Hasta La Creative!

Halloween is always a good time for frightfully dark ad campaigns. And Wieden + Kennedy in Amsterdam has delivered one of the most gorgeously creepy efforts this year—a series of movie-style posters for Booking.com that dare you to stay at seven of the most haunted hotels in America. The properties, listed below, are all apparently inhabited by ghosts—and all get amazing hand-painted posters courtesy of renowned illustrator Akiko Stehrenberger.

• The Queen Anne Hotel in San Francisco
• The 1886 Crescent Hotel in Eureka Spring, Ark.
• The Gettysburg Hotel in Gettysburg, Pa.
• Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas
• The Historic National Hotel in Jamestown, Calif.
• The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo.
• The Vinoy Renaissance Hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The posters will roll out in movie-theater lobbies across the country beginning Oct. 25. The copy at the bottom of each ad, designed like movie credits, is wonderfully written, too—see larger details of those blurbs, along with the full posters, below.

There's also a TV commercial focusing on the Queen Anne Hotel, where room 410 is supposedly haunted by Miss Mary Lake, the headmistress of a school that used to be housed at the property. An online partnership with Fandango extends the experience.

"From The Shining to Psycho, accommodations have played a key role in the cinematic history of horror," said W+K executive creative director Mark Bernath. "It was important for us that the work stay true to the genre and pay homage to the content and design that horror fans crave. It takes a really brave client to make a truly scary advertising campaign—one that I hope will be appreciated by a very specific audience who have already opted into having the daylights scared out of them."

A closer look at the "credits" sections of the posters:

CREDITS
Client: Booking.com
CMO: Paul Hennessy
Brand Director: Cort Cunningham

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Directors: Zach Watkins, Gen Hoey
Art Director: Craig Williams
Copywriter: Zach Watkins
Head of Production: Erik Verheijen
Agency Producer: Elissa Singstock
Planner: Daisy Andrews
Group Account Director: Jordi Pont
Account Director: Courtney Trull
Account Manager: Alex Allcott
Art Buyer: Maud Klarenbeek
Digital Producer: Matthew Ravenhall
Project Manager: Jackie Barbour
Business Affairs: Justine Young

Media Buy: Wieden + Kennedy, New York

Production Company: Concrete Films
Director: Mark Bernath
Director of Photography: Maxime Alexandre
Producer: Hani Salim

Editing Company: Wieden + Kennedy
Editor: Julien Maingois

Audio Post: Grand Central Recording Studios
Sound Designer, Mixer: Raja Sehgal

Sound Design: Grand Central Recording Studios
Artist, Title: Raja Sehgal

Postproduction: MPC, Amsterdam
Flame: Lise Prud-Homme
Telecine: George K
Producer: Gerben Molenaar

Illustrator: Akiko Stehrenberger
Agent: Helene Polverelli, H Represents

As we've mentioned before, Activision and Interscope brought together two of its juggernaut franchises—Call of Duty and Eminem—for a cross-marketing push promoting the game's new Ghosts title and the rapper's upcoming album MMLP2 (short for Marshall Mathers LP 2). Today, the music video rolled out for Eminem's song "Survival," which is on the Call of Duty: Ghosts soundtrack. The video, which is a collaboration with Activision agency 72andSunny, is basically a four-and-a-half minute commercial for the game, with footage from it sprinkled throughout. (Ant Farm supplied the gameplay footage for the spot.) Eminem worked with Activision in 2009 on Modern Warfare 2 and in 2010 on Black Ops. For much more on the partnership, check out Sam Thielman's earlier story, linked above. For the video, see below (warning: explicit lyrics).

The only thing better than Will Ferrell doing brilliantly stupid ads as Will Ferrell? Will Ferrell doing brilliantly stupid ads as Ron Burgundy.

As we mentioned on Friday, Ferrell has filmed some spots for the Dodge Durango as his Anchorman character ahead of the release of Paramount Pictures' Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. Check out the first six spots below. The first few aired on TV this weekend, and Ferrell perfects the role of comically idiotic pitchman—with help from a roomy glove box and a "worthless" horse. The ballroom spots will premiere tonight on Dancing With the Stars.

Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., worked with Funny or Die writers on the scripts. FoD's production arm, Gifted Youth, which also produced Ferrell's famously offbeat Old Milwaukee ads, teamed with Caviar to co-produce this work. This is just the beginning, too. Chrysler chief marketing officer Olivier Francois told the ANA Masters of Marketing conference in Phoenix on Friday that this is "just a little appetizer," and that Chrysler was producing another 67 videos for the Web. "It's massive," he said.

