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Staples - Screensaver - (2012) - (Argentina)

Dabitch — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:40:37 +0000

She answers the phone "Unlimitech Solutions" and we pan out to find that the office is even worse than the name. It's so bad in fact that the boss asks her to tiden the place up a bit before their visitors arrive, starting with cleaning up her computer desktop. "Screensaver?".. and you know where this suddenly goes, lets try screensaving everything.

Or, you know, you could go to Staples and get a set of matching binders.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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GM to Facebook: We're done here.

kidsleepy — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:23:48 +0000

According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, General Motors is yanking its advertising from Facebook.

GM spends about 40 million dollars on Facebook. 10 million of it goes straight to Facebook. So that's a chunk Facebook is about to lose.

GM has realized spending all that cash on Facebook is not translating into more asses sitting on their car seats.

Facebook could not be reached for comment. Which isn't a surprise. Because The Great Facebook Cotillion Dace With Wall Street happens this week. They're in no mood to think about lost cash when their IPO will be around 100 billion, give or take a few shares. (Shares. Geddit? it's a Facebook joke. And a Wall Street joke. Never mind.)

GM said it will keep its Facebook pages, because they don't cost anything to maintain. It also pays no fees to Facebook for these pages.

So let's recap: GM realized they're paying a lot for something that in their case is largely ineffective. No one is buying a Buick because of an ad they saw on Facebook.

GM also realized they can put out content on Facebook for the grand old price of free. And this strategy supposedly works for 'brand building,' or 'story telling,' or whatever buzzword du jour that snot nosed 23year old social media Ninja Guru is hawking, so why not keep doing it, but save some dough in the process.

In case people haven't realized it, (and most people outside of advertising or marketing haven't) Facebook uses its social media friendship hangout fun time place as a ruse for what is an ever-growing advertising platform. Only now it will have a tasty stock listing and a bunch of greedy shareholders to egg them on. I'm sennsing raising ad rates in the near future.

But if the U.S.'s #3 Advertiser says 'we're done here,' at least for the paid portion, what does that say about the social media juggernaut's mission/business model? Even if GM's budget is a drop in the bucket, it's still a big enough drop to make Facebook take notice.

There are, of course, other explanations to consider.

As the younger demographic increasingly becomes the advertising Holy Grail, companies feel an ever increasing need to "reach them." And some do it well. Clearly there have been successful campaigns on social media, if we declare success as being PR and the ever nebulous word "buzz," with 'sales of actual stuff,' coming in a distant third.

GM might have been a bit clueless in this regard. Considering its most innovative (and social media worthy car, IMO) the Volt, had suspended production a few months ago, perhaps it doesn't have a vehicle in its line with that certain Je ne sais quoi. That's French for "something to make 24-year-olds tweak their nipples."

Maybe they don't have a social media person who knows what they're doing. It could also be a case of taking the ball and going home too soon. Did they give it enough of a chance?

And at its harshest reality, it could be nothing more than a cost-cutting measure in an ever-souring economy, by a company that needed a bail out by Uncle Sam.

Now it's up to GM to see if it can exploit (er, take advantage of) Facebook's freebie platforms in order to achieve the same social media goals. It'll be interesting to see if it becomes a success. Because if so, other advertisers will surely take note.

At this point I'm more interested to see if it has any effect on Facebook's Wall Street debut this week.

Guess we'll find out soon enough. Maybe one of our friends will post the news. On Facebook. And then share it, thus creating a nice meta moment.

And while you're at it, be sure to Like Adland on Facebook, yall!

Viajes Galeón - Twitpoker - (2012)

Dabitch — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:14:16 +0000

Viajes Galeón was launched via a twitpoker game, where players weren't stripped of their clothes, but their twitter followers. Egads! Oh look, my case study bingo card was almost filled in by this one alone.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Cannes Media Person of the year 2012 : Jack Dorsey, father of Twitter

Dabitch — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:52:54 +0000

The Cannes Lions Media Person of the year award 2012 goes to Jack Dorsey, the creator, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Twitter, Inc. and the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Square, Inc. Join us in 2013 when the prize goes to Pinterest!

