Hasta La Creative!

FCB Brazil had a big hit last May with its “Speaking Exchange” idea for CNA Language Schools—a campaign that connected young Brazilians wanting to learn English with elderly Americans in retirement homes looking for someone to talk to. (The work took home 10 Lions from Cannes, and was among the 10 most-awarded campaigns there.)

Now, agency and client are back with a follow-up, featuring another interesting way to get Brazilians some real-world practice with their English.

This time the partner is Bella Vista Pizzeria in Culver City, Calif. Customers who call the pizza place can choose to place their order as usual—or be connected to a student in São Paulo who can take the order instead. If they chose the latter, they’re compensated by way of discounts, depending on how long they chat with the students.

The video isn’t as heartwarming as the original. The pizza orders are way more transactional, and the cultural meeting point here is less starkly fascinating than before. But as mentioned at the end of the new clip, this model is probably more scalable—and thus, perhaps even more useful in the long run.

Indeed, CNA is now asking businesses in the U.S. that accept customer orders by phone to visit the CNA website and sign up for similar programs.

CREDITS
Client: CNA
Agency: FCB Brasil, São Paulo
Creative Directors: Joanna Monteiro and Max Geraldo
Digital Creative Director: Pedro Gravena
Creative Directors: Adriano Alarcon and Carlos Schleder
Copywriter: Alessandra Muccillo and Lui Lima
Art Director: Andre Mancini and Rômulo Caballero
Creative Technologist: Márcio Bueno
Digital Production: Bolha
Project Manager: Lia D’Amico and Suelen Mariano.
Information Technology VP: Gerson Lupatini
Account: Mauro Silveira, Alec Cocchiaro, Pedro Führer, Diogo Braga and Thiago Figueiredo
Planner: Raphael Barreto, Frederico Steinhoff, Alice Alcântara and Stephanie Day.
Media: Alexandre Ugadim, Cris Omura, Rafael Amaral, Monica Oliveira, Aline Lins and Camila Oliveira
RTV: Charles Nobili and Ricardo Magozo
Production Company: Crash of Rhinos
Director: Miguel Thomé
Co-Direction: João Luz
Photographer: Marcos Ribas
Account Production Company: Diego Melo and Mary Lacoleta
Editor:  Miguel Thomé
Sound Producer: Cabaret
Editor: Guilherme Azem
Account Sound Producer: Cayto Trivellato
L.A. Producer: EAT (Entertainment, Art, Talent)
Client Supervisors: Luciana Fortuna, Nicadan Galvão e Ricardo Martins

Last summer, Russia imposed a full embargo on food imports from the European Union (as well as the U.S.) in retaliation for sanctions over Ukraine. This left authentic European food merchants in Moscow in a bit of a bind.

But one Italian grocery store there, Don Giulio Salumeria, kept selling its real Italian food—and came up with a bizarre out-of-home stunt to advertise to consumers without tipping off the police.

With help from agency The 23, the store developed a unique outdoor ad that could recognize police uniforms. Whenever the cops would appear, the ad would cycle out of its rotating display—in essence, physically hiding from the authorities.

The agency insists this was a real stunt. And if so, it is clever and amusingly weird. After emailing the case study all over the world, though, I’d think twice about answering the door when the Moscow police come knocking.

CREDITS
Client: Don Giulio Salumeria, Moscow
Owner: Giulio Zompi
Marketing Director: Anna Ipatova
Agency: The 23, Krasnogorsk
Creative director: Evgeniy Shinyaev
Creative director: Mikhail Tkachenko
Technology Director: Alexander Selifonov
Account Supervisor: Vera Kriulets
Director Of Photography: Nikolay Shinkarenko
Technical Assistant: Valeriy Oreshnikov

People in Britain who had settled in for a nice viewing of Prometheus this weekend were distressed, to say the least, when a realistic 30-second spot aired—completely unexplained—that advertised synthetic human housekeepers for sale.

