Hasta La Creative!

Brooklyn-based design agency HUSH, who recently created the ambitious “Beauty of Night” for Estée Lauder, crafted an interactive web experience for lifestyle brand Aerin’s expansion into fragrances.

The website invites users to explore videos of the fragrances and the way each of the fragrances was sparked from Aerin Lauder‘s memories and experiences. The longest of these, at 1:30, is the above introduction to the fragrance line, explaining the importance of fragrances in Aerin’s life and exploring the evocative nature of scent and its ability to transport people in time and space. It’s a well-produced vignette that introduces both the line’s philosophy and the individual fragrances, even if it’s pretty much what you’d expect for a fragrance line. Other videos on the site briefly examine the individual fragrances and their ingredients.

More out of the ordinary is that site users can create their own packaging or monograms, using images of berries, flowers, and other fragrance ingredients, and share them on social media for a chance to win $3,500 worth of Aerin products.

“We took a simple and elegant approach to exploring the world of fragrance. It can be a science-heavy subject, but driven by artistry and craft – in the same way that wine and food are both art and science,” explains HUSH creative partner David Schwarz. “We were interested in the artistic, emotional story behind these creations and gave consumers the opportunity to engage on multiple levels.” Stay tuned for credits after the jump.

Credits:

AERIN Fragrance Video
Director: Charlie Wan
Director of Photography: Luca Fantini
Director of Engagement: Dan Rodriguez
Hair & Make Up: Mari Shten
Director of Production: Gabe Banner
Line/Post Producer: Mateo Suarez
Producer: Sue McNamara
Editor: Duc Nguyen

AERIN Fragrance Site
Design Director: Keetra Dixon, Sarah Ancalmo
Producers: Mei-Ling Wong, Leonard Shek
Director of Engagement: Dan Rodriguez
Director of Production: Gabe Banner
Designers: Andrew Teoh, Erik Yang, Yvonne Romano, Christina Hogan, Pedro Sanches
Development: Matt Knight, Jonathan Keller
Copywriter: Jaclyn Marinese

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DDB Chicago continues bringing out the bizarre for Skittles in a new campaign complete with some perhaps unintended implications.

The new spot features a cloud named Freddie, who, when walked by an elderly woman “rains” Skittles after being pet. Now, the problem with portraying a product as something that comes out of a pet while being walked is…well, pretty obvious right? Okay, I get that Freddie is a cloud and that DDB has been doing strange stuff for Skittles for a while now, but you don’t want viewers asking, “Is that cloud pissing Skittles?” — a distinct possibility here. In the 30-second spot, “Cloud,” Freddie responds very differently when a curious onlooker attempts to pet him, ending with the spot-specific tagline “Pet The Rainbow. Taste The Rainbow.”

The campaign features two more 30-second adverts, each following the same oddball theme, with Freddie going to the vet and the groomers. Additionally, DDB Chicago teamed up with PR agency Olson to build a remote-controlled, Skittles-dispensing cloud. Built from the ground up, the cloud “features two unique dispensing functions and a variety of fun lighting and audio features.” It’s a high-tech evolution of The Rainbow team’s past Skittles-dispensing gifts like pinball machines and vending machines, and a pretty cool extension of the campaign (we’ll hear more about this later in the week). Stick around for credits and “Groomer” after the jump. continued…

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W+K Portland have launched an campaign for Old Spice’s new line of electric shavers and trimmers (price range: $50-80), and have enlisted the help of a familiar face to help launch the new products.

Current Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews, who helped introduce Old Spice Shave Gel last year with the spot “Baby”, returns to help market Old Spice’s foray into the shavers and trimmers world. The 45-second digital effort, “Get Shaved in the Face,” is reminiscent of Crews’ iconic work for the brand from years past, with a predictable amount of screaming and general mishigas. In the spot, Crews is in the process of shaving when a mini-crews realizes that he is a hair. As you might expect, things get pretty crazy by the conclusion of the spot, which you can watch for yourself above.