Originally from St. Louis, Jack's early fascination for mass-transit and how cities function led him to Manhattan and programming real-time messaging systems for couriers, taxis, and emergency vehicles. Throughout this work Jack witnessed thousands of workers in the field constantly updating where they were and what they were doing. Jack came up with the idea for a site that would combine the broad reach of dispatch software with the ease of instant messaging. Within a short space of time, he had built a simple site, Twitter, where users could instantly post short messages of 140 characters or less, known as "Tweets." On 21 March 2006, Jack Dorsey posted the world's first Tweet: "just setting up my twttr."
In the ensuing time, Twitter has become a communication platform that instantly connects people everywhere to what's most meaningful to them. Twitter is accessible to anyone, via the web, on smartphones and on the simplest of feature phones. And, with 340 million Tweets per day and more than 140 million active monthly users, there is something for everyone on Twitter, no matter what you're interested in or where you are in the world.

Jack Dorsey says, "Brands have always used Twitter in creative ways to engage directly with customers. This award celebrates those brands and customers alike."

Previous recipients of the Media Person of the Year Award include: Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook; Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation; Sir Anthony O’Reilly, CEO of Independent News & Media; Tsuneo Watanabe, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings; Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom and Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner.

Barack Obama first Gay president, first jewish president, not the first cover idea done like this.

Dabitch — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:11:31 +0000

Newsweek is getting a lot of press for the cover "The first gay president", illustrated by Obama wearing a rainbow (neon?) halo above his head. He is getting this title for his "bullshit gay marriage announcement" as Gawker put it. As I recall in September last year Barack Obama was the first Jewish president, as depicted on the cover on New York Magazine, so I'm only here to point out the Badlander-like issue. If I see Barack Obama as the first woman president on a magazine cover near you soon, I'll personally slap the creative who designed that cover with a wet trout. I bet Obama will be wearing lipstick too. Shoot, we did that to him already. .......And he was depicted as a rainbow Lincoln-Obama before too. My god, 2012 is like the worlds longest rerun.

Apple store sign is mocked by Android store next door - "Apple sucks" ..Android

Dabitch — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:43:55 +0000

This store in China, right next to an Apple store wants to spell out that Apple sucks and does so rather graphically using the logos from each business.

While we're here giggling in the gutter, you might also fancy bad brand names that won't export well, or one of those lovely phallic logos.... Perhaps while snacking on some poo tofu. God how I love international work.

Depressed Copywriter "Liberates" a 35 year old art movement.

kidsleepy — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:41:22 +0000

Have you heard about Depressed Copywriter?

It's a website where someone takes little strips of paper and changes a headline on some ad to make it more, well, depressing. The site is one instagrammed photo after another, with depressing additives to random headlines.
Oh, and there's a quote by Banksy in the about section. Because you know, adding a Banksy quote makes stuff become very intelligent.

It's getting all the raves now. On Creativity and Huffpo and the San Ramona High Senior School newspaper, too. Have you seen it? Have you seen the image above?

Have you seen it anywhere else?

Unless you've been living under a rock or haven't paid any attention to things like art, you're probably aware of the Billboard Liberation Front. The group of fun loving satirists who have been doing the same concept more or less for about 35 years. In other words, when Banksy was still crapping his diapers, they were getting all rogue on outdoor media.

Outdoor. As in, getting a group of people together, going outside, climbing up ladders, taking spray paint, and then physically defacing a billboard, and risking arrest in the process.

Beyond the obvious difference of tumblr laziness, the Billboard Liberation Front's work systematically lampoons ads not just as a protest against the very intrusion of billboards themselves, but also as a pointed social critique against the corporations they choose to deface.

And by the way, the Billboard Liberation front started in San Francisco, the home of everyone's Patron Saint of advertising, Howard Luck Gossage. He also despised billboards, too.

Check out some more examples of the Billboard Liberation Front here and on their website Billboardliberation.com.

Sunrun sells solar energy on price, not saving dolphin babies. Though dolphin babies are cute too.

Dabitch — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:51:19 +0000

When it comes to selling green alternatives advertising has trotted out grateful polar bears hugging folks (twice, at least), and even fiji water has pretended it's "green" in a really low attempt to greenwash.

But if you want to expand market share, you want to talk to more people than just the dolphin baby-saving flax seed eating weird pickle-guys, right? Right. If you play your cards right, you may even dispel a myth that green energy is somehow more expensive than other types of energy. Win!

So that's exactly the approach ad Agency Heat took, when they created this campaign. Forget the polar bear cubs, we're talking saving cash here.

Sunrun - the best part

Then we have "the pickler guy", who retorts he isn't some weird organic fella pickling stuff, he just likes to save money. And to eat soy flax seeds, apparently. Soy flax seeds? Hmm.

