Hand, dish and laundry liquids get surprisingly sexy in a new campaign from green cleaning brand Method. Call it haute soap.
The brand’s new “Fear No Mess” campaign, which might be less pithily articulated as “Make as Big a Mess as You Possibly Can,” features immaculately dressed heroes finding inventive ways to trash beautifully designed rooms in a series of TV ads.
MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER launched a new 30-second spot for Desk.com showing how the service turns consumer interaction into an opportunity to provide great customer service.
The agency takes that idea to humorous lengths as it shows employees of a small business perhaps a little too excited to deal with consumer complaints. At one point one employee excitedly yells, “This lady wants us to burn in hell because she hasn’t gotten her package yet!” which gives a pretty good indication of the tone of the spot. MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER manages to work in a quick look at how the product works as one employee explains to another why everyone is so happy about customer complaints. It’s all very much in line with MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER’s roots, as the agency made a name for itself crafting work for tech start-ups and other emerging brands. Its creative team was devoted to understanding the customer service sector, going so far as taking a Desk.com training class and talking to sales and customer service reps to develop the concept.
Credits:
Client: Desk.com
Title: Opportunities
Agency: MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER
Executive Creative Director: John Matejczyk
Head of Production: Michelle Spear Nicholson
Senior Producer: Jona Goodman Suarez
Art Director: Stevan Chavez
Copywriter: Mike Gallucci
Director of Strategy: Matt Hofherr
Account Manager: Kashmir Hyder
Production: WW7
Director: Shillick
Director of Photography: Peter Thompson
Executive Producer: Josh Ferrazzano
Line Producer: Sheree Shu
Editorial: WW7
Editor: Josh Hegard
Executive Producer: Josh Ferrazzano
Color: SPY POST
Colorist: Carey Burens
Executive Producer: Lori Joseph
Final Mix: ONE UNION
Audio Engineers: Joaby Deal
MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER announced the appointment of Gary Theut as associate partner and director of account management, ending “an exhaustive search to find a qualified management candidate with an appropriately hard-to-pronounce last name.” He will be responsible for leading the account team alongside co-founders John Matejczyk, executive creative director, and Matt Hofherr, director of strategy.
Theut joins the integrated agency from Pereira & O’Dell, where he spent nearly seven years as vice president and director of account services, working with clients including Intel, LEGO, Airbnb, Beats by Dre and Corona. Prior to Pereira & O’Dell, Theut spent three years at AKQA San Francisco as a group account director., where his clients included McDonald’s, Bank of America, Sprite and Microsoft. Theut began his career at a series of traditional agencies, including JWT, The Martin Agency and Publicis Hal Riney before jumping to Lot21 Interactive in 2000.
“Gary has been on the inside of creating great campaigns for great clients at great agencies,” said Matejczyk. “And he’s a warm, personable dude. We’re fortunate that Gary has chosen to take this next step in his career, to guide the account management team at MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER and help shape the next generation of leadership here.”
MUH-TAY-ZIK|HOF-FER scored Audi’s social media account for North America this week.
The agency beat several competitors in order to “continue the Audi legacy of industry-first social media campaigns,” create content, and foster some of that all-important engagement:
Pity the fool who doesn’t drive a #quattro. RT @Snake756: My @audi got a new haircut. pic.twitter.com/6CoLC2ujSw
— Audi (@Audi) February 18, 2015
At the moment, though, we’re more excited about the agency’s win at the first-ever AD2SF Olympics. The shop managed to beat such established parties as R/GA, DDB California, and Deep Focus in what looks like a combination of flip-cup, trivia, and some other unpredictable drinking game.
The purpose was to raise money for AD2SF’s pro-bono Public Service Committee. As Managing Partner Matt Hofherr put it:
“This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to us.”
He meant the trophy.
The San Francisco agency with the unpronounceable name has promoted two and hired one within its creative department.
Readers may remember Josh Bogdan (above) from his previous role as “dude with a crayon”; the former JWT/AKQA copywriter joined MUH-TAY-ZIK in a senior position in 2012, and now he’s been promoted to creative director. Past work mentioned in the notice includes the “It’s Your Town” campaign for New Amsterdam Vodka, which earned a mention from one Stuart Elliott.
Tony Zimney (above) began working with the MUH-TAY-ZIK team as a freelancer and joined the full-time staff as ACD in 2013; since then he worked on campaigns for such clients as Annie’s Organic, maker of the storied mac and cheese.
Prior to joining the SF agency, Zimney worked as an art director at Preston Kelly, WONGDOODY, SapientNitro and others before going freelance and working with Tribal DDB, AKQA, POSSIBLE, Google’s Nest Labs, and more.
The two were promoted, at least in part, for their work on recent projects like the Netflix Spoilers project, which garnered a fair amount of attention from our anonymous tipsters. One such source wrote:
“Not sure if Netflix did this internally or though an agency but they are spoiling all their shows. Kind of pisses me off.”
…which was the point.
Bodgan and Zimney also helped lead creative on campaigns for dating service Zoosk, Google Chrome, and the Golden State Warriors.
MUH-TAY-ZIK also hired Nate Gagnon (above) as associate creative director. Gagnon — who spent nearly three years freelancing for agencies including VB&P, Argonaut, AQKA, mcgarrybowen and the now-defunct DOJO before joining the new agency — has graced these digital pages before as well:
We asked the agency for a bit more info on these new hires and their future assignments but have yet to hear back.
The original Yule Log television broadcast dates back to 1966, when WPIX-TV aired footage of a cozy fireplace to cheer up New Yorkers who lived in apartments without one. But Netflix really gives it a modern spin this year, humorously advertising its streaming Yule Log channel with a faux-epic trailer and two-minute behind-the-scenes director's commentary video. It's all perfectly stupid and hilarious, particularly the longer video, in which the auteur picks out the right logs on a farm and marvels at particularly serendipitous "ashing" in footage of the burning wood. Great holiday cheer by ad agency Muh-Tay-Zik | Hof-fer.
CREDITS
Client: Netflix
Agency: Muh-Tay-Zik | Hof-fer
Director, Executive Creative Director: John Matejczyk
Head of Production: Michelle Spear
Associate Creative Directors: Josh Bogdan, Tony Zimney
Copywriter: Jonathan Hirsch
Account Supervisor: Carolina Cruz-Letelier
Assistant Account Manager: Emily Mee
Production: Muh-Tay-Zik | Hof-fer
Director of Photography: Chris Wilson
Art Director: Jonathan Nicholson
Producer: Alex Smith
Editing: Beast
Editor: Matt O'Donnell
Colorist: Eric Pascua
Motion Graphics: Spencer Seibert
Executive Producer: Jon Ettinger
Senior Producer: Kristen Jenkins
Audio: One Union
Senior Engineers: Andy Greenberg, Eben Carr
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