

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A few weeks ago we shared Burt’s Bees “Classic Vines” series: interpretations of classic literature using products from their “classics” collection animated in the Vine 6-second format from Baldwin& and animator Jethro Ames. Now, Burt’s Bees has rolled out two new classics for Halloween.

Their selections shouldn’t surprise anyone: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (featured above) both get the Burt’s treatment. Both Vines are pretty much what you’d expect. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman is portrayed as a stick of lip balm whose cap has fallen off. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I think, works a little better. Dr. Jekyll, portrayed by Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, drinks his concoction and is transformed into Mr. Hyde — portrayed by hand salve. Nothing mind-boggling here, but the way that the product changes during the transformation is a nice touch. If you liked this approach when Burt’s Bees introduced it, you’ll welcome these new Halloween additions. If you thought the idea was stupid, these will do nothing to change your mind. Stay tuned for “Sleepy Hollow,” along with credits, after the jump. continued…

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We wrote about the launch of The Marketing Arm’s fun “Uncle Drew” spot for Pepsi Max last year. Uncle Max is Kyrie Irving transformed into an old baller who teaches “young bloods” a thing or two about fundamentals. The Marketing Arm has revived Irving’s character for “Uncle Max: Chapter 3″  (which Irving also wrote and directed), featuring Nate Robinson as “Lights” and WNBA star Maya Moore as”Betty Lou.”

The spot, directed by O Positive’s Jonathan Klein, shows Uncle Drew attempting to get the old team together, starting with “Lights.” Drew visits “Lights” at an old jazz club, and convinces him to join him for a game, against the best advice of Betty Lou. If you want to skip past the setup and get to the action (it’s a long spot and we know a lot of you have short attention spans), fast forward to around the 2:25 mark.

While it’s hard to believe anyone but the most gullible of people would fall for Kyrie Irving and Nate Robinson in makeup, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun watching the two made up as old men school a bunch of ballers. Uncle Drew and “Lights” are killing it when they’re interrupted by the arrival of Betty Lou, who shows up to drag “Lights” from the court, concerned about his bad hip. But when someone in the crowd calls her an “old lady” she changes gears and joins in on the action. Watching the three taunt and destroy their opponents is a whole lot of fun, especially when “Lights” dribbles off an opponent’s head or Betty Lou and “Lights” bow to each other following an alley-oop. At the end of the spot “Lights” asks Uncle Drew who he’s going to pick up next. “We’re going to get the big man,” he says, “We need him.” Looks like we can expect more Uncle Drew spots from The Marketing Arm in the future. No complaints here. Check out the second chapter of the Uncle Drew saga after the break. continued…

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Chupa Chups, maker of my girlfriend’s all-time favorite lollipops, have a hilarious Halloween treat for you.

“There are creatures who live in your home,” begins “#MonsterKids Moments,” BBH Asia Pacific’s new spot for Chupa Chups, with what sound like horror movie sound effects in the background. “You’ve heard their screams…their ear splitting howls.” This is when they drop the horror movie premise and get to the heart of the spot: screaming children. As someone who has worked as a substitute teacher in kindergarten and pre-k classrooms, I can attest to how horrifying children’s screaming tantrums can be.

If you’ve ever heard a child in the middle of a meltdown and thought “I wonder what this would sound like set to hardcore music,” (and who hasn’t at some point?) the next segment of the Chupa Chups spot will be your ultimate wish fulfillment: a montage of screaming children set to hardcore. These tantrums were “gathered from parents far and near” and compiled in a way that perfectly fits the background music. It’s really hard to do the segment justice in words, as its hilarity must be seen to be appreciated.

While I can’t stress enough how I appreciate the spot’s humor and entertainment value, the parenting advice is not as good. “Protect yourself this Halloween with Chupa Chups” the spot tells us, before showing a parent giving a crying toddler a lollipop (just as the music ends). I’m no parenting expert (or parent for that matter) but I’m pretty sure rewarding your child with a sugary treat mid-meltdown is not the best idea. Nevertheless, Chupa Chups and BBH gain major points in my book for this one.

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Tony Benna, creative/director at San Francisco agency Mekanism (whose work has been featured on this site before) gives us a unique look at the pitch from the director’s perspective.

