Imagine a young girl stuck in a hospital for months—or years—finally getting to live out her fantasy of roaming with wild horses on an Argentine plain. One girl did, in a manner of speaking, thanks to "Dream Adventures," a new campaign from online travel agency Expedia. 

With help from a 360-degree camera, interactive live-streaming and a specially built screening room, the company is helping cancer-stricken kids at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital get a taste of the far-flung outdoor activities their treatment prevents them from experiencing in person.



Created with agency 180LA, the program is captured in the new ad above, where children take virtual trips to the jungle to play with monkeys, to the ocean to swim with fish, or to the desert to dig for fossils. 

It's beautiful and heartrending—perfectly summed up when one young patient, unable to contain his excitement, starts guessing what kind of dinosaur bones an archaeologist is brushing off. "That's a raptor, I think," he says. 

It doesn't hurt, either, that the technology transformed the four walls of St Jude's screening room—as well as its floor and ceiling—into an impressive visual presentation. But the real-time aspect of the stunt—with Expedia employees on the other end of the cameras, in locations like Miami and Playa del Carmen—lets the kids engage with the experience, and helps set it apart from similar tactics.

The approach combines a number of themes used in recent ads from other marketers. To support the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Wieden + Kennedy used virtual reality headsets and 360-degree cameras to help MS sufferers reconnect with athletic passions, like surfing and dancing. In Peru, LAN airlines and McCann Lima flew poor children from remote regions to Peru's capital so they could experience air travel while playing out fantasies—like singing among the clouds—along the way.

In fact, featuring kids—and the fruits of their imaginations—seems an increasingly popular tactic for travel marketers seeking to bring magic back to travel. 

In other words, Expedia manages to evoke empathy for young victims of debilitating diseases while using the wonder of today's technology to ameliorate their plight, emphasize the joy that comes from seeing the world in all its natural glory, and convey the hope that comes from witnessing unbridled enthusiasm of youth, even in the face of unimaginable hurdles. It's simple, clear and direct.

There are far worse ways to spend a marketing budget than making a sick kid's day a little better—even if it is still meant to drive Expedia's bottom line.

CREDITS

Client: Expedia
Project: "Dream Adventures"

Agency: 180LA
William Gelner – Chief Creative Officer
Eduardo Marques – Executive Creative Director
Rafael Rizuto – Executive Creative Director
Pierre Janneau - Creative Director
Dan Kroeger - Creative Director
Will Gorman - Copywriter
Chelsea Cumings - Art Director
Natasha Wellesley - Head of Production
David Emery – Executive Producer
Dom Anzano - Senior Producer
Mish Fabok - Digital Producer
Brooke Stites - Brand Director
Jessica DeLillo - Brand Manager
Jens Bracht - Brand Manager
Amy Sharma - Business Affairs Manager
Loretta Zolliecoffer - Head of Business Affairs
Anne Heuer - Planning Director
Becca Taylor - Planner
Dave Groseclose - Editor/2nd Unit Camera

Production Company - Ways & Means
Executive Producers -  Jett Steiger, Lana Kim
Producer - Cedric Troadec
Director - Zachary Heinzerling
Editorial Company - Cut & Run
Executive Producer - Carr Schilling
Producer - Remy Foxx
Editor - Lucas Eskin
Editorial Company (Behind The Scenes & Short Films) - Melvin
Head of Production  - Natasha Wellesley
Post Manager - Brian Scharwath
Editor - Dave Groseclose
Telecine - The Mill
Executive Producer - Thatcher Peterson
Colorist  - Adam Scott
Online - Jogger
Executive Producer - Rich Rama
Flame Artist - David Parker
Producer - James Howell
Music (Main Score) - Human Worldwide
Jonathan Sandford

Additional Music

Andy Park
Asche & Spencer
Sound Mix - Eleven Sound
Mixer - Scott Burns

 Interested in invention?
Check out Adweek's Project Isaac Awards here.

Prudential Singapore is inviting people to reconnect in an emotional new spot.

"Our relationships are becoming more and more disconnected," reads the opening on-screen copy. "Can simply looking at someone for 4 minutes improve your relationship?" 

The work is reminiscent of Dr. Arthur Aron's experiment, where two people fell in love after he instructed them to ask each other a series of questions while staring into each other's eyes for up to four minutes. 

The people Prudential Singapore choose for this social experiment vary in their relationships: husband and wife, parent and child, siblings. We started watching stoically and skeptically—as one is apt to be when so many brands' premises seem to be, "Let's do a social experiment so it'll go viral!"

But halfway in, we sobbed our way through a small pile of tissues.



