Hasta La Creative!

The experiment is intended to show the extent to which broadcast channels can be squeezed together on the electromagnetic spectrum without degrading signal quality.

W+K Portland and Coca-Cola have pre-released their Super Bowl ad, “Going All The Way.” One of two big game spots for Coca-Cola, “Going All The Way,” was shot in Ashwaubenon, a suburb of Green Bay, Wisconsin, with the exception of the final moments, which were shot at Lambeau Field.

The 60 second spot, directed by Jake Scott and set to House of Pain’s classic “Jump Around,” tells the story of Adrian, a small high school football benchwarmer who finally gets his chance to shine. “Don’t mess this up again, Adrian,” his teammate says when he’s put in the game, telling us all we need to know about Adrian’s past on the playing field. But things break Adrian’s way, and he’s given the opportunity to make the play of a lifetime.

Most of the cast of “Going All The Way” was made up of actual Green Bay-area residents, and Lambeau Field’s groundskeeper of 17 years has a featured role in the spot. “‘Going All The Way’ is a story that celebrates a young man accomplishing his dreams. It’s also a celebration of the amazing town of Ashwaubenon, Wis. coming together and our wonderful partnership with the city of Green Bay,” said Katie Bayne, President, North America Brands, Coca-Cola North America.

The feel-good spot will air during the second half of the Super Bowl, while Coca-Cola’s other big game ad will air during the second quarter. This marks Coca-Cola’s eighth consecutive year advertising during the Super Bowl. To celebrate the launch of “Going All The Way,” Coca-Cola has pledged to donate $50,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Triple Play program when the spot reaches 10,000 shares. So please feel free to share “Going All The Way” with friends, family and colleagues. Stick around for a behind-the-scenes video about the making of “Going All The Way” after the jump. continued…

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An audience of 6.6 million is still huge, but is less than what the show was getting before comments by the show’s patriarch, which were criticized as homophobic.

For the second year in a row, Coldwell Banker is rolling out its national marketing campaign during awards season, with the debut of “Home Sweet Home” during the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, January 26th.

The new, 60 second spot, created by Siltanen & Partners under the direction of executive creative director Rob Siltanen, features the Mötley Crüe anthem “Home Sweet Home.” “Home Sweet Home,” directed by Kat Coiro, is a montage of all the moments that make getting home at the end of the day so rewarding: kicking off your shoes, hopping on the couch, slipping into a warm bath. The spot closes with the hashtag #HomeRocks, pulling together the music connection. Coldwell Banker is also offering fans the chance to vote for their favorite song about homes in the #HomeRocks awards on their Blue Matter blog.

“Music and home certainly go together no matter where you are in the world and we believe we have found the appropriate major events to showcase the emotional value we place in our homes,” explained Sean Blankenship, senior vice president, marketing for Coldwell Banker Real Estate. ““This campaign is part of our ongoing effort to remind Americans that home is as much a lifestyle investment as it is financial,” he added.

“Your Home,” the next spot in Coldwell Banker’s #HomeRocks campaign, featuring the voice (but not the mustache) of Tom Selleck, will launch during the Academy Awards on March 2nd. It will mark the third straight year Coldwell Banker has worked with Selleck, whose father was a former Coldwell Banker executive.

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Last week we brought you the teaser for Butterfinger’s Superbowl spot promoting their new Butterfinger Cups, confusingly enough created by Threshold, not Dailey and Associates, who created the Super Bowl spot itself.

If you’re confused as to why Nestlé needed two different agencies for the ads, the above spot won’t exactly help. “Big Game Teaser” is very much in the same vein as the 1:11 teaser from Threshold, a direct follow-up to the events depicted in that ad. The 30 second Super Bowl spot sees Chocolate and Peanut Butter in “cup therapy” with an outdated Freudian psychoanalyst stereotype of a couples counselor. Chocolate talks about her need to try something new and exciting, while Peanut Butter expresses his feeling that “nobody likes change.” The spot ends with the campaign tagline, “Get Some #CupTherapy.” Although the spot supposedly showcases the brand’s “irreverent sense of humor,” there’s really not a lot going on here, and certainly nothing to laugh it. This all makes the decision to oust longtime spokesperson Bart Simpson all the more questionable.

Nestlé seems confident that their new product can compete with longtime peanut butter cup favorite Reese’s, claiming a “recent E! Online poll of consumers reported that Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups will win the candy industry’s epic peanut butter cup battle.” We’re not so sure unseating Reese’s will be quite so easy, but if Butterfinger would like to send us samples to convince us otherwise, we’re all for it.

Butterfinger Cups are also part of a new greenwashing campaign for Nestlé called Nestlé Cocoa Plan, an attempt to gain an improved public image for the company following what seem like endless environmental, labor, and human rights violations. According to Nestlé, the new initiative aims “to help improve the lives of cocoa farmers and the quality of their products while also assuring a sustainable cocoa supply for years to come. The beans will be certified by UTZ Certified, an independent organization focused on developing sustainable farming and better opportunities for farmers and their families.”

You can expect to see Dailey’s “Big Game Teaser” during the Super Bowl on Sunday, Febrary 2nd, marking Butterfinger’s debut Super Bowl advertisement. Butterfinger Cups are available in stores now. Stick around for partial credits after the jump. continued…

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Earlier this month, Draftfcb Chicago launched the “How Do You KFC?” integrated campaign for the colonel, “a new movement celebrating the connection KFC fans have with the food.” Part of that campaign was an online video of X Games Moto gold medalist Bryce Hudson, who became the first person to perform a backflip while eating chicken (a KFC Go Cup featuring Extra Crispy Tenders). Even more impressively, according to Draftfcb Chicago’s in-house production team, “when Hudson invited them to his private practice facility for the shoot, the successful flip was captured within the first two takes.” The ever-confident Hudson was not surprised. “I knew the backflip would be possible right off the bat,” he said, “I was so excited to join the #HowDoYouKFC movement with the world’s first chicken-eating backflip because I could enjoy two of my favorite things at the same time. It doesn’t get much better than that.” Draftfcb’s video crew for the shoot reportedly included only four people.

