Hasta La Creative!

Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the series, on Fox, invites viewers to take a communal journey from earth to the observable universe.

W+K Portland has a new campaign for the Oregon Tourism Commison, extolling the virtues of their home state with a video called “The 7 Wonders of Oregon.”

The :60 anthem spot features all 7 “wonders of Oregon,” attempting to “inspire active travelers looking for authentic experiences” with Oregon’s natural landmarks. While Oregon’s natural beauty speaks for itself, the production of the spot was no small task. It was “carried out by a crew of 15 people shooting for 14 days straight and driving more than 3,000 miles across Oregon, often camping along the way.” All of the individuals involved were “Oregonians with a genuine passion for the wonders they are representing” and the spot is clearly a labor of love.

“This is some of the strongest work for Travel Oregon in our 25-year history of working together,” W+K chairman co-namesake Dan Wieden says, adding, “What I really like about the creative, aside from how beautiful Oregon looks, is it gives people a checklist of things to see and do.”

In addition to the anthem spot, the integrated campaign includes digital, social, search, public relations and consumer engagement elements. The latter includes “an influencer tour, targeted media outreach, a program to surprise and delight visitors, and a Facebook sweepstakes to drive visibility and fan acquisition.” In the social realm, visitors are invited to share their Oregon photos with the hashtag #traveloregon, with top picks on Travel Oregon content channels “to inspire others long after the paid media portion of the campaign concludes.” In a nice touch, the digital campaign includes not only trip inspiration, but also trip planning tools and resources such as itineraries, links to purchase plane tickets and special travel deals on TravelOregon.com. If I wasn’t already dying to get to the Pacific Northwest, this campaign would do a pretty good job convincing me that Oregon is a great travel destination. Stick around for credits after the jump and go here for more :30 efforts for the campaign. continued…

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More often than not when you are video content online, you suffer the dreaded spinning circle buffering icon. You’ve come to accept that this is normal when going online. But what if this happened while you were watching TV?

To promote Belgian telecom company BASE’s 4G service, the agency used billboards at the beginning and end of programming with the text, “You’re not used to waiting at home. So why wait when you’re on the move? With BASE 4G, you can surf everywhere as fast as at home.”

It would certainly be a bit disconcerting to see the dreaded spinning ball while watching “regular” TV so perhaps this did a good job grabbing the audiences attention.

And Meryl Streep gushes, “Oh I’ve never tweeted before!”

Hundreds of thousands of retweets and it broke Twitter.

Within 30 minutes, Ellen’s tweet bested Barack Obama’s Four more years tweet.

The El Rey Network, owned by the director Robert Rodriguez, and senior executives outlined their goals for the channel at an “upfront” presentation to advertisers.

Siltanen & Partners have released a follow up to Coldwell Banker’s GRAMMY “Home Sweet Home” spot called “Your Home,” which will debut during the Oscars this Sunday.

The new spot is the latest in Coldwell Banker’s #HomeRocks campaign, and will mark the third straight year the company has worked with Tom Selleck, who lends his recognizable voice to the 60 second ad. “Your Home” is in much the same vein as the campaign’s previous work, emphasizing the sentimental attachments people make to the places they live and tying it to the brand with the “Where home begins” tagline. While a continuation of Coldwell Banker’s second annual awards season campaign rollout, this particular spot was also strategically timed for this year’s Oscars.

“The Oscars are perfectly timed to reach consumers with our message of how home plays a role in the story of our lives while also aligning with the spring homebuying and selling season,” explains Sean Blankenship, senior vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker. “It’s also fitting that the Oscars will pay homage to the 75^th anniversary of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and Judy Garland’s classic line, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

Selleck, as you may remember, has deeply rooted ties to the company. “When I was four, my father put the Sellecks in the family car and left Detroit for Southern California to pursue a career in real estate. He worked for Coldwell Banker for 38 years, retiring as an Executive Vice President. Over that period, my two brothers and sisters were with Coldwell Banker, as well. I was the one exception. I’m proud to say that I’m now part of the family business, ” said the man once known as Magnum PI.