The short video, entitled simply “Pitch Videos” gives you an idea of all the mishigas that can go into a pitch. When you have no budget, “friends become ‘actors,’” and “household items become props.” Benna admits feeling responsible for all the crazy shit he puts his friends through for these pitch videos, especially when (as in the clips featured here), they don’t get the job. What kind of crazy shit, you ask? Getting punched in the face while wearing a horse mask, mop-wearing, eating shoelaces, and motor-boating a rubber band, to name just a few.

If you want a better look into the creative process that goes into advertising, or you just like watching people do ridiculous things, then this video is definitely for you. It’s an entertaining 1:45 and really speaks for itself. Enjoy.

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The latest from Onion Labs sees them working with DSW to rile the folks at PETA in a new campaign called “Bad Pet Owner.”

This new campaign for the discounted shoe outlet where I once picked out and purchased a pair of shoes in under four minutes while en route to a wedding opens with the spot “Goat.” “Goat” features about as many pet deaths as you’re ever likely to see in an advertisement. Each time the bad pet owner (inadvertently) kills a pet, he goes to DSW for a new pair of shoes so he can use the shoebox to bury his deceased animal pal. By the end of the spot, he has a quite the shoe collection — and a backyard pet cemetery. Watch it before PETA files a complaint to have it taken down.

In addition to the “Goat” spot (and one forthcoming) Onion Labs has also rolled out a Men’s Fashion section on TheOnion.com sponsored by DSW. The section includes older content that fits the category, as well as new, sponsored content like “Dead Hamster Feels Its Life Has Been Properly Honored With Shoebox Coffin,” which dovetails nicely with the “Goat” spot. Incorporating material on its parent site in addition to the humorous video really plays to the budding agency’s strengths and shows what kind of potential they have in the future.

Good luck with the (inevitable) ensuing PETA lawsuit, Onion Labs. We’re pulling for you. Credits after the jump.  continued…

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Cosmic Joke has created a mini-documentary about a satirical LARP ad agency called PanoptiCorp. For those who don’t know LARP stands for Live Action Role-Play. Usually it involves a bunch of nerds running around pretending to be wizards and shit. PanoptiCorp is different.

Created in Norway in 2003 by Eirik Fatland (and recently reimagined in Copenhagen, Denmark), PanoptiCorp skewers the “sometimes Orwellian nature of the late-capitalist workplace,” as Fatland puts it. Its players, who mostly have no experience in advertising, play cynical, morally corrupt characters. PanoptiCorp pitches ideas to sell everything from adult diapers to plush My Little Pony vaginas. They help restore the credibility of African dictators and promote euthanasia with cats.

Due to the nature of the morally corrupt characters they play, many of the players have an interesting psychological relationship to the game. Several of them have had to quit the game for different periods of time. It’s this unusual nature of the game/player relationship that makes the documentary (as well PanoptiCorp itself) interesting. Some players find the game psychologically damaging, losing themselves too completely in their roles. Others say their roles have forced them to reevaluate their real-life values in positive ways.

“When you leave a LARP, you always take something with you,” says PanoptiCorp Game Master Claus Raasted. So what have PanoptiCorp players taken with them? “Point one: They don’t want to work in the ad world ever. Point two: They’d probably be quite good at it. And three: The world of advertising is a crazy, crazy, fucked up place.”

PanoptiCorp creator Eirik Fatland hopes that PanoptiCorp will make players who are again “again confronted with institutions that have ideologies” to be aware of the process and “be more critical of the ideologies [they] adopt.”

You can learn more about the 2013 running of PanoptiCorp here. The mini-documentary is part of Cosmic Joke’s feature-length LARP documentary, Treasure Trapped. It’s a really intriguing look at an unusual phenomenon if you have 15 minutes to spare during your lunch break.

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Everybody loves boobs, and everybody hates cancer. So it’s hard to miss with a breast cancer awareness video, especially when you employ humor.

That’s what two female advertising creatives (including a breast cancer survivor), along with 360i, Dirty Robber, Schillick and Mass Relevance, did by creating “#Mamming,” “a chance for all of us [yes, even guys] to show solidarity with the millions of women getting mammograms this Breast Cancer Awareness Month.”

