Hasta La Creative!

Most people don’t like running. That’s OK. We can’t all be masochists, pining to destroy our knees before their time. But to incentivize would-be runners, sneaker brand Kalenji found a motivating carrot on a stick—a lush dinner, paid for in miles.

Organized by Paris agency Rosapark, the #EatYourRun campaign promoted a new collection of Eliorun shoes by sending spankin’ new pairs to journalists (including me) and inviting us to hit the dirt. A few weeks later, on May 24, they organized a dinner at the Bistro Paul Bert—known for its epic gastronomy—at which we could exchange our clocked miles (well, kilometers, since this is France) for ultra-fancy food.

read more

There’s probably a sizable crossover between people who drink Starbucks regularly and people who wear Nikes. But unless they also like ugly shoes, the Nike SB Dunk Low “Starbucks” Premium sneaker is going to be a bust. 

read more

Kyrie Irving has an arsenal of secret tricks that make him great at basketball, but his latest reveal may be his most surprising edge yet—his own personal donut. 

read more

Gap’s been running ads celebrating “iconic Americana moments” and playing up the chain’s founding in 1969. But one of its retro choices left NASA fans flummoxed.

A tweet from the recent campaign, posted on March 1, featured a photo of a space shuttle liftoff, emblazoned with the text “1969.” As any fan of space history knows, that was the year Apollo 11 went to the moon on a Saturn V rocket, more than a decade before the space shuttle made its debut.

read more

Attention, Aldi’s shoppers: Do not be alarmed. The big man with a megaphone is harmless. We think.

Comedian and TV host Ben Bailey trades in his cash cab for a grocery cart and goofs around with Aldi customers in this web video series created by Weber Shandwick for the discount supermarket chain.

The company plans to launch 45 stores in Southern California next year, and the campaign will “help introduce Aldi’s unique and quirky ways to new markets and neighborhoods,” says Weber executive creative director Jim Paul.

Under normal circumstances, those quirks don’t include Bailey, armed here with an amplifier and whirling police light, accosting shoppers with questions (mostly, he asks what they like about the store). Still, it’s all in good fun. The dude’s down-to-earth, regular-guy persona feels right for a chain that charges folks to use its carts and makes them bag their own groceries in order to keep prices down.

Bailey, the former host of Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab, shot the hidden-camera spots in April at a Chicago-area store. “People were quick to call out their favorite products and how much money they save each month,” he says. Indeed, the customers seem to be having a great time. For them, it was a change of pace from the dairy-case doldrums, no doubt. And, as advertising, the approach offers something a bit unexpected for the category (unexpected, though not supergeil).

A special shout-out goes to an elderly shopper named Herb, who basically steals the show with his high spirits, good-natured kibitzing and quips like, “Ben Bailey?! Never heard of you.”

Herb will have you rolling in the aisles.

CREDITS
Client: Aldi
Director of Public Relations: Liz Ruggles
Marketing Manager: Erika Lempa

Agency: Weber Shandwick
Executive Creative Director: Jim Paul
SVP, Creative Director: Jeff Immel
VP, Creative Director: Dan Jividen
Copywriter: Mikinzie Stuart
VP, Executive Integrated Producer: Kim Mohan
Producer: Karen Carter
EVP: Allison Madell
SVP: Katy Pankau
SVP, Digital: Jonathan Sullivan
VP: Eniko Bolivar
VP: Emily Fisher
VP, Consumer Media Relations: Ernestine Sclafani
Director, Senior Media Specialist: Jennifer Parsons
Director, Digital: Nick Wille
Group Manager, Paid Media & Content Distribution: Allie Smith
Group Manager, Media Specialist: Alan Keane
Account Supervisor: Kristen Thompson
Account Supervisor: Caitlyn Andre
Account Supervisor: Carolina Madrid

Production Company: Accomplice Media
Director: Tom Feiler
Executive Producer: Mel Gragido
Editor: Christina Stumpf
Post Production Company: Quriosity Productions
Sound Design & Mix: Joe Flood, Floodgate Studios

During the Oscars, PetSmart and Christopher Guest launched a pretty excellent campaign themed around Best in Show. Now, they’re back with more.