The relatives interact and react, and it feels special and endearing. It's certainly a gentle way for a life insurance/investment brand to positively connect with consumers when the message can often be a bit of a downer (it's life insurance, after all). 

The lovely and emotional piece, created by FCB, ends with the copy, "Your relationships are precious. Protect them," before moving onto a slightly awkward invitation to reconnect with relatives via the #RelationshipReconnect hashtag. 

While the YouTube count is respectable (550,000 views as of writing), the video has been scraped and shared millions of times across Facebook. It's a hit all around from Prudential Singapore and a creative, thoughtful example of social experimentation done right. 

"Is it easier to take a life, or to save one?"

That's the question posed by ad agency Grey for the Polish Red Cross in "Life after Death," a poignant, polarizing campaign in which convicted murderers take first aid classes while serving time behind bars. 

Anchored by the riveting three-minute clip below, the work seeks to snap Polish citizens out of their complacency. (Some 40 percent say they would rather wait for trained professionals than attempt potentially life-saving techniques on a person in distress.) At the same time, the campaign explores deeper themes, engaging the public on their perceptions of convicted murderers who rejoin society.

"You watch a story about felons, people who committed atrocious acts. But now, thanks to first aid courses, they have an ability to do something good and a will to redeem themselves," Jakub Korolczuk, executive creative director at Grey Poland, tells AdFreak.

Hopefully, he adds, viewers will start asking hard questions, such as, "What about me, supposedly a good person, who yet can't save someone's life? Who is good here?" 



"The idea came from our close relationships with the Pedagogium Foundation, which does a lot of groundbreaking rehabilitation programs, such as Freedom Tattoos," says Korolczuk. "They experimented with first aid courses for kids in juvenile detentions. We decided to take it a step further and to dramatize the notion that everyone can, and should, try to save lives." 

Despite the controversial nature of the campaign, the Polish Red Cross "loved the idea from the beginning," Korolczuk goes on. "They were already conducting some courses in low-security prisons, although not for murderers, and were used to [operating under] harsh conditions."

Predictably, filming in two Warsaw penitentiaries presented some challenges.

"We needed to build trust with the convicts, which was very hard, and all the recorded dialogue happened in the last hour of the four-day shoot," Korolczuk says. "As much as we wanted to include more detailed stories, we were bound by law to keep them secret." 

What's more, given Poland's strict gun-control laws, most murders were committed with axes, knives or bare hands. "Most of the crimes were very crude," Korolczuk says, so specifics were left out.

One of the convicts who took part is a contract killer for the Polish mafia, for example. The subject "wanted to take part in the course, but didn't allow for filming his face. There was a moment when the camera operator came closer to him because of how intensely he was performing CPR on a [dummy]. The guy, without raising his head or stopping the CPR, asked 'You remember who you shouldn't film?' You can see only his silhouette in the film." 

It's easy to slam the project as an example of left-leaning audience manipulation, and to criticize Grey and the Red Cross for foisting their political sentiments and notions of redemption on the public under the guise of a PSA. 

"The campaign is very polarizing," Korolczuk admits, "especially in Poland, where the government and general public are for stricter prison rules and for terminating social rehabilitation programs." 

That said, the emotionally extreme, politicized nature of "Life after Death" does nothing to detract from the campaign's impact. Rather, this aspect heightens its overall effect. Watching the inmates, men and women of various ages, lay their hands—once used for killing—on CPR dummies as they learn to save lives, is an immensely moving and unsettling experience. Such images should stick with folks for some time. 

The prisoners' statements, such as "I would like to save someone. Now, I would save them no matter what," and "If I could someday save someone's life, it would be the most wonderful thing I could ever do," may understandably sound self-serving. But given the circumstances, they carry extra weight and layers of special significance. 

This transcendence helps the work fulfill its most basic mission—communicating that the Red Cross offers training in life-saving techniques—by planting profound questions in people's minds: For example, "Should I learn to save lives?" or "If I don't master CPR, and someone dies who I might have saved, does that make me a kind of murderer?" Perhaps it will even lead Poles to examine their beliefs on a range of vital issues. 

Love it or hate it, the campaign has the power to make viewers mull the awesome gravity and mysterious machinations of life and death—and challenges them to choose which role they might one day play. 