As part of the campaign leading up to the new spot, voters on Coldwell Banker’s Blue Matter blog voted Apollo 13 as having the best homecoming scene in movie history, beating out the likes of The Wizard of Oz, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Home Alone, which finished dead last. Keep an eye out for the new “Your Home” spot during the Oscars this Sunday, and stick around for brief credits after the jump. continued…

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How many people watched the second season of “House of Cards” on Netflix? The volume of messages on Twitter suggests the audience for the political thriller may have grown substantially.

Arnold Worldwide is behind a new 2.3 million dollar campaign for Jack Daniel’s new “Sinatra Select,” a new product rolling out in select markets in anticipation of a June release nationally. Sinatra Select is a stronger make of whiskey (90 proof to Jack Daniel’s normal 80 proof) with “more oak and spice notes.” It will be rolled out in some of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ favorite haunts: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, and Las Vegas.

At the center of the campaign is the 30-second spot, “Frank The Man,” celebrating Frank Sinatra and his favorite drink. The spot ends with Sinatra’s “That’s the nectar of the gods, baby,” quote. Jack Daniel’s in an enviable position as the preferred drink of such a historical celebrity; the new product, and Arnold’s campaign, seem like a no-brainer. As you may remember, Sinatra got a shout out in Jack Daniel’s “Legend” spot from last year, so it was only a matter of time until he got the spotlight. The media buy for “Frank The Man” includes “ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live and NBC’s The Tonight Show as well as cable outlets including ESPN, FX, Discovery and Comedy Central so this should reach a wide array of eyeballs as the product rolls out in its select markets.

As you might expect, the premium whiskey is a bit more glamorous than Jack Daniel’s standard offering, and the price tag ($150) is indicative of that. Sinatra Select also comes with packaging that “includes a commemorative gift box and a booklet detailing Mr. Sinatra’s history with Jack,” so folks will be paying for more than just the whiskey itself. The timing behind this campaign and product rollout is deliberate, coming in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ birth on Dec. 15, 1915. Credits after the jump. continued…

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3SBA/Innocean Worldwide teamed up with director Alejandro Toledo of Harpoon Pictures for two new spots for Kia.

In the playful 60 second spot “Winter,” a snowball fight breaks out on the street, with children and adults alike ducking behind Kias to avoid being pelted with snowy projectiles. A family returns from a winter trip with a sleeping child in the backseat of their Kia Rio, while another family cheers on the action from the safety of their Kia Ceed. It’s a fun spot, or at least it would have been if it was timed right. But therein lies the problem: “Winter” is being released at the tail end of one of the harshest seasons in recent history, and I doubt many people are in the mood to celebrate “the joyful surprises to be found in the season” or look fondly at anything but the impending arrival of spring. The last thing people want to be reminded of is the fact that there’s still almost a month left until that happens.

The other spot, “Russia,” celebrates that country while extolling the diversity of Kia’s models, which can perform well in both urban and rural environments. In the spot, “Kia Sorrento, Ceed and Rio are each shown seamlessly moving from rough forest and off-road terrains into energetic city environments, delighting drivers and passengers alike with the cars’ comfort, elegance and agility.” Oddly enough, the Russian nationalism stoking spot was actually filmed by Toledo in Spain. You can view “Russia” after the jump and if you care, learn more about Toledo and Harpoon Pictures here.

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For what we believe is CP+B’s Hotels.com debut, the agency decided to turn the “Captain Obvious” of middle school insults into an actual person, and boy is he annoying.

The risk in trying to make a humorous ad is that when it misfires it usually comes across as irritating, and this is a textbook example. Captain Obvious spends the 60 seconds given (there’s also a 30-second version) roaming around a hotel — “the best place to talk about hotels” — pointing out obvious things like what “all you can eat” means, that “gym is short for gymnasium” and that Hotels.com is on the Internet. Does this sound mildly irritating to you? Because it should. Clearly, the ad is attempting to say that Hotels.com is the obvious choice for booking hotels, but instead it will just make most people want to punch Captain Obvious in the face and/or change the channel after about three seconds.

As mentioned, tipsters tell us that “Captain Obvious” marks CP+B’s first work for the brand since taking over for Y&R Chicago on the account last October. If it’s any indication of what’s to come, we’re really going to miss Y&R’s approach, such as with this clever skydiving effort from a few years back. Maybe CP+B will change up their strategy to something less obnoxious, but we’ve got a bad feeling we’ll be seeing this character for a while.

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