The new material from GSD&M is particularly reminiscent of Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as Meg and Hamilton Swan, who, in the movie, love J. Crew (and other clothing catalogs). But the man and woman in this latest ad, “The Avant Guardians,” are more haute, if equally insane, describing themselves, and their dog, as “fashion forward.”

That’s to say, in keeping with the Best in Show tradition, they ridiculously project all kinds of human qualities on their coddled shih tzu, Ford (presumably a nod to Tom Ford). And because it’s Guest-directed, the delivery is awkward in a perfect kind of way, with the actors ping-ponging between nonchalant and over the top, making crazy eyes and stammering out too-enthusiastic punch lines.

It almost makes it easy to forget that it’s a sales pitch. Then again, that’s pretty easy to do when you’re basically just copying a classic … even if by inbreeding.

CREDITS
Client: PetSmart
VP Marketing Communications: Shane McCall
Director, Traditional Creative: Valerie Lederer
Assoc. Creative Manager, Traditional Creative: Tara Niederhaus
Dir., Marketing Strategy and Nat’l Promotions: Debbie Beisswanger
Creative Manager- Store Environment: Chris Windsor
Project Manager, Salon Strategy: Megan Mouser
Titles: “The Avant Guardians” :15/:30; “Nooks and Crannies” 2:18
Agency: GSD&M
Group Creative Director/Art Director: Scott Brewer
Group Creative Director/Writer: Ryan Carroll
Assoc. Creative Director/Art Director: Ross Aboud
Assoc. Creative Director/Writer: Kevin Dunleavy
Art Director: Morgan McDonald
Writer: Scott Chalkley
Agency Producer: Abigail Hinojosa
Associate Agency Producer: Adriane Weist
Business Manager: Lindsay Wakabayashi
SVP/Managing Director: Scott Moore
Account Director: Sabia Sidiqi
Account Supervisor: Ben Creasey
Account Manager: Nadia Elias
Production Company: GO
Director: Christopher Guest
Managing Director: Gary Rose
Executive Producer: Adam Bloom
Executive Producer: Catherine Finkenstaedt
Line Producer: Mark Hyatt
DP: Kristian Kachikis
Editorial: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler

OK Go has collaborated with plenty of brands—including Chevrolet, Google, Samsung and State Farm—on its own music videos. But here is the first truly traditional commercial the band has ever filmed. Though of course, this being OK Go, it’s far from typical.

The ad, which the band worked on in China for much of February, is for the Chinese furniture store Red Star Macalline. Full of optical illusions, it visually references OK Go’s 2014 video “The Writing’s on the Wall” (which the band later accused Apple of ripping off) but is set to another OK Go track, “I Won’t Let You Down” (a remixed version by drummer Dan Konopka).

Hear the band talk about the project here:

CREDITS
Director: Damian Kulash Jr.
Co-Director & Creative Director: Mary Fagot

Executive Producer: Fung Ni
Director of Photography: Luke Geissbuhler
Art Director: Julius Mak
Production Manager: Bihong,Chan
Assistant Director: Joan Chen

Photograph group:
Steadicam Operator: Alec Jarnagin
1st Assistant : Kenan Qi
Assistants: Xinfeng Zhang Hongyan, zhang Yanru, wang
Equipement: Wei Pang
Digital Image Engineer: Tiger
Equipement Company: Yiying Shanghai

Light Group:
Lightman: Kok Kin Wing
1st Assistant: Jingdong Wang
Light Assistant: Bin Xu Xinbin Jiang Yongchao Hu Chaoliang Wang Yang An
Light Equipment : Chenjun Zhou

Art Group:
1st Assistant: Ong Wan Hoong
Art Assistants: Harris Eddie Sequerah, Rae Chen
Props: Songyi Wu
Studio Factory Manager: Yubin Xia
Recordist: Yan Xia

Production Group:
Executive Producer: Xiaoming Tang
Production Assistants: Jojo Ying Yuanbiao Wang Yong Dong Longhui Li Yi Zheng
Translator: Lingyi Chen, Yifei Gu
Runner: Chao Huang
Transport: Shuguang You