CREDITS

Agency: Grey Group Poland
Executive Creative Director: Jakub Korolczuk
Deputy Creative Director: Rafał Ryś
Senior Copywriter: Jan Cieślar
Account Manager: Agata Pamięta
PR: Joanna Bednarek, Iga Toczyska

Pedagogium / Special thanks: Filip Konopczyński

Production: ShootMe Production
Producer: Michał Majewski
Head of production: Wiktoria Michalkiewicz
Director: Marcin Filipowicz
DOP: Maciek Ryter
Music: HV/Noon 

TBWA has rehired Neil Dawson to serve as global executive creative director at Nissan United, the dedicated multi-agency unit that Omnicom launched in 2013 to serve the Japanese auto giant.

Dawson will relocate to New York from London, where he served as co-founder and joint creative director at Dawson Pickering for the past two years. He previously served as a creative director at TBWA's U.K. office, leading its successful pitch for the Etihad Airways business in 2005.

Dawson will report to both TBWA global creative president Chris Garbutt and Nissan United president Jon Castle, himself a former managing director of TBWA's Nissan and Infiniti accounts within the United States.

"Neil is an amazing talent with an exceptional background and the ability to generate award-winning creative on a global scale," Castle said. "Nissan is an incredibly ambitious brand, and we are confident that Neil will help drive great work in our markets around the world. We are delighted to have him join the Nissan United team."

Dawson began his advertising career as an art director at Leo Burnett London and first gained fame within the industry for working on DDB's 1997 Volkswagen campaign "Surprisingly Ordinary Prices," which won awards at shows around the world. He later led the global Johnnie Walker account at BBH. In 2011, Dawson co-founded Havas agency BETC's London office, which split with its principals in 2014 during what current CEO Andrew Stirk described to Campaign as a "dramatic and emotional ... breakdown." Less than a year later, Dawson Pickering won the Diet Coke account away from BETC without a review.

"I'm thrilled that Neil is joining TBWA, and is going to lead Nissan creative globally," said Garbutt. "He has a history of disrupting the category with his creative product, and he's not afraid to shake things up in order to produce the kind of iconic work that reinvents the status quo. At TBWA, we are committed to creative brilliance on all our brands, and Neil will bring just that."

Dawson replaces the outgoing Antonio Navas, who left Omnicom after approximately one year in February to become a creative partner at New York independent agency Opperman Weiss.

The Dawson Pickering venture will dissolve following his departure.

Audi hits the New York Auto Show this week with the message that its A4 has surpassed the BMW 328i in many areas, like horsepower, acceleration and technologies including lane assist and CarPlay. And it's taking some shots at BMW with a sly technology hack as well.

Audi has set up a bunch of free wifi networks—wifi is typically hard to find at auto shows, and usually password-protected—and given them names that double as ads for the A4 (and in fact, as attack ads on the 328i as well).

The image above shows an example of what the networks will look like.

John Matejczyk, founder and creative director of agency Muh-tay-zik | Hof-fer, which orchestrated the stunt, says the network names will be changing as the show goes on. There will be at least 10 networks on at a time. 

"The team who came up with it—Adam Ledbury and Guy Lemberg—were working off a brief that was all about intelligence. So they asked themselves what it would look like to have a modern version of challenger advertising where a superior product takes on the old standard," Matejczyk tells AdFreak.

"And marketing being what it is these days, why not offer a really helpful service in the process?"

The trick isn't new—wifi network names have been used as ads going back to at least 2008 (when a chain of coffee shops in Holland did this amusing stunt). But it's still a fun way to make life easier for people, including a lot of influencers. 

And yes, the A4 offers in-car wifi (though to be fair, so does the 328i). 

It's a tension many modern parents feel daily when it comes to their children's playtime: how to balance screenless, imaginative, physical play with the irresistible draw and addictive sensory thrill of screen time. 

Fisher-Price, though, believes the two will soon merge. 

The Mattel brand, which caters mostly to infants and toddlers, has released a concept video—created with innovation design consultancy Continuum—showing what children's toys might look like a decade from now. 

In short, the physical and digital will merge to create delightful environmental experiences that leverage technology while retaining the core physicality of imaginative play. 

As Fisher-Price puts it, the "future products and experiences [are] rooted in solutions, play, learning, and development. The resulting video depicts a technology-layered day-to-day family experience that showcases a preserved human connection." 



The video, titled "The Future of Parenting," is, as its name implies, aimed at future parents—in other words, millennials and Generation Z. Those generations are digitally native, yet wary of prioritizing tech experiences over physical ones. Thus, they should be drawn to these kinds of baby products, which use virtual tech like holograms but also physical elements like smart fabrics to find a balance between the two worlds. 

"Our research process led us to the conclusion that the future is not screen-based. When anything can be a display, tech will dissolve into the environment," Mark Zeller, head of design at Fisher-Price, tells Fast Company.

"Thinking beyond the limitations of a screen means we'll be able to create toys and everyday objects that will have the power to catalyze parent-child interactions, contextualize learning moments, and spark open-ended play." 

This is a natural conclusion for a non-screen company to reach, of course, but it's also not an uncommon one. Everything from Microsoft's HoloLens to the famous video game scene from Spike Jonze's movie Her imagines just such a blending of physical and virtual, largely through holograms (as in the Fisher-Price video). 

Zeller said Fisher-Price used futurecasting to look 10 years ahead, but some of the innovations could be commercially available sooner. "We have started prototyping actual tech-enabled products that will inspire multi-year innovation in our line that may be available to parents as soon as 2017," he says.

Fisher-Price and Continuum also released a white paper offering further explanation of the futuristic concepts and the insights behind them. Check that out at FutureofParenting.com.

If waiting for the next installment of Black Mirror is too taxing for you, fill your soul's vacuum with the latest installments of Dell's campaign "Future Ready."

Created by Young & Rubicam New York, in partnership with Framestore—responsible for a lot of the cool stuff you see in movies—the episodic campaign follows one family's effort to secure a heart transplant for their young daughter. 

Unlike in Black Mirror, though, the technology you see is more benign and empowering than existentially misery inducing. 

The work builds on "Beat Again," which appeared last year and followed the family to the hospital. Cool probable technology included a haptic magazine, vital statistics that scroll across the daughter's arm, and responsive holograms that enable the doctor to monitor her heart from all angles during surgery. 

This time, two episodes tell stories around that critical moment, giving Dell the chance to show off how technology can improve our lives outside the emergency room, too.



"Night Before" is about the doctor, whom we see interacting with his son online as his plane descends on the city. Most of the rest of the video focuses on the comforts of his hotel stay, which is so intuitive that even we feel more relaxed just by watching—a nice situation to be in when you've got life-changing surgery to conduct. 

Dr. Ajay's data "arrives before he does," enabling the front desk to welcome him by name and provide a real-time view of his room options. He orders a sushi dinner from a holographic lazy Susan, checks the weather on the back of his hand, and gets live updates on a heart match without even having to put his chopsticks down. 

Future folks live pretty. Facebook can't even remember where we went to college.



"First Day Back" follows the little girl's journey back to school after her successful transplant (good thing Dr. Ajay was well rested!). Technology helps her gauge the distance of her school bus and check her vital stats (again on her arm, via a slim metal bracelet that's infinitely more elegant than a Jawbone, Fitbit or Apple Watch).

We also get nifty shots of how it'll make school feel less like an episode of Prison Break. As she walks by a classroom, a teacher with the full attention of adoring students launches a rocketship into the ether. "That's so cool!" one kid says, and the beaming educator laps it up.

When the girl enters her own classroom, a "Welcome back!" message swathed in balloons shoots up on the wall directly facing her, and her peers and teacher surround her with open arms. (Clearly education is better funded tomorrow than it is today.) 

"We embarked on the journey over a year ago to tell the story of a young girl who was awaiting a heart transplant, and that story resonated with so many people," Dell head of global brand Liz Matthews says in a behind-the-scenes video (below). 

"We took a step back and said, How do we continue that story and build even more around not only her and her family, but the doctor who actually performs the transplant, the teachers, educators and her friends who are there for her when she goes back to school?" 

The videos follow a very tight script: Smarter use of data, the value of the cloud, and the power of Dell's network are emphasized in that order as each story spins out, guiding viewers to a final question: "Is your business future ready?" 

It's probably best not to dwell on this question if you're still defining your Twitter tone of voice or trying to wrangle something coherent out of Snapchat. But the optimism of the work is infectious and heartening: We focus a lot on the difficulty of change, and on which of our jobs robots will destroy on their inevitable path to enslaving mankind. 

"Future Ready" is not so much a message as a calming reminder: With every disruptive advancement of technology, the value of what makes us human has actually risen, and the disruptions awaiting us will be no different. 

Technology is only partly defined by the efficiencies it affords us (though this gets a disproportionate amount of attention). What gives it a soul, and a place in our lives, is in the small graces it enables us to pass on: Less stress, more connectivity, and the ability to prioritize what matters to us. 

Those small graces are our responsibility—and if Dell is effective at showing off its data, cloud and network ambitions here, it's because it conveys its faith in our ability to rise to that standard, both in leisure and where it counts most: The same technology that makes Dr. Ajay's holographic sushi menu possible also proves critical to the success of a child's heart transplant, and both contibute to our sense that the world depicted here is, indeed, a better one.

Check out the behind-the-scenes video below:

CREDITS

Client: Dell
Karen Quintos – Chief Marketing Officer at Dell
Elizabeth Matthews – Executive Director Corporate Brand
Juan Carlos Gama – Marketing Director Corporate Brand

Creative Agency: Y&R
Leslie Sims – Chief Creative Officer, Y&R
Christian Carl – Global Executive Creative Director, Y&R

Production
Bobby Jacques – Senior Content Producer

Planning
Joe Rivas - EVP, Global Client Leader, Strategic Planning
Jenna Rounds – Strategy Director, Planning

Account / Project Management
Diana Melton – Director of Marketing, Y&R
George Rainaldi – Assistant Account Executive, Y&R
Andrea Rey – Senior Project Manager, VML

Production Company: Smuggler
Executive Producer: Drew Santarsiero
Director: Henry Alex Rubin
DP: Janusz Kaminski
Production Designer: KK Barrett

Editorial Company: Cutters NY
Editor: Steve Bell
Color: Lez Rudge – Nice Shoes
Mix: Tom Jucarone – Sound Lounge

EFX: Framestore NY
Exec Producer: Dez Macleod-Veilleux
Creative Director: Gigi Ng and Akira Thompson
VFX and Compositing Supervisor: Gigi Ng
Design Supervisor: Akira Thompson

Today J. Walter Thompson named Spence Kramer as chief executive officer of its Atlanta office, effective immediately.

Kramer, who will manage JWT Atlanta's growth efforts and strategic direction moving forward, takes over for president and chief creative officer Perry Fair, who stepped down after more than four years with the WPP shop. Fair, who had expressed a desire to relocate to Los Angeles in recent months, will stay on to assist with the transition until May 1.

This news is unrelated to the recent controversy surrounding the WPP agency's former global CEO and chairman Gustavo Martinez, whose resignation proved to be a major topic of conversation at this week's 4A's conference in Miami. The decision to hire Kramer predates global communications officer Erin Johnson's discrimination suit against Martinez and the larger JWT organization.

In his new role, Kramer will report directly to JWT CEO of the Americas Stefano Zunino while also working closely with the Atlanta office's chief operating officer Marshall Lauck.

"Spence is an established global business leader with a passion and commitment for creativity," said Zunino. "His client-side experience, management expertise and ability to drive great work make him the right person to be leading our Atlanta office. He will be a partner and advocate for our clients and employees."

Kramer spent several years in client-side roles before joining the agency world. He was vice president of marketing at both ESPN and Virgin America, working to build the airline's brand and communications strategies, while helping design its signature in-flight entertainment system.

He later became global director of the Nike account with Wieden + Kennedy Portland, overseeing teams across seven different offices on the "Just Do It" and 2008 Summer Olympics campaigns. Kramer was then promoted to run the Coca-Cola business, managing the agency's work for Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Powerade and leading its winning pitch for the 2014 FIFA World Cup sponsorship.

Kramer left W+K to become Crispin Porter + Bogusky's first global managing director in 2014. After spending a year with the MDC Partners shop in Miami and contributing to its winning pitch for the global Infiniti account, he relocated to Atlanta, where he worked as a freelance consultant before JWT chose him to replace Fair.

"Beyond the clients and the awards, an agency is its people. J. Walter Thompson Atlanta, Dallas and Houston are full of some amazing individuals. And I will miss them dearly," the outgoing president said. "It has been an honor working with every client, and it's a great feeling to know that after four years, the agency is in good hands."

"We are grateful to Perry for his many contributions to J. Walter Thompson," Zunino told Adweek. "In his four years at the agency, he oversaw our successful defense of the United States Marine Corps account and added clients such as Pennzoil, USO and Build-A-Bear Workshop. Perry leaves during the most-awarded year in J. Walter Thompson Atlanta's history. He remains a friend to the agency and WPP, and we wish him all the best in the future."

We've come a long way from "Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline."

The spunky, fancy-free spots featuring naturally gorgeous women punting "flawless skin" and "poreless perfection" have been standard L'Oréal branding since we were kids and our (too pink) lipsticks were fake. But they hardly highlight the nuances and frustrations of using makeup, which we only discover as adults, when our bathroom drawers are full of items we tried once and will never use again. 

It's worse still when you're a person of color. While Caucasians are pretty well-served, a less-pink lady is probably limited to three choices for foundation (when lucky): Honey (or Desert, depending on whether you consider yourself terrifically sweet or horrifically dry), Olive, and maybe something called Mocha. 

