Hasta La Creative!

W+K Portland debuted a new ad for Coca-Cola during the Oscars on Sunday, entitled “A Generous World.”

The 60-second ad, the latest in Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” campaign, follows a series of unfortunate events. It opens on a man buying a Coke when he sees a woman break a guitar string and decides she needs it more than he does. She’s about to sip the bottle when she sees an elderly nun whose car is being towed and gives the Coke to her. From here, the Coke keeps making the rounds from one person to the next. As each is about to sip the drink, they see someone who has suffered a worse misfortune than they have and decide to give it to them instead. It’s very much in line with the “Open Happiness” mood of promoting happiness and positivity, although the premise wears a bit thin by the end of 60 seconds after so much repetition. The broadcast spot ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, and Coca-Cola invited fans to submit their own ideas for endings before finally revealing their own (see below).

Thanks to all the screen-writers and guessers out there. Ready to see who gets the Coke next? #AndTheCokeGoesTo… https://t.co/TQa3pKOodQ

— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) February 23, 2015

Credits:

Client: The Coca-Cola Company
Spot: “Generous World”

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Hal Curtis / Jeff Gillette / Antony Goldstein
Copywriter: Neil Ramanan
Art Director: Gianmaria Schonlieb
Producer: Jennifer Hundis
Account Team: Brian Mead
Business Affaires: Teresa Lutz
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples / Mark Fizloff
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Dante Ariola
Head of Production: Scott Howard
Line Producer: Natalie Hill
Director of Photography: Philippe Le Sound

Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Adam Pertofsky
Assistant Editor: Marjorie Sacks
Post Producer: Shada Shariatzadeh
Post Executive Producer: Angela Dorian

Final Online & Effects: The Mill, Chris Harlow
Color Correction : Company 3, Stefan Sonnenfield

Music Company: We Are Walker
Executive Producer : Sara Matarazzo

Audio Post and Sound Design Company: Eleven Sound, Jeff Payne

American Express tells four heartfelt stories of celebrity struggle, and ultimate success, in these spots from Oglivy & Mather. The ads—featuring queen of soul Aretha Franklin, sitcom star Mindy Kaling, GoPro founder Nick Woodman and restauranteur Natalie Young—aired in edited form during Sunday’s Academy Awards on ABC.

The stars, all AmEx customers, recall how they battled adversity. Franklin vanquished youthful shyness and insecurity to become a dynamic stage performer. Kaling overcame typecasting, refusing to play second-banana roles—”best friends” and such—as she climbed the ladder in Hollywood. Woodman reinvented himself from scratch, even moving in with his parents, after his first business failed and he lost $4 million of investors’ money.

Young’s tale of addiction is the most intense. “Everything that was good, was gone,” she says in a sobering voiceover. “I lost my family. I lost friends, lovers, jobs. … I took any job I could get. I trimmed trees. I washed cars. I just felt like a number. I didn’t feel like I was important, and that I was irreplaceable. And they made sure I knew that, that I felt like that. I know, today, that I don’t want anybody that works with me to feel that way.”

At the end of each spot, AmEx tries to forge a connection between endorsers, viewers and the company’s offerings. For example, during Young’s story, text flashes on screen: “To the next generation of late bloomers, welcome.” Kaling’s ad mentions “the next generation of unlikely leading ladies.” Ultimately, AmEx reminds us that “The journey never stops,” positioning its products and services as helpful tools to have along the way.

“People think we’re just a brand of when you quote, unquote ‘arrive,’ ” Marie Devlin, AmEx’s svp of global advertising, tells The Wall Street Journal. “We very much want to be with people along their journey through life. It’s not about a final destination.”

That strategy is fairly well implemented here. The spots look great, and the storytelling is first rate. It’s compelling, inspirational stuff, perhaps even refreshing and unexpected for the brand and the category.

Still, there’s a disconnect. There’s no evidence, nor even a suggestion, that AmEx helped them achieve stardom—or anything, actually, so the value proposition remains elusive. OK, they carry AmEx cards in their wallets. With all due respect: So what? (At least the campaign’s main social component—asking users to tweet in return for AmEx’s financial support of a documentary about ballerina Misty Copeland—displays some cause and effect.)

The whole initiative would be stronger if it focused on famous folks who scored major life victories precisely because, at pivotal points in their development, they used AmEx, and the company’s services pulled them through. That would give the campaign an extra layer of integrity, and perhaps deter those who would point out that charge cards—often misused in times of desperation—can bring people’s journeys to a crashing halt.

Last year, Samsung grabbed attention at the Oscars with a certain celebrity selfie. This year, 72andSunny mostly promoted Samsung’s other hardware — specifically its SUHD TVs, tablets and Gear VR virtual reality headset.

Comedy Central’s Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele (of Key & Peele) appear in “The Best TV Deserves the Best TV” in which they are amongst a cast of people talking about their favorite shows and movies. The comedic duo, it turns out, have an idea of their own for “the greatest show of all time ”  — Found, which is just one episode. They throw out some other ideas in the 90-second ad, such as Zombees and Night Club Court, and their appearance has the feeling of some of the more open-ended, seemingly improvisational segments on their show used to fill in space between sketches. Without Key and Peele, the spot would feel like just another ad celebrating film and TV to promote a high definition television, but they help elevate it to something a little more worthwhile.

“Movie Magic,” the other spot Samsung ran during the award ceremony is more typical Oscar ad fare. After a couple sees a movie together, a woman decides she’s going to make a movie that will “kick that movie’s movie butt” and the remainder of the ad focuses on her creative process, while highlighting several Samsung devices she uses. While not without its charm, the basic premise is commonplace enough that Apple released something fairly similar, showing how their devices could be used by aspiring filmmakers, and it drags on at 90 seconds.

Everyone and their personal brand logged on to social media on Sunday night to let their followers know how much better they are than movie stars. Meanwhile, actual brands spent the night unabashedly making it all about themselves—instead of throwing shade on celebs.

Some tried to have a real-time-marketing-moment, but among the flurry of thematic entries, most seemed pre-planned. Check out some of their efforts below.

 
—From the red carpet:

No #ManiCam? We can’t be THAT intimidating. #AndTheLobsterGoesTo pic.twitter.com/KmiW3lIa0V

— Red Lobster (@redlobster) February 23, 2015

We think @Logitech has what it takes to really click on the red carpet. #GearLove pic.twitter.com/PkhV6UEzKE

— Office Depot (@officedepot) February 22, 2015

A designer loaned me an outfit for #OscarsRedCarpet too. By designer I mean “hotel” And by outfit I mean “bathrobe” pic.twitter.com/DXNY9VjM8Y

— Travelocity Gnome (@RoamingGnome) February 23, 2015

 
—Lots of brands paid homage to Ellen’s epic group selfie from last year:

The award for best supporting actor in a selfie goes to…the stick. #RedCarpet #PlayWithOreo http://t.co/zIl1IyN9nd pic.twitter.com/iX8nhhNRmQ

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 22, 2015

Who’s ready for another epic #selfie? #Oscars pic.twitter.com/gVAC8zvr3k

— Coors Light (@CoorsLight) February 22, 2015

Throwback to last year’s awards show! pic.twitter.com/kgf4Mt3L8i

— SUBWAY® (@SUBWAY) February 22, 2015

 
—Farmers Insurance and M&M’s were both thrilled by J.K. Simmons’ win, as he endorses both brands (he’s the voice of the Yellow M&M):

It’s Oscar gold for #JKSimmons! Congrats on snagging Best Supporting Actor for an amazing performance in Whiplash. #BumBuDumBumBumBumBum

— Farmers Insurance (@WeAreFarmers) February 23, 2015

CONGRATS! #JKSimmons I’m speechless. Never mind. Found one. – Your #1 Fan Yellow pic.twitter.com/urGOB98b1W

— M&M’S® Brand (@mmschocolate) February 23, 2015

 
—PetSmart scored with this real-time tweet, after Birdman won Best Original Screenplay and one of the winners thanked his dog Larry:

You always make time to thank your family. #LarryTheDog #Oscars #PetParenthood pic.twitter.com/lcrvfHuxD3

— PetSmart (@PetSmart) February 23, 2015

 
—So many versions of the Oscar trophy, too:

#EverythingIsAwesome at the #Oscars! pic.twitter.com/A7HzK7FOGG

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) February 23, 2015

Even Oscar has the confidence to leave his at home. #GoCommando #Oscars2015 pic.twitter.com/AJkJdrpRMV

— Cottonelle (@cottonelle) February 23, 2015

And the O-ward for Best Came-O goes to… #FingersCrossed pic.twitter.com/H9uPttcnm2

— SpaghettiOs (@SpaghettiOs) February 23, 2015

Everyone’s all like “The #Oscars is on” and I’m all like “What am I gonna eat during the #Oscars” pic.twitter.com/7eVuaddFlD

— Jimmy John’s (@jimmyjohns) February 23, 2015

wow omg thank you I’m so surprised first I’d like to thank my mom, she’s an oven, and my dad, he’s a freezer. pic.twitter.com/orwBCCeYK3

— Pete Zaroll (@totinos) February 23, 2015

 
—One brand even paid homage to the Emmy trophy, for some reason:

