Hasta La Creative!

Grey London is reeling in the wake of three executive departures, all chairmen. CCO Nils Leonard, CEO Lucy Jameson and managing director Natalie Graeme have all resigned.

“Nils Leonard, chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Grey London, and Lucy Jameson, CEO, will be leaving the agency to start a new venture,” Grey EMEA president and CEO David Patton said in a statement. “They have our most sincere thanks and best wishes for continued success.”

In the statement, Patton also announced that Leo Rayman will become CEO of Grey London, effective immediately. “Leo has done a superlative job as Chief Strategy Officer of the agency and brings a stellar background from his days at Adam & Eve and DDB,” he added.

More About Advertising reports that executive creative directors Vicki Maguire and Dominic Goldman will lead creative at Grey London going forward. 

Rayman joined Grey London as head of planning at the beginning of 2013, following a little over a year and a half in that position at Adam & Eve London. He was promoted to his position as CSO last March after Jameson became CEO in the wake of former CEO Chris Hirst‘s departure for Havas. Last December, global CCO and New York president Tor Myhren also left the agency, to join Apple as vice president of marketing communications and last month, 13-year agency veteran, executive creative director Stephen Krauss left Grey New York to become CCO at The Wonderful Company in Los Angeles. 

The departure seems to come as a surprise to the agency, as well as holding company WPP and the larger agency world. Adweek’s Tim Nudd had dinner with the three departing executives last week at Cannes. They mentioned nothing about their pending exit, and neither did the other Grey employees who attended the dinner.

Subtlety is a valuable thing in advertising, as consumers will always feel better about a brand that lets them connect the dots instead of hammering them over the head. But there is such a thing as too subtle, as well.

Mercedes-Benz rides that line in these ads from BBDO Chile. We stared at them for a few minutes trying to work out the message, and not just because the copy has been translated.

We spoke to BBDO art director Leonardo Rocha about the ads. But before we give away his explanation, let us know what you think they’re about.

Click to enlarge. Via Adeevee.

CREDITS
Client: Mercedes-Benz
Agency: BBDO, Santiago, Chile
Executive Creative Director: Jorge Espinoza
Creative Director: Rodrigo Peralta
Art Director: Leonardo Rocha
Copywriter: Felipe Araya
Photographer: Javiera Eyzaguirre

The process of logo design is pretty intriguing, particularly when a designer takes you step by step through the development of a mark. The video below is a great example, as Kath Tudball of design firm Johnson Banks explains the creation of a gourmet ice cream startup called Mr. Cooper.

The logo uses negative space to great effect, and also has a nice drippy quality that fits the brand well. But the mark you see above was the end point of a very involved process, which Tudball shows in great detail.

The video is longish, but worth it. Via Creative Bloq.

The killing of majestic animals is big news this week. And now, the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd has unveiled a brutal PSA protesting the slaughter of whales by demonstrating how they die at the hands of humans—as acted out by a human.

The spot is skillfully horrific, as Australian character actor David Field mimics getting shot, convulsing, choking and coughing up blood. The PSA aims to draw attention, in particular, to the method of using an explosive harpoon to shoot the mammals, which causes massive internal injuries, and to the time it takes for them to die, which can be up to an hour.

“The cruelty inflicted on whales is shocking, and while most people abhor whaling, I think many don’t realize just how brutally these sea mammals are butchered,” Field said in a statement. “As a supporter of Sea Shepherd, I want to bring this barbaric practice to the attention of as many people as possible in the hope that we can get it stopped.”

As with many animal-rights PSAs, this one aims to evoke empathy by inviting people to imagine how they’d feel in the animal’s situation. This spot goes further by imagining the outcry if whaling were to happen to humans on a large scale. That’s a rhetorical device, yet it undermines the message a bit because it’s so easy to refute—it’s not happening to humans, after all. Yet that kind of hyperbole isn’t surprising following such violent imagery. (The excessive nature of the campaign also extends to the hashtag, #UltimateDeathScene.)

“Those who care about marine wildlife really feel something deeply when they see whaling taking place. We sought to harness this feeling to generate the maximum impact,” said Paul Swann, creative partner at Sydney agency The Works, which created the campaign. “The idea of a human experiencing what a whale does, combined with a graphic execution, will come to life across video, social, radio and print.”

