Montreal agency lg2 found a goofy but practical use for all the snow this winter—it made it look like dandruff gone berkserk on outdoor ads for Selsun Blue. Pity the fool who had shoveling duty on this project, though.
"Dandruff flakes typically occur in winter," the agency says, "due to the use of heating sources such as electricity. Selsun Blue and lg2 thus decided to launch an offensive at a time when people are most in need of dandruff-fighting shampoo."
The headline, "Quand les pellicules vous prennent par surprise," translates to, "When flakes take you by surprise." Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Sanofi – Selsun Blue Agency: lg2, Montreal Creative Director: Marc Fortin Creative Team: Mathieu Dufour, Marie-Ève Leclerc-Dion Account Services: Julie Simon, David Legendre, Safia Dodard Print Production: lg2fabrique Media: Publicité Sauvage
This fun digital subway ad in Sweden for hair-care products was rigged up to recognize when trains entered the station—and then showed a woman's hair blowing all around, as though windswept by the train. It's a simple, delightful effect—playful, responsive and seemingly magical in the way it erases the line between ad and environment.
Ad agency Akestam Holst and production company Stopp produced the ad for Apotek Hjärtat's Apolosophy products. Stopp in Stockholm says the ad was scheduled to be just a one-day stunt. But Clear Channel loved it so much that they kept it live for five more days "as a way for them to show the opportunities their screens can offer."
Outdoor ad geeks, here's your latest bit of brilliance, courtesy of Ikea.
German ad agency Thjnk and production studio I Made This teamed up to create Ikea's "RGB billboard," which—much like Ikea furniture itself—makes the most of some very limited space.
The board features three different headlines superimposed on each other in different colors—cyan, magenta and yellow. At night, the board shines red, green and blue (RGB) lightbulbs on the board, revealing, in turn, the different headlines. Red bulbs illuminate the cyan text; green lights up magenta; and the blue-purple lights make yellow visible.
And that's how you turn nine square meters of ad space into 27 square meters.
It's a delightful little visual trick that embodies Ikea's space-saving message. Now, if only it worked a little better during the day.
If you saw a boy without a coat shivering alone at a bus stop, would you ask if he needed help? Would you lend him your gloves, scarf or jacket?
Commuters do just that for 11-year-old Johannes in this hidden-camera video from SOS Children's Villages Norway, which is seeking to raise awareness and funds to help Syrian children in need. "The goal was to touch upon the fear of becoming numb to crises that don't affect you directly," SOS rep Synne Rønning tells AdFreak.
In the film, shot over several hours on two freezing days in Oslo, the young actor tells adults that his jacket was stolen during a school trip to the city. "We were touched by the many people that got involved, and risked getting cold so Johannes could stay warm," says Rønning, adding that only three of the 25 or so people who shared the bus stop with him didn't try to help.
Indeed, it's moving to see commuters give him their coats and mufflers, especially when it leaves them in short sleeves on a winter day. "We were quite surprised as to what extent people would try to help the boy in trouble," says Rønning. "The campaign has worked as an eye opener—people who watch the campaign ask themselves: What would I do?"
The video, produced by Släger Kommunikasjon and Pure Content, doesn't explicitly address one significant issue—that you're more likely to help someone right in front of you than someone far away whose pain is more abstract. But it does memorably imply that really shouldn't matter.
Plus, it exudes genuine warmth, and that's something sorely missing from most over-the-top hidden-camera ad stunts.
We've seen this marketing stunt countless times: Big brand dips into its deep pockets to give some hardworking, deserving, photogenic youngsters a new playground or a concert or a trip to Toys R Us. But this well-worn tactic can still wield some power.
This time, it's Gatorade, with a cameo from Dwyane Wade, giving an extreme makeover to a high school basketball team's locker room in New Orleans. The Riverdale Rebels, it seems, haven't had a very good run in the past few decades. Now, though, the scrappy, close-knit team (mantras: "I got your back!" and "Family!") are heading to the playoffs for the first time in 20 years. Gatorade, in what looks to be the final two quarters of a recent Rebels win, replaced busted metal lockers and bare-bones facilities with NBA-quality digs.