I’d like to thank the burger academy. It’s an honor just to be NOM-inated. pic.twitter.com/yFYoDAmLME

— Jack in the Box (@JackBox) February 23, 2015

 
—Among the best of the rest:

Film editing is the crust. Sauce is like visual effects & cheese is sound edit COME ON GUYS JUST TRYING TO MAKE THESE CATEGORIES INTERESTING

— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) February 23, 2015

One of his wingmen is an actual bird. #BestOriginalScreenplay

— Dos Equis (@DosEquis) February 23, 2015

ok but how many awards will this tasty hit win? pic.twitter.com/mRXFtb3dfE

— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) February 23, 2015

The Oscars are just around the corner, so now’s as good a time as any to start amping yourself up by revisiting past highlights. And the show’s producers, with help from 180LA, are making it easy to get a quick fix with the four new ads below, cut together by Oscar-winning editor Kirk Baxter.

The first, “And the Oscar Goes to,” features a parade of stars—too many to name, though movie buffs might have a fun time trying to rattle them all off—doing their best victory dances. Their exuberance is pretty moving, even if it’s plenty vain, too.

A second, “Holding Oscars,” features the campaign’s most poignant moment—one second of Robin Williams looking around in breathless gratitude, a genuine scene that makes the loss of such a talent sting all the more in hindsight.

The third spot, a multilingual Kumbaya “Everyone Speaks Oscar,” can’t help but be a bit corny. (Sure, movies are a universal language, sort of, but really, where would most of us be without subtitles?) Still, the Academy deserves a nod in the Best Lie category for trying to pretend Hollywood isn’t a U.S.-dominated enterprise, and implying the winners are an ethnically diverse bunch—when in fact they’re mostly white.

The fourth ad, a Valentine’s spot featuring the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Tom Hanks kissing their wives at the show, is cute enough, set to the fairly obscure but anachronistically charming sounds of “Am I in Love” from 1952’s Son of Paleface, performed by Bob Hope and Jane Russell.

For good measure, 180LA also commissioned a series of 15 posters featuring the Oscar statue alongside various artists interpretations of imagination (a popular theme in ads because it’s hard to hate).

The results feature a number of nods to the award show’s roots in the Art Deco era, but the standouts are really the weirder takes—like Hattie Stewart’s leering, winking cartoon hearts, and Blastto’s surrealist eyeball sculpture. Because if those aren’t apt metaphors for America’s unhealthy obsession with celebrity, what is?

CREDITS
Client: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
President: Cheryl Boone Isaacs
Chief Executive Officer: Dawn Hudson
Chief Marketing Officer: Christina Kounelias
Marketing Manager: Ford Oelman

Agency: 180LA
Chief Creative Officer: William Gelner
Creative Directors: Zac Ryder / Adam Groves
Copywriter: Christina Semak
Art Director: Karine Grigorian
Head of Production: Natasha Wellesley
Producer: Nili Zadok
Chief Marketing Officer: Stephen Larkin
Account Manager: Jessica DeLillo
Account Coordinator: Alexandra Conti
Planner: Jason Knight

Editorial _ HOLDING / GOES TO / VDAY
Editorial Company: Exile Edit
Editor: Nate Gross (HOLDING)
Editor: Will Butler (VDAY & GOES TO)
Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver
Producer: Brittany Carson

Editorial _ FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Editor: Dave Groseclose (Foreign Language)
Producer: Brian Scharwath (Foreign Language)

Color/VFX/Finishing: The Mill LA
Colorist: Adam Scott
Color Executive Producer: Thatcher Peterson
Color Producers: Natalie Westerfield, Antonio Hardy
Color Coordinator: Diane Valera
Lead 2D Artist: Robin McGloin
Additional 2D Artists: Scott Johnson
Art Department: Jeff Langlois, Laurence Konishi
Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
VFX Producer: Kiana Bicoy
VFX Coordinator: Jillian Lynes

Recording Mix
Recording Studio: Eleven Sound
Date: Various
Mixer: Scott Burns
Asst Mixer: AJ Murillo
Producer: Dawn Redmann
Executive Producer: Suzanne Hollingshead

If it's starting to feel like you'll never be able to escape that Oscars selfie, just imagine working at Twitter headquarters, where it's now an official piece of office art.

Twitter employee Lauren Mitcheom tweeted the photo above last night with a personalized note to Ellen DeGeneres: "Hey, @TheEllenShow! We painted a picture of you at Twitter HQ. Come take a #selfie with us!"

Appearing in the photo are fellow Twitter employees Liz Fiandaca and Genevieve Wong. We've reached out to Twitter to learn more about who created the painting (which I'm sure is going to fly right to the top of their list of media calls to return today). But for now, we're just going to assume, as we do with all things, that Samsung was behind it.

