Hasta La Creative!

Frank Ocean. Singer, songwriter, magazine editor, underwear model.

And now, perhaps, novelist.

While fans lose their minds over whether the mysterious R&B singer’s long-anticipated second album might, possibly, just maybe be released in July, he is providing a peek into his relationship with music, boxer briefs—and more subtly, long-form fiction writing—in a new Calvin Klein campaign.

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To promote its Sense8 series, created by the Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski, Netflix and production company Tool crafted  “Brainwave Symphony,” an electronica recording made in part by attaching electroencephalograph — or EEG — sensors to the heads of eight people who binge-watched the first season and then sat through a common set of visual and aural stimuli.

In a complex multi-step process, the Netflix team ran the different readouts — alpha, beta, delta, gamma, and theta, each with its own frequency range — through various audio processing to render a short musical theme for each person, and applied those melodies to a predetermined rhythmic structure, ultimately weaving the parts together into a full piece.

For the geeks among you (squarely in Netflix’s target here), the campaign website offers some more detail on the various technological aspects. A brief video summarizes the process, and Spotify is streaming the song itself.

The track certainly won’t grab you like a blistering summer pop hit, but it does have enjoyable enough moments as an ambient listening experience. In fact, whole project to some degree evokes GE’s habit of turning the sounds of heavy machinery into electronic music. Also, IBM’s campaign with James Murphy to turn U.S. Open scores and other tennis data from the tournament into computerized music.

Now, if only Heineken could just convince the MTA to let Murphy turn New York City’s Subway turnstiles into instruments, too.
 

Droga5 enlisted New York rapper Nas in its latest spot for Hennessy, entitled “The Ride..”

Nas‘ association with the brand dates back to his classic 1994 debut Illmatic, where the brand is mentioned on the very first track. He signed a deal with the company at the beginning of last year to appear in the latest iteration of its “Wild Rabbit” campaign, which finally comes to life with “The Ride.”

The 60-second spot channels Nas‘ own past with a re-worked version of the song “New York State of Mind” from his debut. Over Nas‘ recitation of the re-imagined lyrics he steps on a subway car and is seemingly transported back in time to the 80s, with time progressing over the course of the ad so that when he emerges from the car later, he is back in the present day. A newspaper headline reading “Panic on Wall Street” at one point signifies a transition to the modern era. It’s all very slick and stylish, with plenty of attention to detail lavished on the concept. The spot ends with Nas walking toward a stage after uttering the line “It was only right that I was born to use mics,” and the text “I tell the stories that need to be told” appearing onscreen, followed by the “What’s your Wild Rabbit?” tagline. (more…)

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The Martin Agency makes sacreligious use of Salt-N-Pepa’s iconic 90s hit “Push It” — as well as the group itself — in its latest spot for Geico.

The 30-second ad opens on a man trying to pull open a door that says “Push” on it. Soon Salt-N-Pepa show up behind him and break into “Push It” and the man walks in. Next we see the pair in an elevator (with Spinderella in the background), a Lamaze class, and at a football practice while performing the song. “If you’re salt and pepper, you tell people to push it. It’s what you do,” says a voiceover, in the campaign’s familiar formula. “If you want to save 15 percent or more on car insurance, you switch to Geico. It’s what you do.” The Martin Agency then manages to slip in a quick gag after the tagline.

The campaign, whose tagline feels like a response to Esurance’s “Insurance for the modern world” (with that company directly taking on Geico’s “15 percent or more “selling point in its advertising), seems like its running out of steam as its joke runs a bit thin, so bringing in an act nostalgic viewers will be pleased to see make sense. And Salt-N-Pepa’s presence certainly makes the ad more memorable, even if it can’t quite save the tired premise.  (more…)

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San Francisco-based agency Argonaut is launching the first-ever campaign for health and fitness-tracker brand Fitbit with a 60-second anthem ad entitled “It’s All Fit.”

The spot, which as directed by Daniel and Katine Mercadante, positions the Fitibit line as perfect for tracking your health during all kinds of physical activities, from weightlifting to ping-pong to hockey and skateboarding. It leans heavily on the soundtrack, a catchy tune sung by The Donnas lead singer Brett Anderson to drive the action, functioning almost as a Fitbit music video.

