Hasta La Creative!

The NBA is putting a whole new spin on throwback jerseys.

The professional basketball league has launched its first-ever campaign around NCAA March Madness by employing a neat visual trick—showing NBA stars with overlaid animations of the college uniforms from their NCAA days.

Stephen Curry, James Harden, Al Horford, Kyle Lowry, Paul Pierce, Dwyane Wade and Russell Westbrook all star in 15-second ads from Translation, voiced by the indomitable Dick Vitale.

It’s not just the clothes that change. Westbrook, presently of the Oklahoma City Thunder and formerly of the UCLA Bruins, transforms into a bear wearing a pair of the player’s infamous red glasses. Even the YouTube video descriptions are packed with Vitale slang, Easter eggs for the hardcore zealots.

Running under the tagline “The dance never ends,” it’s a nice simple concept, illustrating that some of the college stars that viewers are cheering on now will be in the NBA soon enough—and that it’s OK to enjoy both leagues.

The spots don’t show the pros giving up wads of cash as they return to the NCAA, though.

CREDITS
Brand/Client: NBA
Campaign Title: March Madness
Spot Title: 2015 March Madness Animated, Baby!  
First Air Date: 3/23/15

Agency: Translation 
Chief Executive Officer: Steve Stoute 
Chief Creative Officer: John Norman
Chief Strategy Officer: John Greene
Executive Creative Director: Betsy Decker
Senior Creative: Matthew McFerrin
Senior Creative: Armando Samuels
Senior Creative: Matt Comer
Head of Brand Strategy: Tim Flood
Strategist: Lindsey Neeld, Geoff McHenry
Director of Broadcast Production: Miriam Franklin
Executive Producer: Carole McCarty
Associate Producer: Philinese Kirkwood
Business Affairs Manager: Brian Enright
SVP, Group Account Director: Tim Van Hoof
Account Executive: Chris Martin
Senior Project Manager: Matt DeSimone

Production Company: Blacklist / Golden Wolf
Executive Producer: Andrew Linsk
Producer: Patrick Gantert
Creative Director: Ingi Erlingsson
Producer: Ant Baena
Production Assistant: Corina Priestley
Roto / Prep: Krishnan Balakrishnan, Nikita Alagan, Aravindan.C, Thirupathi Raja, Stephan, Arun.N, Murthy.N, Satish.R
Design: Stefan Falconer, Pedro Vergani
Animation: Stefan Falconer, Tim Whiting, Pablo Lozano, Mattias Breitholtz, Romain Loubersanes, Steffano Ottaviano, Harj Bains, Samuel Bell, Duncan Gist

Post Company: WAX, New York
Editor: Joe Dillingham
Assistant Editor: Nate Kim
Managing Partner: Toni Lipari
Senior Producer: Evan Meeker
Conform: WAX

Color Grade (NBA footage): CO3, New York
Colorist: Tom Poole
Producer: Rochelle Brown
Assistant Colorist: Kath Raisch

Color Grade (Animation): WAX
Colorist: Steve Picano

Audio Post: Sonic Union
Engineer (Mix): David Papa
Engineer (Mix): Fernando Ascani
Studio Director: Justine Cortale
Mix Assistant: Ben Conlon

VO TALENT:
VO: Dick Vitale
VO: Todd Cummings

Music / Sound Design: Future Perfect Music
Composer: Victor Margo
Executive Producer: Maxwell Gosling
Executive Producer: John Connolly

In honor of the NCAA March Madness tournament, Y&R created their own “Brand Madness” tournament using their proprietary BrandAsset Valuator database, and there are quite a few upsets.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Sports sponsorships rarely equate to more than some choice ad placement and logo saturation. But Allstate and its agency, Leo Burnett, are definitely making the most of the company's partnership with March Madness.

In a campaign called March Mayhem, the official NCAA tournament sponsor is trotting out its likably loathsome ad character to Twitter, Facebook and Vine, where he delights in the millions of brackets broken by unexpected wins like No. 10-seeded Stanford defeating No. 2 Kansas and 12th-seeded North Dakota State winning big over No. 5 Oklahoma.

Read more about the effort in our Q&A with Pam Hollander, Allstate's senior director of integrated marketing communications, and check out some of Mayhem's better Vine installments below.

Please note: Firefox seems to have trouble playing Vine embeds, so we recommend using Chrome, Safari or another browser.

Havas Worldwide Chicago has launched a new March Madness campaign for DISH Network featuring a new kangaroo mascot, which also marks Havas’ first campaign for the company since being named lead digital agency last summer.

The kangaroo mascot, voiced by Rebel Wilson, makes her debut in the TV spot “Mobile Basketball.” In the 30-second spot, the kangaroo shows off the DISH Network’s capabilities by watching college basketball at work, only pretending to be engaged in actual work when the boss walks by. While the spot never quite hits the humorous mark it’s aiming for, it’s still world’s ahead of the campaign’s painful digital spot, “Fight Song.” As you might have guessed, the 30 second spot is built around a “fight song” for DISH Network (in the style of college team’s fight songs) extolling the Network’s ability to let you watch March Madness games anywhere. “Fight Song” will run on sites like ESPN.com, where it will most likely be muted after approximately 1.2 seconds. Havas’s campaign also includes social media activations on Facebook and Twitter featuring the new mascot. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Capital One pitchman Alec Baldwin gets an assist from Charles Barkley in new ads from DDB Chicago and Tool director Erich Joiner timed to the NCAA's March Madness tournament, of which the financial firm is a prominent sponsor. In one spot, the pair perform goofy schtick during a sports broadcast, with the Round Mound's tent-size underpants held up to ridicule. In another, they attend a basketball game, where Sir Charles keeps snacks warm inside his jacket and reveals, "It's like a little hot-dog steamer in there"—which is frankly something I never needed to know. All this sporty-bro-bonding is kind of strained and silly, but overall the tone is probably in tune with the target audience. Besides, Baldwin's slimy smile and smug delivery never get old. And Barkley's dazed and indifferent acting style is a hoot—it's as if he can't collect his check and get off the set fast enough. They're like a puffy, middle-aged Odd Couple, and their combined charisma—though not much else—keeps the proceedings from becoming the commercial equivalent of an air ball. More spots and a behind-the-scenes clip after the jump.