“Meet Sally. The help you’ve always wanted,” the freakishly soothing voiceover began, as a lovely though dead-eyed cyborg is seen folding sheets, organizing the kitchen and putting the kids to bed. “She is faster, stronger, more capable than ever before.”

The ad then pitched a company called Persona Synthetics, which claims to make androids that are “closer to humans than ever before.”

By Tuesday, there had been 100,000 searches for the brand on Google, and the website was nearing half a million visits. It was all a hoax, of course—a campaign from Channel 4 for Humans, a Black Mirror-esque futuristic drama.

Along with the TV spot, there are print ads, a fake store on Regent Street, social accounts and a mock auction on eBay inviting visitors to bid on a robot (sadly, no one met the £20,000 minimum bid). At the Regent Street store, two screens used Microsoft Kinect technology to show giant robot models reacted to their movements of the people watching.

It’s freaky indeed, and we’ll only be seeing more of this kind of stuff going forward. The ads are also beautifully made by in-house agency 4Creative, whose prior work included the stunning “Meet the Superhumans” ad for the 2012 Paralympic Games.

Here’s an odd little case study from outdoor ad company JCDecaux and BBDO Belgium.

Frustrated that client marketing directors weren’t showing up to its business presentations, JCDecaux got personal with them—by putting their photos up on single billboards, without their permission, printing only their name and a contact address at JCDecaux.

Naturally, the CMOs eventually got wind of the ads, and many of them called JCDecaux to ask just what the hell was going on. See how the rest played out in the video below:

As you can see in the video, at least one of the CMOs seemed a bit irritated by the scheme. We asked BBDO if any others were upset by it.

“Upset is a big word,” says digital strategic planner Jan Van Brakel. “A small minority was maybe a bit less pleased at first, but once we did the follow-up and explained the campaign, no one was upset, and they could all appreciate the campaign. The biggest proof is that JCDecaux was able to convince all of them to plan a meeting for their sales presentation.”

And were there no legal issues with using their likenesses on an ad without permission?

“Strictly speaking, what we did might have been illegal, or at least we could theoretically being accused of not respecting the [copyright],” Van Brakel admits. “But as it was only one billboard, for very short time—depending on how long it took before we got a reaction—and the follow-up we did, we didn’t feel uncomfortable on the legal aspect at any point.”

He adds, however: “I do believe that this kind of campaign might be harder or riskier to execute in the U.S. than in Belgium.”

CREDITS
Client: JCDecaux
Advertiser Supervisor: Veerle Colin
Agency: BBDO Belgium
Creative Director: Arnaud Pitz & Sebastien De Valck
Creative Team: Toon Vanpoucke & Morgane Choppinet
Account Supervisor: Isabel Peeters
Account Manager: Marleen Depreter

Absolut rolls out new advertising today from Sid Lee including a new short film and TV commercial, a never-before-heard song from Empire of the Sun, and a limited-edition illuminated bottle that lights up when you push a button on the bottom.

The short film and TV work, directed by Grammy-winning director Melina Matsoukas, collect footage from a series of “Absolut Nights” events hosted last year in New York, Sao Paolo, Berlin and Johannesburg that featured one-of-a-kind artistic collaborations—with Vita Motus, Marianne Krawcyzk, Studio XO and Charles Gadeken.

The short film:

The TV spot, launching Monday:

Those events were all about reinventing aspects of traditional nightlife in keeping with the brand’s “Transform Today” credo of rethinking nightlife through a lens of creativity.

The short film features a new track from electronic music duo Empire of the Sun. And the campaign features an intriguing packaging component—the Absolut Spark bottle, with a light that shines through the bottom and  “gives consumers the ability to shine a new light on their nightlife rituals for up to eight hours.”

The bottle:

“At Absolut, we believe in a world where there’s no such thing as a ‘standard’ night out,” says Joao Rozario, vp of Marketing at Absolut. “By infusing the unexpected into the ordinary, ‘Absolut Nights’ aims to inspire nightlife lovers to use the night as their canvas to explore what the future of nightlife looks like.”