The effort, dubbed "We Are All-Stars," from ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles, broke Monday, timed to the NBA's All-Star weekend. The reaction from the teenage ballers to their new locker room and a visit from D-Wade? It's as sweet as a fruit punch-flavored sports drink. Go ahead and enjoy it.
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Gatorade Senior Director, Communications: Molly Carter Director, Branded Entertainment: Jill Kinney Manager, Branded Entertainment: Nancy Laroche Senior Manager, Communications: Noah Gold Director, Sports Marketing: Jeff Chieng Assistant Manager, Global Sports Marketing: Eduardo Gomez Senior Manager, Digital Marketing: Abhishek Jadon Assistant Manager, Digital Marketing: Nicki Granadier
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles Chief Creative Officer: John Norman Executive Creative Director: Brent Anderson Creative Directors: Renato Fernandez, Gustavo Sarkis Associate Creative Director Guto Araki Art Director: Tiffany Lam Associate Creative Director: Doug Menezes Copywriter: Scott Reedy Executive Producer: Sarah Patterson Producer: Alicia Portner Executive Project Manager: Karen Thomas Account Supervisor: Kyle Webster Account Executive: Ralph Lee Group Planning Director: Scott MacMaster Planning Director: Martin Ramos Managing Director: Peter Ravailhe Group Account Director: Blake Crosbie Account Manager: Marc Johns Executive Business Affairs Manager: Lisa Lipman Broadcast Traffic: Jerry Neill
Production Company: Bandito Brothers Director: Jacob Rosenberg Executive Producer: Suzanne Hargrove Producer: Cassidy Lunnen Art Director: John Gathright Director of Photography: Laura Merians
Controversial ministry Abba's Delight has put up a billboard in Louisville, Ky., that targets "people of faith who are uncomfortable with their same-sex attractions."
Abba's Delight founder Daniel Mingo says the billboard, which tells unhappy gay people that "you have options," was intended to be a helpful message, so he was taken aback by the negative feedback he's gotten. Gay reform ministries are quackery to begin with, but they usually aren't this passive-aggressive. Abba's Delight is still denouncing homosexuality and claiming it's incompatible with religious faith, but if gay people are happy being sinful and wrong, this ministry seems to say, they can have at it.
Conversely, John Waters would say anyone who's seriously that conflicted and miserable being gay should do everyone a favor and not be gay, so there's that.
McDonald's puts our minds to the test in this British campaign from Razorfish that features prankvertising and an online quiz.
The premise is that people can't concentrate on anything else when the Big Mac is nearby. Unlike some recent hair-raising ad stunts, and the million-calorie sandwich itself, the prank element here is pretty benign.
On a busy street, a young couple with a camera ask presumably unsuspecting passersby to take their picture. As they primp, a large portrait of a Big Mac is carried past by a different couple, who quickly switch places with the original pair just as the photo is about to be snapped. (It's cool how boyfriend No. 1 starts a sentence as the Big Mac obscures him from view, then boyfriend No. 2 appears and completes the sentence once the switch is made.)
The subjects don't seem to notice that anything's amiss. Maybe a devil baby puking up special sauce would've gotten their attention? Just a thought.
Anyway, the original couple from the clip also host a series of interactive "mind games" designed to demonstrate the Big Mac's distracting power. I thought the hypnotic properties of two all beef patties, yada yada, on a sesame seed bun had been irrefutably established long ago. Obviously, when one appears, so plump and juicy … I cannot turn away!
Oddly, when McD's showed in detail how McNuggets were made, I couldn't make the screen go dark fast enough. Still, I'll have fries with that!
If any unexpected flames of love start flickering in Paris for Valentine's Day today, the Cupid-shot lovesick fools will be ready. That's because the Flower Council of Holland (an industry group that helps florists build their businesses) has installed 1,500 cute little red boxes that are modeled after emergency boxes—but contain single red roses. "In case of love at first sight, break glass," the boxes say. It's a cute idea, and not as dangerous as it sounds. The "glass" is actually cellophane. Agency: Kingsday.
CREDITS Agency: Kingsday, Amsterdam Production Company: Chocolat Rouge Films Parijs Client: Flower Council of Holland
Caribou Coffee, whose previous out-of-home ad stunts have included heated bus shelters in Minneapolis, is back with another special campaign—a giant, five-story-tall Pinterest board built (with help from ad agency Colle+McVoy) at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.