This problem seems trivial, but it isn't in a culture that judges women severely based on their looks. Sometimes your only options are to find something that doesn't match—in which case you're "wooden" or a "geisha"—or wear nothing, making you look oily or tired. 

Your feelings about yourself change when you can put your best face forward, and when you can't. 

In a new positioning, L'Oréal USA addresses this challenge scientifically: "The Spectrum" is a new mini-documentary that follows chemist Balanda Atis as she works on creating foundations for every skin tone imaginable. 



"Cosmetics have struggled with trying to find the best shades for women of color for as long as makeup has existed," Atis begins, flanked by piano music and serene images of faces under vivid shades of purple, grey and blue. 

Atis looked at over 20,000 data points to understand the colors that make up skin. "We didn't realize there were so many different skin tones that existed!" she exclaims. 

The video also goes into some detail about L'Oréal's Women of Color lab. Created in 2014, it's taken skin tone measurements from 57 countries of origin, resulting in a spectrum of foundations that can serve more or less anybody—though the work is far from over. As Atis observes, "With each baby, a new skin tone is born, and with that we know our work is never done." 

The video, created by agency Rain, launched on L'Oréal's social channels in early March and emphasizes its new focus on what it's calling the "beautiful pursuit," or a "celebration of the strides toward improvement rather than only the end goal" (money...?).

While views are modest on YouTube—nearly 12,500 as of this count—it's gotten nearly four times that on Facebook, with close to 50,000 views. Comments reflect the extremes you can expect, from the standard-issue "Bravo" to "L'Oréal tapping into that black dollar a little more." 

In months to come, L'Oréal will build on the campaign with more snapshots of employees and the challenges they face day-to-day. Even if you're not into beauty science, it's interesting to see how the company, often characterized as so vast as to be faceless, works from the inside.

In a way, it's a glimpse inside the Chocolate Factory without having to deal with any Oompa Loompas (who perhaps demonstrated so little respect for life because their only foundation option was Radioactive Orange). 

CREDITS

Agency - Rain
Client - L'Oréal USA
Executive Producer - Nick Godfrey, Brian Edelman
Executive Creative Director - Will Hall
VP, Head of Strategy - Bill Chamness
VP, Head of Production - Timothy Whitney
ACD / Art Director - Andy Sheffield
Copywriter - Charlotte Davis
Agency Producer - Nathan Breton
Agency Digital Producer - Tim Xumsai
Account Manager - Jaclyn Schillinger
Engagement Strategist - Elissa Dailey
Production Company - Cebu Osani
Director - Rain
Producer - Artesia Balthrop
Editor - Jonah Einstein
Assistant - Matt Jeon

Duelling billboards are a time-honored advertising tradition, going back to Newcastle/Stella Artois and Audi/BMW. Now, Netflix introduces a novel twist on the genre—billboards on which characters from a show battle each other.

DDB Vancouver created the new installation in Toronto's Dundas Square for Season 2 of Netflix's original series Daredevil. Three billboards feature the three main characters—Daredevil, Punisher and Elektra.



Pedestrians are encouraged to "join the fight" by using #Daredevil, #Punisher or #Elektra to support one of the characters. Every 48 hours, the character with the most hashtag mentions inflicts actual physical damage on the other boards, including bullet holes, slashes, bruises and 3-D weapons.

"Daredevil is extremely popular in Canada, and the fighting billboard series is a fun way to introduce new characters and get fans involved in anticipation for the show," says Dean Lee, executive creative director at DDB Vancouver.



CREDITS
Client: Netflix
Agency: DDB Canada Vancouver
Chief Creative Officer: Cosmo Campbell
Executive Creative Director: Dean Lee
Associate Creative Director: Daryl Gardiner
Copywriter: Daryl Gardiner / Jon Mandell
Art Director: John Larigakis
Business Director: Roger Nairn
Strategist: Rob Newell, Jacqueline Lee
Agency Producer: Matthew Sy
Retoucher: Pierre Bourjo
Character Artwork: Ignition Creative
OOH Production: Clear Channel Canada
Media Agency: MEC Global

TBWA\Media Arts Lab, better known as Apple's dedicated global advertising agency, announced several new executive level hires this week.

The Omnicom unit hired Rebecca Stambanis as chief strategy officer, Jorge Calleja as executive creative director and Kaitlyn Wilkins as executive director of integration.

Over the past two years, MAL has expanded its global network to seven offices serving 26 global markets and made several key hires under the leadership of president Erica Hoholick and chief creative officer Duncan Milner.

"We are entering an exciting time at Media Arts Lab," said Holohick. "Over the last two years we have worked on bringing together the best and brightest in the industry for our client. We are marrying the knowledge and heritage from working on Apple for nearly 30 years with new perspectives and incredible talent."

