Hasta La Creative!

Mangan Berlin launched a new spot promoting Volkswagen leasing with the 60-second “Cat Video.”

The spot explores the Internet phenomenon of cat videos, with a twist: the cats are all played by people. As with most cat videos, it’s an exercise in pure ridiculousness. The connection to the brand is delivered at the very end, when a cat driving a Volkswagen says, “You don’t have to be a cat to get on the Internet. And if you want to drive a Volkswagen, you don’t have to buy one.” While that connection is a bit of a stretch, the video and accompanying catchy song will be hard for viewers to forget.

“We began this project with an intense casting session and pre-production planning that included a stunt coordinator and a special rig to simulate the curtain gag,” explained director Curtis Wehrfritz. “Cats act like diva rock stars, their demeanour is so dry, and unaffected. It’s not that the cat drops the vase but rather his ‘who gives a shit’ attitude that really makes them funny. We wanted to make sure we captured that.”

Credits:

Spot Title: Cat Video
Marketing Volkswagen Leasing: André Hajek
Marketing Volkswagen Leasing: Miriam Laridjani
Marketing Volkswagen Leasing: Rafael Schady
Marketing Volkswagen Leasing: Kristin Woltmann

Agency: Mangan Berlin
Copywriter/Concept: Christian Fries
Art Director: Christian Peters
Art Director: Felix Szymoniakn

Production Company: Tony Petersen Film Berlin
Director: Curtis Wehrfritz
Director of Photography: Stefan Austmeyer
Executive Producer: Fabian Barz
Producer: Stefanie Schuster

Casting: Ana Dávila
Production Design: Sven Gessner
Make Up: Andres Heldmann
Styling: Katja Höft

Editor: Hannes Andresen
Colour Grading: Pana Argueta
Post Production: nhb studios Berlin
Cat Animation: Fido, Sweden
Music: Steve Ibsen

Here’s a blind item that many readers will find painfully familiar.

Seems that a certain freelance recruiter has a certain interest in a certain creative director at a certain major agency.

The party in question has worked with the recruiter in the past, but he/she was more than a little pissed to get no response to a query about an (alleged) job opening in the creative department of a different agency.

Our PR contacts remind us that their jobs are all about relationships — and, quaint as it may sound, the same is true of recruiters.

We thank the responsible party for taking the time to write such a compelling email…and giving us yet another excuse to scroll through “angry businessman” stock photos.

Hi [name withheld],

Just following up on my follow-up email about the job description you promised to send me yesterday. My guess is that my salary requirement was too high for the position, which is fine, but would it really have been that hard to let me know? Sure, for some reason radio silence is an accepted method of communication in this industry, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a pretty awful way to treat someone. You’d think that a recruiter like you, whose professional livelihood depends on their network/rolodex, would value maintaining connections more.

Remember a few years ago when you were recruiting me for that eBay-offshoot company, or have you forgotten? I haven’t. To refresh your memory: my interview went very well and we were negotiating salary and benefits, emailing back and forth every hour or so, before settling on a number. Then you went completely silent, didn’t respond to my next three emails and I never heard from you again. Sure, it wasn’t a great gig and I found something better pretty soon after, but again, why not take a couple minutes just to let me know what happened?

To clarify – this is not about my feelings. That certainly wasn’t the first or last time I’d received the silent treatment and I have plenty of colleagues and friends with similar tales to tell.

Here’s what gets me, though – I’m in a management position. A portion of my job involves hiring people and working with recruiters such as yourself. I would think that you’d exert at least the bare minimum level of respect and professionalism towards someone who can HELP YOU MAKE MONEY. Also, many of the copywriters and art directors you’re communicating with now will be in similar positions in the future. Do you really expect them to forget or look past that time you totally blew them off a few years back?

Look, I’m sure you’re really busy. Your inbox probably gets bombarded all day and night with email from young, desperate advertising creatives. It must be exhausting keeping up with it all. So here’s what I suggest: create a Word Document with a few standard email responses that you can copy and paste throughout the day. Here’s a sample to help get you started:

“They really liked you, but didn’t think you were the right fit for the position.”

“I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

“They want to talk to other candidates before making a decision.”

“They just lost/won some business, so everything’s crazy over there right now.”

“They’re having a hiring freeze.”

Secret: all of the above are lies. I know this because I’m a professional liar (I work in advertising, remember?). But these are helpful lies – they provide closure, allow people to move on and help you sustain a professional relationship with them. All that with just a few keystrokes!

