Hasta La Creative!

Los Angeles Phenomenon launched a new spot for Wilson, promoting the sports gear brand’s new “smart” Bluetooth connected football. When synced with the accompanying app, the pigskin allows its users to run professional routes and provides details such as velocity, spin rate, distance and whether the ball was caught or dropped. We imagine that last one could even help players avoid some backyard disputes.

The features are demonstrated via a scene of a group of guys pretending to be the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks while playing a pickup game in a remote field. An announcer delivers the play by play as they face off using the features of the connected ball. The spot concludes with the tagline, “The Stadium is Everywhere.” 

While undoubtedly on the cheesy side, the spot shows several of the Bluetooth connected football’s features in a seamless way. It also both stars, and should appeal to, its target demographic. The effort follows on the heels of Phenomenon’s recent spot promoting the Roger Federer co-designed Pro Staff RF 97 racket. According to Adweek, the agency’s “The Stadium is Everywhere” campaign will continue to unfold during the NFL season, with Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson making an appearance in a future spot. 

Publicis Seattle hired Jason Tarantino as executive vice president, executive strategy director on the agency’s T-Mobile account. In the new role, he will direct strategy while leading a team of seven executives and reporting directly to EVP and managing partner Melissa Nelson.

“Jason is an incredibly thoughtful strategic leader and we’re thrilled to have him on board,” Nelson said in a statement. “As a truly hybrid thinker, he’s well suited to lead our growing T-Mobile strategy team here in Seattle.”

Tarantino joins Publicis following nearly a year as a freelance strategic planner, a period during which he worked on various projects for Los Angeles-based agency Phenomenon. Prior to that he spent a year as vice president, planning director with RPA, leading strategy on Apartments.com and Intuit’s QuickBooks.

The RPA gig followed a nine month stint with TBWAMedia Arts Lab as group planning director. Tarantino previously spent a year as SVP, group planning director with The Martin Agency on the Walmart account, two years leading the planning department at R/GA’s San Francisco office, and a year with W+K as a senior strategist working with clients including Verizon, Levi’s, Electronic Arts and Target.

“It’s invigorating for me to work with a team that has done not only bold creative work, but drove results,” Tarantino said. “After all, there’s nothing better than great work that does great things. And I’m looking forward to continuing that trend by bringing a deep understanding of T-Mobile’s business together with provocative insights into people, culture and brands.”

Here it is, the first official Men's Wearhouse brand ad since the departure of iconic founder George Zimmer and the hiring of Phenomenon in Los Angeles as the retailer's new agency of record. (Last month, we got a bit of a sneak peek with a brief spot promoting the chain's charitable effort, the National Suit Drive.) The new spot, "Walk of Fame," is a retrospective of suit fashion through the decades since the store's founding in 1973. It's a fun watch, fueled by The Heavy's track, "What Makes a Good Man?" But I'm not sure the tagline—"For 40 years we've been helping men dress like gentlemen"—really fits in an ad where a guy keeps sleazily spinning around to eye hot women with a level of blatant ogling that went out of fashion long before most of these suits did.