Stambanis most recently served as global group strategy director on the Nike business at Wieden + Kennedy. An agency veteran who previously held top planning and strategic roles at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Clemenger BBDO, she will lead the global MAL planning team in defining its long-term strategy for Apple's advertising business.

Holohick told Adweek, "The body of work Rebecca has led strategically along with her experience, insight and global point of view make her a great fit for this role, and Jorge brings innovative, fresh thinking that we're eager to build on as a network."

Calleja joins MAL from The Martin Agency, where he held the executive creative director title and led campaigns for Stoli, Tic Tac and Mondelez. He has also served as creative/art director at W+K, GS&P and Sid Lee. Wilkins comes from the client side of the marketing business. Over the last three years, she was global director of social media and subsequently brand/product marketing at Burberry, where she was responsible for integrating many of the London-based fashion giant's marketing campaigns.

Today's announcement follows the February departures of MAL chief strategy officer Marc-Antoine Jarry and founding partner/executive creative director Eric Grunbaum, as reported by Adweek's AgencySpy blog.

TBWA\MAL's most recent work for Apple was an iPhone spot pairing Siri with Cookie Monster and Jim Croce.

On the heels of Cookie Monster's baked appearance in an iPhone ad, Apple has found its two new celebrity ad stars—Alison Brie, of Community and Mad Men fame, and Game of Thrones actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. 

The new 60-second spot, by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, broke Thursday night and features an amusing little skit of a plot. Brie and Coster-Waldau are rehearsing in a trailer on a Hollywood set for a kissing scene—evidently as part of some long-ago war story with a soldier and a nurse. 

But it's not going that well. 

Brie, who doesn't feel that they're projecting any passion, consults the TV, where Coster-Waldau is seen kissing Juliette Binoche in the 2013 film 1,000 Times Good Night—with what looks like much more success. Thanks to Apple TV, Brie asks Siri to rewind the movie by a few seconds, to see if she's missing anything important. 



Not satisfied, Brie then tries to search for Game of Thrones on Apple TV, but Coster-Waldau has a better (or actually, much worse) idea. He asks Siri to open Apple Music and find songs by Jeremih, to which he grooves, embarrassingly, to try to get Alison in the mood. 

Comic celebrity spots aren't traditionally an Apple strength (not counting the "Mac vs. PC" campaign, which was character- and not primarily celeb-based). But this ad, and the Cookie Monster one, show the brand's willingness to be a little looser and goofier, and the results are promising.

So, when does Lil Wayne ditch Samsung and do his own Apple commercial? 

CREDITS
Client: Apple (Apple TV)
Agency: TBWA\Media Arts Lab

Last year, The Martin Agency positioned Benjamin Moore with the line "Paint Like No Other," laying it on thick in ads starring a pair of ventriloquist's dummies.

Now, with those creepy puppets gone, client and agency return with a different approach, posing the question "Is It Still Paint?" in the anthem spot below:



So, we saw colorful paint cans stacked like a cityscape, a Close Encounters-type UFO, a game-show sendup, shocked folks at a 3-D flick and a weightlifter.

And then there's the narration: "What if there was a paint that made you look at paint differently—question everything you know, and what you don't know? What if it's built with better ingredients? Given superpowers? And even a secret base to test those powers? … It makes you wonder: Is it still paint?"

Broad strokes, wouldn't you say? A second ad follows the same formula, focusing on the paint's asthma and allergy friendly properties:



There's nothing to sneeze at in either spot, visually. Pulse Films directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (aka thirtytwo) apply a nice even coat of flowing images throughout.

Of course, the product in question is still just paint, and it remains a tough mission to try to challenge that perception and turn it on its head. For many of us, paint will always be a commodity. When shopping for magenta (because we have no taste whatsoever), we seek out the hue, not the brand.

Does making advertising that stands out means the paint will, too? We're skeptical, but if you disagree with our conclusions, feel free to brush them aside. 