CREDITS
Client: Dodge Durango

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Aaron Allen, Kevin Jones, Michael Tabtabai
Copywriter: Mike Egan
Art Director: John Dwight
Interactive Art Director: Chuck Carlson
Producer: Monica Ranes
Account Team: Kyleen Caley, Lani Reichenbach
Business Affairs Manager: Dusty Slowik
Executive Producer: Corey Bartha
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Co-Writing Company: Funny or Die

Production Companies: The Gifted Youth, Caviar
Director: Jake Syzmanski
Executive Producers (Gifted Youth): Chris Bruss, Dal Wolf, Josh Martin, Ryan McNeely
Executive Producers (Caviar): Jasper Thomlinson, Michael Sagol
Line Producer: Stephan Mohammed
Director of Photography: Tim Hudson

Editing Company: Arcade
Editor: Geoff Hounsell
Post Producer: Leslie Carthy
Post Executive Producer: Nicole Visram

Visual Effects Company: Method
Visual Effects Supervisor: Ben Walsh
Lead Flame Artist: Claus Hansen
Visual Effects Producer: Colin Clarry
Executive Producer: Robert Owens
Titles, Graphics: Trailer Park, W+K Motion

Color Correction: Company 3
Colorist: Dave Hussey
DI Producer: Denise Brown

Song: “Grazing in The Grass,” The Friends of Distinction

Mix Company: Barking Owl
Mixer: Brock Babcock
Producer: Kelly Bayett

Does feminism need rebranding? Elle U.K. thinks so, and invited three British ad agencies—Brave, Mother and Wieden + Kennedy—to work on it with three feminist groups.

The results, published in November's issue, are posted below. Brave, working with teenage campaigner Jinan Younis, produced a flow chart called "Are You a Feminist?" Mother, working with the newly launched Feminist Times, created an ad focused on equal pay. And W+K, teamed up with online magazine Vagenda, produced an ad about stereotypes that women have to deal with.

See the work below. Does any of it scratch the surface of the issue?

—Flow chart from Brave and Jinan Younis:

—Ad from Mother London and the Feminist Times:

—Ad from Wieden + Kennedy London and Vagenda:

We've written about Google's upcoming Android KitKat operating system. But check out the KitKat website, itself upgraded to tie into the tech theme—it's a scrolling compendium of factoids proving KitKat to be the most high-tech candy bar around. So, while Google and Apple are being more candy-like, KitKat wants to be more Google- and Apple-like. Also, if you missed it, check out KitKat's great "Future of Confectionary" video below, posted earlier this month. Via Adverblog.

Most of the brand talk around 9/11 this year was about marketers doing it wrong. But DDB New York and the New York City Ballet quietly did it right with a wonderful tribute called "New Beginnings," intended as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a tribute to the future of the city.

The video shows NYCB principal dancers Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour performing on the 57th-floor terrace of Four World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The backdrop, of course, is One World Trade Center. The dancers perform an excerpt from choreographer Christopher Wheeldon's poignant "After the Rain" pas de deux—signifying new beginnings in New York City. 

The film, directed by Davi Russo and produced by Radical Media, was posted at sunrise (6:34 a.m. EST) on Sept. 12 to NYCB's social channels, with the hashtag #NewBeginnings. "Our hope is that 9/12 can now be rebranded as a day of optimism and new beginnings," says Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer of DDB N.Y.

Check out the film, and full credits, below.

CREDITS
Client: New York City Ballet
Project: "New Beginnings"

Agency: DDB, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood
Executive Creative Directors: Menno Kluin, Andrew McKechnie
Art Director: Joao Unzer
Copywriter: Rodrigo de Castro
Management Supervisor: Lauren Neuman
Account Executive: Cindy Nguyen
Head of Production: Ed Zazzera
Executive Producer: Teri Altman
Producers: Nina Horowitz, Zamile Vilakazi
Teaser Editor: Alec Helm
Head of Design: Juan Carlos Pagan
Designers: Brian Gartside, Aaron Stephenson
Illustrator: Steven Wilson

New York City Ballet
Ballet Master in Chief: Peter Martins
Executive Director: Katherine Brown
Choreographer (After the Rain): Christopher Wheeldon
Principal Dancers: Maria Kowroski, Ask la Cour
Managing Director, Communications and Special Projects: Robert Daniels
Senior Director, Marketing and Media: Karen Girty
Director, Media Projects: Ellen Bar

Production Company: Radical Media
Director: Davi Russo
Editor: Tim Zeigler
Executive Producers: Gregg Carlesimo, Maya Brewster
Producer: Logan Luchsinger

Here's a fun bit of false advertising from Crispin Porter + Bogusky for Kraft Mac & Cheese.

After 75 years, the brand is adding four new flavors: Garlic & Herb Alfredo, Buffalo Cheddar, Three Cheese Jalapeño and Cheesy Southwest Chipotle. They flavors were just invented, but Kraft wants them to feel like they've been around forever—as rich in history and nostalgic in feel as the original. So, it has invented a whole imagined history around them—one that never existed. "Even though it's new, it's nostalgic. It's new-stalgic," the agency explains.

Over at new-stalgic.com, you can scroll through a whole historical timeline of vintage photos, videos and ads dating back to 1938, showing milestones in the history of the four flavors. Seems they've been a fond part of everyone's life for decades, despite not actually being in anyone's life ever. As they say, never forget the times you can't remember.

The campaign extends to Pandora, where a radio station, New-stalgic Tunes, will play new covers of old hits, and of course to Facebook, where the brand is having fun updating past decades of its timeline.

