Hasta La Creative!

Just as the movie industry hits the boredom wall after New Year’s, the ad industry has really seemed to stall out since the Super Bowl. Makes sense: big budgets used up on Rob Riggle psuedo-celebrity endorsements and Stephen Colbert pistachio suits. What we have now is the calm after the storm, best exemplified by Carmichael Lynch’s new “Best Dad” spot for Subaru.

“Best Dad” is a simple 30-second clip that positions Subaru as the sweater-wearing dad of car brands, which is a fairly accurate representation, but maybe not the most tantalizing choice for an ad campaign. Take this recent video, for example, of a small Subaru sedan towing a Dodge Charger police cruiser out of the snow as one way to uniquely position the brand, especially in the winter. What Carmichael Lynch chose to produce instead is so typical that’s it’s hard to remember what happened 30 seconds ago. All car brands mention awards in their commercials. Motor Trend and J.D. Power and Associates give out awards the way Little Leagues give out trophies. Even if the message stays the same, at least try to present it in a fresh way. Just try, that’s all I ask.

Credits after the jump.

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At this year's Super Bowl, Wonderful Pistachios will take a break from its usual "what's hot this minute" approach and feature a star with a bit more lasting power: Stephen Colbert. The host of Comedy Central's Colbert Report will appear in two game-day ads for the brand, kicking off a campaign themed "Get crackin', America." Ads will continue to roll out throughout 2014 as part of a yearlong contract with Colbert.

The spots will be directed by Tom Kuntz, who helmed Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like," the unforgettably odd Skittles "Beard" spot and Volkswagen's 2013 Super Bowl ad, "Get Happy."

In a statement, the marketing chief for Wonderful Pistachios parent Paramount Farms praised his brand's 2013 Super Bowl ad. "Last year's Super Bowl spot featuring Psy drove significant brand awareness and incredible buzz among consumers," said Marc Seguin. "This year, we wanted to extend and deepen that enthusiasm beyond the Super Bowl with talent that excites and resonates with our core consumer target over the full year. Mr. Colbert is the perfect fit for our brand and for this campaign."

Our monthly contributor and Huge client services director, Josh Seifert, returns post-SXSWi to pen this ditty to, as mentioned above, talk real-time marketing in the age of social media. Why bore you with the preamble, though, just read on.

As a marketing professional working in digital, brands like Oreo getting attention in social media is pretty exciting for the shift it represents. As a consumer, the notion that brands en masse should enter social media and begin tweeting, pinning and posting about everyday happenings is more like a dystopian nightmare. Individual brands that have committed themselves to exploring what’s possible in social media, tying it in with broader marketing programs and shifting their approach when necessary can be exciting and creative—the Old Spice YouTube response videos are a great example. Brands that perceive social media as free media with a low barrier to entry may actually be poisonous for everyone else.

A common theme that seems to reverberate from social media professionals advising brands is the need to “be human”  to be successful. Really, this is a polite way to say that every instinct towards managing brands in traditional communications will prove limited and transparent in social media. Basically, brand-controlling memos like this one from Wheat Thins that Stephen Colbert read on air are not human and won’t translate into social media success. What it doesn’t mean, as this short tumblr nicely illustrates, is to generate nonsense content that may be timely, but isn’t actually valuable.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.