Caribou used pinned images from fans as inspiration for its new Real Inspiration Blend variety of coffee. That sounds like a stretch, but the giant Pinterest board is pretty impressive. It includes two large screens that feature inspirating photos from fans on Instagram and Twitter that are tagged with the hashtag #CaribouInspires.
Yes, you read that correctly: Adult Swim is making the rounds with a gigantic black-and-pink blow-up castle filled with (sponsored) attractions like a KFC-branded rotating mirror-tunnel, an Ice Breakers cage in which participants are required to sing for their freedom and sundry other extremely weird attractions.
We saw this nonsense last summer at San Diego Comic Con, and it's a good time. I don't remember the Tippy Tunnel, but then again, I don't remember much about the experience generally, and have only a T-shirt to prove I was there. Yes, the T-shirts will be a feature of the revitalized Fun House, too.
From February to May, the castle will tour colleges around the U.S., notably U.C. Riverside, Texas A&M, Auburn and some others—10 schools over 12 weeks, in all.
It's an unorthodox ad buy, to put it mildly, but KFC and Hershey's (which makes Ice Breakers) are getting spots on the network as part of their sponsorship of the various dizzy-making attractions. Those spots will also promote awareness of the Fun House on air, beginning Feb. 24 on Adult Swim.
2013 was a great year for the network—it came in second among 18-34-year-old viewers in prime time (to sister net TBS), despite not actually airing between 8 and 9 p.m. That's set to change in March, and with new airtime coming up, it's important to make sure Adult Swim's core audience is aware of the new time schedule.
Not that they have to take advice from me, but they're going to want to get something really big to promote that. Something that catches the eye.
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago has employed scratch-off advertising on bus shelters around the city to hype its newest exhibition, The Way of the Shovel: Art as Archaeology. The ads were printed on backlit, clear plastic. Scratching off the opaque topcoat reveals cool artwork underneath.
Since an ad campaign requiring real digging with actual shovels would have been prohibitively costly, difficult and unsafe, this is probably the best way to reinforce the theme of the exhibition. (A scratch-off tip-in ad was also placed in the Chicago Reader newspaper.) I could see this idea working well in film and theater advertising, too.
Classical paintings replace advertisements on Paris billboards in "OMG, Who Stole My Ads?"—a series of provocative photographs by French artist Etienne Lavie.
The project recalls last summer's "Art Everywhere" program in England, led by Innocent Drinks co-founder Richard Reed, which saw reproductions of 57 popular works replace ads on 22,000 out-of-home ad sites, including billboards, bus shelters, tube stations and office buildings. Lavie's initiative operates on a smaller scale, and since it lacks establishment support, can perhaps be more readily parsed as an artistic statement rather than a corporate project that just happens to involve paintings and ads.
Lavie's strikingly composed pictures achieve some amazing juxtapositions—the flowing lines and muted tones of the artwork contrasted against harsh urban geometry and vehicles in blurred motion. The images inspire all sorts of interpretations. On the one hand, they suggest the city and commerce are transient, in a state of flux, while the paintings (and by extension, the deeper concerns of the human spirit) are immutable. Conversely, one could argue that the city continues to live and evolve along with its ever-changing ads for Evian and Peugeot, while the artworks are anachronisms that leave no lasting impression, except perhaps in the images created by the artist.
One especially intriguing aspect of the photo series is whether Lavie actually replaced the billboards or created his images (solely or mainly) by digital means. It's not totally clear. Such debate makes the work more meta and esoteric. It playfully questions "reality," and makes media coverage of the project part of the artistic experience. (For most of us, the images are viewable exclusively online, so maybe their digital dissemination is the true raison d'être, the ultimate reality.)
In the end, Lavie achieves a stirring effect on the canvas of viewers' imaginations and sensibilities. And if my analysis sounds like over-thought "blah blah blah," well, judging from Lavie's website, I don't think the artist will mind.
Sitting right at the border between Sweden and Norway, the billboard displays comparative pricing for Big Macs in the two nations—egging on Norwegians to take advantage of Sweden's cheaper burgers. In other words, it's the rare fast-food ad that doubles as fodder for exchange-rate geeks.
