Hasta La Creative!

Y&R has a new campaign encouraging New Yorkers to become organ donors on behalf of the New York Organ Donor Network.

In an animated 90-second spot, parts of buildings begin to fall off as the city is portrayed in dire health. A group collects the pieces, however, and assembles them into a heart which powers the city back up, as the Statue of Liberty breathes a sigh of relief, followed by the tagline “Keep New York Alive” and a message urging New Yorkers to become organ donors. The campaign is needed because as a state New York is well behind the curve in terms of registered organ donors.

“Next-to-last place—we are ranked 49th in terms of the percentage of state residents registered as organ donors—is not good enough for New York,”Glen Jacobs, executive creative director at Y&R, told Adweek. “We need to move the needle, so organ donors can save lives. Period.”

For the spot, Y&R teamed up with Laurent Witz, the director behind Oscar-winning animated short Mr. Hublot. Witz and company employed lifelike 3D animation to deliver the message in a way that can grab people’s attention. While it’s not immediately apparent why the city is falling apart, the message is clear by the end of the 90 seconds, and the initial mystery serves to draw in the viewer.

Still, Jacobs says that Y&R’s work for the cause is far from over. “If this campaign helps raise awareness for the cause, that’s great,” he told Adweek. “But we have a long way to go. So, our aim is to keep finding bigger and better ways to get the message out.” (more…)

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Arnold Worldwide and the Ad Council teamed up with Year Up, the Employment Pathways Project, ConPRmetidos, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, New Options Project, and Opportunity Nation for a PSA campaign entitled “Grads of Life.”

The campaign promotes alternative hiring processes and attempts to “raise awareness and change employer’s perceptions of opportunity youth” to fill the 4 million vacant positions companies in the U.S. are trying to fill. In a spot called “Pathways to Employment,” running in both 30 and 60-second versions, an employer sits down with a candidate for an interview. She touts her problem solving skills and strong work ethic, and, while he mentions her lack of a college degree, he ultimately decides she’s exactly what he’s looking for. Then, she disappears into thin air, symbolizing that because of the way in which they look for candidates, most employers never meet these type of prospective employees.

The campaign launch was backed by Hilary Clinton at the tenth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, where she said, “The Grads of Life PSA campaign is the first effort to drive employer demand for the millions of low-income young adults that are a huge source of untapped talent in our country and through GradsofLife.org employers can now access the first-ever online platform for the information, tools, and resources they need to take action today.”

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To promote the October 17th Channel 4 and Cancer Research fundraiser Stand Up To Cancer 4Creative reimagined the typical disaster film with a twist: instead of human’s facing extinction, it’s cancer cells.

A project over a year in the making, 4Creative and production company Nexus create a world of cancer cell blobs inhabiting a modern city, created utilizing 2D paintings and 3D models. The overpopulated urban environment is disrupted by a mysterious blue orb and soon inhabitants are spontaneously combusting left and right. At the end of the spot, it the environment is finally revealed as a microscopic world which a scientist is testing new anti-cancer drugs on.

As directors Smith & Foulkes explained to Creative Review, personifying cancer posed some distinct challenges. “We wanted to steer away from the obvious route of showing cells as a bunch of grotesque alien germs, but we were also acutely aware of not making them too human or cute,” the pair said. “We also had to find a way to illustrate the new therapies, drugs and scientific breakthroughs that are fighting cancer. We wanted their arrival to be initially magical and mysterious, so we used a glowing blue orb, an unexplained light descending upon a shadowy world.”

The result is a highly unusual approach to raising cancer awareness. While the spot risks viewers sympathizing with the cancer cells (before they are revealed as such) it does make for a visually striking effort that stokes the imagination and entertains while raising awareness for a good cause. (more…)

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Have you ever noticed that a disproportionate number of celebrities happen to smoke in their spare time? That fact provides the motivation behind this new spot for truth (itself an offshoot of the national public health organization Legacy), created by 72andSunny in order to cast these “unpaid” Big Tobacco spokespeople as the very opposite of what we might call “role models.”

Many of the famous faces in the ad didn’t see it because they were too busy attending the Video Music Awards on which it aired (and, presumably, smoking).

That’s not to say that the people at truth don’t love Chris Brown as much as the prototypical “next guy” who does not happen to be Suge Knight.

Another spot created to explain the first below.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Lowe Roche has launched a new interactive campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society called “The Fearless Challenge,” which attempts to raise money online by asking people (such as the actors involved with the campaign) to face their worst fears for a certain price to be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. If the goal is met, individuals honor their pledge by facing their fear head-on.

“The Canadian Cancer Society is committed to creating a world where no Canadian fears cancer, but we are not there yet,” explains Mike Kirkpatrick, director, marketing for the Cancer Society in Ontario. “We know that more work needs to be done because a cancer diagnosis is still one of the scariest things a person can face.”

