Hasta La Creative!

MMB teamed up with production company Aggressive for a new holiday campaign for Subway employing a mix of methods in three different spots.

The animated 30-second “Winter Wonderland,” introduces Subway’s holiday “Customer Appreciation” event, which sees the fast food sandwich chain offering two of its most longstanding offerings — the meatball marinara and coldcut combo — for a reduced price. “Winter Wonderland” keeps the holiday vibe low-key, with the music and background animation celebrating the season in general rather than a specific winter holiday in particular. Two 15-second spots take a similarly laid-back approach, but swap out the animation for live action spots with appearances by NFL stars Justin Tuck and Robert Griffin III in “Famous Fans” and the brand’s longtime spokesman in “Jared.” There’s nothing particularly memorable here, as MMB and Aggressive seem to rely on the deal speaking to fans of the brand without any unnecessary bells and whistles. (more…)

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Adidas is celebrating the launch of its revamped NBA Swingman jersey line with a new spot starring Portland Trailblazers star Damian Lillard.

The spot follows Lillard as he is shadowed by his “swingman,” who is as devoted to being a great “swingman” as Lillard is to being a great basketball player. He sets out to “think like Damian, act like Damian, smell like Damian,” even if he can’t play like him. The ad attempts a humorous tone, but while it shoots for laughs, it ultimately comes up empty. Additional ads in the series featuring Kenneth Faried of the Denver Nuggets and Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls will follow in the coming days. Adidas’ NBA Swingman jerseys are available now at NBAStore.com and the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue and retails for $110.

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Are you up for some BGCP3TV in HD?

Los Angeles Clippers stars Blake Griffin and Chris Paul have each shown, separately, that they can anchor comedy. In State Farm’s Chris and Cliff campaign, Paul showed that he’s perhaps the NBA’s most gifted endorser. And Griffin? Well, he’s done so much comedy that he has his own section on Funny or Die.

Now, they’ve teamed up for an interesting project from Wieden + Kennedy New York and Jordan Brand—a pair of five-minute videos that are full of quirky comedy sketches. Both are pretty amusing—not surprising, since Neal Brennan, co-creator of The Chappelle Show, served as director and co-writer on these.

Griffin and Paul are launching new shoes a month apart, but these sketches are a whole lot more entertaining than some action footage would have been.

W+K’s Eric Helin wrote some sketches, as did Brennan. There wasn’t too much improvising—most of what you see was on the page, though Griffin and Paul made it their own. “I’ve worked with a ton of athletes and can honestly say Blake & Chris are among the best,” said Gary Van Dzura, W+K creative director. “They’re natural in front of the camera and have a great comedic timing.”

“Pretty much what you see is what you get,” Brennan added. “They’re friends who clearly spend a lot of time together. They like and respect each other and are used to making jokes all day. I was also amazed at how quickly they were able to memorize the material.”

Asked if there was a limit to how goofy he wanted the sketches to be, Brennan said: “One of the sketches that got cut out was super crazy. But I don’t think anybody really thought of them as crazy/not crazy. At least I didn’t. I just thought of them as tonally correct and funny/not funny. The Ohhh Bros. sketch is about guys whose lives are ruined by reacting to basketball plays. That’s pretty crazy.”

CREDITS
Client: Jordan Brand
Project: BGCP3TV in HD
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman, David Kolbusz
Creative Directors: Gary Van Dzura, Jimm Lasser
Writer: Eric Helin
Art Director: Erwin Federizo
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Producer: Orlee Tatarka
Account Team: Jerico Cabaysa, Price Manford, Heather Morba, Cory McCollum
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski
Production Company: Go Films
Director: Neal Brennan (Director & Co-Writer)
Executive Producer/COO: Gary Rose
Executive Producer: Adam Bloom
Line Producer: Marc Benardout
Director of Photography: Chuck Ozeas
Editorial Company: Starch Media
Editor: Bijan Shams,  Scott Ashby, Jeremy Hsu
Post Producer: Susan Applegate
VFX Company: Stardust & Elastic
VFX Lead Flame: Alex Frisch
Telecine Company: MPC LA
Colorist: Ricky Gausis
Mix Company: Eleven
Mixer: Jeff Payne & Ben Freer
Producer: Susanne Hollingshead
Song: “Junkyard”  (Original Composition)
Artist: James Poyser

Stopp, “an integrated production company that combines creativity, technology and VFX disciplines to create innovative work with emotional connections” has launched a new broadcast and digital campaign for Adidas Outdoor promising the brand is “Open All Winter.”

For the campaign, Stopp partnered with extreme sports stars Hayley Ashburn (slackliner), Jean-Baptiste Chandelier (paraglider) and Junhee Han (ice climber) to show off Adidas’ range of Climaheat products boasting an insulation design that keeps the wearer warm in extreme winter conditions. The spot opens on a seemingly abandoned town as a sign reading “Closed for winter” swings in the breeze. A group of determined runners bust through, undeterred. Then the spot focuses on ice climber Junhee Han as he takes on a steep slope, followed by the other featured extreme athletes showing off their skills, before ending with the “Open All Winter” tagline.

In addition to the broadcast spot, which also runs online, the campaign is supported by digital elements and a competition running over the course of twelve weeks, inviting participants to share winter pics on Instagram and Twitter. A new winner will be picked every week, with an athlete jury selecting one grand prize winner to receive a winter road trip across Canada with four friends.

