Hasta La Creative!

A Hill Holliday veteran has joined the DDB Chicago team as SVP and group creative director.

David Banta will lead the creative team behind the Capital One account, whose most recent work focused on the client’s Apple Pay integration in an ad titled “Worn Jeans.”

Banta has worked in the industry for more than two decades. He most recently filled the same position at Hill Holliday’s Boston office, where he worked on Liberty Mutual, Merrell, Capella University, and Cadillac. After spending seven years with that agency, he went freelance around the same time that the Cadillac account changed hands and Hill Holliday went through a subsequent round of layoffs.

Prior to joining the Hill Holliday team, Banta spent two years as an ACD at CP+B and two years as a creative director at Doner in addition to stints with Mintz & Hoke, Foote, Cone & Belding, and others.

The agency’s newest director — whose work has been recognized by The One Show, The CLIOs, etc. — will report to Chicago CCO John Maxham. In the release, Maxham calls him “exactly the kind of gutsy creative” needed to channel Capital One’s “challenger brand” spirit.

This move marks only the latest addition at DDB, which named W+K Sao Paulo’s Icaro Doria as chief creative in its New York office last week.

It seems odd that there’s never been a Halloween ad for Skittles. While the brand may not have the same kind of association with the holiday as, say, Reese’s, it still commands a good deal of exchange value for kids swapping trick or treat hauls. And yet DDB Chicago’s new Halloween spot, extending the brand’s “Experience The Rainbow” campaign, is the brand’s first foray into Halloween advertising.

As you might expect, the ad contains the level of weirdness associated with that campaign, and the brand’s advertising in general. When a boy finds himself stuck in a giant spiderweb, attempting to reach a bag of Skittles, his friend wonders what to do. Then a giant spider shows up, promising to help if he gets stuck, and thus begins a lifelong friendship…or does it?

The spot is rolling out as a 15-second broadcast spot and an extended, 45-second online video (featured above), and will run until Halloween. (more…)

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DDB Chicago teamed up with Smuggler and Whitehouse Post to create “McDonald’s GOL!,” an online and broadcast spot for the World Cup sponsors.

The 1:50 video (above) celebrates amateur trickshots, including a few from unexpected sources, as players around the world show off their skills in anticipation of the 2014 World Cup, now less than 10 days away. It’s a fun approach, and many of the trickshots are quite impressive. At the conclusion of the video, viewers are prompted to visit gol.mcd.com, home of the campaign’s augmented reality trick shot game. The app utilizes Qualcomm Vuforia AR technology to allow players to bounce a digital soccer ball off real world items, but only after it is triggered from any of the 12 limited-edition FIFA World Cup™ fry boxes — which have supplanted the iconic red boxes for the World Cup promotion. Over the course of the campaign, the game will “be available to play from 1.5 billion fry boxes in almost 120 countries,” making it the largest AR experience ever created. Stick around after the jump for credits and a look at some of the fry boxes. continued…

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