While the strategy might not have the shock value it did years ago, it makes a lot of sense to call on the iconic Crews for the introduction of a new product line. Among the products being introduced are: Old Spice Hair Clipper (“Like a lawn mower for your hair with 8 adjustable settings.”), Old Spice Beard and Head Trimmer, and Old Spice Shaver (“Like 3 smooth barbers for your face, this shaver features a triple-action cutting system with twin foils that shave off stubble and an integrated cutter that shortens longer hairs…”). Stay tuned for credits and a “Baby” refresher after the jump. continued…

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For the third consecutive year, Saatchi & Saatchi is launching a campaign for CoorDown in celebration of World Down Syndrome Day, which will occur on March 21st. The theme for this year’s World Down Syndrome Day is “the right to happiness and well-being of people with Down syndrome,” with the goal being to “promote a culture of diversity and true integration into society, especially in the worlds of school and work.”

Saatchi & Saatchi’s campaign was inspired by an email that an pregnant mother, expecting a child with Down’s syndrome, sent to CoorDown. “What kind of life will my child have?” the mother asks.

To respond to the expectant mother, and others like her, Saatchi & Saatchi filmed responses from 15 individuals with Down syndrome from across Europe, in their native languages. Through the CoorDown YouTube channel this group replies to the mother’s question, answering that her son can expect a happy life, just like theirs. “He’ll be able to hug you,” says one man; “He’ll be able to talk and tell you he loves you,” promises another girl. They explain that the woman can expect her son to go to school, and later get a job and be able to take her out to dinner on his salary. “Sometimes it will be difficult. Very difficult. Almost impossible.” the group admits, “But isn’t it like that for all mothers?” It’s a really touching video, and a perfect encapsulation of this year’s World Down Syndrome Day theme.

This year, CoorDown Onlus — Coordinator of the National Association of people with Down syndrome — will lead “an international project which includes ten associations from nine different countries: Italy, France, Spain, Croatia, Germany, England, Russia, United States and New Zealand.” The “Dear Future Mom” also has a social component, built around the official hashtag #DearFutureMom.

As mentioned, the campaign marks the third consecutive year Saatchi & Saatchi has teamed up with CoorDown. Their previous two campaigns met with tremendous success, including 11 Lions at the last two Cannes International Festivals of Creativity and a Grand Prix at ADCE. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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The newly Draft-less FCB worked with Canal+ to create a mockumentary on the famous “Wilhelm scream” entitled “The Woman Who Can’t Watch Movies.”

“The Wilhelm scream,” in case anyone needs a refresher, is the famous stock audio scream recorded by Sheb Wooley and named after the character Private Wilhelm in the 1953 western The Charge of the Feather River, although it was first used in the 1951 film Distant Drums. It saw a resurgence in popularity as a stock sound effect following its use in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It is now so ubiquitous (it has been dubbed in over 200 films) that it has become something of an in-joke, used in recent years in films by Pixar, the Lord of the Rings triology, and countless other movies. (There are rumors that directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino “maintain a bet as to who has used the “Wilhelm scream” more.”)

“The Woman Who Can’t Watch Movies” follows the (supposed) story of Sheb’s widow, Linda Dotson Wooley. Linda complains that she can’t watch movies anymore because she “just can’t bear to hear the sound of Sheb screaming out in pain over and over again.” After introducing Linda and her “condition” — a clever (although kind of sad) way to call attention to the sound effect’s ubiquity — the mockumentary introduces viewers to Canal+’s Scream Bank, “a catalog of donated screams for industry professionals to use in place of Sheb’s.” A few comically-off screams are then shown dubbed into a film, a great display of why the “Wilhelm Scream” has become such a well-worn cliche. The video is a teaser for Leave Wilhelm Alone, an upcoming documentary on the “Wilhelm scream.” Stick around for credits after the jump, and feel free to head on over to Canal+’s site and record a scream of your own. continued…

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IKEA is certainly no stranger to goofy promotional videos, and their latest centers around a cosplaying civil servant from Singapore named Frank.

Franks’s hobby is beginning to make life in his small apartment difficult. With “many costumes and lots of raw materials lying around,” there’s not room for much else in Frank’s room. So, in a stop-motion sequence featuring anime-tastic music, the IKEA crew comes in and cleans things up. Demonstrating IKEA’s storage solutions, all Frank’s costumes remain in his room, neatly stored away, and there’s room for him to, you know, walk around and stuff.

“Is this even my room?” Frank asks. As he walks around appreciating the transformation, the video highlights certain IKEA products responsible for the improvements, closing with the “Make Space Better” tagline. It’s a pretty clever way to show how IKEA’s storage solutions can transform a small space, although we suspect some may be turned off by the whole cosplay thing.