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LeBron James can go home again. And again. And again.

The NBA star’s return to Cleveland from Miami was always going to be fodder for numerous ad campaigns. And indeed, we’ve already seen spots from Beats by Dre and Sprite this week. Now it’s Nike’s turn to get epic—timed to Thursday night’s Cavaliers home-opener against the New York Knicks.

It’s suitably goosebump-inducing, as LeBron leads not just his teammates but all of Cleveland in a massive pre-game huddle—the ultimate come-to-Jesus moment for the city’s once-and-again favorite son.

Nike Basketball partnered with Wieden + Kennedy for the spot, which was directed by the Malloy Brothers. LeBron’s mom, Gloria Marie James, makes a cameo, as do Coach Dru Joyce and teammates Kyrie Irving, Dion Waters, Anderson Varejao, Shawn Marion, Tristan Thompson, Matthew Dellavedova and Joe Harris.

Nike is also introducing the LeBron 12 Hrt of a Lion shoe today, and is currently working on the nine-hour process of unveiling a 10-story, 25,000-square-foot banner on Ontario Street welcoming James back to Cleveland.

BarrettSF enlisted the aid of Steve Nash to promote TopLine Game Lab’s DailyMVP fantasy game, which differentiates itself from other fantasy sports leagues by offering short-format games that last from a day to a week.

In the ad, Nash dons spectacles and a wig, appearing as an everyday librarian who can feel like an MVP thanks to the fantasy app. “I love being a librarian,” Nash says at the start of the spot, “but some days can be a little quiet.” He goes on to demonstrate the app and how it adds some excitement to his daily routine (while getting shushed). The spot ends with the tagline, “Have an MVP day,” emphasizing the short format. It was released to coincide with the start of the NBA season. A future spot starring Tom Brady will roll out near the end of the NFL season, when many players in traditional fantasy leagues have already been eliminated. (more…)

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In early September, the Los Angeles Clippers named Santa-Monica based RPA as its lead creative agency following a review launched in August. Now, at the start of the NBA season RPA has debuted a new campaign for the team entitled “Be Relentless.”

“Be Relentless” alludes to the off-the-court troubles faced by the Clippers in the form of Donald Sterling‘s racist comments which led to the sale of the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. RPA’s new campaign casts the new season in a positive light, as the beginning of a new era for the team, which reached the conference semifinals last year. The campaign centers around a broadcast spot, created in collaboration with Panay Films and released in both 30 and 60-second versions, also called “Be Relentless.” Filmed in majestic black and white, the ad begins by asking, “You think you know who we are?” before announcing, “This is a new game, a new era.” The spot goes on, “We have walked through fire and come out on the other side,” alluding quite obviously to the Sterling controversy while putting a positive spin on the new season as a new beginning for the team.

The 60-second version of the ad debuted nationally last night, during both opening night double headers and will air nationally again during the Clippers’ home opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder tomorrow night. Both 30 and 60-second versions of the spot will also air locally in the Los Angeles market during prime-time shows, live sports programming, as well as in Los Angeles and Orange County movie theaters. The campaign is supported by print elements in the LA Times and ESPN Magazine and out-of-home media in the L.A. skyline and along major freeways.

“Our goal is to make the Clippers the most loved sports entertainment brand—period,” said RPA SVP and Group Account Director Kirt Danner.

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Marty McFly and Tony Hawk both drove demand for hoverboards—but alas, supply has been nonexistent, as both of them had to rely on camera trickery and special effects. 

But now, finally, we’re getting a glimpse of the first prototype of a functioning hoverboard. Hendo is the company producing this miracle of engineering, and it’s launched a Kickstarter that lets you help bring it to market.

What’s cool is you can support it by donating and even buying the development kit and experimenting with “The Whitebox”—a floating box that uses the same technology as the hoverboard. They’ve also drawn up plans for hoverparks, which are coated with hoverboard-friendly material so you can float around and try to be the first to pioneer a new sport.

Take a look at the pitch video, and also check out the fascinating Kickstarter page.

BBH London has released a new spot for KFC in the UK entitled “Fans.”

In the 90-second spot, two brothers support rival footie clubs — Stirling Albion FC and Dunfermline FC — and each attends a match with one of their parents. Both diehard fans are quite serious about the match but only one team comes out on top. But in heartwarming yet predictable fashion, KFC brings the family back together, and soon the boys are bonding over the new Colonel’s Brownie Bucket. While it may not exactly be breaking new ground, it’s a cute spot and well-executed enough to not seem over-the-top. (more…)

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M&C Saatchi brings back Tom Brady, this time along with his dog, for its third installment of its fall global marketing campaign for UGG Australia.

The spot continues the theme of the Patriots quarterback enjoying his time off the field. Entitled “Down Time,” the 60-second spot opens with Brady walking in slow motion (filmed in black and white), set to serious music. “This is what it all comes down to; this is what all the hard work is for,” Brady says, “The long days, the extra hours, all for moments like these.” Brady then plays with his dog, Lua, while wearing the “Munro” boot from UGG for Men’s Fall collection.

Those who were critical of UGG’s previous Brady-starring ads will find plenty to complain of here with the self-seriousness of “Down Time.” Meanwhile, the Patriots QB can still do no wrong in the eyes of his most ardent admirers. Whether or not he can convince Boston sports bros to lace up UGG boots, though, is another question.

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