Hasta La Creative!

The lightly watched Fox comedy “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” got a huge boost in knocking off network titans and much buzzed-about cable entries at the Golden Globes.

Officials may seek to break down country-by-country partitions that keep pay TV from being a single market in the European Union.

In case you missed its multiple airings during the NFL playoff games over the weekend, here’s a new anthem ad for the iPad Air, which perhaps interestingly enough is not a TBWA\Media Arts Lab joint according to folks on the Spy line. (we’re checking on this)

That may come as less of a surprise after viewing the spot, which is something of a departure from Apple’s recent tone and style. The 90 second long “Your Verse” attempts to inspire via an ode to poetry and beauty, while documenting a wide range of different ways people use their iPad Air. While the device is never mentioned during the ad, it is shown in action during almost every shot, in locations around the world. The title of the ad comes from the Walt Whitman poem, “O Me! O Life!” (you may recognize it from the movie, Dead Poets Society) which it directly quotes from. “Your Verse” ends by repeating the final line of the poem — “That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.” — before asking, “What will your verse be?”

The visually impressive, Whitman quoting spot is, while a departure from recent advertising strategies for Apple, also something of a restatement of the company’s supposed core values. Instead of telling you about device functionality, or attempting a sentimental family scene, the spot instead tells you about what Apple stands for, or at least what they’d like you to think they stand for. For Apple, that’s something of a return to the fundamentals. Whether that’s inspiring or overblown and pretentious will depend largely on the viewer.

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Decades ago, families gathered around the only set in the house on Sunday nights because networks scheduled their best programming then. Today, even with DVRs and on-demand program selection, the phenomenon continues.

Hoping to stabilize a sharp ratings decline for “American Idol,” Fox changes the judging panel, brings in a new director and promises stronger singing contestants.

More from Honda today, this time with news of RPA’s new “One More Thing to Love About Today” campaign — featuring “print, digital and TV spots, speaking to the optimism of today’s youth.”

Like Orci’s “Gol!Gol!” spot for Honda’s Hispanic campaign, “Today is Pretty Great,” the campaign’s full-length online debut, centers around an original song — in this case by blues rock band Vintage Trouble. The band begins by focusing on the negative, claiming “Yeah it’s worse than ever, but that’s just where we’re at,” before being interrupted by a young woman who answers, “Except, it’s not.” Her thoughts are soon echoed by a chorus of optimistic young people. The remainder of the spot focuses on all the things to love about today: mostly cultural references designed to appeal to Millenials, like Adventure Time and Nyan Cat (which, strictly speaking, is more 2011 than today). Around halfway through the spot, Vintage Trouble change their tune, seemingly convinced by the unbridled optimism of the chorus of young whippersnappers. The 2014 Civic Coupe and Si Coupe are featured throughout the ad, which ends with the hashtag #LoveToday, designed to draw Millenials into the conversation.

A 30 second TV spot debuts today on network and cable television and will run through February. Appropriately, the campaign is complemented by mobile and social media endeavors, such as “sole sponsorship of a first-to-market digital scrapbook on…Spotify,” offering full-song previews on SoundHound, “sole ownership of MTV’s Artist to Watch 2014 program, featuring a live digital stream of the Artist to Watch concert,” homepage takeovers on MSN and Yahoo, and mobile placements in popular games like Scramble With Friends and MoviePop. Stay tuned for the 30 second TV spot and credits after the jump. continued…

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A&E hasn’t been the serious “Real. Life. Drama.” channel it once presented itself as for a long time, and the current network bears little resemblance to its former self, so a rebrand only seemed obvious. Troika, who also recently rebranded the Encore channels, delivered a more appropriate brand image for the network now most know as the channel to turn to for marathons of Duck Dynasty.

In addition to Duck Dynasty, sadly the most-watched nonfiction series in cable history, the rebrand also focuses on recent hits Bates Motel and Longmire. Touting the network’s “100% original programming lineup” and recent successes makes sense for the network, which really couldn’t be more different from the channel that  called itself “Arts and Entertainment.” “Be Original” works as both the tagline and “internal brand platform,” anchoring the rebrand while simultataneously touting the 100% original content of the network and the distinct characters of its most-watched shows. You can get a good idea of the rebrand from the montage above, but for the full experience head here for an in-depth case study.

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W+K’s new “It’s Amazing What You’re Capable Of” campaign for TurboTax, which kicked off last week with the excellent “The Year of You” spot, continues on with two new 30-second spots that capture humor and sentiment in equal measure.

The first, “Life is Full of Whys” (above), finds a recently dumped guy, a guy being encouraged by his wife to move, and a sad clown wondering some incredibly depressing questions. However, viewers should note that even in the darkest times, taxes can be your redemption. Sure, everyone hates your clown jokes, but at least you can write off your squeaky shoes as a business expense.

The second, “Did I Get Married?,” is shot from the perspective of a man falling in love with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, whose questions range from cute to sort of off putting and bizarre. But, isn’t that the kind of girl every guy wanted to marry after watching Garden State, Elizabethtown, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, etc.? And then brag about to web-based financial software? In any case, these spots both hit their target (MEN!) in an engaging, lighthearted fashion. Who knew doing your taxes could be so emotionally rewarding? 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."

Is there anything more heartwarming than watching children of all ages fall over repeatedly?

From Proctor & Gamble and W+K comes “Pick Them Back Up,” a new spot that’s part of the “Thank You, Mom” campaign running during the length of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. If you’ll recall, P&G and Wieden have been leaders in mom joy, child guilt and intermittent bouts of crying since a 2010 Mother’s Day campaign, which set the stage for the very viral 2012 London Olympics spot “Best Job.” Since the initial broadcast of “Best Job,” most of the world has been stuck in a routine of enthusiastic weeping followed by hugging their mom until it hurts.

Adding a little humor to the affair (this is, if you’re a sociopath like me), “Pick Them Back Up” sees attractive young mothers repeatedly watch their children fall down before picking them up, thus transforming them into successful Olympic athletes. For those mothers whose children didn’t grow up to be competitive in winter sports on an international scale, well, your time was better spent leaving your kid on the ice and just working on you for a while.

Of course, this spot also begs the question, how did they film so many babies falling over? Were they stunt babies, or did they trip them with invisible wires or something? In any case, after seeing this on TV, your mother’s gaze will slowly drift over to the photo she has of you as a baby on her nightstand, and she’ll sigh a million disappointed sighs because you were once so cute and loving and now you apparently don’t “have the time” to give her a call once in a while. She’s right, you know, because you just watched this and it caused you do to nothing. Credits, and one in a series of new athlete-specific video, follow after the jump.

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