Organically / the pickler guy

And here we have the gardening folks who really like to save money. And don't really mind dolphin babies, per se, they're just into that whole saving money thing.

Dolphin Babies

Case Study Bingo Cards

Dabitch — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:15 +0000

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The EVOC Indestructible Billboard - Hit the backpack - (2012) - Germany

Dabitch — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:31:47 +0000

This case study for the EVoc indestructable billboard does the daring thing of grabbing a guitar-riffing bit of music. To show off Evoc's protective backpacks and the shock absorbing effect a classic "strength of hit" measuring device usually found at amusement parks was worked into a backpack billboard. Then everyone took a punch to the backpack to see how strong their hit was.

97 hits per hour

There must have been a line around the block for the chance to hit that billboard. Is that an average by the way? Perhaps people don't sleep at all in Berlin.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Playboy - Playboy tweetgrid - (Argentina) - (2012)

Dabitch — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:28:48 +0000

Popular model and TV-show ~~host~~ (oh, "secretary" is it?) poses naked for Playboy Argentina, while they are wondering how to get more people to follow the playboy twitter account.
Enter tweetgrid, for every 15 retweets of the Playboy tweets mentioning the show, a small part of a larger nude image of her is revealed in the twitter tweetgrid. Now everyone keeps retweeting Playboy until they finally get the whole picture. Clever way to get around the whole "no nudity on twitter" bit too, says I who risks being banned from Google Adsense (again) just for showing you this case study because it has nipples.

That show that is so popular in Argentina, what exactly is going on there? I see the model strutting her stuff in skin colored bikini-like outfit, while contenders (?) hang around sinks placed in a half-circle on stage. Sinks? To wash their hands in? Forget it. I don't want to know.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Radio Klassisk brings the classical music to Copenhagens public transport system, again.

Dabitch — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:21:43 +0000

"Classical special train" the sign declared before this metro train appeared carrying a conductor and Sjællands Symfoniorkester inside. People boarded and were treated to Peer Gynt on the metro. This flash mob thing is getting really old in the tooth, but when your tagline is "enjoy the music" and you are a classical radio station, I don't see anything wrong with bringing the music out to the people to enjoy. Pretty neat.

Radio Klassisk - Peer Gynt on the metro flash mob

Of course, they already did this last year, and one might suspect that the push on this second instance is a way to freshen the campaign idea in the eyes of Cannes jurors everywhere. If one were a cynical bastard, that is.

Last year on the second of May conductor Jesper Nordin and the Copenhagen Phil (Sjællands Symfoniorkester) set up as they went along and played Ravel's Bolero in the center of the central station in Copenhagen. What I love most about this isn't just how more musicians arrive to the scene as needed, but also a short edit where I can see a pretty well known street musician, mouth agape, sit down with his three kids to enjoy someone else playing music in public for a change. Must have made his day. Also how did they sneak the kettledrums into the scene?

Radio Klassisk - Ravel's Bolero - Flash mob in Copenhagen central station.

The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial: Part Seven - Case Studies

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:41:11 +0000

Today we bring you Part Seven of the ongoing Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial. This time, we thought we'd share some helpful (and not so helpful) advice on creating The Case Study.

Professors teaching class today: Kidsleepy and yours truly Åsk Dabitch Wäppling.

Chapter One: Sincere advice for those unfamiliar with sarcasm.

The longer the better. Five minutes is your minimum amount. Think of it as a logo: The bigger, the better.
Always choose a song that is either a) Indie b) Was a huge hit last year c) Is something that starts quietly, and builds to a rousing finish. When in doubt, use Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over," Temper Trap's "Sweet Disposition" or anything by Coldplay or Band of Horses.
There are three types of lies. Lies. Damned lies. Statistics. And a return on investment is over 100%.
(Learning how to count isn't that important, everyone in advertising thinks 2+2=5. )
Feel free to exaggerate. ROI of 300% is only the beginning. Remember, you didn't just make an ad. You started a revolution. Or stopped one.
Like Paul Arden says: "Find out what is right with your clients products and dramatise it, like a cartoonist dramatises an action.", ie: Go KONY2012 on our ass. Or as Luke Sullivan said: be sure to destroy a cockroach with an atom bomb. (Okay, I'm paraphrasing here.)
Be sure to pull every last article as possible to show the scope of your reach. if your mom has a blog and mentioned your spot, it's fair game. if your mom doesn't have a blog it's also okay if she mentioned it to a friend of hers in passing on the phone.
Have five of your friends stand around gawking at your amazing stunt/event/demonstration, and film them from twenty different camera angles ensuring a feel of hectic action, crowds, while removing the need for carrying around a bunch of "model release" forms.

