Hasta La Creative!

LONDON – Amazon will create 1000 new jobs in the UK with more to follow with the opening of its distribution centre in Swansea.

A Woman’s hand can heal, teach, inspire, and comfort.
It can also deliver a wicked head-slap when the ref’s not looking.

Advertising Agency: Garrison Hughes, Pittsburgh USA
Creative Directors: Bill Garrison, David Hughes
Art Director: Corinne Stenander
Copywriter: Michael Giunta
Photography: Corbis
Published: April 2008

Via ScampBlog comes this spot from Fallon’s UK office for Budweiser. The one thing that jumps out immediately is that it’s a :60 (when was the last time you saw a :60 in the US that wasn’t a launch spot for a major brand.)

The second is that it’s another in a line of UK TV spots that fetishize the rural American South (Levi’s UK advertising did a good job of this.) Not criticizing, but it’s always fascinating to see an outsider’s take on something uniquely American. To the Brits, the rural South is uniquely and authentically American.

Third is there’s no product sell. It’s a nice minute-long movie about a band that uses instruments made of Budweiser bottles. No lovingly lit pour shots, no hot chicks in bikinis and all the other clichés of American beer advertising. Shot by Harmony Korine, a noted avant-garde movie director best know for his debut film Kids, my only question here is what role did the agency actually play? Did they come to Korine with the idea “rural Southern band plays with instruments made from Budweiser bottles. Go.” Or did they have the basic action plotted out and Korine just added detail, tone and style? I sort of hope it’s the former.

For although many creative purists will look down on an agency for engaging a director at that stage, one of the biggest lessons we have to learn from the digital age is that it can’t always be about the copywriter and art director team anymore. That we need to engage and involve other people– be they technologists, user experience experts or film directors– early on and collaborate with them fully. The result can be something as charming as the spot above.

LONDON – Afghan journalism student Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, who was sentenced to death in January after being found guilty of insulting Islam, has been granted an appeal.

LONDON – Channel 4’s fifth season of home grown drama ‘Shameless’ ended on a high last night, with 2.2m viewers tuning in for the last episode, according to unofficial overnight figures.

Although the Penn-Clinton-Colombia triangle snagged headlines and prompted a rash of frenzied political blogging two weeks ago, some clients of Burson-Marsteller’s claim that they barely noticed.

Advertising Agency: Creativity, Chile
Creative Director / Art Director / Illustrator: Cristobal
Copywriter: Alvaro

Advertising Agency: Creativity, Chile
Creative Director / Art Director / Illustrator: Cristobal
Copywriter: Alvaro

NEW YORK – New York Times Company has said it expects to make newsroom staff redundant at its flagship newspaper as not enough people volunteered to take voluntary redundancy.

LONDON – AOL has acquired Sphere Source, a San Francisco-based contextual search company, in a deal thought to be worth about $25m (£12.7m).