The Economist's Big Mac Index has for decades used McD's staple burger as an international benchmark for measuring relative prices around the world. Norway's Big Mac was, in fact, recently declared the most expensive anywhere (and not for the first time). That's due to the country's oil-rich, inclusive economy, where generally high wages (even for burger flippers) help drive up prices. (Some observers, meanwhile, are claiming all the extra money is making the country's workforce too lazy.)
DDB points out that Norwegians are already crossing the border for bargains in droves. So really, the agency is just reminding them to stop for a more affordable heart-stopper.
How much will they save? In Norway, a Big Mac costs the equivalent of about $14.41, says the billboard. In Sweden, it's only about $9.08. Of course, that's still way too much for a Big Mac—especially if they're made in any way like the brand's Chicken McNuggets.
Marketers are officially obsessed with trying to frighten the world-weary populace of New York City. Following the recent devil baby and zombie stunts, here's footage of the Chobani bear—an animatronic version of the real bear in the Super Bowl commercial—ambushing people in Manhattan, knocking over a hot dog stand and generally hamming it up. These videos are pretty funny, but I'd like to see New Yorkers fight instead of just whipping out their phones to take a picture.
You're walking along the streets of New York City, earbuds firmly in place, texting furiously and doing your best to ignore the press of humanity as it swarms around you … when the monster-movie version of the very horror you're seeking to avoid erupts out of a street grate. It would be enough to make you drop your skinny latte on your skinny jeans.
Score another victory for prankvertising and AMC. For a moment there, I had forgotten about The Walking Dead, which shambles onward, entering its fifth season even as the zombie apocalypse genre is starting to feel like a rotten cliché. The stunt itself, orchestrated by ad agency Relevent, is simple and effective, but there's a surprisingly real and sweet moment when the zombies restrain themselves from scaring the bejesus out of a little girl who wanders up to the grate in curiosity.
Of course, they don't have any reticence about scaring their own cast. Norman Reedus was recently pranked by costar Andrew Lincoln and one-limbed Vine star Nick Santonastasso. They set him up with a fake interview in Tokyo and then sprung the undead on him.
Between those two incidents, and the even more aggressive "Devil Baby Attack" prank for the horror movie Devil's Due, it seems ambushing people in NYC with horrifying half-humans is the strategy of the season. If that's what it takes to breathe life into the zombie genre, then prank on.
Credits below.
CREDITS Client: AMC Agency: Relevent Executive Creative Director: Ian Cleary Executive Producer: Tony Berger Creative Director: Jody Feldman Producer: Bari Henderson Account Manager: Claire Annas
Cadbury has invented a trench coat that basically dances when you eat the brand's chocolate. Because eating Cadbury chocolate brings euphoria so intense that it makes even your clothes dance, or something. Or mostly because Cadbury wanted to try to grab people's attention with an oddity it hopes will help it sell more candy bars.
A pair of the so-called "Joy Jackets," created by digital shop Hirsch & Mann for Cadbury PR agency Golin Harris, also play music and puts on a light show. Yes, each jacket's moves are choreographed to its tune. The hem shimmies itself up. The shoulder flaps fan open. The Cadbury-purple collar pops out like peacock feathers before a confetti gun goes off. The cameras built into the jacket reportedly trigger the sequence if you're eating one of two Cadbury candy bars (though a pair of brand integrations featuring a British YouTube duo shows parts of the jacket's tech "responding" to other types of fun, like puppies).
It's a cool and endearing bit of technology, if perhaps seeming like a little more trouble than it's worth. As branded, wearable computers go, Ballantine's Internet-enabled T-shirt looked like a much better time.
Here's one baby that no one's expecting. "Devil Baby Attack," a rather mean-spirited if grimly hilarious marketing stunt for the upcoming horror film Devil's Due, shows what happens when well-meaning New Yorkers try to check on an unattended baby carriage.
Here's what happens: They get screamed at by a horrific demon infant. And sometimes chased around by the horrific demon infant's remote-controlled stroller.
Sure, the prank—by Thinkmodo, which also did last year's super-viral Carrie coffee-shop spot—sparks some fun jump-screams from passersby. But watching the results, it's hard not to think of last year's spot-on parody by Canadian agency John St. about the cruel lengths to which advertisers now seem willing to go.