Chapter 2: An example of the perfect case study.

Just like a good high school essay, all case study scripts have a beginning, middle and end. feel free to use this as a template:

Sans Sheets, the paperless toilet paper, had a problem. How to convince people to buy Sans Sheets paperless toilet paper when they're used to wiping their ass with paper?

We started with a simple idea: Only Asses use toilet paper.

And in the process, we didn't just start a revolution the world has never seen before. No, we started a revolution the universe has never seen before. And changed our own world, and the way we think about wiping our asses in the process.

We seeded our Only Asses Use Toilet Paper message on social media for a decade before we launched any communication. We bought the rights to the word "paper," and "ass" and "asses." Whenever someone used our keywords to search on Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, or Altavista, Dogstar or Lycos, we recorded it. For. Ten. Years.

Finally, we launched or first communication on television. (Insert ten seconds of commercial. Fifty seconds would be better, especially if it's an irrelevant part) followed by radio, print, digital, bobby pins, talking stuffed animals, sky writing, and ass tattooing.

In the first two months our campaign got eleventy billion downloads, a quarter million impressions, four hundred and ninety eight million likes, and three phone calls from world leaders. One porn star even bleached her asshole with our logo on it. Not because she was paid to do so, but because she wanted to.

The results were an astounding 2000% growth, per minute, for 800 weeks.

And the press: Forbes, USA Today, New York Times, Pravda and Der Spiegel wrote about us. We were voted best product of the entire world since the invention of fire by Fire Prevention magazine.

Our message was carried throughout the web in milliseconds and continues to spread. "Only asses use toilet paper" went so far out in space via the asseribo message, it caused us, happily, to create a satellite office on Uranus, just so we could serve the needs of an alien population hungry for Sans Sheets toilet paper.

And when the original broadcasts return back to earth? The revolution movement will start all over again.

Stay tuned...

Chapter three: Case studies (and one revolution). Here are some interesting (good and bad) examples of case studies.

when it comes to lying, go hard or go home.

The Lullaland goodnight hashtag

Like Just For Laughs Gags. Only it's even more unfunny.

Frooti Juicy Mango Surprise

Cause revolutions. Like the Vodafone case study says it did.

Chapter Four: If you made it this far here's some actual good advice.

Don't make a case study longer than 60 seconds.

Unless you can actually prove it, you were not the first to do something on Pinterest, or the moon for that matter. So don't claim it.

Don't waste the judges time with too much wankery.

Don't insult the judges' intelligence with made up numbers and facts. Remember: They've reached a lot higher than you in advertising, since they're judges. And they're smarter than you are. They're not idiots.

Borrowing interest from a hipster song makes your idea feel cliché. Also, it's illegal unless you've paid for the rights.

The word "revolution," only applies to actual revolutions. "Movement," is also a stretch.
You created an ad. It's hard enough to make a good one without bringing in visions of marching people in the streets.

Here's everything you shan't do, but done exactly like you should.

Dagens Industri - The Case Study of the Zoo

Missed a tutorial? No biggie. Check them out here:
The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial Series - Part One: Radio
The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial Series - Part Two: Viral Advertising
The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial Series - Part Three: Art Direction
The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial Series - Part Four: Holiday Ads
The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial: Part Five - Account Executives
The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorial: Part Six - Creating TV commercials

EDF Energy-Thank You- (2012)- (UK)

kidsleepy — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:49:17 +0000

French company EDF Energy wants you to feel better about energy. And the best way to make you feel better about energy is to give you prizes as a Thank You.
Prizes ranging from a lowered energy bill to Olympics tickets. Because every client and their grandmother will piggy back on the olympics this year.

ais London dropped the newest installment of its "Thank Yous campaign," with a giant handmade zoetrope to illustrate all the faboo prizes one can win with EDF Energy. It's hand made. It's crazy fun. And I think I'd rather win that than tickets to see the olympics, but that's just me.

This is all working in tandem with EDF's new "Feel Better Energy," campaign, mind you. AMV did the TV spot to go with the campaign launch. A spot starring a youtube mascot.

EDF Energy - Thank Yous

The mascot in question is based on Youtube "Dancing Robot" character Keepon. To EDF's credit, they licensed to the mascot rather than try to rip it off. Which makes me feel slightly better about it. But not much.

