Hasta La Creative!

RPA recently debuted a new campaign for recently-won client ARCO, following Tesoro’s purchase of ARCO from BP.

The campaign celebrates ARCO’s “top tier” designation, as its gasoline “exceeds EPA minimum detergent requirements to help clean engines and maintain optimal vehicle performance.” To highlight the benefits of treating your car right with ARCO gasoline, RPA chose to show some of the ways mistreat their vehicles in a series of four 30-second broadcast spots.

The light-hearted approach works best in “Treat” (featured above), when a woman decides “If top-tier gas at ARCO helps clean my engine, maybe I should clean the rest of my car.” She then imagines all the hard work inherent in undoing the neglect, including some pretty gross tasks, before tossing an empty coffee cup in the backseat and deciding “I’ll do that another time.”

Other spots in the campaign take a similar approach, with “Embarassing” focusing on some of the moments your car shouldn’t have to witness and “Mishap” taking on minor vehicular abuse. “Try It” changes things up, focusing instead on a couple’s misguided decision to go somewhere other than ARCO for gas. Each spot ends with the tagline, ““Your car puts up with a lot. Help protect it from harmful engine deposits. ARCO has quality TOP TIER® gas for less.” emphasizing ARCO’s quality and top tier designation. The campaign began last month with one broadcast spot and an outdoor component, and currently supports the four broadcast spots with online and radio elements, as well as a revamped website.

“We have a long history working on the ARCO brand, and appreciate the challenges of the competitive motor-fuel category,” said RPA EVP, Management Account Director Tom Kirk. “The agency’s goal is to further support ARCO’s brand positioning, and this new work focuses on ARCO’s holistic value proposition around product quality and affordability.” (more…)

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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.

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RPA teamed up with production company tool for a new campaign celebrating Newport Beach Film Festival’s 15th anniversary entitled “15 Years Under the Influence.”

The centerpiece of the campaign is a short film called “Bedtime Story.” In the two and a half minute video, directed by Tom Routson, a daughter asks her father to read her a story before bed. The father begins a story about “a beautiful princess who lived in a magical castle far, far away,” but soon finds himself bored with the story and strays from the narrative, deciding that the princess is not actually a princess but a “beautiful operating system” (referencing Spike Jonze’s Her). From there his story bounces all over the place, referencing memorable moments in independent film from the last 20 years or so, with a rather gory ending. Somehow, through all this his daughter manages to fall asleep, making the display of truly awful parenting seem almost sweet. In addition to its home online, the film will screen during this year’s festival in Newport Beach, which will take place from April 24th-May 1st. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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