Hasta La Creative!

RPA is debuting a new online series promoting the Honda Fit with “Brad, the Lyft Driver,” a hidden-camera style video starring Nick Thune as Brad, an (overly) accommodating Lyft driver.

The series, directed by Fred Savage (Modern Family, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), shows Thune (in character as Brad) “maintaining a good vibe” while yelling obnoxiously out the window, rehearsing soap opera scenes with passengers, and creating creepy personalized mix tapes. While the antics can be amusing in small doses, the video stretches well past the three minute mark, overstaying its welcome a bit in the process.

As part of its “Fit For You” campaign, RPA is also teaming up with Vine stars Jordan Burt, KC James, Cody Johns and David Lopez for a series of Vine videos with each utilizing the Honda Fit in a video showcasing their individual style. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Insurance: a confusing thing that you’d rather not think about…unless you’re measuring the amount of money it drains from your bank account every month.

Farmers Insurance wants to make the process a little less painful with the help of RPA, which produced this new TV campaign and an interactive website to help customers identify those potentially disastrous blind spots in their coverage.

In the first of two ads helmed by Craig Gillespie — better know as director of the Gosling vehicle Lars and the Real Girl – the dad from Juno helps demonstrate the difference between the world we’d like to live in and the one we wake up to every day:

Another one after the jump.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s a special week in Honda land, as ad agency RPA is enacting a sweeping plan to spread good cheer—online and off—as part of a five-day “Summer Cheerance” event.

A ket part of the campaign involves interacting with people on Twitter—replying to seemingly random posts with “funny, crazy or just plain weird cheer videos, memes and GIFs,” the automaker says.

Check out a few of those here.

@g_will12 Just think of how happy you will be when your shift ends though. #RetailFreedom #Cheerance pic.twitter.com/Cm9v8T2vPg

— Honda (@Honda) August 5, 2014

@caitlin41648090 You might need a little privacy, perhaps a wall…or fence. #Cheerance pic.twitter.com/G8yxVubli2

— Honda (@Honda) August 4, 2014

@benitezkaren21 You should take a lesson from this guy, he’s never bored. #Cheerance http://t.co/4QHfN33bOP

— Honda (@Honda) August 4, 2014

@MattTennenhouse At least your school is a more entertaining place than this guy’s bench. #Cheerance pic.twitter.com/Lt38uoDIkB

— Honda (@Honda) August 5, 2014

@HollyJessup Feel better soon! We aren’t doctors so the only medicine we can send is laughter. #Cheerance pic.twitter.com/ENWDl4vVZY

— Honda (@Honda) August 5, 2014

Facebook and YouTube will also be used. Notably, the brand has teamed with YouTube star Andrew Hales (of LAHWF fame) for two videos—the first of which is already live:

There will be real-world events, too, in select cities across the country. The brand will leave piñatas filled with goodies at random locations; use a “Cheer Detector” at a beach to find buried treasure chests and share them with onlookers; and place “Stand Here for Cheer” boxes in public places, encouraging people to climb up and receive a surprise act of cheer (like being serenaded by a saxophonist).

A Summer Cheerance station will also feature happy tunes on Pandora. The campaign also includes six TV spots (featuring dramatizations of actual social media posts from people who are unhappy with their current cars); banner ads on auto sites like Cars.com, KBB.com and Edmunds.com and on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; print ads in People, Sports Illustrated and top-market local newspapers; and network radio spots.

The goal is to spread cheer to 3 million people. (A ticker is keeping track of the tally at shophonda.com.) Upon reaching that goal, Honda will donate $100,000 to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

“We are committed to spreading unprecedented cheer and connecting with as many people as we possibly can in five days,” said Susie Rossick, senior manager at American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “This collection of silly and wonderful morsels of cheer across social media, and in real life, are designed to make an impact, create smile-filled buzz and remind people that summer is the best time to get a great deal on a Honda.”

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: American Honda
Project: Honda Summer Cheerance Event

Agency: RPA
EVP, CCO: Joe Baratelli
SVP, ECD: Jason Sperling
SVP, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff
Creative Director: Nik Piscitello
Creative Director: Aron Fried
Art Directors: Melinda Keough, Michael Jason Enriquez, Craig Nelson
Copywriters: Kevin Tenglin, Laura Kelley, Adam Gothelf
Creative Interns: Dennis Haynes, Megan Leinfelder, Sarah Ross, Sarah Johnston
VP, Executive Producer: Isadora Chesler
Producer: Phung Vo
Director/Sr. Producer, Content: Mark Tripp
Production Intern: Rudy Wilson

VP, Program Director: Dave Brezinski
Sr. Project Manager: Linda Shin

SVP, Management Account Director: Brett Bender
SVP, Group Account Director: Fern McCaffrey
Account Supervisor: Adam Levitt
Account Supervisor: Alison Bickel
Account Executive: Katie Ahn
Account Assistant: Wendy Kleinberg
Social Media: Joanna Kennedy, Tyler Sweeney, Mike Goldys, Amanda Womack

Production Company: RPA
Director: Mark Tripp

Editorial: RPA
Editor: Wendy Sandoval

RPA, the indie ad shop in Santa Monica responsible for ‘Farmers (Insurance) University,’ released a Cannes-ready study with USA Today addressing what seems to be the missing ingredient in agency-client relationships: Trust.

Its focus is what trust has to do with the creative process. In short, a good bit. Judy Vogel, vice president of research, Gannett Co., Inc., the parent company of USA Today, says:

“We believe everyone in the industry has a role to play in supporting more honest conversations between agencies and marketers.”

Findings after the jump.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

RPA has two new spots for Honda that highlight the features and competitive advantages of Honda’s two core vehicles — the Accord and the Civic — continuing the “Start Something Special” tagline introduced last September.

While the copy is a relatively straightforward rundown of features and what sets Honda apart from the competition, the footage was a bit more complicated to capture. The spots use “a complex camera technique called parallax, whereby the camera and scenery are moved in such a way that the car appears to be moving when in actuality it’s standing still.” The Accord spot, for example, was filmed in one single shot, with the last take being the one used in the ad. All effects were done in camera, with elaborate lighting and choreography used to simulate different locations within the spot. RPA collaborated with production company Reset to create the desired effect. Stick around for credits and “Lydia’s Civic” after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

American Honda Motor Company works hard to keep up with the competition but hasn’t been quite so successful in the hybrid space. Honda’s Prius equivalent may have been called The Insight, but the company recently pitted all three major holding companies against one another in the search for a bit more of that key noun.
Other campaigns have gone viral (shout out to Michael Bolton) and, according to AdWeek, Honda spends approximately $50 million on digital advertising each year.
Now who’s competing for that money?
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We’ve

confirmed, via TBWA\Chiat\Day source, that executive producer Justin Taylor has left his position at the agency’s Los Angeles office to take an in-house gig with the Nike basketball division.

Of course, we could have just checked out his Twitter account:

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT I’m going to work at @nike as Global Digital Brand Director for Basketball. Couldn’t be more excited. #swooshlife

— Justin Taylor (@TheSmarmyBum) April 29, 2014

Some backstory…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The safe driving PSA would seem, creatively speaking, to be a relatively staid genre. Yet last week we saw an unusual French entry, and today RPA went the animated emjoi route in order to effectively demonstrate the dangers of multitasking behind the wheel.

We didn’t realize that April was Distracted Driving Month (primarily because we don’t own a car), but Honda is collaborating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to raise awareness of just how dangerous that stray text can be.

Strategically speaking, the #ThumbsUp tag might be a bit too ambiguous to turn the campaign viral–but Honda promises to share related materials like GIFs, stills, downloadable mobile wallpaper and banners throughout the month in the interest of safe driving.

There’s a Spanish version after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

RPA teamed up with production company tool for a new campaign celebrating Newport Beach Film Festival’s 15th anniversary entitled “15 Years Under the Influence.”

The centerpiece of the campaign is a short film called “Bedtime Story.” In the two and a half minute video, directed by Tom Routson, a daughter asks her father to read her a story before bed. The father begins a story about “a beautiful princess who lived in a magical castle far, far away,” but soon finds himself bored with the story and strays from the narrative, deciding that the princess is not actually a princess but a “beautiful operating system” (referencing Spike Jonze’s Her). From there his story bounces all over the place, referencing memorable moments in independent film from the last 20 years or so, with a rather gory ending. Somehow, through all this his daughter manages to fall asleep, making the display of truly awful parenting seem almost sweet. In addition to its home online, the film will screen during this year’s festival in Newport Beach, which will take place from April 24th-May 1st. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Honda loves Michael Bolton. Maybe even more than the Bobs, the doofus business consultants from Office Space, who really, really, love Michael Bolton.

The 60-year-old pop crooner—who has popped up in ads recently for brands like Optimum and Starburst—stars in the automaker's holiday campaign, called Happy Honda Days, because marketers also love bad puns. The short original songs Bolton belts out are characteristically saccharin, meant to capture the feeling of spiritual-love-ecstasy that some men of a certain age can only get from Bolton—and, the automaker would have you believe, anyone can get from buying a Honda.

The generally fantastical series wins points for poking fun at itself with melodramatic guitar solos and idiotic lyrical gems like "This special time of year, it's filled with joy and cheer, for me and you and you and you, too." Most realistic, though, are the dumbstruck stares of the relatively young buyers, whose sometimes ambiguous expressions seem to range from charmed to baffled to terrified to regretful (at least Honda didn't include him in the crash package it sent to that poor couple's wedding).

Still, if you're a sucker for punishment—or just want to torture your loved ones—Honda has arranged for Bolton to deliver season's greetings to the family and friends of people willing to tweet the hashtag #XOXOBolton. Because if you didn't want to buy a Honda already, maybe Bolton can sing you into submission. Plus, once you own the car, you can insist nobody ever play Michael Bolton in it again.