The video gained over half a million views during its first two weeks online, and, in a nod to fan appreciation, Draftfcb and KFC are turning it into a primetime television spot that begins airing tonight. “We want to stay nimble, listen to our fans, and give them what they want. When we saw that the Bryce Hudson video was quickly emerging as a fan favorite, we wanted to make it even bigger — and put it on TV,” said Jason Marker, General Manager for KFC U.S.

The “How Do You KFC” campaign also includes “revamps for point-of-purchase displays, uniforms, packaging, in-store greetings, digital and social assets,” as well as a streetball online video entitled “The Professor.” “How Do You KFC?” invites fans to participate by uploading photo or video content to social media with hashtag #HowDoYouKFC. KFC claims they will “will continually evaluate options for fan-driven videos throughout the campaign” so look for fan input to have a large impact throughout the campaign. The next video to make it to primetime could even be a fan-generated upload. Stick around for “The Professor” after the jump. continued…

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For the latest installment in Carmichael Lynch’s “Subaru Dog Tested. Dog Approved.” campaign, they’re introducing “The Barkleys,” which refers to a family of dogs, not Charles Barkley and family.

The new spots — “In the Dog House,” “Teenagers,” “Road Trip Convenience Store” and”What’s the Fuss About?” (featured above)– imagine the family of dogs in “everyday relatable human experiences.” These range from teenagers making out after a date, the man of the car getting in trouble for oggling an attractive female, that convenience store pit stop that every road trip depends on, and barking as the mailman drives by, which, come to think of it, isn’t really an “everyday relatable human experience.” The spots are simple, relying fun dog humor without any dialog. Dog owners, and especially Subaru-loving dog owners, should eat this right up.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have “They Lived,” a somber spot for Subaru’s “Love” campaign. Based on stories from real Subaru owners who survived crashes, thanks to their Subarus, the spot features an actual Subaru wreck which the driver walked away from. The officer on the scene and the driver who towed the wreck tell those seeing the wreck, “They lived.” It’s an effective way to illustrate Subaru’s crash safety as a selling point, and a reminder of how important that can be. Watch it below, and stick around for one more Barkleys spot, along with credits, after the jump. continued…

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IFC just released the key art for Season 4 of Portlandia, and the photos are fantastic. Not only did the network get the great young photographer Alex Prager on board—she decided to shoot the ads in the style of her "Face in the Crowd" photos (many of which are on display through March 9 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and at Lehmann Maupin in New York through Feb. 22). It's almost like getting a couple of non-advertising Prager originals as gift.

AdFreak spoke on Thursday with Blake Callaway, IFC's svp of marketing, about how Prager got involved, and how the two photos will be used differently in the media buy.

How did Alex get involved with this?
We always collaborate early on in the creative process for each new season with Fred [Armisen] and Carrie [Brownstein]. In the ads for past seasons, we've always focused solely on them. And so much of the show is about the community of Portlandia and their observations about the bigger world. So we thought, Let's put them in the bigger world. And then it became a fun conversation about who could do that in a unique way. We at IFC had always been a fan of Alex, Fred and Carrie had been a fan of Alex, and we just reached out. She's a hot artist right now, and she was a fan of the show and said she'd love to do it.

The ads are just like her "Face in the Crowd" photos. That's pretty special.
So much of it is directly from the work she's putting out there right now. We just said, Alex, what do you want to do? It was Fred and Carrie and Alex working through some ideas, and it's just pure Prager. Some of her same extras are in these photos. Her sister's in there; her mother's in there. And we have nine Portlandia extras that she actually cast into this world as well. And so they're sprinkled throughout. Portlandia fans will be able to pick out, Oh that's the girl from the thrift shop. Or that's someone I've seen in the feminist bookstore. So it works on a couple of different levels.

I suppose if any TV show is going to reference high art in its advertising, it would be Portlandia.
I always kind of get excited when we get coverage off of the TV page, when we're in the arts and culture section. And I agree, I think we sort of have permission to play in that space. And the reason it works is because so many people in that world are also fans of the show. Portlandia gently sends up that world as well, and Fred and Carrie's projects beyond Portlandia cross-pollinate with that world.

Creatively, we like to look not just at what's going on at other networks but what's going on in pop culture, or art references, or other things we can be inspired by. And for this project, all the stars aligned. And the more time you spend with it, you see different little elements in each picture. There's just a lot to take in.

Was it always the idea to have two photos? One seems a bit more dressed-up than the other.
Alex wanted to get two different shots. And we thought maybe at one point we'd pick a favorite. But we think they're both pretty interesting. What you'll probably see is the one we're calling "Going to Work" (below); you may see that on midtown subway platforms. And then we may put the other one in a different environment that's maybe a little less office focused. We've also tried to pick media placements that are bigger, like Interview magazine, The Hollywood Reporter—things that are bigger scale, so you can see the art.

I see—because it reads better at a bigger size.
Yeah. We decided this isn't the thing you put on the side of a bus as it zooms past you.

The league is interested in selling the rights to several of the Thursday night games that are now shown on NFL Network.

Networks these days are craving event television, and, increasingly, Dick Clark Productions’s live, star-studded spectacles are delivering it.