Hasta La Creative!

180 Amsterdam puts Replay’s Hyperflex jeans to the test in a new online video demonstrating the elasticity of the brand’s newest offering.

In the ad, which stars Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio and features FC Barcelona players (including Neymar), Ambrosio’s alter ego — Doctor Ambrosio — conducts a series of tests designed to highlight the Hyperflex’s elasticity. The pants are put through such “modern lifestyle tests” as twerking, playing soccer, hip hop dancing, and some more twerking for good measure, ending with the tagline “Stretch your limits.” The 90-second online spot is certainly on the goofy side, but it does demonstrate the Hyperflex’s stretching capacity well, and it has the star power to generate a lot of views. In addition to the online spot, the campaign also includes print and OOH components.

“Replay’s Hyperflex is a revolution in denim,” said Al Moseley, president and chief creative officer, 180 Amsterdam. “Our task was to stretch it to the limits. The tests we put it through were extraordinary. The outcome, as people will see, is truly remarkable.” (more…)

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Droga5 enlisted the services of “writer, comedian and vagina owner” Sarah Silverman for a new spot addressing the wage gap for National Women’s Law Center.

Silverman introduces viewers to the wage gap issue, pointing out that over the course of their lives women pay a “$500,000 vagina tax,” before informing viewers that she’s becoming a man, since the operation is actually cheaper than dealing with a lifetime of income disparity. She then introduces National Women’s Law Center’s crowdfunding effort to raise the trillions of dollars American women are cheated out of by gender inequality in the workplace, to be payed back to each of them. Since the goal is basically unreachable, it actually serves as a fund raiser for National Women’s Law Center’s efforts, since they receive the money as a donation if (when) the goal isn’t reached. The video ends by directing viewers to EqualPaybackProject.com, which goes live today to inform visitors about the gender gap and accepts donations to the crowdfunding effort. It’s a clever approach, addressing the absurdity of the issue in a way people are sure to remember.

“Equal pay may not be a sexy issue, but it’s an important one,” Casey Rand, Droga5 creative director, told Adweek. “And it is absurd. Young women need to know what’s at stake. And we knew that to get them to engage, we’d need to play up that absurdity.” (more…)

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Havas Worldwide Strat Farm has a new campaign celebrating EmblemHealth’s “Legacy of Care.”

In the 60-second “Our Legacy of Care” the agency blends vintage and modern footage of New York City to show that EmblemHealth is still doing what it has been doing since its inception as GHI and HIP: “setting a national standard with neighborhood care.” The spot ends with the “What Care Feels Like” tagline, an idea expanded upon in the campaign’s other ads. “What Care Feels Like for the Dawson Family” and “What Care Feels Like for the Martinez Family” (both featured after the jump) explore the stories of real families who have stayed with Emblem for generations. The campaign launched yesterday with broadcast spots, subway ads and social components, and expands to paid digital on the 13th. (more…)

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TBWA/Chiat Day, LA has a new series of online spots in their ongoing campaign promoting Jimmy Dean’s new lunch and dinner offerings.

Some wondered, when Jimmy Dean announced the move into the instant lunch/dinner market, whether the brand would retain its recognizable sun character due to its association with the morning. But the brand is leaning on its mascot as much as ever, explaining its continued presence with a new series of online spots tracking him on characters across the country and throughout the day.

In “Slow Roast Shuffle” (featured above), he’s dancing up a storm while promoting Jimmy Dean Pulled Pork. Things get over-the-top pretty quickly and his dance partner can’t exactly keep up, as TBWA/Chiat Day stretch the character into some cartoonish territory. Other spots are slightly more down-to-earth, with the sun dropping change into parking meters, giving out free lunch at baggage claim in an airport and riding off into the sunset. All the videos are hosted on a website where you can also track the sun’s progress on the “Sunniest Day,” which Jimmy Dean says was yesterday.

Despite TBWA’s best efforts, the character, so long associated with breakfast, seems a little out of place in these scenarios (and past the AM). With time we’ll see if these are just growing pains or if the character continues to feel awkward promoting meals past breakfast. (more…)

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TBWA Media Arts Lab has launched a star-studded campaign for Conservation International, entitled “Nature is Speaking,” which employs celebrities as elements of nature delivering the message that environmental reform is an immediate concern.

Star voices include Julia Roberts as Mother Nature, Harrison Ford as The Ocean, Kevin Spacey as The Rainforest, Edward Norton as The Soil, Penelope Cruz as Water and Robert Redford as The Redwood. The campaign debuted at SXSW Eco and rolled out yesterday on YouTube, with the Mother Nature film highlighted on www.conservation.org. That nearly two-minute video functions as the campaign’s center point and introduction. Roberts, as Mother Nature, casts aside the notion that nature is something separate from people to be used. “I don’t really need people, but people need me,” Roberts intones over footage of natural marvels (bonus points for time-lapse footage of oyster mushrooms growing). She goes on to point out how the fate of humans is linked to nature. “When I thrive, you thrive,” she says. “When I falter, you falter — or worse.” She concludes, “One way or another, your actions will determine your fate. Not mine…I am prepared to evolve, are you?” It’s a powerful message, hammering home the immediacy of the issue with emotion.