CREDITS
Client: Sea Shepherd
Aegncy: The Works
Creative Partner: Paul Swann
Creative Leads: Adam Bodfish and Leo Barbosa
Digital Strategy Director: Damien Hughes
Planner: Leo Hennessy
Head of Digital Production: Dave Flanagan
Content Production Manager: Tristan Drummond
Senior Digital Designer: Kim Sanders
Social Media Strategist: Vanessa Hartley
Social Community Manager: Anna Lai
Project Management: Catriona Heaphy, Gillian Snowball and Juliette Hynes

Director: Tony Prescott
Director of Production: Robert Morton
Post Production: Method Studios
Sound: Nylon Studios

Honey Maid’s campaign featuring inclusive depictions of American families takes another step forward today with a spot showing a disabled aunt and her niece making apple and cheddar melts together on their graham crackers.

It’s a simple, quiet 30-second spot, Cheerios-like both in its simplicity and its unspoken embrace of all types of families. Honey Maid has become one of the most famous brands embracing such diversity in its ads with same-sex couples, mixed-race, blended and immigrant families, and more.

The aunt in the ad is Stephanie Woodward, a disability rights lawyer and activist who is currently director of advocacy at The Center for Disability Rights. She signed on for the project, Honey Maid says, because she—and many in the disabled community—want real disabled people featured on TV and in the media, not actors playing disabled people.

Here is the 30-second online version of the spot:

Woodward was also drawn to the simple realism of the ad in a media landscape where disabled people are often portrayed “in either a pity or a superhero light.” (By the way, while there is much debate around the language of disability, Woodward prefers the term disabled person to person with a disability. “I am a proud disabled woman and prefer not to identify with ‘people first’ language as it separates me from my disability identity,” she says.)

The latest spot coincides with this weekend’s 25th anniversary of the signing into law of 1990’s Americans with Disabilities Act. Honey Maid says the ad is also one of the first to include audio descriptions on the 15-second TV version—describing what’s happening on screen for blind and low-vision audiences—along with standard closed captioning. The audio description will run on Bravo, E!, Nick @ Nite, Lifetime, LMN, CBS and ABC.

“The ‘This Is Wholesome’ campaign launched in March of 2014 and has been committed to featuring a cross-section of the American family,” says Gary Osifchin, portfolio lead for biscuits at Mondel?z International. “From a same-sex couple and single dad, to a mixed-race military family, a blended and an immigrant family, the sweet moments between a disabled aunt and her niece are just another example of Honey Maid’s commitment to feature real American families and the wholesome connections they share.”

Here is the 15-second TV version:

CREDITS
Client: Honey Maid / Mond?lez International
Senior Director, Biscuits North America: Gary Osifchin
Senior Brand Manager: Mikhail Chapnik
Senior Associate Brand Manager: Jared Moran
Campaign: “This is Wholesome”
Title: Honey Maid: How to Make Apple & Cheddar Melts
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Executive Creative Director: Kevin Brady
Associate Creative Director: Tara Lawall
Associate Creative Director: Devon Hong
Copywriter: German Rivera Hudders
Art Director: J.J. Kraft
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Associate Broadcast Producer: Goldie Robbens
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Group Strategy Director: Matt Springate
Senior Communications Strategist: Taylor Hines
Senior Social Strategist: Kat Popiel
Social Media Manager: Rob Engelsman
Data Strategy Director: Katty Lein
Data Strategist: Annie Corbett
Group Account Director: Brett Edgar
Account Director: Amanda Chandler
Account Manager: Jasmine McDavid
Associate Account Manager: Amy Rosenberg
Project Manager: Andra Johnson
Production Company: Variable
Director: Jonathan Bregel
DOP: Stuart Winecoff
Executive Producer: Tyler Ginter
Producer: Alex Friedman
Production Supervisor: Paige DeMarco
Editorial & Post Production & Audio: D5 Studios
Music: de Wolfe Music

AT&T’s “It Can Wait” texting-and-driving campaign from BBDO New York has included many notable executions, including the painful Werner Herzog documentary from 2013. And the latest spot is no exception, featuring quietly gripping storytelling from Anonymous Content director Frederic Planchon that suddenly explodes with horror.

The almost four-minute film is remarkable. (It’s supported by three 30-second spots, one of which will run on TV.) Slow-motion cinematography, shot at 1,000 frames per second, captures the brutal consequences of taking your eyes off the road to glance at your smartphone, even briefly. The footage then plays in reverse, ending on the cause of the terrible crash.

That cause, notably, isn’t that the driver was texting. The “It Can Wait” campaign has always focused on texting, but it’s is now evolving based on new research that revealed the prevalence of drivers engaging in other smartphone activities, like social media, web surfing, video chatting and more.

