Hasta La Creative!

Every plastic bottle in your bathroom dreams of a better life.

At least, they do in Keep America Beautiful’s new recycling ads from Pereira & O’Dell. The next phrase of the “I Want To Be Recycled” campaign launches today, and shows bathroom bottles looking forward to future experiences that are way more fulfilling that getting your grubby body clean.

The two 30-second spots below, created in partnership with The Ad Council and sponsor Unilever, personify products’ dream of being recycled into something new by being told through first-person POVs.

The campaign is based on new research that says that nearly half of Americans (45 percent) aren’t recycling their bathroom products. It also suggests 52 percent of people don’t know which bathroom items can be recycled, and 47 percent don’t have a recycling bin in their bathroom.

The “I Want To Be Recycled” campaign, launched in 2013, has gotten nearly $68 million in donated air time and media space, and ranks as the second most supported Ad Council campaign by network cable TV.

Jeff Goldblum, who’s enjoying something of a renaissance as a pitchman, has scored another gig in a peculiar role as a futurist for Apartments.com—helping to introduce the company’s advanced, perhaps even futuristic new apartment-listings website.

In the campaign from RPA, Goldblum plays Brad Bellflower, an eccentric Silicon Valley maverick who’s pretty damn impressed by everything on the new Apartments.com, which includes “custom search filters, videos, and most of all, heart.”

The launch spot, which broke Sunday on The Walking Dead, shows Bellflower in a black void, surrounded by flashing white shapes, as he mutters futuristically about “game changers,” of which the new Apartments.com is clearly one.

It’s both parody and not-parody, which at first makes it hard to understand what to believe, though by the end of the :60 it’s clear Bellflower loves Apartments.com, and you should too, though maybe not quite as cosmically.

“Change your apartment. Change the world” is the tagline.

“Like any good Silicon Valley maverick, Brad’s vision for his apartment-listing website is nothing less than to change the world. But hyperbole and parody aside, finding a great place to live or moving to a new area really does change your world,” says Andrew C. Florance, founder and CEO of CoStar Group,parent company of Apartments.com.

Check out some out-of-home work from campaign below, plus credits. The company plans to spend $100 million on advertising, media, b-to-b marketing and search in the campaign.

CREDITS
Client: CoStar Group
Spot: “Launch”
First air: 3/1/15

Agency: RPA
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Joe Baratelli
Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director: Pat Mendelson
Creative Director, Art Director: Hobart Birmingham
Creative Director, Copywriter: Perrin Anderson
Associate Creative Director, Art Director: Kirk Williams
Associate Creative Director, Copywriter: Eric Haugen
Senior Vice President, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff
Vice President, Executive Producer: Selena Pizarro
Producer: Joshua Herbstman
Agency Assistant Producer: Grace Wang

Production: Anonymous Content
Director: Tim Godsall
Director of Photography: Bryan Newman
Executive Producers: Eric Stern, Rick Jarjoura
Executive Producer, Production: SueEllen Clair
Line Producer: Brady Vant Hull
Production Supervisor: Timothy Kreis

Editorial: Cut+Run
Managing Director: Michelle Eskin
Executive Producer: Carr Schilling
Head of Production: Amburr Farls
Editor: Steve Gandolfi
Assistant Editor: Sean Fazende

Finishing: Jogger Studios
Creative Director: David Parker

Visual Effects: Framestore
Senior Executive Producer: James Razzall
Producer: Andrew McLintock
Design Director: Sharon Lock
Computer Graphics Artist: Mike Bain
2-D Supervisor, 2-D Lead: Michael Ralla

Audio Post Company: Lime Studios
Executive Producer: Jessica Locke
Sound Engineer: Dave Wagg

Transfer: Company 3
Executive Producer: Rhubie Jovanov
Producer: Alexis Guajardo
Colorist: Sean Coleman

Music Company: Barking Owl
Head of Production: Whitney Fromholtz
Creative Director: Kelly Bayett

Talent: Jeff Goldblum

—Out-of-Home Credits
Agency: RPA
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Joe Baratelli
Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director: Pat Mendelson
Creative Director, Art: Hobart Birmingham
Creative Director, Copy: Perrin Anderson
Associate Creative Director, Art: Kirk Williams
Associate Creative Director, Copy: Eric Haugen
Senior Copywriter: David Sullivan (for Living Near Burritos, Duck and Finding an Apartment Faster only)
Senior Art Director: Rob Anton (for Living Near Burritos, Duck and Finding an Apartment Faster only)
Photographer: Michael Muller
Digital Artist: Art Machine

—Digital Credits
Agency: RPA
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Joe Baratelli
Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director: Pat Mendelson
Creative Director, Art: Hobart Birmingham
Creative Director, Copy: Perrin Anderson
Associate Creative Director, Art: Kirk Williams
Associate Creative Director, Copy: Eric Haugen
Junior Art Director: Josh McCrary
Junior Copywriter: Earl Lee
Photographer: Michael Muller
Digital Artist: Art Machine

Tiger Woods has been having a rough time for about half a decade. He’s been stuck on 14 major championships since 2008, but it’s good to know he can poke a little fun at himself.

Tiger gives his pursuit of No. 15 a quick, humorous mention in this very entertaining Nike Golf spot from Wieden + Kennedy, which also stars Rory McIlroy, Michelle Wie, Charles Barkley and Bo Jackson (who utters a certain familiar phrase from an old, old, old W+K campaign for Nike). Comedian Keegan-Michael Key provides the voiceover.

The ad, for Nike’s Vapor driver, takes a humorous look at why golfers of all skill levels might want to change their driver.

CREDITS
Client: Nike Golf
Project: There’s Always Better

—TV
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Chris Groom / Stuart Brown
Copywriter: Brock Kirby
Art Director: Derrick Ho
Producer: Jeff Selis
Interactive Strategy: Reid Schilperoort
Strategic Planning: Andy Lindblade / Brandon Thornton
Media/Comms Planning: Alex Dobson / Jocelyn Reist
Account Team: Alyssa Ramsey / Rob Archibald / Heather Morba / Ramiro Del-Cid
Business Affaires: Dusty Slowik
Project Management: Nancy Rea
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples / Mark Fizloff
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Steve Rogers
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Line Producer: Vincent Landay
Director of Photography: Nicolas Karakatsanis

Editorial Company: Joint Editorial
Editor: Matthew Hilber,
Post Producer: Leslie Carthy
Post Executive Producer: Patty Brebner

VFX Company: The Mill
VFX Supervisor: Tim Davies
VFX Producer: Will Lemmon

Music+Sound Company: Barking Owl

—Digital/Interactive

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Director: Chris Groom / Stuart Brown
Copywriter: Brock Kirby
Art Director: Derrick Ho
Producer: Jeff Selis
Interactive Strategy: Reid Schilperoort
Strategic Planning: Andy Lindblade / Brandon Thornton
Media/Comms Planning: Alex Dobson / Jocelyn Reist
Account Team: Alyssa Ramsey / Rob Archibald / Heather Morba / Ramiro Del-Cid
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples / Mark Fitzloff
Agency Executive Producer: Ben Grylewicz
Digital Designer: Rob Mumford
Exec Interactive Producer: Patrick Marzullo
Content Producer : Byron Oshiro / Sarah Gamazo
Broadcast: Jeff Selis
Art Buying: Amy Berriochoa
Photographer: Henrique Plantikow
Interactive Studio Artist: Adam Sirkin, Oliver Rokoff

Coca-Cola hasn’t had much luck making the Internet a happier place lately, but maybe this will help—a fun campaign from Coca-Cola Puerto Rico that puts smiley-face emojis right in the brand’s web addresses.

The brand registered URLs for every emoji that conveys happiness. Entering any of these happy icons into a mobile web browser, along with the .ws suffix, leads users to Coca-­Cola Puerto Rico’s website.

Why .ws, which is actually the domain suffix for Samoa?

“Emojis are not accepted on domains such as .com, .net, and .org,” DDB Puerto Rico says. “After doing some research on domains that do accept emojis, we opted to go with the .ws because the letters could stand for ‘We smile’ and hence seemed most relevant to the brand.”

For now, all the emoji URLs lead to a special landing page, Emoticoke.com, where consumers can sign up for a chance to get emoji web addresses of their very own. The campaign is being supported by traditional media, including outdoor.

“The vast majority of our audience now visits our website via a mobile device. And since emojis have become a kind of second language for Coke’s younger consumers, we felt this was a great opportunity to connect on a deeper level with our most important demographic,” says Alejandro Gómez, president of Coca-Cola Puerto Rico.

Ikea often does humorously naughty ads around Valentine’s Day. Two years ago it did a fun promotion offering free cribs for babies born nine months after Valentine’s Day. And last year it stacked a pair of chairs suggestively in an ad with hot wood-on-wood action.

Now, Ikea Singapore continues the tradition with the BBH ad above, posted to social media—showing off the chain’s new line of “beds.” Pretty cute, though I’m not convinced that bench is up to the task.

Everyone else makes fun of how painful it is to assemble Ikea furniture, so why can’t Ikea? And the company does in these fun billboards, from German agency thjnk, that are themselves poorly assembled—to advertise the brand’s assembly service. Such a simple idea.

Thjnk has been doing eye-catching Ikea work for a while, including one of our favorite out-of-home ads of 2014—the RGB billboard that ingeniously turned nine square meters of ad space into 27 square meters.

Via Ads of the World.

Snickers and BBDO New York have followed up their brilliant “Brady Bunch” Super Bowl ad with an inspired print piece—taking over the back cover of Sports Illustrated’s new Swimsuit Issue with this fantastic “You’re not your when you hungry” ad.

Hannah Davis, of course, is on the front cover of the magazine. But on the back is a much less traditionally attractive female—Medusa, in fact, whom models apparently act like when they haven’t had a Snickers in a while.

Cynics will suggest models are always hungry, and wouldn’t be caught dead rectifying that fact by wolfing down a Snickers bar in public. But leaving aside the issues of verisimilitude, this is a pretty great ad and media placement. The recasting of Sports Illustrated as “Super Irritated” is a particularly nice touch.

See the front cover, and credits for the Snickers ad, below.

Front cover:

CREDITS
Client: Snickers
Ad: Medusa

Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Office, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Gianfranco Arena
Executive Creative Director: Peter Kain
Senior Creative Director: Danilo Boer
Senior Creative Director: Grant Smith
Executive Art Producer: Betsy Jablow
Account Director: Josh Steinman
Account Manager: Dylan Green
Planner: Alaina Crystal

Photographer: Vincent Dixon

CGI: Parker & Biley
Production Company: Jake Mills Productions

We know how much you love Anna Kendrick, so here she is in yet another commercial where she gets to be funny and charming—this time at Amy Schumer’s expense.

Schumer is hosting the MTV Movie Awards in April, for which this serves as an early promo. Nothing too exciting happens, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. If nothing else, Kendrick has shown time and again that she can make something out of nothing.

“It was great to work with such a variety of comedians and actors in the campaign,” said the director, Kim Nguyen of Backyard, in a statement. “It’s fun leading them into different directions and providing an environment where they are willing to take chances and bring something different to each take. That collaboration really opened up so many funny possibilities that our entire crew was holding back laughter take after take.”

The MTV Movie Awards air on Sunday, April 12, at 8/7c.

Sequels are tough. For every Godfather Part II, there’s a Godfather Part III. But Budweiser and Anomaly had such a big hit with “Puppy Love” on last year’s Super Bowl, they couldn’t resist going back to the well for another look at the “Best Buds”—the Clydesdales and their favorite golden Lab.

And so here it is: “Lost Dog.” Like last year’s ad, it was directed by RSA’s Jake Scott. We won’t spoil the plot, such as it is—the title tells you most of what you need to know. The Clydesdales, of course, come to the rescue of the wayward puppy, whom you’ll remember from the first ad has a tendency to roam and isn’t too concerned for his own safety.

Once again, music plays a key role here. This time we get a reworked version of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Proclaimers, performed by Sleeping At Last. It’s a slow, acoustic version—more downbeat and poignant-sounding than last year’s choice, which was “Let Her Go” by Passenger. (Last year’s ad was itself a kind of sequel to 2013’s “Brotherhood,” featuring a baby Clydesdale and the same trainer from “Puppy Love” and “Lost Dog.” “Brotherhood” was set to Fleetwood Mac’s classic hit “Landslide.”)

“Lost Dog” is nicely produced, and will be well liked. But “Puppy Love” was a richer, more engaging story—that spot’s subtle parallels between the puppy/Clydesdale and the horse trainer/puppy adoption owner built a real connection over 60 seconds. This spot leans more on simple cuteness. It’s a decent sequel—but perhaps not a world-beating one.

Anheuser-Busch sent over these facts about “Lost Dog”:
• Eight puppies—seven females and one male—are featured in the spot, all of which were just 11-12 ½ weeks old at the time of filming.
• Seven Budweiser Clydesdales underwent training for three months to fine-tune their skills for the ad.
• It was shot at a ranch outside Santa Barbara, Calif., in early December.
• Actor Don Jeanes reprises his role as Budweiser Clydesdale trainer for a third time. Don is originally from Houston and now lives in Los Angeles.

New York was supposed to be the city dealing with a scary winter visitor on Tuesday, but instead it was London that was thrown off-kilter—by a giant polar bear wandering around.

The eight-foot male bear was first spotted in the Underground before walking across Hampstead Heath and along the South Bank. The beast drew quite the shocked reaction, with people posting all sorts of frightened and bemused notes to social media. They were happy to learn, in the end, that it was simply a very advanced fake bear—promoting Sky Atlantic’s new TV crime drama Fortitude, which is set in a small Arctic town.

The bear was created by special effects company Millennium FX and operated by puppeteers Tom Wilton and Derek Arnold, who worked on the theater production War Horse. The stunt was orchestrated by Taylor Herring, which has a history of doing fun outdoor stuff like this—including the brilliant beached dragon head skull for Game of Thrones in 2013.

“It is made of a semi-rigid foam, as it had to be light,” Millennium FX principal Rob Mayor said of the bear. “The head was difficult, too, as we wanted the hair to look right. So each hair was put into place individually. Then we used an electrostatic current to make the hairs to stand up on end. … We are actually going to miss the bear when it’s gone. It sounds silly, but we have got quite attached to it.”

This isn’t the first polar bear spotted in London, though the last one was homeless because of climate change in an from Greenpeace. Check out another photo of today’s bear below.