“It’s All Fit” breaks today and is supported by a print campaign The timing of the brand’s push into above-the-line marketing is not incidental. With steady growth since its launch in 2007, Fitbit has come to dominate its category with a 70 percent market share, and is rolling out three new products:  the Charge, the Charge HR and the Surge, described as the first-ever “fitness super watch.”

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In an attempt to boost holiday sales, GSD&M enlisted the services of one Weird Al Yankovic on behalf of the struggling Radio Shack.

The resurgent Yankovic, of course, just had the first number one album of his career with his fourteenth full-length, Mandatory Fun. Radioshack CMO Jennifer Warren cited Yankovic’s resurgent popularity and “cross generational appeal” in explaining the decision to enlist the King of Parody, telling MediaPost, “He’s had a resurgence, including a No. 1 album, and an appearance on the Grammies, as well as a recent tour of the talk shows.”

And, indeed, Yankovic has appeal from everyone from those introduced to the parodist in the eighties, to those of us who bought Bad Hair Day on compact dist in elementary school, to the kids just being introduced to him today through the music videos he released to promote the new album. But does GSD&M make it work?

Kind of. Yankovic’s quirky, nerdy charm is certainly on display in the ad, and Radio Shack could benefit from the association, but the spot stops short of fulfilling its comedic potential. When a customer asks if Radio Shack carries HeliQuads, Shack employee Yankovic bursts into song about how it is the perfect place for holidays toys for, boys, girls, and your cousin Bob who is 43 and lives at home. GSD&M worked from a script, collaborating with Yankovic from there, according to GSD&M President Marianne Malina. Given Yankovic’s distinct personality (which is what you got him for), it may have made more sense to just let him come up with his own ideas.

Interestingly, the ad will debut in cinemas, where viewers can use the Shazam app to download a longer version. The ad is part of GSD&M’s larger “Gift Smart” campaign as the agency continues to attempt to start conversations around the sinking Radio Shack brand. Recent efforts include the suggestive back-to-school campaign, which ruffled a few conservative feathers with its innuendo.

“Everything we’ve done together…is about getting buzz, and getting back into the conversation,” Warren told MediaPost. (more…)

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Craigslist might be best for making a couple bucks off that one-wheeled leopard-print bicycle your ex left behind, and it’s just that kind of random human curio that makes the classified site the inspiration for—and theme of—this new interactive music video created by 72andSunny’s in-house creative school 72U.

Set to the song “Catch a Break” by the group Superhuman Happiness (founded by Stuart Bogie, who’s played with the likes of Arcade Fire), the project’s website is designed to look like Craigslist, with sparse blue links. When clicked, they lead to various pop-ups—150 in total—emulating the kinds of posts found on the real Craigslist.

The point, according to the agency, is to capture the human experience, and illustrate how “all of your life—heartbreak, happiness and surplus appliances—can be contained in a message board like Craigslist.”

That might be a a stretch, but the fake ads at least do a pretty good job of capturing the often-weird spirit of the iconic site (if not the heights of glory and depths of shame found in its finest, most insane postings). The ads range from emo, to desperate, to pseudo-philosophical, to touching, to ridiculous, to name just a few.

Perhaps best (that is to say, most true to Craigslist form) is the legal category—one post, titled “Free Divorce Advice,” wonders “Where are all the almost single ladies at?” Another, titled “You pay I counsel,” reads, sic, “I just got paralegal very professional master certificate from university. I sue to make you feel so good. Forget about about wife, husband, car, work. Why worry? Relax time. It’s gonna be good. You pay in form of gold watch, expensive jewelry, deli meats, credit card, or traveler check. No American Express. NO AMERICAN EXPRESS.”

72U’s seven-person team created the website with a budget of less than $1,000, and the video will launch in a not-at-all-spammy way with 275 real Craigslist posts in 11 categories in 25 cities. Whether it fits the song, we’ll leave to you—the “Haiku” link pops up parts of the lyrics, pieced together after the jump.

And if you don’t have the patience to play with the interactive site (coded for Google Chrome), there’s a static demo version of the video below, which includes the obligatory strange geek salute: a GIF of a man humping a robot before they both explode under the header “When will humans be able to love machines?”—posted, naturally, in the biotech and science section.