The campaign is evolving in other ways, too. AT&T, working with Reel FX, has developed an app called the It Can Wait Driving Simulation that uses virtual reality to give an immersive view of what it is like to text, post or video chat while driving. The VR simulator is freely available for iOS and Android and works with Google Cardboard.

A souped-up version of the simulator—running through the Samsung Gear VR headset, with premium sound from Bose QuietComfort 25 acoustic noise canceling headphones—will soon go on tour, visiting schools, fairs and partner companies in 100 U.S. cities.

CREDITS
Client: AT&T
Title: Close To Home

Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Matt MacDonald
Senior Creative Director: LP Tremblay
Senior Creative Director: Erik Fahrenkopf
CD/Art Director: Grant Mason
CD/Copywriter: Kevin Mulroy

Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe
Group Executive Producer: Julie Collins
Executive Producer: Dan Blaney
Music Producer: Melissa Chester
Senior Integrated Business Manager: Cristina Blanco

Managing Director: Mark Cadman
Senior Account Director: Brian Nienhaus
Account Director: Gati Curtis
Account Manager: Johnny Wardell
Account Executive: Sigourney Hudson-Clemons

Production Company: Anonymous Content
Director: Frederic Planchon
Executive Producer: Eric Stern
Producer: Paul Ure
Director of Photography: Jody Lee Lipes

Editorial: WORK Editorial
Editor: Rich Orrick
Assistant Editors: Adam Witten and Trevor Myers
Executive Producer: Erica Thompson
Producer: Sari Resnick

Visual Effects: The Mill
EP/Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Line Producer: Nirad ‘Bugs’ Russell
VFX Supervisor : Gavin Wellsman
2D Leads: Gavin Wellsman; Krissy Nordella
2D Compositor: Michael Smith; Chris Sonia, Keith Sullivan
2D Assists: Heather Kennedy; Sungeun Moon, Yoon-sun Bae, Marco Giampaolo
3D: Yili Orana , Corey Langelotti
Pre Vis Artist: Jeffrey Lee
Editor: Charlotte Carr
Designer: Clemens den Exter

Color:  The Mill
Colorist: Aline Sinquin

Music House: Grooveworx
Executive Producer: Dain Blair
Sound Design: Brian Emrich
Original music composed by Rob Simonsen

Sound: Sonic Union
Sound Mixer: Steve Rosen

Motions Graphics and Titles: Polyester

Coming up with fun ad ideas for a show like Dating Naked isn’t exactly Pluto-level rocket science. You think of fun things naked people can do besides dating, and you film them doing it. Then you blur their privates and watch the YouTube count rise.

Last year, VH1 got Los Angeles agency Mistress to make a Dating Naked ad with people dancing naked. Now, agency and client have followed that up with an ad showing people jumping naked. The twist: It was filmed in super slow motion at 1,000 frames per second.

Check out the spot below, which the agency describes as “a graphic visualization of the insight that it is all about our true selves, finding true love—without all the bullshit.”

CREDITS
Client: VH1
Agency: Mistress
Production Company: Bastard
Director: Bob Hope
Editorial: Bastard
Editors: Kyle Stebbins and Ian Kalmbaugh
VFX: Kyle Stebbins
Sound Design: Lime Studios
Engineer: Sam Casas
Partner/CD: Damien
Art Director: Rachel Guest
Copywriter: Celine Faledam
Producer: Kay Lynn Dutcher
Brand Director: Tor Edwards
Brand Manager: Kylie Wu
Project Manager: Alex Clewell 

Here’s the moment when spec advertising finally digests its own tail.

The Open Collaboration (aka, OpenCo), a South African agency majority owned by TBWA, whipped up what it apparently considers a masterpiece of social-cause messaging—a print ad showing side-by-side photos of Hitler and Mandela in prison. Hitler served nine months, the copy explains, while Mandela served 27 years.

“People do not always get the justice they deserve,” says the copy below. “We’re doing everything we can to change that.”

Here’s the proposed ad. Click to enlarge:

As you can see, there is a blank space where the logo should go. That’s because it’s a spec ad, done without client approval—indeed, without a specific client in mind here. But OpenCo hoped some group devoted to righting unnamed injustices in the world would, after initially fainting at the ad’s brilliance, slap its logo on there.

That didn’t happen. So OpenCo, feeling offended, decided to do something even more solipsistic than regular spec work. It went and made another ad about the first ad, describing it in detail—to call attention to this fresh injustice, and hopefully get the spec ad in front of someone “brave enough to run it.”

Here’s that ad. Click to enlarge:

There’s so much that’s odd about this, even if you accept that it’s not just a cynical PR play (though the whole “This is not a print ad” thing does seem aimed at ad people).

First of all, the creative is provocative—it would be offensive to many—and might not align at all with any organization’s marketing needs. Not many people, after all, are all that fond of using Hitler in their ads.

Also, its internal logic is thorny at best. Hitler killed himself in disgrace, his dream destroyed, while Mandela was lionized. Focusing on the prison terms is a simplistic take on whether justice was served in either case. (Mandela’s family, by the way, would surely balk at seeing his image paired with Hitler’s under any circumstances—particularly when the message is how he got a raw deal compared to the Nazi leader.)

The bigger issue, though, is the arrogance. This is spec work. Getting indignant when no one buys it makes you look like a fool. And in this case, it’s worse than that. OpenCo isn’t just complaining about intransigent would-be clients rejecting its work. It’s flat-out calling them cowards. That’s a pretty rich point of view for an ad agency to take of nonprofits doing real social work.

Let’s assume this stunt was well meaning. (We emailed OpenCo a while back, but haven’t heard back yet.) Maybe next time, if they really want to fight injustice in the world, they can start by not publicly shaming organizations that do so every day.

People aren’t the only ones complaining about potholes in Panama City. The potholes are complaining!

With so many streets in Panama City damaged, local agency P4 Ogilvy & Mather placed special devices in potholes that automatically tweet nasty messages at the Twitter account of the Department of Public Works whenever cars drive over them.

A quick glance at the @Elhuecotwitero Twitter page shows the campaign in action—scores of tweets per day asking @MOPdePanama for answers.

The campaign was done on behalf of a Panama TV station, which said potholes are a major concern of its viewers. And it seems to be working—at least, it got the attention of the minister of public works, who appeared on the TV station Monday to address the issue, which he blamed on a mix of poor construction and the failure of talks at approve money to fix the roads.

See public works minister Ramón Arosemena address the issue here:

CREDITS
Client: MEDCOM
Agency: P4 Ogilvy & Mather, Panama City, Panama
Chief Creative Officer: Edwin Mon
Associate Creative Director: Alejandro Blanc
Creative Director: Osvaldo Restrepo
Digital Creative Director: Alberto Lam
Copywriter: Edmar Quiros
Head of Art: Roberto Perez
Art Director: Edmar Quiros
Designer: Franklin Lu
General Account Executive: Monica Urrutia
Digital Account Manager: Luis Gonzales
Executive Producer: Benjamin Liao, Belisario Alvarez, Monica Crespo
Production Company: VFX Panama, SAKE Argentina
Music: Salmon Osado
Sound editing: Manuel Trejos
Post Production: Marcos Ruiz

CREDITS
Client: MEDCOM
Agency: P4 Ogilvy & Mather, Panama City, Panama
Chief Creative Officer: Edwin Mon
Associate Creative Director: Alejandro Blanc
Creative Director: Osvaldo Restrepo
Digital Creative Director: Alberto Lam
Copywriter: Edmar Quiros
Head of Art: Roberto Perez
Art Director: Edmar Quiros
Designer: Franklin Lu
General Account Executive: Monica Urrutia
Digital Account Manager: Luis Gonzales
Executive Producer: Benjamin Liao, Belisario Alvarez, Monica Crespo
Production Company: VFX Panama, SAKE Argentina
Music: Salmon Osado
Sound editing: Manuel Trejos
Post Production: Marcos Ruiz
Additional credits: Francisco Hernandez MEDCOM Digital Media Director

The young Swiss-German directing duo of Kyra Buschor and Constantin Paeplow are famous for their hilarious “Rollin’ Wild” videos—showing how tough life would be for animals if they were completely round. “If all animals became round overnight, would their daily life still run that smoothly?” the directors asked.

The original “Rollin’ Wild” video (comprising four short clips) got the loudest applause at the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase in Cannes last summer, and the directors have vowed to continue the series. And now, they’re doing so for brands.

Three new short films show spherical ducks, robins and a hedgehog navigating the world poorly in ads by adam&eveDDB for Genius Foods in the U.K., whose bread apparently won’t make you feel bloated. They’re pretty funny—and part of an integrated campaign that brings the visual style to all platforms.

The concept could work for plenty of brands. Hopefully the Imodium people are watching.

Via The Inspiration Room.

And here’s the original “Rollin’ Wild” video: