Hasta La Creative!

Yesterday, General Mills CMO Ann Simonds revealed to AdAge that the company has some very specific diversity requirements for its creative review: it wants its agencies’ creative departments to be staffed with at least 50 percent women and 20 percent people of color. Regarding the new quotas, she added, “we are very excited about that. If you are going to put people you serve first, the most important thing is to live up to it and make it a key criteria.”

Simonds is leading that review — which was launched a little over a month ago and originally thought to be closed — along with CCO and former Fallon chief strategy officer Michael Fanuele. Fanuele told AdAge the goal of the review is to find “one core agency to handle the bulk [of the work] but to supplement with other partners, which might be technology platforms or media partners,” or, put another way, “an anchor agency supplemented with a roster of interesting partners.”

According to our sources, the review is now down to three unnamed finalists from a pool including 72andSunny, McCann, Deutsch, Mother, Ogilvy and a Publicis “holding company solution.”

Fanuele told AdAge that McCann pitching as an IPG holding company solution remained a possibility, saying, “The clay is still wet on the proposal,” and “This an exercise in finding the right partners, not the right model.”

The fact that the diversity requirements specifically target agency creative departments is telling. It speaks to recent discussions spurred by groups like the The 3% Conference, whose most recent survey found that just 11.5 percent of agency creative directors are female.

The significance of the diversity requirements and the possibility it may impact other brands in the future is not lost on Simonds. “It feels like a first,” she said. “I think it’s rare and it is important.”

So far there’s no word on how, exactly, General Mills plans to enforce these requirements … or how quickly the agencies in question are scrambling to meet them.

Mother London launched a new, monkey-filled addition to its “The Wonderful Everyday” campaign for IKEA, entitled “Rediscover the Joy of the Kitchen.”

In the spot, directed by MJZ’s Juan Cabral, a group of monkeys discovers an IKEA kitchen in the middle of the jungle and have a lot of fun exploring, raiding and trashing it. The playful primates jump on light fixtures, play with water faucets, break dishes, discover a fridge full of bananas and make a mess while seemingly having a blast. The spot covertly shows off features of the kitchen while the playful primates’ entertaining hijinks play out. At the end of the ad, the tagline, “Rediscover the Joy of the Kitchen” makes for the implicit message that a new IKEA kitchen will make you as excited as the monkeys in the ad. There’s also an interesting moment where one of the monkeys presses the reverse button on the stereo and the action begins to unfold in reverse. The spot will make its broadcast debut on July 11, supported by digital, social media, OOH and print components.

Credits:

Brand: Ikea
Agency: Mother
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Juan Cabral
VFX: MPC
VFX Producer: Julie Evans
VFX Shoot Supervisor: Bill Macnamara
CG Supervisor: Fabian Frank
VFX Lead: Alex Lovejoy

Mother New York announced the arrival of 15 “farm fresh, humanely-raised” interns it attracted with its “Fresh Meat” recruitment video (see below).

Presumably, none of them are vegetarians.

The interns will be put through the agency meat grinder via an internship program which sees them work across departments and disciplines on client-related challenges and an agency initiated project. To make the interns feel at home, the agency even added framed photos of their mothers to a miniature version of its “Wall of Moms.” The interns will present their final projects by August 8, with hopes that they will be deemed well-done (sorry about that one).

“The Fresh Meat video campaign was a deliciously ludicrous way to attract the best of the industry’s rising talent,” said Mother strategy director and internship coordinator, Bruno Frankel. “We were bombarded with incredible submissions, including a fair share of meat deliveries, and were frankly amazed by the creativity of the interns selected. We’re grateful to have these interns spending the summer with us at Mother and look forward to learning from them as much as we teach them.”

In other words, they’ll be AgencySpy commenters by the end of the summer.

Mother New York introduces Anheuser-Busch InBev’s new Oculto, a lager 6 percent ABV lager aged in tequila barrels, with a 30-second online spot.

The ad, directed by Prettybird’s Melina Matsoukas aims to give the beer an air of mystery. It opens on a masked woman turning around to place a mask on someone behind her, shot in first-person to give the impression that she’s placing it on the viewer. She opens a curtain to reveal a sort of strange costume party, where everyone holds up their Occulto for the camera to see. Text reading “Put on the mask” appears onscreen, followed by a long close-up of the beer and “Let the secrets begin.”

The new brand, which made its debut last month, will see further marketing efforts including print, social media and outdoor, with a focus on the Miami market. Harris Rabin, vice president of global marketing on new brands at A-B InBev, told Adweek the brand is targeting “21- to 34-year-olds who are ambitious, free-sprited and ‘love the idea of a mashup.’”

It’s interesting to note that while A-B InBev’s marketing for its flagship brand Budweiser continues to troll hipsters and mock microbreweries (even while A-B InBev buys as many of these breweries as it can get its hands on), its latest brand borrows from the craft beer trend of barrel aging.

Adman turned best-selling author James Patterson often creates TV ads to promote his books. But for the launch of his latest novel, Private Vegas, he turned to ad agency Mother for something decidedly different.