LYRICS:
Landlord’s knocking, you know you ain’t catching a break today
You’ve grown tired of the bottle and you wish you could fake today
Your weak heart beats fast and you want to wait today
You replay the past trying to get it straight today
Let the water wash away
So you’ll leave right away
If you can’t catch a break
Look up all of a sudden they’re pulling the bait away
Because they love to collect while they always hate to pay
Osama can’t be the only one who prays
Drawing lines between our between our minds and yesterday
We need you right away
If you can take a break
La La La la [etc.]
Don’t you run away
You might catch a break
When you’re cast away
From your holiday
Keep your heart at bay
You might catch a break
You won’t run away
When you catch a break

Earlier this month, Droga5 released the spot “Car Wash” as part of its “Get A Taste” campaign for Diet Coke. Now the agency is rolling out a new 30-second ad starring Taylor Swift and a whole lot of kittens.

In the spot, entitled “Kittens,” Swift is playing with a kitten when she takes a sip of Diet Coke and all of a sudden there are two kittens. She takes another sip and there’s an entire table full of kittens, and before the end of the spot the entire room is filled as the singer/songwriter is engulfed in a swarm of feline cuteness. “What if life tasted as good as Diet Coke?” says text at the end of the ad, before Swift works in a quick plug for her new album. Since everyone with a soul likes kittens, this one is sure to be a hit. Add in Swift’s star power, and a preview of a new track featured exclusively in the ad until the release of her new album on October 27th, and this is all but guaranteed millions of views.

The ad was launched online today and will make its broadcast debut this Friday. As part of the campaign, Diet Coke is also giving fans a chance to win “concert tickets and a flyaway trip for two to an upcoming performance through iHeartRadio.com, RyanSeacrest.com and other sites.” The brand is also sponsoring Swift’s co-host appearance on “On Air with Ryan Seacrest” on October 30th, the first time a celebrity co-hosts the entire program as well as the first time it is presented by a single brand. (more…)

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Dutch agency Skipintro celebrates the relaunch of the famed Rijksmuseum in a new campaign that puts Dutch music center stage.

The campaign includes a 30-second broadcast version, and 60 and 90-second online versions, of an ad showcasing the Rijksmuseum as a place to appreciate all forms of Dutch culture. Instead of tacking on music at the end of the production process, director Mattias Schut brought creative production outfit The Ambassadors on board at the start of the process to compose a piece of music that was then performed by a group of Dutch musicians in the museum’s main public walkway as visitors appreciate the art of the Rijksmuseum and the music simultaneously.

“From a musical point of view, being involved from the start of the creative process enables you to lift the production in a way that would be impossible to create in such fine detail without having a close relationship with the director,” said Sebastiaan Roestenburg, founder and sound designer/composer, The Ambassadors. “It was vital to start by researching the required feel of the music, so that we could create something that would truly work as the starting point of the whole production.” (more…)

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Ogilvy & Mather New York teamed up with Miami sister shop David in a new campaign for Spotify entitled “#thatsongwhen.”

The campaign is built around the emotional impact of music and how songs become linked to certain life events and then trigger certain memories every time you heard them. In “Waterfalls,” for example, a man talks about TLC’s 90s hit and how he will always associate it with an unrequited crush from middle school whom he taped the song for. It’s a cute story, and one which many viewers will be able to relate to on some level, even if (like a lot of Spotify users) they have never actually used a cassette player.

Other spots in the campaign include a man walking out on a job he was just fired from to Whitesnake and a soundtrack to some good old-fashioned teen vandalism. Vine celebrities Vincent Marcus and Kenzie Nimmo get in on the action as well, through a campaign component on that platform. It’s a fun approach which makes a lot of sense for Spotify, and the campaign also includes a social extension via a hashtag people may actually feel compelled to use, (#thatsongwhen) since it offers a way for people to tell their own stories. The campaign just rolled out in the US and will expand to the UK and Germany, featuring localized content for each market.

“The realness of this campaign is the key point,” Adam Tucker, Ogilvy New York president, told Adweek. “We wanted to tap into the truth about music and it was really important to tap into real people and their feelings and the songs that inspire them.” (more…)

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