The TV spot looks nice and all, but it's hard to see any sort of connection except in a very loose 'feel good,' strategy sort of way. They could have accomplished the same thing with the Cadbury Gorilla. Or a Big Mouth Billy Bass talking fish. Or Thomas the Train with Samuel L Jackson's voice.

But enough snark. Here's the original "Keepon," dancing to a song by Spoon. Watch that. You might feel better, too.

Norrlands Guld - A beer - (2012) :30 (Sweden)

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:34:33 +0000

Yes, you might get a touch of Big Ad vibes here, but trust me, this fits the evolving campaigns tone of voice to a T. Here, let me translate the lyrics for you, else it makes no sense. Or, I'll attempt to, because the words chosen in this song, and the delivery of them, are in the the rough-around the edges understated typical lingo of northern Sweden, and not easily transferred to another language.

Now, gosh darnit, we're gonna build something
something really good
where we can be ourselves
and get what we want
a beer
a beer
a beer, a really big beer
a beer
a beer
Holy crap, that's good. A beeeeer.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Heineken - Open Source Stage - (2010) - Finland

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:11:06 +0000

"Heineken is the sponsor of Flow Festival 2011. To make the most out of the sponsorship, 358, Helsinki set the bar high: Let's come up with something so interesting that it will become an integral part of the uncompromising festival's programme. The idea, Heineken Open Source Stage, is based on open source principles and Facebook liking. It is not only part of the programme but it's also part of the festival site. Now the crowd can suggest anything and like any ideas they see. Within the first week and a half the site got 150,000 visits, the visitors made 2,000 suggestions for acts and their ideas were liked 14,500 times. That's pretty good for a hipster festival in a city of 500,000 people."

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Jameson Irish Whiskey - Pub Paintings - (2012)

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:55:08 +0000

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Discover card - 5% cash back / Groceries - (2012) :30 (USA)

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:03:24 +0000

Anyone else singing Stan. Stan. Eat. Work. Gym. Shower after all this shopping-rapping? No? Just checking.

The Martin Agency and the directing duo Will Johnson and William Campbell of Gentleman Scholar show you how it pays to Discover in Discover's latest 5% cash back spot "Groceries." The spot features a fast paced quirky montage of all the things you could get cash back on if you use your Discover card. The spot is another flawless collaboration executed by both the production and VFX of Gentleman Scholar and editor Josh Bodnar with the rest of the Whitehouse Post team.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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NYT battle - Real Life game - NYT.fi

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:00:43 +0000

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Peugeot Pinterest Car Showcase - (2012) - Panama

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:45:10 +0000

DDB Panama set out to make Peugeot world wide web famous and took a respite from reading the hipster daily to pin images of really really big things all over Pinterest with links that lead to the Peugeot web site. Depending on your poinr of view you will applaud at the clever tongue-in-cheek use of the new (and totally free) media that Pinterest is... Or you'll want a shower for feeling the spam-vibes after having read that Internet Marketing long con article earlier.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Fiat Palio - Boob Job / Best moments in life - (2012) Argentina

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:27:52 +0000

Exscuse me Fiat? You're showing off the Fiat 500's fantastic looks in the Gucci/Fiat ad, while in this Argentinian commercial for the Fiat Palio you're showing off .... human airbags. Yes, I groaned when I typed that, making that pun hurt me more than it hurt you. But the ad here hurts my brain. Fiat has now taught me that when my lover says he likes me natural and just the way I am, he is lying. Nice. Fiat, the car for dysfunctional couples best moments in life. I'd rather have the real down to earth Toyota moments a.k.a connections in life. Those moments are real. So I guess Fiat is a plastic car. Join me next week when I overanalyze a plate of beans.

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Scamworld: "You got to run your business like a Mafia-like organization" article on Internet marketing

Dabitch — Sat, 12 May 2012 07:49:16 +0000

If you only have a moment to kick back and read a single proper article this weekend, make it : Scamworld: 'Get rich quick' schemes mutate into an online monster written by Joseph L. Flatley at the Verge. He dives deep into the world of Internet Marketing and finds a network of pitchmen who have used the internet and fear of a failing economy to play the ultimate long con. It's detailed, it's well written, and it's depressing as hell.