If we must be subjected to more prankvertising stunts, it would be nice to see ones that punish people for making poor moral choices rather than watch normal pedestrians get tormented because they tried to check on a screaming baby left alone in the snow.
Van Wagner, the outdoor advertising company, has created billboards to advertise advertising on billboards. Catch that? It's kind of meta.
When a billboard doesn't get sold, its owner can keep the old ad up, thus devaluing the space, leave the board blank or put a placeholder on it in the meantime. Van Wagner chose to go with the latter, but didn't want a simple black-on-white "Your Ad Here" sign.
Instead, the company is now into its second round of posting its own curious ads on unsold billboards in New York and Los Angeles. The new ads, featuring bold colors, simple fonts and minimalist headlines (a mix of words and pictures), are fairly cryptic. They say things like, "An Apple a Day," "Cool as a Cucumber," "The Big Cheese" and "Easy as Pie." Prettier and more compelling than "Your Ad Here"? Yes. Confusing as well? Perhaps.
The earlier round of ads was more straightforward, showing animals alongside single-word headlines ("Reach?" next to a giraffe, "Buzz?" next to a bee, etc.) that hinted at the power of outdoor advertising. (Those ads also included Van Wagner's logo and phone number.) The new ads are playful in a pop-art kind of way, but will they get someone to pick up the phone and beg Van Wagner for ad space? Time will tell.
At the very least, they've succeeded in making me kind of hungry.
More images below. Via City Room at The New York Times, which has lots more about the campaign and an interview with the creative director.
When Nissan offered to sell its Versa Note on Amazon last fall, it promised to ship the cars to three lucky buyers in actual Amazon boxes. Well, this weekend it was delivery day!
A Reddit user on Monday posted this photo from Madison, Wis., noting: "What's the largest item you can have shipped from Amazon? Because I think my neighbor just got it." A commenter soon pointed out the Nissan partnership, which seemed to be the most obvious explanation of such an epic delivery. AdFreak then reached out to Nissan, and Erich Marx, the automaker's director of interactive and social-media marketing, confirmed that the Redditor had captured the delivery—which was meant to be kept under wraps until a video could be released next week.
The original idea, he said, came from Nissan agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. "They mentioned it, and we all kind of laughed and thought, 'Wouldn't that be funny?' " said Marx. "But over the course of a few days, we kept coming back to it and said, 'Why not deliver a car in an Amazon box?' … It's never really been done. I think the visual is pretty hilarious. Everybody knows the Amazon box. We thought it would capture people's imagination. It certainly captured ours." In the end, Marx added, Nissan decided to deliver just one Versa Note, not three as originally planned.
The Redditor's photo, which hit the site's front page on Monday, came as a surprise to Nissan. "We were filming the video this weekend and a neighbor noticed what we were doing and posted what amounts to a spy photo," said Marx. "The best laid marketing plans, right? We were going to do a press release and a video and this whole thing next week. But the photo got out there, and people started buzzing about it. So we had to scramble."
The first 100 people to order the Versa Note on Amazon got $1,000 gift cards. Nissan contacted many of them, and then chose the Madison customer as the winner. "Quite frankly it was the enthusiasm of this winner—they were so thrilled and thought it was hilarious," said Marx. "We were all voting for someone in Hawaii. We were like, 'Madison, Wisconsin, in January? That's going to be cold.' But this winner was so into it, we knew it was going to be great."
Nissan is keeping the winner's name private for now. He or she will be revealed in the video, which is still set to be released next week. "We wanted to keep some of our original plan intact," said Marx.
Does Marx envision a day when a Nissan could be delivered by a fleet of Amazon drones? Laughing, he replied, "No, I think this a really fun onetime execution. We have a great dealer network, and we want our dealers to be involved in the marketing and delivery of our cars. We certainly don't want to step on their toes."
Today in crazy Russian advertising news: A restaurant in Yekaterinburg decided to promote its flame-broiled steaks by flame-broiling its billboard as well. It is a pretty hot idea, if maybe overly literal. Russians, of course, love insane outdoor advertising, from horrifying drunk-driving billboards to parasailing donkeys. They also get pretty worked up about cooked meat generally, as we saw in this classic Burger King ad. Via The Denver Egotist.
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