O Positive Crafts Ode to Nature for The Nature Conservancy

Production studio O Positive enlisted the services of actress Jessica Chastain in a new PSA for The Nature Conservancy.

Chastain reads a poem by Matthew Dickman entitled “Our Nature.” The spot, directed by Peyton Wilson sets Chastain’s reading of the poem to a dramatic piano track, coming across more like a short film about love than a PSA, until it’s revealed that the love Chastain is talking about is her love of nature. As the 60-second PSA continues, the camera turns more and more to shots of the beautiful Sierra Mountains, and Chastain interacting with the natural world around her, ending with the tagline “Your first love wants you back.”

“I chose to be a part of this remarkable campaign not just because it spoke to my own love affair with nature, but also because it’s imperative to find a way to co-exist with nature so that this valuable and beautiful resource is protected, ” Chastain said in a press release. “I hope this film encourages everyone to rethink their relationship with the natural world around them.”

The spot, the second nature PSA featured here in two days, like Conservation International’s effort, sees The Nature Conservancy take a different approach emphasizing emotion.

“This is a departure for the Conservancy,” explains Jordan Peavey, marketing director for The Nature Conservancy in California. “Instead of a typical PSA where we explain who we are sand what we do in a very intellectual way, we worked with Peyton, O Positive and Jessica Chastain to create an entirely different type of story. One we hope will intrigue and inspire new audiences to remember their love of nature and to get involved.” (more…)

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Leo Burnett, Special K Trim ‘Fat Talk’ for Women

One of the opening frames in Leo Burnett’s “Fat Talk” spot for Special K tells the viewer that 93% of women engage in fat talk, a form of passive-aggressive self-shaming. Because of Facebook and Twitter, I’m surprised that number isn’t seven percentage points higher.

But during the two-minute spot, women in a nondescript clothing store are forced to confront their own insecurities. Placards of fat talk tweets are posted around the store, and the women realize the self-degradation is bad and start hugging each other. This ad is not a comedy. Instead, it comes off as an incredibly preachy after-school special for adult women. Tackling fat talk is a compelling psychological start for a commercial, but as with a lot of good ideas, the execution winds up muddled into something so safe and vanilla that it’s hard to remember what brand is advertising in the first place. Credits after the jump.

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