As we’ve seen, the basic premise of Internet Marketing is straightforward: find customers, sell them useless products, and then send the leads on to industrial strength “boiler rooms” that separate them from what little money they have left. A simple con, it still requires a massive infrastructure to maintain: mainstream media outlets like CNN and the major broadcast networks, and websites like The Huffington Post and Facebook, all play a part in getting the message of Internet Marketers out to a wider audience, either through paid advertising or programming. Google sells AdWords for phrases like “make money fast,” and when unsuspecting consumers use their credit cards to give boiler rooms money, the payment has to be processed through a merchant account.
“The kind of people that they were preying upon were other people like me," says Richard Joseph, looking back, "who I think were naive enough, and new enough to this way of life, and desperate enough, that we were pretty easy targets." Internet Marketers, he says, are "kind of like carnival guys." It was only when he got back home and started to recover, and "started thinking like a person again" that Joseph realized that Rob Martino, the salesman from Raygoza's operation, the one who claimed his brother was also a paraplegic, had ripped him off. “And I was never able to speak to [Martino] again," Joseph says. "And I could never find him anywhere... I don’t think he exists. He’s not on any social network or anything.” Joseph would wheel himself out of earshot of his family and work the phone. Many hours were spent in vain, trying to hold the voices on the other end of the line accountable. Ultimately, that’s all they were — voices. Apparitions, almost.

Mitsubishi Electric - Jerry Stiller fights himself - (2012) :30 (USA)

Dabitch — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:27:52 +0000

Comedian, Jerry Stiller is arguing with himself over whether he should put his thermostat on a comfortable temperature or leave it alone to save some money on his electric bill.

“You can’t afford that temperature,” Jerry Stiller says while studying his thermostat. Arguing with himself, he responds, “I want to be comfortable!” “Save the money for comedy lessons!” throws back his cost-conscious alter ego.
Starting May 11, people around the country can see actor and comedian Jerry Stiller’s internal battle continue in Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating’s (Mitsubishi Electric) new ads on TV and online.
The spots are a continuation of the HVAC ductless leader’s successful “Split Personality” campaign launched last year.
Developed by Mitsubishi Electric’s agency of record, Ames Scullin O’Haire (ASO), the new spot shows Stiller arguing with himself about whether to lower the temperature on his traditional HVAC unit to increase his comfort - or leave it high to save on his electric bill. Mitsubishi Electric’s ductless unit is shown as the solution to his internal battle, offering comfort without compromise.
ASO tapped Stiller for the spot because of his humorous arguing style on shows such as Seinfeld and The King of Queens.
“We remembered how great he was to watch arguing, and thought, who better to have battling himself?” says Mike Bourne, creative director at ASO. “We knew he’d be the perfect celebrity for taking this campaign to the next level.”
The “Split Personality” campaign debuted last year, and helped increase Mitsubishi Electric’s sales by 50 percent. Now, with a well-known celebrity involved, ASO aims to turbo-charge awareness about the brand.
ASO not only handled the creative development, but also the media buy which targets homeowners 25-54 with a household income of $75,000+:
- ‘Cool’ TV: First debuting on May 11 during Blue Bloods and CSI NY finales, the spot will also appear in May during others major show finales, such as Dancing with the Stars and Survivor.
- ‘Hot’ Online: The 15-second pre-roll of the ad will be viewable online on HGTV, DIY Network and other websites as rich-media banner ads.
“Jerry Stiller is one of those comedians who resonate with people of all ages, and you can’t help but laugh when remembering him passionately arguing with others in his sitcoms and movies,” explained Joe Mastroianni, chief marketing officer for Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating. “ASO picked the perfect celebrity to take our ‘Split Personality’ campaign a step up and really show homeowners they don’t need to compromise on comfort.”

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Schools That Can - Best seats in the house - (2012) :45 (USA)

glossy — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:27:52 +0000

A simple, unadorned classroom seat that millions upon millions of students sit in every day, every year, everywhere.

That iconic seat is the centerpiece of a new 45-second animated video created by Psyop and Ogilvy & Mather New York on behalf of Schools That Can, a national non-profit network of high-performing urban schools in under-served communities.

Helmed by Psyop Creative Director Gerald Ding, the spot depicts some of these aspirational occupations by piecing them together from playful illustrations of educational ephemera. Protractor-shaped spaceships zoom by in outer space and test tube clusters play the part of undersea coral.

"We wanted the school chair to illustrate how a kid's imagination combined with education could lead to whatever they dreamed of becoming," Ding said. "The 'seat' became a starting point for each scenario and we loved the iconic shape of the plastic school chair. We played with its negative space and colors to transition into a another world where common school objects become extraordinary when fused with a child's running imagination."