In what Mother New York creative chief Paul Malmstrom calls a “pretty absurd stunt,” the author is inviting one fan to experience “The Self-Destructing Book,” aka “The most thrilling experience money can buy.” This fan will have to pay $294,038 for experience, which includes getting a self-destructing version of the 416-page book, having a private dinner with Patterson, and witnessing—through gold-plated binoculars!—the epic demise of the book.

At the same time, via a web application, 1,000 more readers will gain access a free digital version of Private Vegas that will disappear after 24 hours in a cinematic and spectacular way. That aspect of the promotion plays on Patterson’s reputation for writing page-turners with short chapters and cliffhangers that keep you reading. What’s more, the digital version will include flourishes such as a splattering of blood when a character is killed.

The bigger stunt is supported by several videos that Mother created as well.

Asked why he hired an agency for a promotion that the former JWT creative director could have created himself, Patterson told AdFreak, “Well, I’d been writing some of the scripts, and I just thought we could get better talent on this thing, you know?”

The author added that he wanted to shake up the marketing aspect of publishing, which of course now competes with everything from TV shows to feature films to Internet content—some of which he creates himself.

“I wanted to do something big and exciting and different. Went to Mother and Mother came up with a few ideas, as mothers will. And we all decided that this was the coolest one,” Patterson said.

The destruction has nothing specifically to do with the plot of the ninth installment of Patterson’s crime series, which comes out on Monday. The $294,038 figure, however, does have special significance. When asked about it, Patterson deferred to Malmstrom, who laughed before explaining, “That’s the actual cost [of the campaign]. We added it all up, and that’s the exact sum. And we didn’t mark it up.”

Some ads tug at the heartstrings and move viewers to tears. The newest spot for the British price comparison website MoneySuperMarket is not one of those.

Dave steps out of his car in a jacket and tie. “Don’tcha” by the Pussycat Dolls starts playing. And we see that Dave is wearing super tight shorts and impossibly high stilettos, as he struts down the street in celebration of his newly found savings thanks to MoneySuperMarket.

He twerks. He swerves. He drops it down low and brings it up slow. Most impressive, I think, is his ability to work that sidewalk in 7-inch heels, a task many women can’t do without looking like a newborn foal learning to walk.

It’s narrated by Sharon Osbourne, who also makes a cameo at the end, but Dave and his butt are obviously the stars of the show.

Following its ad last year where an elephant sashayed down a busy street, MoneySuperMarket nails silly and ridiculous and entertaining in one fell swoop (or depending on how you feel about the term, slutdrop).

A tipster provided us with Mother’s rather unusual invite to current and former workers for the agency’s anniversary party. Addressed to “Dearest Son or Daughter,” (that would be employees) from “The Grand Mothers” (partners) it appears the agency leaders would like to gather their children to “run our fingers though the hair of our sons and daughters.” Oh, and it would appear they are not a fan of the plus-one. We’ve included the invite in full below. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

John Lewis may have won Christmas with its penguin ad, but Mother London’s holiday spot for British pharmacy chain Boots is an impressive stocking stuffer in its own right.

Director Noam Murro’s low-key, naturalistic approach really scores as we follow some folks who wake up very early on the day after Christmas and make preparations for a special celebration of their own. The muted documentary style lets the tale shine without reams of tinsel or the glare of too many holiday lights.

“This Christmas, we want to inspire our customers to celebrate the special people in their lives,” says Andy Ferguson, Boots director of marketing, “not just by giving the perfect gift from Boots, but by sharing the reasons they matter for the whole nation to see.”

Boots invites viewers to share stories of those they love using the #SpecialBecause hashtag, and there are campaign elements prepped for digital, direct and outdoor media. The centerpiece 60-second spot, produced by Biscuit Filmworks, is already running online, and breaks Sunday on ITV’s telecast of Downton Abbey.

Sure, there’s some sentimentality—this is a British holiday ad, after all. Still, it’s mainly a realistic people story that expands on themes from Boots’ 2013 Christmas outing. In a way, this new spot recalls A Charlie Brown Christmas—without the religious message—by transcending commercialism to reveal the deeper meaning of the season.

CREDITS
Client: Boots
Agency: Mother London
Producer: Emily Marr
Creative Director: Chaka Sobhani
Creative: Richard Tahmasebi & Pilar Santos
Advertising Agency: Mother London
Sound Design: Anthony Moore
Audio Post Production: Factory Studios
Editor: Neil Smith
Edit Company: Work Post
Post Production House: MPC
Production Manager: Kate Taylor
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Producer: Charlotte Woodhead
Managing Director: Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer: Orlando Wood
Director: Noam Murro

Freelance network Working Not Working has unveiled a list of the top 46 companies its freelancers “would kill to work” for full-time, and the list includes several advertising agencies. Among the agencies Working Not Working freelancers would most like to work for are: 360i, 72andSunny, Barton F. Graf 9000, BBDO, BBH, Droga 5, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Mother, Periera & O’Dell, Venables Bell & Partners, and Wieden+Kennedy. The list also included a wealth of design and production companies, as well as Google, HBO, Cartoon Network, Tesla, and NASA (for some reason). Stick around for the full list after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.