Hasta La Creative!

Pereira & O’Dell continues to produce intriguing work for Skype, with their latest, “Turning the tide” marking a shift in approach.

Last year, the agency focused on the emotion of the personal connections it helped foster, through its “Stay Together” campaign and its highlight, “The Born Friends Family Portrait.” With “Turning the tide,” Pereira & O’Dell focuses instead on how the service helps a pair of journalists tell the story of Kiribati, the island nation that is in danger of being wiped off the map by 2040, thanks to rising oceans caused by climate change. Indeed, the people of Kiribati are already becoming the “world’s first climate change refugees” as the rising ocean levels have contaminated their food and water.

The “modern mobile news team” of Anna Therese Day and Gianluca Panella are telling the island’s story, and utilize Skype as an important. “…Skype is second nature to us,” Anna says, “Being able to instantly share information, images, files…it means you can get to the heart of the story quickly.”While this inserts Skype into the conversation, it doesn’t do a whole lot to differentiate the brand from its competitors. Still, Pereira & O’Dell crafted an affecting spot, allowing Skype to tell an important story that many viewers might be unfamiliar with (although the story has been covered by a few major news outlets, including CNN). The agency seems to have made a choice to value storytelling and allying Skype with an important cause over overt branding. How effective you view the spot as will largely depend on which of these factors you place the most value on. (more…)

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Freelance network Working Not Working has unveiled a list of the top 46 companies its freelancers “would kill to work” for full-time, and the list includes several advertising agencies. Among the agencies Working Not Working freelancers would most like to work for are: 360i, 72andSunny, Barton F. Graf 9000, BBDO, BBH, Droga 5, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Mother, Periera & O’Dell, Venables Bell & Partners, and Wieden+Kennedy. The list also included a wealth of design and production companies, as well as Google, HBO, Cartoon Network, Tesla, and NASA (for some reason). Stick around for the full list after the jump. continued…

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Now that Airbnb, that controversial apartment “sharing” (read: renting) business, has grown beyond its startup roots to become a company with an estimated value greater than the entire Hyatt Corporation, it needs a little creative work to show the world what it’s all about.

Today Pereira & O’Dell provided that work in the form of the very first Airbnb spot:

We’re not sure whether the business will catch on with the public at large and we can’t imagine warming to the idea of swapping apartments with strangers, but we also can’t think of a better way to summarize Airbnb’s appeal than with a series of views from alternate windows in a “you could be here, or here, or here” montage.

Unfortunately, you may still have a tough time describing the company’s product to your grandmother.

Credits after the jump.

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After a “competitive review” (overseen by Joanne Davis of Joanne Davis Consulting, Inc.) that concluded earlier this month, 130-year-old private cancer center Memorial Sloan-Kettering has awarded creative agency of record and media AOR duties to Pereira & O’Dell New York and Media Storm, respectively. In a statement, Sloan-Kettering’s SVP/chief communications officer Avice Meehan, says, “For 130 years, Memorial Sloan Kettering has focused relentlessly on  a singular mission: discovering better treatments for cancer and improving the lives of those who are touched by cancer. Pereira & O’Dell and Media Storm showed outstanding insight into our mission during the review process. We have every confidence that our new agency partners will help us deliver compelling communications that will benefit and educate individuals and their family members in responding to a cancer diagnosis.”

The MSK win marks the first major step into the healthcare sector for P&O’D, which of course already works with clients including Skype, Intel, Airbnb and Fox Sports 1. P&O’D NY succeeds fellow Big Apple agency DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO) on the Sloan-Kettering account and will launch new work for the center later this year. From what sources tell us, Pereira & O’Dell beat out Berlin Cameron United and SS&K in the final pitch.

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From Pereira & O’Dell New York comes a new spot already being hailed by SB Nation as “weird” and “gross.” Starring FOX Sports’ Big East basketball commentators Gus Johnson (who FOX has been marketing as an overly loud spaz, as though that was a good thing) and Bill Raftery (who announced he was bringing his trademark nonsensical “onions!” catchphrase from ESPN to FOX in November), the spot imagines what it would be like if this odd duo was to analyze childbirth.

In addition to SB Nation‘s glowing review, Sports Grid is boldly declaring the spot an “early contender for worst ad of the year.” But don’t just take their word for it! “Terrible commercial. A bit disturbing. Not funny,” says one YouTube commenter. “Fire the idiot who approved this commercial,” says another! Well, you know what they say: When Gus Johnson pounds a desk and causes a newborn baby to come rocketing out of his mother’s vagina, you’re bound to get a big reaction. Credits after the jump.

