Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO has launched a new campaign for Guiness celebrating the “Irrepressible Spirit” of some lesser-known rugby greats for Guiness, just in time for the sport’s end of year Autumn Internationals.
The campaign is composed of four spots celebrating Jonny Wilkinson, Shane Williams, Bill McLaren and the Munster rugby team of 1978, which debuted yesterday in the UK and Ireland. Each ad focuses on “the inspirational character and integrity that is central to the sport,” Stephen O’Kelly, marketing director, Guinness (Western Europe) at Diageo, said in a statement.
In the spot above, for example, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO tells the inspiring story of Bill McLaren who was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told he would never play rugby again. Rather than accepting defeat, McLaren found his way back into the game as an announcer and became the “voice of rugby.” It’s an emotional approach that should appeal to diehard rugby fans and casual viewers alike, which should be a winning combination for Guiness. (more…)
Today, Saatchi & Saatchi New York is launching the first ever campaign for the gun responsibility organization Evolve, encouraging people to take personal responsibility for gun safety and generally not be dumbasses.
Saatchi & Saatchi’s pro-bono campaign features a short, satirical video called “The Bill of Rights for Dumbasses.” The 1:40 video portrays Thomas Jefferson and other historical figures debating the language of the second amendment. Jefferson thinks the amendment runs a little long, and after much debate, convinces the rest of the council to remove the “as long as they aren’t being dumbasses about it” part from the amendment. While the founding fathers are debating the matter, viewers are treated to a humorous montage of gun owners engaging in questionable practices, before Jefferson concludes it’s common sense that you shouldn’t act that way with a gun. The video ends with the founding fathers playing pinata with a gun, followed by the tagline, “It’s the right to bear arms, not the right to be dumbass” and a message prompting viewers to go to takeonthecode.com and sign the code of gun responsibility.
Evolve co-founder Rebecca Bond hopes that “Humor can be a gateway to taking away the defensiveness that is the legacy of these discussions.” Joe Bond, also an Evovle co-founder, added, “We want the ‘Dumbass’ concept to catch on in popular culture the way ‘friends don’t let friends drive drunk’ did for safe driving.”
Since it’s rare to find people discussing guns without getting hysterical about it, Saatchi & Saatchi’s employment of dumb humor is somewhat refreshing. But will it really chip away at the defensiveness that gun rights activists feel when discussing anything related to guns? Or are they more likely to take offense at the video depicting gun owners, and even founding fathers, as dumbasses? Unfortunately, I doubt the video will convince many viewers to “take on the code,” because even though Evolve professes to be a “third voice” in the gun debate without political affiliation, gun rights activists will still likely view the video’s satire as an attack on them. Meanwhile, the video will appeal to plenty of gun reform proponents — people who don’t need any convincing on the importance of gun safety, and mostly don’t own guns (and therefore have no need to take Evolve’s pledge). That’s too bad, because Evolve’s responsibility code is really just common sense and something any gun owner should be able to get behind — which makes this feel like a missed opportunity. Credits after the jump.
The title is not a bathroom pun. Saatchi & Saatchi created a new campaign for Fiber One built around the 80′s song, “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” originally by Bonnie Tyler. If you’ve ever been within 50 yards of a karaoke bar, you’ll recognize the tune, and apparently, the 1983 hit is getting a second wave of popularity decades later. A May survey by UKbathrooms.com reported that it is the most popular song people sing in the shower. And more recently, actor and vocal impressionist Christina Bianco had a video of her singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the voices of 19 different divas go viral (1.8 million hits in four days).
So the relevance for the Fiber One campaign is there. We have two spots to show you, one titled “Turn Around Barry,” and the other, “Turn Around Barbara.” Ignoring the missing commas, both are about hapless characters on diets who want to eat food that tastes good but won’t make them fat. Those people do deserve power ballads playing as the soundtrack to their lives. The set-up is slightly confusing, because each ad includes multiple characters who we are supposed to assume are all named either Barry or Barbara. At one point, it looks like one Barry is even holding a leek he’s about to eat whole. But then he finds Fiber One. All in 30 seconds.
Watch “Turn Around Barbara” and read some credits after the jump.
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