The campaign attempts to help raise funds to help those with cancer, based on the insight that a cancer diagnosis, despite progress with managing the disease, is still a very fearful proposition. So in addition to helping to raise funds, the campaign also attempts to help tackle that fear in cancer patients by showing people conquering their own greatest fears. Celebrity endorsers and participants in the campaign include actor Jason Priestley, sports commentator Jesse Palmer, Shannon and  Sophie Tweed-Simmons of Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Shannon & Sophie, and Hedley bassist and cancer survivor Tommy Mac. But the campaign isn’t just relying on celebrity endorsements, it invites viewers to participate by filming their own video and making a pledge at FearlessChallenge.com. Stick around for credits and actor Jonathan Keltz‘s pledge after the jump. (more…)

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The World Cup has been over for nearly twenty-four hours, but, knowing a tiny bit about sports, we’d guess that many in Germany, Brazil and Argentina are still celebrating/consoling themselves with the appropriate spirits.

On that note, the creative team at Leo Burnett London wants to remind footie fans around the world that driving under the influence is never an appropriate response–no matter whose team won or what the final score happened to be.

While the spot for road safety charity client Brake is, of course, very of-the-minute, its message is timeless: most cases of drunk driving have absolutely nothing to do with any given sporting event.

Also: fans will never forget that spray foam.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

A safe-driving PSA for Northern Ireland’s Department of the Environment by Belfast agency LyleBailie International has created an international stir with its disturbing imagery. The 60-second PSA, which only airs after 9 P.M., has been criticized for going too far to make its point, “and some news outlets have posted ‘trigger warnings’ about the strong content,” Adweek reports.

The PSA, entitled “Classroom” begins with a classroom of children preparing for a field trip and exploring a serene natural environment, with an ominous cover of “Sweet Child of Mine” hinting at the violence to come. At around the 30-second mark we see footage of a driver carelessly speeding along a country road, and around 10 seconds later the segments converge as the driver loses control of his vehicle, and launches off the road, killing the group of children. Although the scene is not particularly graphic, it has been met with varying criticism as being over-the-top, unrealistic, and even traumatizing. “Since 2000, speeding has killed a classroom of our children,” says the voiceover at the PSA’s conclusion. “You can never control the consequences if you speed.”

Whatever you think about the spot’s approach, it is gaining international attention for the issue of speeding, with over 1.5 million views on YouTube since being uploaded a week ago and plenty of media coverage. (more…)

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Ogilvy & Mather Mexico teamed up with Central North Films and director Rodrigo Garcia Saiz for Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) to deliver a startling visualization of psychological abuse.

In the disturbing 45 second spot, a woman is seen casually strolling the produce section of a grocery store. When she receives a text she is violently propelled into a stand of avocados and proceeds to beat herself (which is meant to symbolize an invisible aggressor). Eventually she gets up off the floor and attempts to nonchalantly continue with her grocery shopping. It’s all very troubling and difficult to watch, which is exactly the point. The end of the spot makes the intent clear with the message, “Psychological violence is as serious as physical abuse. If you don’t speak up, nobody will see it.” It may be brutal, but it’s also impossible to ignore, while also combating the tendency (of perpetrators, witnesses, and often even victims) to minimize the effects of psychological abuse. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Y&R New York has launched a new campaign for Partnership for a Healthier America’s Drink Up initiative. The Partnership for a Healthier America, by the way, is the nonprofit, which works with Honorary Chair Michelle Obama, devoted to solving the childhood obesity crisis.

The campaign calls on the power of historical figures Muhammad Ali, Audrey Hepburn and Albert Einstein to celebrate the importance of drinking water. In the above 30-second spot, for example, Ali delights at a press conference while the camera slowly focuses in on his glass of water, followed by the line, “No wonder he never lost a press conference,” and then the “Water. So talented yet so humble tagline.” Other spots in the campaign employ a similar effect. The campaign also includes online banner ads, digital billboards, and a social media component utilizing the hashtag #spreadthewater. Credits and Albert Einstein spot after the jump. continued…

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Serve Marketing, the country’s only all-volunteer nonprofit ad agency, has launched a harrowing new public service campaign in Milwaukee in an attempt to combat both domestic and animal abuse.

The campaign, entitled the Spot Abuse Project, is based on research from the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys  which found that 76% of animal abusers go on to (or already) abuse a family member. By convincing more people to dial 911 to report animal abuse, Serve is hoping police will then uncover a higher number of domestic abuse cases. Since domestic abuse so often goes unreported and animal abuse is generally viewed as easier to report, Serve is hopes to benefit both animals and domestic abuse victims with the campaign.

The campaign kicks off today across television, outdoor, radio, and social media. Billboards for the campaign show pictures of abused pets next to young children with the troubling message “He’s next” or “She’s next,” imploring viewers to dial 911 to report abuse. The effort is already being lauded by domestic abuse organizations and local law enforcement, but has also met with some controversy. The outdoor campaign was originally planned to run at over 30 bus shelters in Milwaukee but was deemed “too vulgar” by the Milwaukee County Transit System.

“We’re not going to change people’s behaviors by showing warm and fuzzy pet pictures,” Serve Marketing executive director Heidi Sterricker said of the controversy. “Considering the images that are shown on magazine covers on newsstands and on the news every night what’s at stake here, I think people can handle seeing a picture of a dog with a bandage and a little blood on it if it saves a few lives.”

Credits after the jump. continued…

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