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PJ Pereira, co-founder of agency Pereira & O’Dell, — whose work includes some recent, solid work for Skype, the purported “first social media film” and this classic stop motion Lego ad — has published the first book, The Book of Silence, in a trilogy entitled Gods of Both Worlds.

The Book of Silence will be available in stores November 25th, and Pereira & O’Dell teamed up with Laundry! Design & Animation to create a book trailer. (In case you weren’t aware, book trailers are now practically mandatory.) The trailer features an original track by Brazilian singer Otto, with percussionist Pupillo, and guitarist Andreas Kisser (of Sepultra); as well as narration by the legendary Gilberto Gil. The Book of Silence centers around the prophet Orunmila, who finds his divination tools have suddenly gone silent, and a young journalist in Sao Paulo. In the book “mythical kings, queens and warriors like Ogum, Shango, Oshosi and Iansan work alongside modern day mortals to rescue the 16 princes of fate in a surprising and original narrative of West African gods and goddesses worshiped in some regions of Brazil today.”

If you watched the trailer for The Book of Silence and thought, “Wow that looks like it could be a movie,” you’re not alone. A movie deal has already been negotiated “with The Alchemists’s Mauricio Motta, who bought the rights and the franchise in Brazil and the U.S.” It will be produced by Disruption Entertainment, the company behind Pacific Rim and The Bourne Trilogy.

Pereira will embark on a Brazilian book tour starting in Sao Paolo on November 25th, with dates in Brasilia and Rio on the 27th and 28th. Credits after the jump. continued…

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The onion alert is in full effect. Skype has been promoting their global capabilities with a “Stay Together” campaign produced by Pereira & O’Dell, and the fourth video in the series, “The Born Friends Family Portrait,” is a smart showcase of the program’s utility. Two girls, Sarah from Indiana and Paige from Auckland, were both born without fully developed left arms and formed a long distance friendship over the years. Sarah and Paige are now teenagers, and as you can see in the accompanying clip, finally met in-person. It’s touching and respectfully filmed.

The three prior videos cover similar stories – a father talking to his family still in Africa, a zookeeper in America keeping tabs on an animal family in Australia, and a two young cousins (common theme) closing the gap between Brazil and America. We should probably expect more tearjerkers from Skype, because these are the kind of tales that sell themselves. No misdirection or exploitation, just a documentary setup that has the right kind of appeal. Credits after the jump.

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And now, a quick bit of account news for the morn. Airbnb has appointed San Francisco-based Pereira & O’Dell as its agency of record and a result, the latter will develop the first true global marketing effort for the accommodation brand (and SXSW fave among other events). We’ve been told that production is already underway and first efforts from P&O’D for Airbnb will see the light of day in November. Amy Curtis-McIntyre, the brand’s VP of marketing, says in a statement, “Pereira & O’Dell has had great success connecting with audiences in a way that’s truly authentic,” said VP of Marketing at Airbnb. “We were impressed with their ability to connect passionate brand truths with specific creative tools to tell a story.” The word is that there was no “formal” review for the biz, but the brand was looking at other agencies along P&O’D.

Along with new addition Airbnb, Pereira & O’Dell  counts a clients roster that includes Fox Sports 1 Corona Extra, Skype and Intel.

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About a year ago, Intel and Toshiba partnered together with the help of Pereira & O’Dell to create “The Beauty Inside,” a so-called “social movie” that paired not-quite-movie stars Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as two young actors who can’t believe that this is where their careers have taken them thus far. The big budget online film was apparently effective enough at whatever it was trying to do to spawn a spiritual sequel, “The Power Inside,” starring Harvey Keitel as a guy you kind of feel sorry for until you you consider that he’s still finding work at his age.

As a press release tells us, the heavily product integrated plot will consist of “An alien invasion by a race of extraterrestrial moustaches and unibrows who take over the upper lips and eyes of people around the world. The main character is Neil, who together with his friends and the help of technology discovers his inner strength to defeat the moustache and unibrow invaders called Uricks. Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba play an important role in Neil’s journey of self-discovery.” We assume “inner strength” and “Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba” are pretty interchangeable in this scenario.

Similar to its predecessor, computer processor fans every can be part of the film by interacting with the protagonist via Facebook. Users can also upload a photo of themselves, edit that photo with a moustache and unibrow, and reach self-actualization after the process is completed. Credits after the jump.

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