Hasta La Creative!

Pereira & O’Dell nabbed creative duties for Airbnb in September, and three months later, the San Fran shop is launching Birdbnb, their first campaign for the global travel renting company. To supplement Airbnb’s colorful site full of rental options, Pereira & O’Dell created a conceptual platform where artists built 50 birdhouse-sized renderings of actual listings. The finished products will be on display in Audubon Park in New Orleans December 16-22.

The official name of the campaign is “Every Traveler Deserves a Home,” and the 2:10 cut of the above video feels very homey, which is probably the best compliment I can give a travel rental commercial. The 4:30 version drags a bit, kind of like that nice older lady who rents you a room but keeps talking your ear off about topics you don’t care about (2:10 version here, FYI). She’s still kind, but you want to tell her to keep it brief, since, after all, you are the customer. However, selling this type of service does not lend itself to easy choices for advertising, and this effort finds a way to tell a story that makes travel rentals personal.

Credits bookended by some behind-the-scenes videos after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In light of the “no homo” press conference from Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert, this new Boost Mobile basketball spot from 180LA may strike some sensitive nerves. However, the humor is handled with enough subtlety to tiptoe around accusations of offensiveness. There’s also a really well-timed nuts joke that might make you chuckle if you are into such sectors of comedy.

In the commercial, one unlucky defender gets posterized on in a pick-up basketball game, and to make things worse, his face gets an up-close view of the sweaty dunker’s crotch. For those who aren’t basketball aficionados, there was actually a name for such a move – balls on your head – that became popular in the 1990s when young NBA players like Darius Miles would dunk on a guy. After the dunk, the player would run down the court celebrating like this (I’m not making this up). Whether Boost Mobile knows it or not, they are bringing back forgotten basketball treasure. The commercial is probably making some subconscious statement about the intersection of black, gay, and youth cultures, but as a consumer product, it’s really just funny. You see, Tyler, the Creator, it’s possible to make an effective ad without relying on stereotypes. Credits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This 30-second spot, produced by Venables Bell & Partners, attempts to show the audience how billionaire superheroes commute to work. The average worker takes the bus, the train, maybe drives an average car. Tony Stark drives an Audi R8 supercar. Of course, he could also just commute in his Iron Man suit, which would make the R8 seem irrelevant, but that wouldn’t be very good Audi product placement.

You’ve seen this type of spiel before: “It’s never a bad day at work when your commute looks like this.” I’ve never been a fan of this pitch to consumers. After enough time, a car becomes a car. And if your job still sucks, if you have that pontificating boss, or you work till 9 p.m., going home in an R8 won’t stop you from hating a job (but it might help you attract women). And with a minimum MSRP of $114,000 on last year’s model, you’ll most likely hate your bank account afterward, too. But at least it looks cool, right? Credits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.