“I wanted to approach this piece in a way that would be fun for kids and adults,” continues Ding. “I hope it brings back youthful memories of dreaming without boundaries.”

“By emphasizing hope and celebrating accomplishment, we can deliver a positive message in an environment too often focused on failure,” said Schools That Can CEO Michael Druckman. “All children can receive a quality education and become all they aspire to.”

Leveraging the power and reach of social networks, the video will run on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube and on the Schools That Can website. The video will also be played for potential donors.

“We didn’t want to just detail how Schools That Can operates,” said copywriter Sean Lee, who led the creative along with art director Luke Hughett. “We wanted to illustrate why Schools That Can exists. And what its lasting impact can be.”

The goal is to boost awareness and support locally and abroad. However, the long-term goal, says Druckman, is to get people involved with their local schools and communities, changing the standards so that “quality education becomes the norm.” 
Schools That Can is made up of over 100 district, charter, independent and faith-based schools serving over 35,000 children nationwide. For more information, visit www.schoolsthatcan.org. Or on Twitter at @schoolsthatcan

Schools That Can
Schools That Can is a national not-for-profit 501c3 organization committed to growing seats of quality education for low-income students. We form collaborative networks of high-performing inner city schools to grow low-income families’ access to quality schools nationwide. As of March 2012, the network consists of 92 schools in 15 cities with a student population of 35,000 children. http://www.schoolsthatcan.org/

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Baby Bottle Pops - How Do You Dip? - 2012 :15

trust — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:24:25 +0000

QuietMan recently flexed its concept-to-completion bona fides with an animated/live-action hybrid spot promoting The Topps Company's Baby Bottle Pops candy. The studio handled every visual element of the campaign, cranking out the live-action footage through their QuietContent division and handling the edit, postproduction and animation through their main studio.

The fast-paced spot features a trio of middle school-aged children who, in a cloud of glitter and smoke, transform into animated avatars after taking a dip from their Baby Bottle Pops. QuietMan's engagement went so far as casting and wardrobing the actors, creating custom avatars for each actor in CG and directing their performances with the in-house motion capture system.

"Plenty of studios can handle multiple areas of production, but being able to shoot both live action and direct live animation is special," stated Partner and Executive Producer Carey Gattyan. "Add that with our edit and post capabilities, and there really isn't anything we can't handle. This gives us a unique advantage with children's products, especially, which often require some combination of reality and cartoon fantasy to appeal to kids' rapidly changing sense of place in the world."

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DUCK Throws a Knife Party with Latest Addition

trust — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:21:28 +0000

DUCK has sliced two birds with one stone, considerably escalating its presence in both the live-action and animation realms with the addition of versatile director Knife Party. The Sydney, Australia-based talent - also known as Simon Robson - will focus on ad campaigns, full-length feature films, and cause-based special projects.

"We've entered an age when clients demand a production studio that can deliver any mix of animation and live action, in any length or format," stated DUCK EP Mark Medernach. "In Knife Party, we have that rare talent that can do both, capturing the essence of a brand and delivering it in any imaginable format."

Knife Party's recent projects include award-winning animated work in a spot for MasterCard and a trailer for the SBS series Immigration Nation. In the live-action realm, he helmed an impressive spot for Australian telecom brand Telstra. A trio of NBC Universal spots promoting sustainable living brought his two specialties together, as 2D line-art animation flooded live-action footage. Other short-form work includes spots for Adidas, Nike and Save the Children. Knife Party's long-form work includes the animated film Coalition of the Willing, animation for the Chris Atkins feature film Taking Liberties, and the 2003 film festival favorite What Barry Says.

Aside from films screened at major festivals across the world, Knife Party's work has collected honors at ADFEST and Promax World. The Guardian website has featured his work, and he has been shortlisted for The British Design of The Year Award and nominated for a BAFTA.

"DUCK is the perfect fit for me," noted Knife Party. "I like to stay busy with varied projects, and this is a studio that is always seeking new challenges, new clients, new ways of doing things. I can guarantee I'll never be bored working around a group this driven and talented."

