Hasta La Creative!

The Transport Accident Commission of Victoria in Australia hits the road once again to promote safe driving. TAC has taken many different, well, tacks in its previous efforts—ranging from goofy humor to wretched depression and all-out shockvertising.

"Roadtrip Forever," created by media firm SCA, constitutes a change of direction in form, though not function, as safety education remains the goal, with teens and young adults the target. There are traditional elements, including TV and radio, but its centerpiece is an immersive, highly personalized Facebook experience that lets you log in and pick one of your FB friends to take on a three-minute virtual road trip. Well-crafted cinematic video storytelling is skillfully intercut with bogus status updates and chats involving your various friends. Men experience one trip; women another. Since TAC is the advertiser, it's not giving anything away to say that both journeys end in vehicular tragedy.

"The core idea is to make sure it has an impact, and that at the end of it the user goes, 'Whoa!' " SCA creative director Angus Stevens says in a behind-the-scenes clip. If the campaign alters the way they drive and inspires young people to share the Facebook experience with peers, all the better, he says.

I'm not sure any TCA effort could have as much impact, literally or figuratively, as the "Swap" commercial from a few years back. But "Roadtrip Forever" does pack a punch, albeit in an eerie, thoughtful, almost melancholy way, rather than through sudden shocks or blood and guts. (Sure, it's manipulative, but most PSA efforts of this type are, and the personalized Facebook approach gives "Roadtrip Forever" a more "realistic" immediacy that others lack.)

The first-view "Whoa!" factor does depend, to some extent, on surprise. Still, taking the trip a second time, even when you know what's coming, doesn't significantly dampen the effect. This particular drive delivers on multiple viewings and actually gains emotional resonance as details and nuances begin to register more deeply.

If there's a flaw, it's the basic concept of letting users choose their road-trip companions. Plugging in a beloved friend yields a sad, moving journey. Choosing a "friend" you don't know so well, or picking someone you don't really like—and we all have plenty of those among our FB connections—cushions the impact considerably.

Via Adverve.

Gaikuo-Captain est un étudiant chinois mais aussi un illustrateur talentueux. Amateur de comic books, ce dernier a imaginé des illustrations géantes avec lesquels il se confronte et interagit, face à des héros tels que Batman, Hulk ou des personnages issus de l’univers manga One Piece ou du jeu Pokémon.

Weird, but also pretty neat: On Tuesday, Pizza Hut Canada streamed live YouTube video of an illustrator sketching commenter-suggested images on pizza boxes. It's a bit reminiscent of that artist who promised to hand draw every new Twitter follower (before bailing when he realized how many people would click a button in exchange for a free picture of themselves). Pizza Hut is calling its marketing gimmick art. It's hard to imagine anyone rushing to frame the sketches and hang them on the wall. But they do include random bits of genius, like a pizza eating a man, a porcupine in a balloon factory and "Lady 'Za 'Za" wearing a dress made of pizza (instead of, say, one made of meat). There are also less appetizing sketches, like a "big slice of pizza pushing a baby slice of pizza in a stroller made of cheese." Because it wouldn't really be a pizza box—or advertising—if it weren't covered in melted goop. Now, sit back and enjoy seven and a half hours of footage from the event at the videos below. Agency: Grip Limited in Toronto.

Les équipes australiennes de Lyons Architects ont imaginé LIMS Complex, un projet estimé à 100 millions de dollars pour La Trobe University. Une architecture voulant rappeler les structures moléculaires pour correspondre aux activités scientifiques pratiquées dans le bâtiment, à découvrir dans la suite.

Paulo Wang nous propose avec cette vidéo d’animation « Splash » de découvrir sa maîtrise incroyable de la modélisation et du travail 3D des fluides. Une création nécessitant l’utilisation plusieurs logiciels pour un rendu d’un réalisme époustouflant, présenté sur une musique de Pretty Lights. A découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

Les équipes du studio We Are Matik ont imaginé cette machine appelée « Smile-Bot » afin d’insuffler un peu de bonheur et quelques sourires. La machine invite les curieux à plonger sa tête à l’intérieur pour découvrir un univers coloré et enthousiaste. A découvrir en vidéo dans la suite de l’article.

Cookie or creme? Perhaps not surprisingly, Oreo says it's both. Following the "Whisper Fight" Super Bowl spot, the #cookiethis/#cremethis Instagram campaign, the Oreo Separator videos and the "Life Raft" TV spot, Wieden + Kennedy today wraps up its "Cookie vs. Creme" campaign with SuperImportantTest.com, an amusing grab bag of a website which makes it clear that there's no wrong answer to the question of which part of an Oreo is better. Submitting a vote on the site takes you to one of more than 30 silly videos—from 2-D horse animations to robotic cats and everything in between. Directors, production companies and YouTube personalities from "six different time zones" (!?) created the clips, the agency says. After each one, you can go back and cycle through the others. All in all, the campaign was a pleasant confection—six weeks of inspired silliness which proved that even with kind of a dumb premise, Oreo can still have plenty of fun. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Oreo
Project: Super Important Test
www.SuperImportantTest.com

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Jason Bagley, Craig Allen
Digital Director: Matt O'Rourke
Copywriter, Digital Creative: Jarrod Higgins
Art Director: Ruth Bellotti
Account Team: Scott Sullivan, Jessie Young, Ken Smith
Broadcast Producer: Katie Reardon
Broadcast Production Director: Ben Grylewicz
Interactive Producer: Robbie Veltman
Executive Interactive Producer: Lori DeBortoli
Information Architect: Jake Doran
Digital Designer: Paul Levy
Creative Technologists: Ryan Bowers, Billy McDermott
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman

Video Creators
Carl Burgess
Cat Solen
Tony Foster
Fatal Farm
Jimmy Marble
Max Erdenberger
McRorie
Power House
Agile BrandTelligence
Visual Arts and internal W+K resources, including W+K Motion Department and Don't Act Big Productions

Development Partner
Hook LLC

Doritos has built a 62-foot-tall, tweet-powered concert stage designed to look like a giant vending machine that turns your tweets with the hashtag #BoldStage into a real-time concert-control mechanism at SXSW. Confused as to how? They've made a handy infographic (below) to 'splain. You can not only use your furious tweeting power to choose the opening act at the Doritos gig, you get to choose their playlist, and then, just to mess with them, you control the special effects. That's right—smoke, balloons, pyrotechnics and fricking lasers are all in your hashtagged hands. So, of course, you can also send pictures of yourself having a freaking awesome time directly to the four-story-tall screen in the arena! There's a 9.6-second lag, presumably to make sure you don't tweet your beets. LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Ice Cube and Doug E. Fresh will be sharing the stage with Doritos' awesomely awesome creation of pure LED force. Listen to a low-energy LL ramble about it in the video below. But who really cares about the has-beens on the stage when they'll also be premiering new ads that launch the first Doritos global campaign titled "For the Bold" that will completely change the brand's look and feel?

Le FabCafé, situé dans le quartier de Shibuya à Tokyo, propose pour le White Day (journée située un mois après la Saint Valentin) d’imprimer « une réplique 3D en guimauve » d’une personne à partir de photographies. Une initiative technologie insolite et drôle, à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

L’agence créative hollandaise Staat a imaginé et conçu une série de 8 vitrines interactives animées pour la marque Nike à Selfridges – Londres. Réalisées en collaboration avec Nike Brand Design EMEA, ces créations très réussies sont à découvrir en vidéo sur une musique de Mmoths « Folding ».