Pour Vanity Fair, le photographe américain Mark Seliger a fait de jolis portraits des célébrités présentes lors de la cérémonie des Oscars 2014. Après la cérémonie, Bill Murray, Samuel Lee Jackson, Naomi Watts, Judd Apatow et d’autres personnalités se sont réunis pour un shooting glamour.

Bill Murray.

Lupita Nyong’o.

Sienna Miller.

Zooey Deschanel.

Neil Patrick Harris.

Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow.

Naomi Watts.

Paul Rudd and Adam Scott.

Reese Witherspoon.

Sofia Vergara.

Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson.

Conan O’Brien.

Allison Williams.

Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo.

Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeld.

Kerry Washington.

Lady Gaga, Nolan Funk and Donatella Versace.

Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak.

Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres.

Samuel Lee Jackson.

Selena Gomez.

Chobani debuted the new spot “Farmland” (presumably from Droga5) during the Oscars Sunday night.

The new, 60-second spot takes on competitors who use artificial ingredients in their 100 calorie yogurts. “Farmland” opens on men in white coats plucking brightly colored test tubes from a tree and dumping a bucket of something (probably artificial sweeteners) into an artificial cow. “Most 100 calorie yogurts are made with artificial ingredients and sweeteners,” intones the voiceover. The camera then follows the flight of a butterfly to show how things are done differently over at Chobani. “You know a cup of yogurt won’t change the world, but how we make it might,” says a Chobani farmer, followed by the product introduction for Chobani Simply 100 and the “How Matters” tagline.

Chobani, already the nation’s largest seller of Greek yogurt, could attract even more attention from increasingly health-conscious shoppers with their new product, so pushing the “healthier alternative” angle makes a lot of sense for the company. The “How Matters” tagline seems a great encapsulation of the strategy, so long as audiences don’t consider all its implications. However, calling attention to the yogurt making process could bring increased scrutiny to Chobani for their sourcing of GMO cattle feed, something that could lead to more savvy customers picking up smaler, non-GMO brands. But that’s apparently a gamble Chobani is willing to make, and one that’s still likely to pay off with all but the most informed consumers.

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How calming is Lipton tea? You'll be at peace even amid the animals (actually, make that the Animals) of New York City.

In this new spot from London agency adam&eveDDB, our reluctant hero Kermit T. Frog sips a cup of Lipton tea (which may or may not be laced with opium) and is suddenly able to cope with a city full of Animal clones reminiscent of a John Malkovich daymare.

The grouchy street-meat vendors, insane cab drivers and slack-jawed tourists who riddle Mayor Bill de Blasio's New York would rattle the average frog, but Kermit stays cool and collected. All he has to do is "Be more tea."

A 60-second version of the spot, which also promotes the upcoming Muppets Most Wanted movie, out March 21, breaks Sunday on the Oscars.

Siltanen & Partners have released a follow up to Coldwell Banker’s GRAMMY “Home Sweet Home” spot called “Your Home,” which will debut during the Oscars this Sunday.

The new spot is the latest in Coldwell Banker’s #HomeRocks campaign, and will mark the third straight year the company has worked with Tom Selleck, who lends his recognizable voice to the 60 second ad. “Your Home” is in much the same vein as the campaign’s previous work, emphasizing the sentimental attachments people make to the places they live and tying it to the brand with the “Where home begins” tagline. While a continuation of Coldwell Banker’s second annual awards season campaign rollout, this particular spot was also strategically timed for this year’s Oscars.

“The Oscars are perfectly timed to reach consumers with our message of how home plays a role in the story of our lives while also aligning with the spring homebuying and selling season,” explains Sean Blankenship, senior vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker. “It’s also fitting that the Oscars will pay homage to the 75^th anniversary of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and Judy Garland’s classic line, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

Selleck, as you may remember, has deeply rooted ties to the company. “When I was four, my father put the Sellecks in the family car and left Detroit for Southern California to pursue a career in real estate. He worked for Coldwell Banker for 38 years, retiring as an Executive Vice President. Over that period, my two brothers and sisters were with Coldwell Banker, as well. I was the one exception. I’m proud to say that I’m now part of the family business, ” said the man once known as Magnum PI.

As part of the campaign leading up to the new spot, voters on Coldwell Banker’s Blue Matter blog voted Apollo 13 as having the best homecoming scene in movie history, beating out the likes of The Wizard of Oz, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Home Alone, which finished dead last. Keep an eye out for the new “Your Home” spot during the Oscars this Sunday, and stick around for brief credits after the jump. continued…

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