Hasta La Creative!

Continuing a rather ambitious storyline that kicked off late last year, Samsung, with the aid of Cheil Worldwide and Psyop, has unveiled the next installment of its soccer stars vs. aliens saga to promote the Galaxy. While not technically a World Cup tie-in, “The Training” (nearly 42 million views and counting–yeah, we know it’s been out for a bit) features two of the event’s biggest (and best) participants, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who have also been making the rounds in spots for Nike and Adidas, respectively, that are officially attached to the event. In this campaign, though, real-life Ken doll Ronaldo and his archrival Messi, along with other notable footballers like Wayne Rooney,  join forces and evolve from mere athletes to sci-fi superheroes in order to combat an alien invasion…with their Galaxy S5s in tow, of course.

Psyop director Laurent Ledru, who shot this four-minute short in two months across cities including London, Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Prague and Manchester, explains the process of working with the stars.  “Because of the athlete’s varying schedules we had to shoot each player separately. It was very important that each performance felt authentic to that athlete yet interacted seamlessly with the others.” Ledru, who met the players in the varying aforementioned locales, where they would execute the acrobatic stunts and moves for the real shot, adds, “Each player was given instructions and guidance but we needed to capture them acting as naturally as possible in front of the green screen despite the CG elements that were to come later.”

Like the previous clips that have encompassed this campaign, the Samsung Galaxy branding is kept to a minimum, save for the occasional highlighting of a feature (heat sensor! fast auto focus!). It’s the stars, story and special effects that take center stage here, and now, with training said and done, we’ve only the big final showdown to look forward to. Consider us involved. Game on.

Credits after the jump.

continued…

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Origin “The Unknown” from Psyop on Vimeo.

Psyop and Clemenger BBDO Melbourne bring us this whimsical spot, offering up a childlike take on how electricity is made.

As Psyop Director Fletcher Moules puts it, they wanted to express “that feeling that something magical is hidden around every corner,”…or behind every socket. The spot uses whimsical imagery such as a monkey riding a bicycle that spins a turbine and fighting magnets to effectively communicate that most people really don’t know all that much more about energy use now than they did when they were children imagining such fantastical scenarios. Timing is key here: Just when you might be wondering “Okay, where exactly is this going?” comes the “It’s time to take the mystery out of energy” tag. The spot then ends by directing you to discover five ways to control your energy at originenergy.com.au. It’s refreshing to see an ad utilizing seeming randomness to deliver its message, as opposed to the myriad of ads whose message is obscured by attempts at random humor.  continued…

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