El-P - Drone Trailer - (2012) :60

trust — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:19:11 +0000

Cancer 4 Cure, the latest album from alt hip-hop artist EL-P, may drop May 22, but fans of the Brooklyn rapper's hard-charging lyrics and industrial production aren't exactly known for their patience. To sate their hankering for the brand new tracks, fans are being treated to a series of teaser videos created for each song on the upcoming release, each directed by Timothy Saccenti from @radical.media. And when it came time to produce the eye-popping mix of CGI and live-action footage for series highlight, Drone, Saccenti turned to director Mark Szumski and his team at Click 3X for help.

Drone is a provocative dystopian trailer set against a deceptively bright world of blue skies, red roses, and a white picket fence. When what appears to be an insect buzzes on to the screen, the camera zooms close to reveal that the object is actually a tiny but technologically advanced robot drone. The next instant, a bird swoops from the sky and shreds the machine with its beak as the sky transforms into a nightmarish red-and-black storm.

"The drone had to look like it emerged from some black-op lab constructed by paranoid NSA scientists," said Szumski. "It couldn't look too futuristic or alien so that it wouldn't look out of place among the rest of the teasers. It was imperative that the drone had a tremendous amount of detail because it was going to exist in a brightly lit world and be eaten by a real bird. It had to be absolutely believable once it was in the mouth of the hawk."

Szumski and his team spent two weeks designing the drone while preproduction took place, giving them time to toggle between a variety of designs to arrive at something incredibly detailed that did not too closely resemble an insect. Simultaneously, the CGI team, led by Anthony Filipakis, constructed a photoreal hawk to sweep the drone from the flower garden. The team carefully calibrated the post work with live-action plates of a swooping hawk, reconstructing the lower beak and the nearby feathers in CGI for the drone-chewing scene and seamlessly integrating the various plates to make the disintegration of the robot look fluid and natural.

Szumski and Saccenti have joined forces for numerous projects over the years. Saccenti believes that strong collaborative spirit allowed them to make Drone "fitting with the haunting pace of the greater campaign while keeping the simplicity of the original idea intact."

Szumski agrees wholeheartedly. "When I work with Tim, I get the opportunity to develop creative concepts, rather than just being a VFX artist. When he approached me with this one, I was extra excited, because it meant the chance to work for an artist that I respect so much in EL-P."

Superbowl Commercials Position:

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Faber Castell - Munch's "The scream" & Van Gogh’s "Terrace Cafe at Night" recreated

Dabitch — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:10:22 +0000

print

Credits

Fiat 500 - by Gucci / fashion factory - (2012)

Dabitch — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:25:21 +0000

Wow..... the only car I've really lusted for based on looks alone ever since my deep crush on the Volvo p1800 ES look how purdy has joined forces with GUCCI to make itself even prettier.

Fiat 500 by Gucci shot by Chris Sweeney makes the Fiat 500 look like something created at the Willy Wonka Perfume factory (instead of chocolate), add a dash of fashion, and *pscheeew*, it becomes the steering wheel, roll in a few shoes and a belt and *zap*, they're now the sleek looking wheels. Shrinkwrapped essence of fashion makes big car. Served in that classic "assemble these bits" toy way we all recall from plastic we played with as kids. Fun! Almost as magical as the Fiat Strada was when they were hand made by robots, this playful re-imagining of a factory and Gucci’s makeover of the iconic Fiat 500 is practically screaming "fun fashion".

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"I still believe in global warming. Do you?" asks Ted Kaczynski in now pulled billboard.

Dabitch — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:04:25 +0000

The Seventh International Conference on Climate Change have already pulled their billboards in Chicago, less than 24 hours after they went up. The billboards showed Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber, Charles Manson, a mass murderer, Fidel Castro and other global warming alarmists including Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee, linking belief in global warming to being a mass-murdering certified psycho-nutter. Beacuse you know, those things are totally the same.

"I still believe in global warming. Do you?" was the line with the billboard sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a libertarian organization based in Chicago that describes its chief mission as promoting free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

So Why did Heartland choose to feature these people on its billboards?

Because what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the “mainstream” media, and liberal politicians say about global warming. They are so similar, in fact, that a Web site has a quiz that asks if you can tell the difference between what Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, wrote in his “Manifesto” and what Al Gore wrote in his book, Earth in the Balance.

The point is that believing in global warming is not “mainstream,” smart, or sophisticated. In fact, it is just the opposite of those things. Still believing in man-made global warming – after all the scientific discoveries and revelations that point against this theory – is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior.

So that's our "banned" ad of the week, though it's not banned, it's been pulled after it drew criticism from some global warming skeptics as well as mainstream climate scientists.