Hasta La Creative!

After winning full creative duties on the Wendy’s account back in March, followed by creative promotions and running a campaign promoting the chain’s Summer Berry Chicken Salad, the agency has turned its attention to the Baconator in a new campaign that debuted with three spots. The campaign marks the first effort with group creative director/recently-announced hire Pat Piper.

The three spots each take a look at food deemed unworthy, for one reason or another, of being part of the baconator, emphasizing how the artery clogging creation never utilizes frozen beef, microwaved bacon or anything resembling a vegetable. In “Frozen Beef Need Not Apply” a frozen beef patty from Australia applies for a job at Baconator Inc., where he’s questioned by a bacon strip interviewer. He slips up when he says he’s dreamt of being part of the Baconator team for years, but stumbles to a recovery. Unfortunately for him, there’s one more “formality” before he can get the job.

In “Microwaves Are A Dealbreaker,” it’s the bacon answering questions from a “modern, fresh, never-frozen patty” he met using the meat-swipe app. She’s a bit taken aback by his appearance (thinner than she expected from his Meat Swipe photo) and when she finds out he’s been microwaved, that’s the final straw. Another spot, “No Veggies Allowed,” sees a group of young vegetables trying to get into the Baconator club with fake IDs.

The approach is certainly an odd one. While it does manage to find a narrative emphasizing the chain’s dedication to fresh beef and oven-cooked bacon, the attempts at humor arrive instead at vaguely creepy. Talking/ambulatory meat is just disconcerting — this isn’t a Jan Svankeyer film here. “No Veggies Allowed” actually manages to be the least creepy of the bunch, but a rejection of fresh veggies (which would arguably improve the burger) is a strange way to hype the Baconator. But then again it might be appreciated by the type of carnivore who would exclusively wolf down the meaty creation.

Credits:

Client: Wendy’s
Advertising Agency: VML, Kansas, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Debbi Vandeven
Executive Creative Director: Chris Corley
Group Creative Director: Pat Piper
Creative Director: Daniel Lobaton
Associate Creative Director: Ethan Tedlock
Senior Copywriter: David Brandorff
Associate Art Director: McKailey Carson
Associate Copywriter: Ant Tull
Senior Producer: Michael Kinney
Associate Producer: Shae Mermis
Group Director: Jason Bass
Director, Client Engagement: Kelly Gartenmayer
Supervisor, Client Engagement: Nicole Debrick
Business Affairs Manager: Julie Kolton
Campaign Manager: Patty Jones
Production Company: Moo Studios
Director: Shaun Sewter
Producer: David Lyons
Line Producer: Monica Monique
Producer : Bennett Conrad
Editorial: Liquid 9
Editor : Ryan Lewis
Editor: Katie Wade
Production Coordinator: Kate Zadoo

In today’s other VML news, the WPP-owned, Kansas City-based agency promoted Dave Quintiliani to group creative director at VML New York, Stephen Martin to group creative director at VML Kansas City, Jen McDonald to executive director, client engagement and Jordan Cochran to managing director, client engagement. 

Quintiliani will now be primary creative lead on VML New York’s Dell account, reporting to VML New York executive creative director and managing director Mike Wente. Quintiliani has served as a creative director for VML New York since March of 2015 after working as VP/ACD at Publicis New York (Vicks, Honda, General Mills, etc.) and holding senior art director roles with McCarthy Mambro & Bertino and Modem Media.

“Dave has made tremendous strides in helping elevate work across the board for Dell,” Wente said in a statement. “His digital technologies knowledge, integration with design and user experience will continue to set vision and drive concepts for all interactive experiences.”

Martin will be tasked with leading a creative team on accounts including Bayer, the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and Kashi while reporting to executive creative director John Godsey. Martin is a veteran of Wunderman TeamDetroit, JWT and McCann, where he was VP/senior art director working with such clients as GM, Delphi and Michigan Tourism.

McDonald joined VML as a group account director back in 2008, was named a partner three and a half years later and received a promotion to managing director of client engagement in May of 2013. During her time with the agency, she has worked on Wendy’s, Napa Auto Parts, Dell, Sam’s Club, Navistar and MillerCoors after holding various marketing leadership roles at Revolution Health, AOL and XM Radio. “Jen places relentless focus on problem solving, strategy and elevating VML’s 360-degree offering to clients,” said VML chief client officer Chuck Searle. 

Cochran has spent over 14 years with VML Kansas City, most recently serving as group account director. During that time he’s led initiatives for brands including MasterCard, Carlson Hotels, Darden, Korean Air and, currently, Sprint. Like McDonald, Cochran will report to VML chief client officer Chuck Searle.

Back in March, Wendy’s appointed WPP-owned, Kansas City-based agency VML, which had formerly served as its digital AOR, as its creative agency of record, replacing incumbent Publicis without a review. Following the appointment, VML announced a round of creative promotions. Now, some four months later, the agency has released what appears to be its first work for the client, promoting the chain’s seasonal salad offering with “How to Make Wendy’s Summer Berry Chicken Salad.”

The spot at the center of the campaign was inspired by a pair of social media trends: those recipe videos popping up all over your Facebook feed and people trying to recreate fast food meals at home. It opens with a promise to teach viewers how to recreate Wendy’s Summer Berry Chicken Salad in five easy steps. The catch? Those steps aren’t so easy after all, and include moving to California to grow your own blackberries. Of course the logical leap from getting fresh blackberries to studying soil chemistry to grow them yourself is a ridiculous one, but this is intended as parody.

In addition to the long-form version running on Facebook and YouTube, the ad will also run on broadcast in 30 and 15-second iterations throughout the summer, until Wendy’s runs out of those precious fresh blackberries.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize the length that a brand like Wendy’s has to go to actually bring in things like fresh blackberries, Wendy’s vice president of advertising, media and digital Brandon Rhoten told Adweek. “It’s definitely a spoof that we thought would look good in someone’s Facebook timeline. People are used to consuming this on a regular basis, it’s just a little bit of a twist on what they may normally see.”

“When we started digging, we found out that people on Pinterest are actually copying Wendy’s recipes,” VML creative director Daniel Lobaton explained about the campaign’s development. “When you mix that with the idea of these trending online recipe videos, we had this very simple idea: If you’re going to follow the steps to make a Summer Berry salad like Wendy’s, let us show you all the steps that went into it.”

If you dig into the history of the cell phone, you’ll find that from roughly 2004 to 2006, the Moto Razr was king—this was after the Samsung Sidekick but before the launch of Apple’s iPhone. So it makes sense then that when it comes to marketing for the potential re-release of that very phone, the campaign would be steeped in mid-aughts nostalgia. 

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Last week a source claimed that an untold number of employees who served as members of the New York-based VML/Y&R technology team had been laid off and that the agency’s tech operations would be subsequently relocated to another office in an effort to streamline the department.

A VML spokesperson refrained from commenting on any staffing changes today, citing an agency-wide policy against commenting on the status of individual employees.

The agency didn’t offer any specifics, but they did seem to refute the latter claim, stating that they will continue to run tech operations out of New York as before. So while the tech team may have experienced some downsizing (a claim which we cannot confirm at the moment), an untold number of the team’s members will continue to work in its New York office moving forward according to VML/Y&R.

American Honda Motor Company works hard to keep up with the competition but hasn’t been quite so successful in the hybrid space. Honda’s Prius equivalent may have been called The Insight, but the company recently pitted all three major holding companies against one another in the search for a bit more of that key noun.
Other campaigns have gone viral (shout out to Michael Bolton) and, according to AdWeek, Honda spends approximately $50 million on digital advertising each year.
Now who’s competing for that money?
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dell seeks to recapture its entrepreneurial spirit in new work from Y&R and VML, including this "Beginnings" spot that shows small apartments, basements and other venues where modern brands were born. 

Companies like TripAdvisor, Whole Foods and Skype, all of which use Dell products and services, serve as the stars of the spot. (Apparently, Dropbox was conceived on a bus. I did not know that.)

At the end, we see the University of Texas at Austin dorm room where Michael Dell sold PC upgrade kits in 1984, emphasizing the company's startup roots. The spot, directed by Tomas Jonsgården of Anonymous Content, comes as Dell, newly privatized and refocused on enterprise systems and cloud computing, prepares to write its next chapter.

Now, Dell's no startup, but a high-tech behemoth, so this strategy seems kind of risky, as it almost dares critics to call out the message as disingenuous. Still, the company is entering a new phase, so the approach works well enough, and the spot feels legitimately humble and less like a brag. Plus, the visuals are memorable, if only because you don't expect Dell to present 60 seconds of drab facades and spaces devoid of people and technology. Such muted imagery captures the lonely uncertainty of the startup experience and makes "Beginnings" seem more heartfelt than ads that cast their wares as shiny eye candy.