More work from the campaign below.

The artistic collaborations:

CREDITS
Client: Absolut Vodka, Pernod Ricard USA
Agency: Sid Lee Amsterdam & Sid Lee New York
Managing Partner: Eric Alper
Executive Creative Director: Daniel Chandler & James Yeats-Smith
Creative Team: Maclean Jackson, Roeben Beddeleem, Eoin Mclaughlin & Thomas Glover
Group Account Director: Emily Creek
Account Director: Amy Manganiello
Production Management Director: Melanie Bruneau and Dave Isaac
Head of Strategy: Simon Wassef
Strategy Director: Nicola Davies
Editor: Thomas Schenk
Director:  Melina Matsoukas
Production Team: Jimmy Lee & Sid Lee Entertainment
Production Partners: Prettybird, Vice, O’mage, StudioNOW
Public Relations: Weber Shandwick

A tiny cocktail bar in Barcelona has won best of show at The Dieline Awards 2015, honoring the world’s best packaging, for its gin bottles showing swimmers cavorting in the stuff.

Barcelona design studio Dorian made the bottles for Bar Pesca Salada, an old fish shop converted into a maritime-themed gin-and-tonic bar. Each bottle features a man appearing to swim in the gin—and it becomes a visual game as the bottle empties.

Dorian also screen-printed the images on the bottles, rather than using a transparent label.

See the rest of the Dieline winners here.

Audi Ireland has decided to directly address the stereotype that women are bad drivers in a Twitter campaign that aims to undermine that perception.

The automaker last week posted a series of images that appeared to make fun of women drivers—including scenes of poorly parked cars and men in passenger seats looking terrified. The tweets were tagged #womendrivers.

But the tweets also contained links, and it turned out they pointed to stories of women being real drivers in fields like technology, science and sports.

If a woman wants to drive… don’t stand in her way! #womendrivers #fail #audi http://t.co/NmIe4yd8i9 pic.twitter.com/3Aouhz6ekU

— Audi Ireland (@audiireland) April 27, 2015

Nice job, lady! Check out these #womendrivers #audi #funny http://t.co/EqS8q8Nj4a pic.twitter.com/WxjZs3On14

— Audi Ireland (@audiireland) April 27, 2015

It’s an interesting idea, and a bit surprising that an automaker would even tackle an issue with such obvious pitfalls. The problem, as some have pointed out, is that you have to actually click on the links to realize Audi isn’t just being negative and weird. (The automaker has been posting an explanatory video on Twitter, too, though of course it’s easy to miss individual tweets.)

So, is a campaign like this clever, or maybe not such a good idea after all?

Agency: Atomic, Dublin. Via Design Taxi.

Driving Miss Ditsy. Check out these #crazy #womendrivers #audi http://t.co/Od9BwnTY1e pic.twitter.com/EDFOwueSaW

— Audi Ireland (@audiireland) April 29, 2015

Crazy women drivers! You’ll never guess what happened next!!! #funny #audi #womendrivers http://t.co/Ac2NI3v0xs pic.twitter.com/Yuomy5LeQa

— Audi Ireland (@audiireland) April 29, 2015

Watch out! Women driving! #womendrivers #audi #toofunny http://t.co/XTaYXGcU2v pic.twitter.com/GwpGgIIlsd

— Audi Ireland (@audiireland) April 28, 2015

Caution women behind the wheel!! #funnystuff #audi #womendrivers http://t.co/rGb07YF6MS pic.twitter.com/fEXODIBUdC

— Audi Ireland (@audiireland) April 28, 2015

Maybe you saw the billboard, or the documentary about Frank La Rant, or the lookbook. If so, you were probably disappointed to learn that Plastique, the high-end plastic pants supposedly designed by La Rant, aren’t real. And that the whole thing was a spoof by Fruit of the Loom.

The spoof by Crispin Porter + Bogusky originally came from the brand’s TV ad in which Fruit of the Loom purportedly tested its boxer briefs by having people wear transparent plastic pants. (If anything would make underwear ride up, it would presumably be that.)