Casting: Fei Huang, Jingyuan Yuan
Choreography: Guanglei Zhang
Dancers: Weijia zhou, Chuanjing XU, Kaijie Wang, Xi Xu, Zhijing Cao, Yimian Song, Xuqin Hua, Wentao Fan, Qin Zhang, Xubin Geng, Chunmeng Yan

Costume:
Stylist Director: Mengjia Zhan
Stylists: Yuanjun Xiao, Shiqi Zhang, Yinghui Huang, Zhihui Wang, Chen Wang, Bin Lang, Huiting Wang

Postproduction
Offline Editor: Fenny
TC : Jian Wang
Online user: CiCi & Yuqian Jin
Post Producer: Jojo Ying
Behind the Scene: Steven
Post Production Company: Liveplus Shanghai, Film Vally Shanghai
Music Studio : Take One, Shanghai

General Planner: Red Star Macalline “Two Days coming” program
Agency: 25hours, Shanghai
Production House: STEAM ,Shanghai
Advertising Agency Executive Creative Director: Lei Tao
Advertising Agency Creative Director: Song Zhang
Advertising Agency Art Director: Lei Shi, Binyan Huang
Account Director: Lingning Yan
Account Executive: Yan Huang, Da Li

Attention, Swedish shoppers: More Rag Bags are on the way!

For now, check out DDB Stockholm’s case study video for the sustainability campaign, which generated significant media coverage last year, along with a win at the Epica Awards and three nominations at Cannes.

The initiative, for Swedish fashion brand Uniforms for the Dedicated, features biodegradable shopping bags that can be used to ship unwanted garments to charitable organizations. One thousand bags were produced in a pilot program, and consumers could order them free of charge. The bags are twin-sided. When turned inside out, they become slick mailers, labeled with the addresses of individuals’ chosen charities, as well as proper postage.

“I don’t have the exact number of returns [in terms of clothing donations], but we have sold out of the bags,” DDB Stockholm CEO David Sandstrom tells AdFreak, though more will be in production for spring. “We also have a Rag Bag site, where you as a business can sign up for bags. We got interest for 600,000 bags from different companies.”

Unlike some preachy sustainability ventures, Rag Bag scores by embracing consumerism. It creates a realistic framework to nudge folks into making donations, and provides them with a rewarding experience. And a bag. (Until they mail it off with old shirts inside, that is.)

“Our hope is that this will stretch beyond what can be called a campaign,” says Sandstrom. “Wouldn’t it be great if this became a retail standard?”

Have you ever been tasked with selling mattresses? It’s the stuff of newspaper circulars and badvertising on late night TV. Which makes me like this Serta brand campaign from Doner even more. An agency with retail chops can butter its bread with work like this. It’s humorous, offbeat and memorable. The challenge here is to […]

The post He Wants An Alpaca Farm, But You’re Not Losing Any Sleep appeared first on AdPulp.

Behold! The lowest of the low-budget hidden-camera pranks has been created for discount retailer Ocean State Job Lot, and it is steeped in local commercial magic.

The chain, with 116 stores in the northeast, hired MMB in Boston to make this spectacle whose meager production budget perfectly matched the message that the store is committed to low prices. In fact, if they had spent much more, the video wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

In the clip, several bewildered customers are given the option to go on an Adventure Quest to win a heater. It starts when they ring a bell and get a blast of fake snow to the face. Then, Old Man Winter, a character from OSJL’s TV spot, tells them that Santa has been captured by the wicked Markup King (the guy who works at the mall) and they need to set him free.

Setting him free and winning the heater, however, involves an obstacle course with light-string barbed-wire, wreath tires to run through, a snowball catapult, and more fake snow to the face while a mildly deranged elf named TutTut does her shrillest drill sergeant impression.

Once through the course, they’re led to what is clearly the employee room, welcomed by Santa and forced to search the mailbox block/advent calendar and get more snow in the face before Santa’s true game is revealed!

And of course, there are lots of trumpets. Because everyone loves trumpets.