Please understand that the point of this email is not to belittle you, but rather to help you help yourself. Maybe if you make a commitment to start treating people better it’ll inspire others to do the same and then one glorious day in the future we can all look back and have a laugh about back when it was an industry standard practice to ignore people you’d spent a few days or weeks building up a rapport with. Sadly, my guess is you are not up to task and that you won’t respond to this email. Just please don’t be offended next year or the year after that when you reach out about a job or a candidate and never hear back from me. I will never forget to remember.

Take care,

[name withheld]

Here’s an odd one from Ogilvy’s Spanish office in Madrid.

First, a very British gentleman reminds us that the “a” in “Mather” is as long as the agency’s (storied) history:

Then, said gentleman provides a bit of context for the Spanish speakers in the audience:

The nice balding man doesn’t have a lot of confidence in your ability to get it right:

He also wants to remind us that the “G” in Gyllenhaal is a soft one:

The purpose of the project becomes a bit clearer as Lord Ogilvy shifts from telling non-English speakers how to pronounce his name to noting that Ogilvy is, in fact, very “coooooooooooool”:

This keeps going. Finally, the man does what he calls singing:

We remain perplexed, flummoxed, mystified, and confounded by this downright colonial effort, but it’s good to see the “lesser” Mather getting a little more love.

Now here’s an alternate pronunciation of the “Ogilvy”:

We prefer that one.

Fashion and fitness collide in a sense in a new campaign from Taipei-based agency Rules Creative for local clothing brand Earl Jean.

Rather than focus on the knitted denim jeans themselves, though, Rules Creative has some fun with the brand and some unsuspecting customers who just want to try its clothes on. As mentioned above, the agency transformed a fitting room floor at an Earl Jean store into a treadmill, testing shoppers’ balance while essentially forcing them to engage in some physical activity in the process.

Their surprised reactions are captured in the video above, which has garnered nearly a million views on the Earl Jean Taiwan fan page and its official YouTube channel.

So, why would Rules Creative subject random people to this mini-workout?

The purpose of the stunt is not only to address the fact that jeans aren’t seen as proper sportswear, but also to show that Earl Jean denim carries many of the same features such as traditional workout/sports gear such as moisture-wicking, flexibility, and breathability.

As the campaign slogan tells us, “It’s the jeans that people could wear for sports” — and the agency tells us that sales are up 30 percent, so someone is listening.

Here’s an unusually dramatic campaign created by Ogilvy Japan to promote its own Creative School in Tokyo.

Ogily Asia COO Kent Wertime describes the school as “an initiative…where we train young creators for three months to specifically develop talent” while the agency’s own release calls it “a unique tool to recruit interns” from Japan’s art student community.

In order to encourage those students to enroll in the program during the new academic year, the organization created a series of posters that take the phrases “let it all out” and “with a bullet” quite literally.

The images present a disconcerting but — perhaps — accurate depiction of the daytime nightmares plaguing young creatives.

From the release:

“…we created a series of posters that showed youngsters ‘blowing their creative brains out’ with their hands, creating the most artistic splatters on the wall.”

Not sure how this one would go over in the States…

The images are nothing if not striking.

We are, however, slightly concerned about the emotional state of Japan’s art student community after seeing them.

Agency:Ogilvy & Mather, Tokyo, Japan

CCO: Ajab Samrai
Creative Director: Federico García
Art Director: David Morgan, Federico García
Copywriter: Federico García
Illustrator Hash: Takuro Okuyama
Illustrator Sole: Soledad Grossi
Illustrator Saki: Saki Murakami
Illustrator Rianti: Rianti Hidayat
Photographer: Hiromasa Gamo
Producer: Kohei Ishii

Good God, we’re not sure why this promo video resurfaced, but leave it to Sizzler to remind us of Cross Colours, the Fresh Prince, and Z. Cavaricci with the 1991 masterpiece above.

Of course we weren’t the only media outlet to inquire about the origins of this artifact, and we received a response from Kristina Van Bruggen, VP of marketing for Sizzler USA:

“We’re very humbled by the thousands of wonderful posts from our customers. Sizzler is and has always been a special place for American families. We are thrilled this video is touching so many people and stirring such positive feelings about our country. Sizzle on, America, sizzle on!”

The video was originally shown to employees at an annual gathering to promote franchise sales.

The company’s PR even attributed the work to Multi Image Productions, now known as Multi Image Group. Yes, the company is still around — and now, according to their website, they specialize in ” integrating live events and online experiences, digital and social media, and immersive environments that engage, inspire and move audiences.”

We can all have a laugh at their vintage work, but their current client list includes Sprint, Volvo and, yes, Bud Light.

On that note, here’s some more recent work for Sizzler.

Breakfast pizza isn’t anything new as you can see, but Sizzler is trying its damndest to bring it into the mainstream.

We wish them the best of luck in their efforts.

In a project that seems custom-made for your AgencySpy, the San Francisco wing of Egotist recently collaborated with area yuppie club* AD2SF to create a clickbait listicle titled “32 Under 32? celebrating the best young advertising professionals living and, possibly, working in the Bay Area.

At least some of the names on the resulting list will sound very familiar to even our oldest, most crotchety readers: Grey, DDB, GS&P, Old Navy(?!)…

Here are those 32 “well-above-average looking ad folks” (not our words):

Notice a trend here? They’re almost all white.

A couple of readers (literally, two of them) took issue with that fact, and Egotist fought back, writing:

“First: We judged the people that were nominated. Are there ultra-talented minorities in the SF ad scene? Of course. But they weren’t nominated. If you know a more diverse group that should be recognized, by all means, nominate them when we do this again next year. Nothing’s stopping you. Claiming it’s from “racism” is frankly, bullshit.”

It’s like they read AgencySpy or something.

Frankly, we are encouraged by the 50/50 male-to-female ratio. But what’s with the overabundance of people from Goodby and Heat? Was this game rigged?!

*Young, urban, professional. Accurate.

It would appear that someone who either works within the Saatchi & Saatchi New York office or has a very deep knowledge of the organization is not happy with recent decisions made by agency management.

Today, the shop apparently let creative technologist Steve Nowicki go after almost four years — and someone who uses the pen name “Vox Saatchi” and writes in the royal “we” expressed his or her displeasure in a rant that went out to everyone in the office under the subject line “Sinking Ship.”

It’s more than a bit brutal in addressing CEO-since-2013 Brent Smart:

Dear Brent and the Rest of the Peanut Gallery Senior Management,

Today you fired one of the best employees at Saatchi, Steve Nowicki. Steve was energetic, intelligent, kind and incredibly helpful. He was one of the best parts of Saatchi New York. He worked tirelessly to help each and every account. He would lend a hand whenever you needed him. He was, quite simply, the best.

It makes sense that you let him go, however, because you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re leading the agency into the ground. We hope someone, anyone at the agency can forward this to Kevin Roberts and Robert Senior.

Several weeks ago you told us that the new normal is being overworked and that there is no help on the way. That you are tired of hearing people complain. You said if we don’t like how things are at Saatchi, we should leave. That this is “the new normal”. You point fingers and place blame on everyone while not taking any responsibility for losing (lots of) business and losing (fantastic) employees. A great CEO would inspire us to greatness, yet the opposite is happening.

People are leaving on a daily basis because you’re causing this ship to sink. And instead of turning things around, you let go one of the best employees we’ve had in years.

Saatchi has a great name. And at one point it created great work. But not under this leadership. And it’s clear now that we’re definitely heading in the wrong direction. And you’re right, no help is on the way. Not with you in charge.

We hope things change soon! We really do. This place could be fantastic. We need someone to turn it around, and fast. We’re hopeful. We work hard everyday. We need someone who works hard for us.

Sincerely,

Vox Saatchi

It’s not clear whether “Vox” is addressing the creative shakeup that hit the agency last Summer and preceded the hire of Droga5’s Paul Bichler and CP+B veterans Chris Moreira and Mark Schöller as ECDs. But the anonymous writer claims to speak for the employees and is definitely not the same person who runs the internal “day-to-day life” Hudson/Houston account.

In short, someone is pissed.

Today in news we missed due to our compulsive blogging, Jake Kirk is a senior at Northern Arizona University who wants to intern for Team One in LA.

In order to apply for said internship, he had to make a video — so he chose to create this entry in the amateur action film genre:

He shared the clip on reddit, where it quickly went viral…and earned him an interview with Team One.

Is this guy ready to make car commercials, or what?

The E! network surprised approximately no one this morning by revealing that the “naked man climbing out of a Buckingham Palace window” video that went viral over the weekend was actually a promotion for its rare scripted show The Royals.

We were, however, slightly surprised to learn that the responsible party is BBH LA, which has been producing promos for the show (here’s a trailer).

The video isn’t terribly convincing, but it still worked:

Note the young actresses’ utter inability to feign surprise.

This isn’t the first stunt in the campaign, which includes its own fake tabloid/tumblr page and a Christmas video of the “queen” dropping an F-bomb.

Unfortunately, no one at BBH can discuss the work at the moment; we looked forward to getting a killer quote on the UX portion of this campaign.