“What is this ‘mamming,’ you speak of?” you’re probably asking. #Mamming is “the act of laying your (clothed) boobs on a flat surface.” Boobs. On (flat) stuff. Got it? Since mammograms are an awkward procedure (that could save millions of lives through early detection), embracing that awkwardness can make it a lot easier for everyone. Solid reasoning, and the execution works well, too.

The “#Mamming” video introduces the concept with a woman casually (awkwardly) mamming during a conversation. Her friend asks her what she’s doing and she gives her a demonstration. Then the two proceed mamming around the city: at the video store, the pizzeria, in a cab, at the gym. Their friend joins up with them and, after a few failed attempts, finally nails mamming. The video ends with one of the women getting an actual mammogram. It’s a funny little video, and a clever way to promote the importance of mammograms for early detection.

So now that you know what mamming is, why don’t you give it a shot? You can enter your mamming photos, and see others’ submitted mamming photos, at thisismamming.com.

There was just one little fly in the ointment here. Mamming wasn’t on Urban Dictionary, so it kind of wasn’t a real word. But I took care of it and submitted a definition. Hopefully it gets posted soon. You’re welcome.

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I’ve been a fan of The Onion for as far back as I care to remember, so I’m always glad to see them expanding their comedic empire. Their in-house creative agency/studio Onion Labs is responsible (along with Barbarian Group, who put together the website) for a new campaign for Jim Beam’s “The Olds” whiskeys (Old Crow, Old Overholt and Old Grand-Dad). Onion Labs emphasizes the old aspect, presenting “The Olds” as a group of rambunctious, terminally youth-like men with a combined age of 422.

In the spot for Old Crow (featured after the jump), Crow is introduced as “the rare ladies man who is also a man’s man,” not the most original of premises. Sounds a little like the Dos Equis spots, to be honest. I guess the whole “women want him, men want to be him” thing is a pretty standard formula for selling alcohol, really. The execution works pretty well here, however. Crow gets chased offstage after singing about a sexy robot. Clearly the spot doesn’t take itself too seriously. The highlight is probably the woman who claims her father sent her away to boarding school, at the age of 37, to keep her away from Old Crow.

The “Meet Old Overholt” spot (featured above) works better. Old Overholt shares his life’s code: “Don’t be a delicate, lazy, pillow-soft, mamby-pamby, non-sweat-breaking, do just enough to get by, ‘Oh, we better call a plumber to come fix it,’ ‘Can I have a salad with the dressing on the side’ fancy-pants wimp.” Overholt, we learn, had this phrase tattooed on his chest, “at the tail end of the Industrial Revolution.” It’s worth a good chuckle as a kind of self-conscious satire of typical liquor ad machismo (more clearly so than “Meet Old Crow”), and should do well by the brand. (To be honest, I’d never heard of Old Overholt before. So I guess the spot succeeded at making me aware of its existence at least.)

The Old Grand-Dad video is forthcoming, which is a little disappointing since that’s the one I remember drinking in college. But I guess I’ll just have to check back to see when it comes out.

In addition to the video content, Onion Studios worked on the social media campaign which encompasses both Facebook and three Twitter accounts (@MeetOldGrandDad, @MeetOldCrow and @MeetOldOverholt). Check out “Meet Old Crow” after the jump. continued…

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If you’ve ever been wandering around IKEA and noticed that the names of most of their products sound like death metal bands, you’re not alone. Pittsburgh-based agency Gatesman+Dave have created a site based on the similarities, in which they test visitors’ abilities to distinguish between products from the Swedish furniture giant and the names of death metal bands. It’s harder than it sounds!

Since death metal has some pretty strong roots in Scandinavia (ed: recommended read: Lords of Chaos), the similarities shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, but even taking that into account it’s strikingly hard for those of us not especially versed in either IKEA products or death metal to tell the difference. Is an Absu something that you would sit on? Is there a lot of moshing at a Norden show? This is a pretty funny idea, and should definitely garner some attention for Gatesman+Dave for their cleverness. Interested parties can link to the agency from the site.

Check out IKEA or Death here. I only got nine right. (I’m telling you, it’s hard.) How did you do?

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