Last month, vitaminwater’s fruitwater brand got a little weird with Christina Applegate in the first of its new ads in a campaign created by Venice agency Zambezi and production studio Hungryman.
Today the company released its follow-up, another entry in the “painfully awkward” genre. Here’s “Decoy”:
The earlier one after the jump in case you missed it:
This latest FCB Chicago spot for KFC can’t solve the diversity problem at ad agencies, but it can easily solve the challenge of casting diverse actors in ads: pick one member from each major demographic and place them around a kitchen table even larger than The Barbarian Group’s legendary desk…
In case you missed the point, it’s that age, race and other factors the U.S. Census considers important don’t matter much when it comes to fried chicken.
If you’ve ever wondered how NFL’s halftime started, Denver-based agency Motive has the (entirely fictional) answer for you in their new spot for Pepsi, “There Since the First Halftime.”
In the 30-second spot, a group of guys playing football are interrupted when a broken down car full of fetching ladies arrives asking for help. One of the guys tells his team to stay focused, but the girls shout, “We’ve got Pepsi!” Another player says “What if we just take, like, fifteen minutes?” and thus, Motive and Pepsi would have you believe, halftime was born. It may be a bit ridiculous, but, more importantly, it’s fun and memorable.
The spot marks the Hungry Man debut for director Kinka Usher. The former DGA Director of the Year joined the production company, along with EP Nancy Hacohen, last month.
“There Since the First Halftime” started running during the NFL Playoffs this past Saturday as part of a larger campaign supporting the Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl Halftime Show. Chances are you’ll catch it if you stick around for commercial breaks during the Conference Championships this Sunday. Credits after the jump. continued…
With the Xbox One’s November 22nd launch date looming ever nearer, CP+B’s marketing blitz for Microsoft’s next-gen system continues with two new spots. Coming on the heels of the “Invitation” spot released late last month, the two new short spots highlight the system’s diverse capabilities while otherwise taking different approaches.
The first spot, “Retirement Home,” features recently retired NFL linebackers Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher. Urlacher asks Lewis if he’s having any trouble adjusting to retirement as both watch football and play Madden 25 at the same time. Lewis claims not to be having any adjustment issues, but his actions say otherwise. It’s a funny little spot that will appeal to the (sizable) segment of the Xbox crowd who have always wished they could play Madden while watching the NFL.
The second spot, “His and Hers” addresses the apparent sexism of the “Invitation” spot (in which the only female featured uses the system only to watch movies, not play games). It highlights the voice recognition system by showing a woman command the Xbox One using her voice after arriving home to find her boyfriend watching soccer. She tells the system “Xbox go to Dead Rising 3″ and begins to play. Then she starts similarly commanding her boyfriend in a similar matter, telling him to get her a beer. It’s a bit over the top, but a welcome reversal of the gender stereotypes displayed in CP+B’s “Invitation” spot.
Credits and “His & Hers” after the jump. continued…
Trolli gummy candy wants to get funky. Apparently, the bright colors and odd shapes weren’t quirky enough, so the candy company called upon Minneapolis-based Periscope for some creative legwork. The result is the new “Weirdly Awesome” campaign, which features a couple of thirty-second spots that are off the reservation. Periscope seems to be tapping into a “Napoleon Dynamite” aesthetic that hasn’t really been relevant in the eight years or so. The only other comparable campaign I’ve covered in the last year is this strange bit of Bugle buffoonery from Canada. Trolli’s campaign is a little more appropriate because of the sour candy product, but I’m not so sure that weird is the new currency of cool.
You can watch the second spot and sort through some credits after the jump.
While you’re battling Wednesday workdays at the office, Geico has a new addition to their “Happier Than” campaign that gives a literal visual representation to Hump Day. Yes, a camel, with humps. The camel’s coworkers don’t look thrilled with their humped friend running through channels of cubicles and interrupting their productivity. Wednesdays should be a time of cautious optimism – by the end of the day, a majority of the week will be finished – but these guys look like they just got demoted.
The Hump Day spot – created by the insurance brand’s longtime ally The Martin Agency – won’t be going up on the Mount Rushmore of ”Happier Than” ads. That space is reserved for Dikembe Mutombo‘s supermarket exploits and Eddie Money’s entrepreneurial skills, commercials that dealt with clever concepts that riffed on pop culture. “Hump Day” is more of a cheesy pun dragging itself over 30 seconds of airtime. Re-strum the banjo, there’s always next time. A ridiculously long credit list awaits after the jump.
What?!? Is that the Pillsbury Doughboy being used in a non-Pillsbury advertisement? Is that even legal? This is a big deal! Wait, is it a big deal? I mean, it’s not like they’re competitors of Geico’s. You can’t insure your car with baking products and you can’t bake with car insurance. Wait, can you? No…no, you can’t. Yet.
What we have here is an ad-crossover of sorts, which, if you think about it, wouldn’t be that surprising if brands weren’t so super protective of their copyrighted material. You’d think that someone would learn a lesson from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? about that joys of allowing your brands to interact with others. So it’s refreshing to see Pillsbury play ball with Geico and The Martin Agency for a joke about the giggly little Pillsbury Doughboy getting the pat-down from the TSA on his way to a baking convention. Man, that little guy really loves being touched, huh? Credits after the jump.
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