From there, CP+B launched a full-scale high-fashion parody—poking fun at underwear brands like H&M that pretend to be all glamorous in selling the most basic attire out there. The campaign included fashion ads, outdoor, digital, a web experience, social media accounts, and even men in Plastique parading around SoHo and Rodeo Drive.

“Throughout the campaign, Fruit of the Loom held the position that they didn’t really get how you could call plastic pants fashion,” the agency says. “But it was very clear that they were behind (and underneath) this entire story, giving this long time underwear maker the innovation and style cred they deserved.”

See more from the campaign below.

Grey New York makes a ton of gun violence PSAs—from the famously brutal (and award-winning) “Ed” spot in 2013 to this year’s stunt in which it opened a gun store in the middle of New York City. But this new project might be its craziest yet.

Millennials apparently love the combination of music and severed fingers, because that’s the target market and the theme of this new video from Women Against Gun Violence.

It was directed and animated by Johnnie Semerad of Quiet Man, and is set to a folk song (that might remind you a bit of “Dumb Ways to Die”) scored and performed by singer/songwriter Stephen Krauss.

WAGV says the gun violence prevention movement doesn’t have the attention of millennials right now, but the group believes this video could change that.

“This may not be your dinner table video but it gets the point across, and it gets people talking which is the ultimate goal,” says Josh Stepakoff, gun violence survivor and WAGV’s youngest board member. “I want my peers, the millennial generation, to use their power to affect change, and I believe this PSA will help get them engaged in the conversation.”

And if nothing else, all these cleanly severed fingers might also serve as a reminder to be careful around knives, too.

CREDITS
Advertiser: Women Against Gun Violence
Spot Title: “Keep Your Finger Off the Trigger”
First Air Date: 4/28/15
Agency: Grey NY
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Tor Myhren
Deputy Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Per Pedersen
Chief Creative Officer: Andreas Dahlqvist
Executive Creative Director: Stephen Krauss
Executive Creative Director: Ari Halper
Singer/Songwriter: Stephen Krauss
Creative Director: Marco Pupo
Creative Director: Joao Coutinho
EVP Director Broadcast Production: Bennett McCarroll
Director of Audio Services/Sound Engineer: Dante Desole
VP Account Director: Elizabeth Gilchrist
Account Supervisor: Katie Stirn
Business Manager: Cecilia Critchley
EVP Director of Music: Josh Rabinowitz
VP Director of Licensing: Amy Rosen
Project Manager: Emma Tonetti

Production Company (location): Quietman
Director/Animator: Johnnie Semerad
Executive Producer: Carey Gattyan
Associate Producer: Clare O’Brien
Editor: Morgan Mitchell
Flame Artist: Stephanie Greenberg

McDonald’s in France makes some of the most spare, striking outdoor ads anywhere. For the past couple of years, the OOH ads have shown just the menu items, with almost no branding at all—first in closeup photography, then with simple drawings of the products.

This summer, the brand, working with TBWA Paris, is evolving the campaign by adding emojis to the images. (Emojis are now a requirement of every ad campaign everywhere, by the way.) The product drawings are now made up, pointillist style, of tiny emojis—reflecting the emotion stirred by the products.

For example: The Big Mac is made up of hundreds of little thumbs-up signs; the fries are made from smiley faces; the sundae from musical notes; and the Happy Meal from heart symbols. (Those are the only four menu items highlighted this time. The Happy Meal is new to the campaign, while the Quarter Pounder, Filet-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets have been dropped from the ads.)

McDonald’s says the “pictograms” campaign has “placed the brand at the heart of the pop culture.” Indeed, the marketer clearly believes the work is practically high fashion. This year’s campaign includes a McDonald’s collection at Colette, the Paris fashion and lifestyle store, consisting of six products bearing the campaign’s imagery—T-shirts, tote bags, scarves, iPhone cases, notebooks and postcards.

See the rest of the images below.

The outdoor ads:

 
The Colette collection: