Hasta La Creative!

Life in Thailand is pretty meaningful, judging by the heartrending commercials the country produces. Companies like TrueMove and Thai Life Insurance have been rolling out masterful long-form spots about the deeper meaning of existence for several years. And now, the latter returns with a lovely little story about the power of music.

The spot is about a boy who’s bullied, at first, for his clumsy attempts at playing guitar. As usual with these things, it’s best not to reveal too much about the plot beforehand. So, watch below—and shield your watery eyes from co-workers. Agency: Ogilvy & Mather.

There was major media hubbub earlier this year about the death of the “Got milk?” campaign. But while it’s no longer being used nationally by the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP), it’s still very much alive in California, where it originated with the California Milk Processor Board.

And now, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which created the legendary tagline back in 1993, is launching new “Got milk?” work in an unusual partnership with Grupo Gallegos, which created the “Toma leche” campaign—and acknowledging that milk sales have been in decline for years.

“Milk is losing relevance, and sales have been in decline as family life and diets have changed,” GSP says. To reestablish milk as the right choice for families, the two agencies have partnered on a campaign “that highlights how a person’s future self is determined by the nutritional choices he or she makes today—starting, of course, with milk.”

The agencies are approaching California as one whole market to deliver bilingual work that appeals to all consumers, regardless of ethnicity. The campaign launched Wednesday with two spots, each airing in English and Spanish, that couldn’t be more different.

“Champion,” directed by Dummy’s Harold Einstein, is an amusingly quirky set piece that takes place in a grocery store. “Brave,” meanwhile, directed by Anonymous Content’s Armando Bo, presents a much more emotional appeal by showing a firefighter rescuing a family.

“It’s time to start addressing the California market on the basis of things we all share,” GSP chairman Jeff Goodby said in a statement. “California consumers are extremely diverse, but when it comes to wanting what’s best for our children and their future, we are one united front. This campaign embraces every parent’s personal desire, which is preparing our children for a successful and healthy future.” Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: California Milk Processor Board
Campaign: Milk Fuels a Better Future
Spots: “Champion,” “Brave”

Agencies: Grupo Gallegos; Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

Executive Creative Director: Jeff Goodby
Chief Strategy Officer: Andrew Delbridge
Chief Creative Officer: Marty Orzio

Creative Directors: Eric Kallman, Kate Catalinac
Associate Creative Directors: Saul Escobar, Curro Chozas
Copywriter: Simon Bruyn
Art Director: Andrew Livingston

—Spot: “Champion”
Head of Broadcast Production: Tod Puckett
Senior Broadcast Producer: Leila Seghrouchni

Production Company: Dummy
Director: Harold Einstein
Director of Photography: Jonathan Freeman
Executive Producer, Line Producer: Eric Liney

Editing Company: Arcade Edit
Editor: Dave Anderson
Assistant Editor: Mark Popham
Producer: Fanny Cruz
Executive Producer: Sila Soyer
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens

Visual Effects, Final Conform: The Mill
Executive Producer: Jo Arghiris
Senior Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Producer: Adam Reeb
Shoot Supervisor, 3-D Lead Artist: Tara DeMarco
2-D Artists: Timothy Crabtree, Jake Albers
3-D Artists: Lu Meng-Yang, Mike Di Nocco, Matt Neapolitan
Colorist: Greg Reese
Art Department: Jeff Langlois, Ashley Forbito

Music: Butter
Composer: Josh Canevari
Executive Producer: Ian Jeffreys
Senior Producer: Annick Mayer

Sound Design, Effects, Mix: Barking Owl
Sound Designer: Michael Anastasi
Mixer: Brock Babcock
Producer: Whitney Fromholtz
Executive Producer: Kelly Bayett

—Spot: “Brave”
Head of Production: Carlos Barciela
Producer: Valeria Maldini

Production Company: Anonymous Content
Director: Armando Bo
Editing: Luna Post
Editor: Pablo Piriz
Telecine: The Mill

Music:
Original Music Composition: Elias Arts 
Executive Creative Director: Brent Nichols
Creative Director: Dave Gold
Executive Producer: Ann Haugen
Producer: Katie Overcash

Sound Design: TruLove Post
Sound Designer: Gonzalo Ugarteche

Visual Effects: The Mill
Senior Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Executive Producer: Enca Kaul
Producer: Adam Reeb
Production Coordinator: Kris Drenzek
Shoot Supervisor, 2-D Lead: Bill Higgins
2-D Artists: Steve Cokonis, Robert Murdock, Patrick Munoz, Jale Parsons
3-D Artists: Phil Mayer, Jason Jansky
Colorist: Adam Scott
Art Support: Jeff Langlois, Ashley Forbito

It was at this time last year that we first met Ted Lasso, an American football coach (played by Jason Sudeikis) hired to manage London’s Tottenham Hotspur Football Club—and manage very, very poorly—in a hilarious short film promoting NBC Sports’ English Premier League coverage.

Well, Coach Lasso is back. And he’s better—or rather, worse—than ever.

In this sequel from New York agency The Brooklyn Brothers, Lasso has lost his Tottenham job (he lasted just six and a half hours) and has given soccer sportscasting a try. That goes wretchedly too, though, as Lasso can’t get a grasp on the concepts of relegation, the offside rule or really anything requiring a modicum of basic intelligence.

So, he returns to America, where he creates a Little England in his own home, gets drunk with friends in the morning while watching the EPL (games kick off at 10 a.m. ET, or even earlier, on Saturdays) and finds his next great coaching gig. He even catches up with Adweek cover boy (and sometime professional goalkeeper) Tim Howard.

The original film was great, but this one might be even better. It’s even more packed with jokes, most of which hit the mark, and Sudeikis has settled even more comfortably into the role of clueless buffoon.

This is one wanker you don’t mind spending a little more time with.

NBC Sports’s EPL coverage returns for another season on Aug. 16.

Greenpeace takes a page from Chipotle’s marketing playbook—haunting animation plus a distressing cover of a well-known song—in its continuing assault on Lego for partnering with Shell on a set of Shell-branded Lego products.

Attacking a beloved brand like Lego isn’t easy. But if you’re going to do it, you need to do it right. And this spot, showing a Lego version of the Arctic drowning in a sea of oil, is incredibly well made by creative agency Don’t Panic—who, you’ll remember, also did the memorable Save the Children ad which brought the Syrian war to London.

The visuals in the Greenpeace spot are beautiful, and the ethereal cover of “Everything Is Awesome,” from The Lego Movie, is the perfectly ironic backdrop. Yes, it is angering people (check out the YouTube comments if you’re looking for a grand old time), but Greenpeace is rarely interested in making friends as it pursues its enemies.

You can debate whether Lego was right to partner with Shell—here is Greenpeace’s point of view, and here is Lego’s reply to the attack ad. But as a pure PR play, “Everything Is NOT Awesome” (which has topped 1 million views since Tuesday) is itself pretty awesome.

CANNES, France—Maybe India’s Internet Baby isn’t as horrifying as he seems?

If you think about it, the preternaturally social star of the MTS Telecom campaign—who learns to cut his own umbilical cord immediately after birth—is actually someone to be revered, at least according to the agency that created him.

We thought he was creepy, as most CGI infants are when they do adult-like things. The ad’s utopian vision of ever-younger digital natives also seemed dystopian, to say the least. The ad will make you “weep for humanity,” we wrote, adding that Internet Baby must be stopped. (Others, including Time magazine, later agreed with us.)

But Sajan Raj Kurup, founder and creative chairman at Creativeland Asia—which is hoping the ad snags a Lion at Cannes this week—sent us an email in which he suggests we may have missed the cultural import of the spot. He urges us to look at it in a different way—as beautiful, not terrifying.

Check out his full email below.

Dear Tim,

You have mentioned how the MTS Internet Baby spot will make one weep for humanity. You have also appealed that somebody must stop the Internet baby. As someone who wrote the spot, may I sincerely ask that somebody not to stop my little Internet baby. Very humbly, here’s why:

I live in a country where millions of babies are born into poverty. Hunger in their life manifests itself in many terrifying ways. From basic amenities, to education, security and healthcare.

The Internet and mobile phones arrived in my country in the late ’90s. Today, India is the fastest growing telecom and Internet market. Beyond the economic benefits, there is huge social upside to it. Internet and telecommunications has perhaps been the greatest social leveler in my country. It has begun to empower even the most socially backward Indian in the remotest corner of the country with information, with access, with knowledge, with education, with true power.

I would like to hope that this empowerment continues. And it transcends age-groups, caste, religion and social standing. I would like to hope that every baby born in my country is born to the Internet. The Internet that empowers him or her to start life like any other baby in an urban Indian home, European or an American home. For then he would have knowledge available, at the touch of a button. The same button a child in London presses when he needs to know. The same button that empowers a child in Tokyo.

It is natural for a handful of people to think that this is freaky or unnatural. Remember even the motorcar was called evil by some people a hundred years ago. But let not the playful thought of an Internet-empowered baby at birth terrify us. Let’s not stop him.

There’s no telling how far this generation of Indian children, those born for the Internet, will go. They will definitely go farther than their fathers did. They might even go farther than kids in the developed world. Let them go. Let them break barriers.

Debates and point of view are essential. They are what make our business a lot more fun. But that doesn’t change facts. Technology and the Internet are getting deeper into our lives. And the MTS Internet Baby has made people stand up and take notice.

I would like to invite you to Mumbai after Cannes Lions to witness firsthand India’s flourishing creative scene and our country’s “Internet Babies.” I promise it would be something you would never forget—and you would weep for humanity. With a mixture of joy and excitement.

Yours sincerely,
Sajan Raj Kurup
Founder & Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia

 
To commemorate the birth of the Internet Baby, Creativeland also ran a promo in which it christened babies born on MTS India’s founding day (which happened to be within the launch month of the spot) as Internet babies and gave away free Internet connections. See that case study below.

How precocious are digital natives today? They take charge of things literally from birth, according to this somewhat terrifying spot from MTS Telecom, which the company claims is now the most-viewed ad ever to come out of India.

The spot—created by Creativeland Asia, directed by Guy Shelmerdine from Smuggler Films and set to “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross—has 23.4 million views on YouTube (surpassing the previous Indian record holder, Lifebuoy’s “Help a Child Reach 5” PSA, with 19 million). And its pint-size star fits snugly into a long line of famous unusually dexterous infants, from Evian’s CGI babies all the way back to the original Internet dancing baby. Rather than just cavort about on roller skates, though, he spends his brief first moments of life Googling, stealing and taking selfies. And MTS quite clearly loves that about him.

A rep tells us the company launched the ad in an innovative way—by seeding the spot as a BitTorent file and letting the country’s digital natives find it on their own. And indeed, it got plenty of buzz before it was launched on the brand’s official social channels.

MTS Telecom has entered it in next week’s Cannes festival and hopes to bring home a Lion. We’ll leave it up to you to determine whether it deserves one.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: MTS Telecom
Agency: Creativeland Asia
Production House: Smuggler London
Creative Chairman: Sajan Raj Kurup
ECD: Anu Joseph
Script: Sajan Raj Kurup
Director: Guy Shermeldine,
Producer: Chris Barret,
Director of Photography: Alex Baber
VFX: Glassworks London
VFX lead: Abi Klimaszewska,
Editor: Andy Mcgraw, Stitch
Music Director: Mickey Mcleary

Good lord, Beats by Dre is getting great at sports commercials.

We wrote at length last month about how the music company and ad agency R/GA have teamed up to make some of the year’s best sports ads—with Kevin Garnett, Colin Kaepernick, Richard Sherman and Cesc Fabregas. But nothing could prepare us for this five-minute World Cup extravaganza. It’s about pre-game rituals, yes, but Beats is proving to be surprisingly adept at all aspects of the sports ad game—which at times like these is supposed to be the purview of Nike and Adidas.

The top star in “The Game Before the Game,” fittingly for this World Cup, is Brazil’s Neymar Jr. His pre-game ritual involves talking to his father, whose pep talks are so inspiring, you’d think an agency copywriter wrote them (well, yeah). Among the other stars featured here: Spain’s Fabregas, who kisses the ring his girlfriend gave him exactly four times; Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, who kisses the tattoo on his wrist of his son and daughter’s names; and Mexico’s Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, who prays on his knees as his father taught him. (Elsewhere you’ll see Bacaray Sagna, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Blaise Matudi, Daniel Sturridge, Jozy Altidore, Mario Gotze and Robin Van Persie.)

There are also many, many cameos by non-soccer players—everyone from LeBron James to Lil Wayne to Nicki Minaj to Serena Williams—which lends a very Nike-ish vibe. The latter’s grand World Cup spot this year sneaks in Kobe Bryant, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Irina Shayk and even the Incredible Hulk.

Being a music company, Beats can also get away with making its ad basically a giant music video. The stars just slip their headphones on, and away we go. (Indeed, the director here, Nabil Elderkin, is known for his music videos.) Jimmy Iovine is known to handpick the tracks for the Beats ads, and here we get the thematically apt and swagger-filled “Jungle” by Jamie N Commons & The X Ambassadors.

The concept precludes in-game footage, but you don’t really miss it. It could do with a dose of humor, maybe. But throw in some risqué moments (girl on top at 3:02!) and some globe-trotting glimpses of obsessive fan antics (love the British woman’s 1966 tattoo), and you have an impressive smorgasbord of hype, hysteria and hero worship.

Back in 2010, Nike claimed to be writing the future. But who knew the future would include such a determined usurper as Beats?

Credits below, along with some great movie-style posters from the campaign.

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CREDITS
Client: Beats Electronics
Agency: R/GA
Production Company: The Sword Fight
Directed By: Nabil Elderkin
Starring: Neymar Da Silva Santos, Jr.
Featuring: Bacaray Sagna, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Blaise Matudi, Cesc Fabrigas, Daniel Sturridge, Chicharito, Jozy Altidore, Luis Suarez, Mario Gotze, Robin Van Persie
Special Appearances By: Lebron James, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Rafaella Beckran, Rio Ferdinand, Serena Williams, Sydney Leroux, Stuart Scott, Thierry Henry and Neymar Da Silva Sr.
Original Music: “Jungle” by Jamie N Commons & The X Ambassadors

Here’s a quick way to sober up after a holiday weekend: Watch this intense, claustrophobic safe-driving PSA from the U.K., aimed at young male drivers who appear to be a terror on the London roads.

“Friendships are critical to this audience. And the tragic message—that by driving too fast, they might kill the very friends they are trying to impress—is one that really hits home,” M&C Saatchi CEO Camilla Harrisson tells the Drum.

The tragic moment here isn’t as dramatic as in the memorable U.S. PSA from a few weeks back, but maybe that’s the point. Perhaps Hollywood-style visuals offer a comfortable distance. This ad certainly doesn’t. The tagline is, “Kill your speed, not your mates.”

The campaign will run in cinema, video-on-demand and social media.

Hidden cameras have been used in various PSA campaigns lately to shed light on how people react in public to distressing situations. Notably, there was the Norwegian stunt where a boy sat freezing without a coat at a bus stop in winter.

Now, from Dare London, we get an interesting look at two scenarios of domestic violence—with hidden cameras recording the stark differences in how people nearby respond to the physical violence happening right in front of them.

The spot, directed by Dark Energy director David Stoddart for domestic violence charity ManKind, is meant to provoke—and have the viewer question his or her assumptions about violence in relationships. So, does it do a good job of that?

Warning: The video contains simulated violence and may be upsetting.

Last summer, TBWA Paris unveiled a bold campaign for McDonald's that consisted entirely of classic menu items photographed up close—with no branding at all. (Did somebody say McDonald's? Not in those ads.)

Now, agency and client are back with a follow-up campaign that, in a way, is even more minimalist. Instead of the actual products, now we get clean, simple drawings of the products—turning them into actual icons. There is a bit more explicit branding on these, though, but it's still very subtle—a tiny Golden Arches next to the illustrations.

The ads feature McDonald's "Big 6" menu items—Big Mac, cheeseburger, fries, sundae, Chicken Nuggets and Filet-o-Fish—and will appear on more than 2,700 outdoor displays in France, with the major rollout beginning June 2. The agency calls the work "unique and modern, in the McDonald's brand image," "exclusive, simple and universal, just like the six iconic products" and "a fun and intriguing addition to our cities."

More images, plus a new McDonald's TV spot from TBWA Paris, below.