1954

1975

1983

1987

2003

2013

New York ad agency Barton F. Graf 9000 has turned its roguish attention to the issue of climate change, and helped activist group 350 Action with the amusing video below. According to the YouTube description: "Since 1954, the World Meteorological Organization has been naming extreme storms after people. But we propose a new naming system. One that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the policy makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy. If you agree, sign the petition at climatenamechange.org." The snarky tone preaches to the choir, but it's hard to resist lines like, "If you value your life, please seek shelter from Michele Bachmann." Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: 350 Action
Contact: Daniel Kessler

Agency: Barton F. Graf 9000
Chief Creative Officer, Founder: Gerry Graf
Executive Creative Directors: Eric Kallman, Brandon Mugar
Creative Director, Copywriter: Dave Canning
Creative Director, Art Director: Dan Treichel
Senior Designer: Matt Egan
Head of Production, Executive Producer: Carey Head
Creative Technology Director: Jonathan Vingiano
Account Director: Jennifer Richardi
Business Affairs Director: Jennifer Pannent
Planner: Danielle Travers

Production Company: Furlined
Director: Ted Pauly
VP, Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Executive Producer: Dave Thorne
Executive Producer of Sales: Meghan Lang
Line Producer: Jennifer Gee
Director of Photography: Kris Kachikis

Editing: Big Sky Edit
Editor, Sound Designer, Mixer: Chris Franklin
Co-Editor, Colorist: Dave Madden
Senior Assistant Editor: Liz Bilinsky
Junior Assistant Assistant Editor: Megan Elledge
Graphics, Effects: Ryan Sears, Steve Kutny
Executive Producer: Cheryl Panek
Assistant Producer: Grace Phillips

Music: APM Music
Account Executive: Lauren Bell

Stock Video Footage: T3Media
Senior Account Manager: Amy Geisert

Photography: Magnum Photos
Corporate Sales Manager: Diane Raimondo
Photographer: Paolo Pellegrin

There isn't a public event that Apple and Samsung users can't spoil by fighting with each other, according to Crispin Porter + Bogusky's hyperbolic but still amusing campaign for the Windows Phone—which continues with the spot below, again directed by Roman Coppola and set to air Sunday during MTV's Video Music Awards.

Coppola directed the earlier spot, "The Wedding," which was a big success (more than 6 million YouTube views), and he brought back many of the same actors for "The Recital." In the new spot, Apple and Samsung users again jockey for position to get the best photos, and are soon ridiculing, head-butting and otherwise trying to take each other down. (On the plus side, at least they seem interested in the school play and aren't just falling asleep.) The spot pushes the Nokia Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixels and reinvented zoom, which apparently helps you get better pictures and also just be a nicer person.

There's less snappy dialogue this time, though it's a fun moment at the end when the woman who's literally spouting Apple's recent advertising copy gets thumped to the floor.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Microsoft
Spot: "The Recital"
Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Rob Reilly
Executive Creative Director: Dan Donovan
Creative Directors: Dave Swartz, Dave Steinke
Associate Creative Directors: Paul Sincoff, Kyle Jones
Art Director: Jeff Hunter
Copywriter: Aaron Cathey
Integrated Head of Video: Chad Hopenwasser
Executive Integrated Producer: Sloan Schroeder
Senior Integrated Producer: Laura Keseric
Production Company: Directors Bureau, Los Angeles
Director: Roman Coppola
Executive Producers (Production Company): Lisa Margulis, Elizabeth Minzes
Producer (Production Company): Francie Moore
Director of Photography: Chris Soos
Postproduction: NO6LA, Santa Monica, Calif.
Visual Effects: Method, Santa Monica, Calif.
Executive Producer, Design: Robert Owens
Producer: Ananda Reavis
Editor: Jason McDonald
Music Company: JSM Music
Junior Music Producer: Chip Herter
Arrangers: Joel Simon, Doug Katsaros
Sound Design Company: Henry Boy, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Sound Designer: Matthew Hedge

Dozens of women are featured in the captivating, Regina Spektor-driven opening credits for Netflix's Orange Is the New Black—but none of them are in the show itself. As Fast Company's Co.Design blog reports, showrunner Jenji Kohan wanted the title sequence to suggest that the show—about women incarcerated in a minimum security prison—would tell many stories, not just that of the main character, Piper. So, Venice, Calif., design company Thomas Cobb Group settled on a solution—it photographed real women who had been in prison in close-ups that would shield their identities while also feeling immediate and intimate.

Michael Trim photographed nine women in New York, while Thomas Cobb photographed 52 women in Los Angeles. TCG executive producer Gary Bryman explains: "Thomas directed each woman to visualize in their mind three emotive thoughts: Think of a peaceful place, think of a person who makes you laugh, and think of something that you want to forget. He apologized ahead of time for the last question but found it was incredibly effective in evoking a wide range of unfortunate memories. … Thomas found this really interesting sweet spot of cropped compositions that would not necessarily reveal who the person was, but at the same time provide a portal into their soul through their eyes."

Piper Kerman, who wrote the memoir on which the show is based, is the blue-eyed woman who blinks at the 1:02 mark. Check out the rest of the story at Co.Design.