RPA Spreads ‘Summer Cheerance’ for Honda

RPA has launched a new integrated campaign for Honda highlighting the brand’s summer clearance event and attempting to spread summer cheer, under the face-palm worthy title “Summer Cheerance.”

To be fair, “Summer Cheerance” is at least memorable, however irksome the title may be. The campaign includes broadcast spots, print, digital, radio, “an abundance of smile-inducing videos, memes, GIFs and visual jokes via social media” and special events from August 4th until August 8th to promote the Honda Summer Clearance event. As part of the campaign, Honda will donate $100,000 to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

“Summer Cheerance” launched today with an introduction video (featured above), as well as a series of short videos designed to be shared on social media to spread summer cheer. For example, one video shows a pig swatting its tail for six seconds, followed by the message “We hope this video added some cheer to your day” and promotes Honda’s event with the #Cheerance hashtag. Other videos include dancing dolphins, an exhausted puppy and an “Epic Gopher.” Additionally, the brand has teamed up with YouTube star Andrew Hales, who will promote the brand with two videos on his YouTube channel. Stick around for a few examples, along with credits, after the jump. (more…)

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We Hear: What’s Going on at West Studios?

We first inquired about this two weeks ago when the tips came in and have yet to hear back, but there seem to have been some notable defections in recent times from West Studios. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, West is the San Francisco-based shop that was launched two years ago by former Apple global marketing communications head, Allison Johnson, and was initially co-funded by Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey (we’re being told that Dorsey has since distanced himself from the company). During its initial launch, West was headed up by Johnson, former Martin Agency GCD Keith Cartwright and Katalyst digital head, Sarah Ross.

Well, as tipsters have pointed out, the latter two are no longer at West and in fact Cartwright doesn’t even acknowledge his time at the operation on their LinkedIn profiles. Of course, these aren’t the only notable departures from the SF shop in recent months. Travis Britton, former Cutwater principal/ECD who joined West as chief experience officer last year, has parted ways as has COO, Amanda Kelso (former W+K ECD Todd Waterbury was also in the mix but is now of course serving in the same role at Target). And today, we’re hearing that a major client is on the outs with the shop. We’re putting in more inquiries to the rather secretive West Studios, and will try to clarify what the state of the union is as soon as we hear more.

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