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In case you were wondering, here’s your new Moxie website, which, like Kevin Garnett implied when the Boston Celtics won the championship a few years back, “anything is possible.” From what we’ve been told, this marks a new site for the agency, which as you recall merged with Engauge last summer under the Publicis Groupe banner.

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Phoenix-based agency Riester teamed up with Backyard Productions to create “Farm,” a new spot for Voskos Greek Yogurt.

In addition to having the word “farm” in the title, Riester’s 30 second spot also has a similar (perhaps Chipotle-inspired) approach to Chobani’s “Farmland” spot. Like that ad, “Farm” emphasizes the natural ingredients they put in their Greek yogurt (in this case Voskos), while employing pastoral shots of cows and fresh fruit. Unlike the Chobani spot, “Farm” doesn’t spend time taking down the competition, instead launching into the brand’s virtues, via the cheery voiceover and footage of a girl picking fruit with her family and enjoying a cup of Voskos while sitting on a fence. It’s a slightly simpler tactic than Chobani’s, foregoing the takedown of competitors for more of an emphasis on wholesomeness. The brand’s “Happiness in Every Spoonful” tagline exemplifies the slight difference in approach — whereas Chobani takes a stab at competitors (while opening themselves up to scrutiny), Voskos just wants to let you know that their yogurt tastes good and will make you happy. Credits after the jump. continued…

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SuperHeroes Amsterdam just released a creepy online spot promoting LG’s new G Flex phone called “The Most Human Phone Ever.”

The 2 minute spot imagines the G Flex as a kind of second skin, which morphs into who you’re talking to. A guy named Dan is celebrating his birthday when he receives the phone as a gift. When the phone (which has blended with his hand) starts buzzing, he answers it to find it’s his buddy on vacation calling from the beach. He’s attacked by a crab which creates a cut in Dan’s hand (really weird, right?) that we see heal in a matter of seconds — a way of showing off the G Flex’s self healing back cover. Believe it or not, following a false ending, it actually gets creepier from here.

Rogier Vijverberg, creative director and founder of SuperHeroes, explains: “Our mission is to bring out the superpower in anyone and anything. How awesome would it be if your phone could morph into your body? You would never drop it down the toilet again for a start. It really excites us to work with such brave innovators as LG, who are not afraid to challenge the realms of possibility.”

Watch “The Most Human Phone Ever” above, at your own risk, and stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Dare Toronto teamed up with Penguin Books Canada to create a digital companion to Khaled Hosseini’s best selling novel And the Mountains Echoed, a project almost a year in the making.

Entitled “The Echo Project,” the site is a “a digital exploration of each of the 402 pages of the novel.” It’s an interesting proposition, and one that attracted many collaborators, including “contributions from Khaled Hosseini himself, magazine editors, TV & Radio personalities, producers, authors, painters and illustrators” — each of whom chose a page of the novel and either offered up ideas of what that page should look like on The Echo Project or told the team at Dare how the page made them feel and left it up to them to develop further. The pages represented on The Echo Project include a “unique assortment of interactive puzzles, motion graphics, videos, illustrations, audio and video that allow the reader to explore themes that are complimentary to the story, like references to history and culture.”

“We hoped it would evolve and take on a life of its own. And it has,” said Paul Little, Dare’s executive creative director. “The concept was a framework to allow any content that helped embellish, explain or express. And because of the range of content, it needed it to be flexible enough to allow for spontaneity and fan contribution.”

Dare Toronto and Penguin believe that The Echo Project “is a sign of how book publishers will evolve their launch strategies to offer different reading experiences for avid and casual book readers.” As André Louis, director of planning at Dare explains, “Avid book readers got to co-create and live a more immersive book experience; casual readers get the ‘DVD-extras’ that go along with the paperback. We’re leveraging avid Hosseini fans’ word of mouth to influence those who buy a few books a year in an attempt to sell more to casual readers.”

Dare and Penguin are no strangers to exploring the intersection of books and digital, having “created the MyFry app which allowed users to read British writer and actor Stephen Fry’s second autobiography in a non-linear, theme-based fashion via mobile” back in 2011. The Echo Project will be unveiled in its entirety and promoted in the paperback edition of And the Mountains Echoed scheduled for publication this June. For an idea of what to expect from The Echo Project, check out the video above, or head on over to the site for a more complete experience. Credits after the jump. continued…

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