It also functions as something of a rebranding for the environmental movement. As Dr. M. Sanjayan, Conservation International’s executive vice president and senior scientist points out in a press release, “The environmental movement has missed the mark when talking about nature because it tends to present nature as something that is separate from people. By making it clear that people need nature to survive, we are turning the conversation around and making the movement relevant to entirely new audiences.”

As the campaign continues, Conservation Internation will highlight a different film each week on www.conservation.org, with an accompanying post on its Human Nature blog. Next week will focus on The Ocean (voiced by Vice Chairman of Conservation International Harrison Ford), followed by The Rainforest (voiced by Spacey) and The Soil (Norton). We’ve included Ford and Spacey’s contributions after the jump. The campaign also includes a social extension, with HP promising to donate one dollar to Conservation International, up to one million, for every use of the #NatureIsSpeaking hashtag. (more…)

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Tribal Worldwide has a new campaign discouraging teen cough syrup abuse on behalf of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.

Rather than take a typical scare-tactic approach, Tribal Worldwide instead decided to make a fun game. The game, entitled “DXM Labworks” lets players get a robot all messed up on DXM (the psychoactive ingredient, dextromethorphan, in some cough syrups) and see what the effects are like (spoiler alert: the robot pukes a lot). Billing the app as “your chance to see the effects of abusing DXM without trying it yourself,” the idea is that teens will try out the game and see an unglamorous portrayal of the effects of the drug.

“It’s not a sexy drug –- there’s loss of motor control, slurred speech and, of course, the uncontrollable puking,” Kinney Edwards, executive creative director at Tribal, explained to Mashable. “Social disapproval really matters to teens, and they can see first-hand how embarrassing and not cool this is.”

The campaign is mostly aimed at “on the fence” teens, those who are considering experimenting with the drug and perhaps researching its effects online. By presenting them with a game that simulates the effects of the drug, Tribal hopes the teens will make the judgement that DXM’s negative effects are not something they want to experience. The agency decided that teens easily dismiss PSAs but that they might be more receptive to a fun, mobile game. And what’s not fun about a robot puking?

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Ogilvy Paris has a new online spot for Dove examining how mothers’ insecurities about their bodies carries on to their daughters.

For the spot, Ogilvy Paris asked mothers to fill out a survey asking what they did and didn’t like about their own bodies. Then, they had their daughters fill out the same survey, which, unsurprisingly, contained many of the same answers. When the mothers were then presented with their daughters’ surveys, they realized how they were passing down their feelings about their bodies, both positive and negative, to their daughters and resolved to be more confident and happy with themselves.

“Whether a mother, aunt, coach, teacher or sister, all women can set a positive example for the next generation by expressing their own beauty with confidence,” Jennifer Bremner, director of marketing at Dove, told Adweek. “Dove has long been dedicated to fostering positive self-esteem in women and girls, and we invite all women to join us in making a difference to the next generation by ensuring their own beauty legacy is a positive one.”

Ogilvy has made Dove synonymous with empowerment through its advertising celebrating different ideas of feminine beauty, winning accolades for the viral “Real Beauty Sketches.” While the more recent “Patches” was criticized by some as condescending and inauthentic, even receiving its own parody, “Legacy” marks a nice return to form, with its positive message reminiscent of the success of “Real Beauty Sketches.” The spot, which was uploaded today, will have an uphill battle to reach the same level of viral success as that ad, but its shareability all but ensures it will reach millions of views before long.

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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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McCann Paris has a provocative new take on the breast cancer awareness PSA, launching the world’s first (according to them) “Bra Cam,” to remind women to check for breast cancer.

At the beginning of the spot, a woman fastens a hidden camera to her bra before heading out for the day in a somewhat revealing (but still plenty safe for work) outfit. The ad then brings up a counter recording each time her breasts are “checked out” over the course of the day. It’s an attention grabbing way to deliver a pretty clear message: Everyone else is checking out your breasts, so check them out yourself and self-examine regularly for breast cancer. The campaign comes complete with a social initiative asking women to post a #CheckYourSelfie, checking themselves out and inviting friends to do the same in an effort to raise breast cancer awareness and get more women to self examine regularly. (more…)

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W+K Portland got Richard Sherman to star in its new spot “Never Finished” for Nike, following on the heels of Sherman’s recent appearances for Neff earlier this month and Campbell’s in August.

The new spot deals with the hype train surrounding Sherman, as he is constantly bombarded with media discussions of whether or not he is “the best.” “Never Finished” does a good job at finding humor in the situation, aided by a believably exasperated Sherman. The highlight is probably the made for TV biopic, starring Damon Wayans Jr.

Sherman’s roles in ads so far have mostly seen the Seahawks star not taking himself seriously and playing with his public persona. That definitely continues with “Never Finished,” but the schtick is much less over the top than some of his past roles, and the more nuanced characterization fits Sherman well as the spot, more than anything, mocks the media hype that surrounds star players. It makes for an entertaining ad, and Sherman’s most enjoyable performance by far.

The campaign, which runs until October 9th, also includes five additional videos, with special cameos from Johnny Manziel, Victor Cruz, Ndamukong Suh and Ken Griffey Jr.
(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.