CREDITS
Client: Benjamin Moore
Chief Executive Officer: Mike Searles
Vice President, Marketing: Jim Ricci
Brand Management Director: Chris Connelly
Senior Media Manager: Deb DeHamilton
Senior Brand Manager: Harriette Martins

Agency: The Martin Agency
Chief Creative Officer: Joe Alexander
Creative Director: Vanessa Fortier
Creative Director, Copywriter: Dave Gibson
Associate Creative Directors, Art Directors: Mauricio Mazzariol, Justin Harris
Executive Producer: Christina Cairo
Senior Broadcast Producer: Beata Mastalerz
Junior Broadcast Producer: Sara Montgomery
Group Account Director: Rich Weinstein
Account Director: Allison Oxenreiter
Account Executive: Hill Shore
Business Affairs Supervisors: Juanita McInteer, Alice Isner
Senior Project Manager: Courtney Faudree Hurd
Digital Designer: Lauren Erickson
Digital Executive Producer: Kim Zaninovich
Digital Producer: Betsy Wishart
Technical Director: Jeremy Misavage
Senior Developer: Alex McCallum
Senior Art Producer: Wylie Moran
Junior Print Producer: Jamie Dollins

Production Company: Pulse Films
Director: thirtytwo
Producer: Shirley O'Connor
Executive Producer: Hillary Rogers
President of Commercials: Kira Carstensen
Director of Photography: Reed Morano
Production Designer: Philip Ivey
Service Production: Batch Film
Line Producer: Iris Weber

Editorial Company: Final Cut
Editor: Jeff Buchanan
Executive Producer NY: Sarah Roebuck
HOP New York Producer: Jen Sienkwicz
HOP Los Angeles: Suzy Ramirez
Cutting Assistant, New York: Geoff Hastings
Assistant, Los Angeles: BettyJo Moore

Visual Effects: The Mill
Producer: Dan Love
Shoot Supervisor: James Corden
Creative Director: Tony Robbins
2-D Lead Artist: Krissy Nordella
3-D Lead Artist: Greg Gangemi
2-D Artists: Tony Robbins, Blake Druery, John McIntosh, Mina Mir, Antoine Douadi
3-D Artists: Lauren Shields, Nick Couret-Chailloux, Sean Dooley, Xuan Seifert
Matte Painting: Cedric Mernard
Motion Graphics: Laura Nash

Telecine: The Mill
Color Producer: Natalie Westerfield
Colorist: Fergus McCall

Original Music, Sound Design: Q Department

Audio Post Company: Significant Others
Engineer, Mixer: T. Terressa Tate
Audio, Finishing Producer: Alek Rost

Bollywood's King Khan goes ape over Frooti, one of India's top-selling mango-juice drinks, in this ludicrously loopy commercial.

The cray-cray starts when Indian megastar Shah Rukh Khan climbs some steps in a nondescript airplane-hanger-size room and pushes open a mysterious gray door marked "Life." Inside, gray-clad office-drone types chant "Chase the mango, choos the mango." That's the campaign's slogan, excising the "e" to create a play on words, because, for Indian audiences, the word "choos" means "to suck." (No jokes, wisenheimers!)

A giggling kid dressed like a monk shows up with a mango-hued pooch. Khan licks a doorknob. Then, he sips from a vial marked "The Frooti Life" and explodes in a spray of powder. Frenetic dancing begins on a huge, stylized set decorated with giant bottles, SUV-size paintbrushes and, for some reason, a humongous screw. Of course, the dancers wear giant mango slices around their necks.

By this point, the minute-long ad is only half over:



Agencies Sagmeister & Walsh and SpecialGuest collaborated with director Karim Charlebois-Zariffa of 1stAveMachine on the commercial.

"We all have a version of the 'gray world' in our lives where we feel that we need to meet decided-upon expectations," Aaron Duffy, SpecialGuest founder and executive creative director, tells AdFreak. "This Frooti film is a call to action to break those expectations and be confident about trying a different path. Drinking Frooti is about doing what you most feel like doing rather than choosing what everyone else is doing."

The clip comes a year after the same agencies and production house helped Frooti rebrand with an even wackier ad that showed tiny people struggling to create the fruit drink. By comparison, Khan's adventures seem almost restrained. (He'd probably start seeing tiny people after a second sip from that vial.)

Khan, who also appeared in the earlier spot, was cast because, in addition to being one of India's most beloved media personalities, "he has given many speeches at universities about his belief of following your heart and never living other peoples dreams," says S&W creative director Jessica Walsh. "Considering his own mantras are so in tune with this campaign's message, he was the perfect fit."

Khan's charisma shines throughout the spot, which is compelling and mildly subversive without going totally over the top. (Note that Khan stands among the chanting, gray-clad group in the opening sequence, advising himself to cut loose a bit.)

Besides, the zany visuals—like an episode of Club MTV if David Lynch directed—are well worth the trip.

CREDITS
Client: Frooti
Chief Marketing Officer: Nadia Chauhan

Agency: Sagmeister & Walsh
Partner, Creative Director: Jessica Walsh

Creative Partner: SpecialGuest
Founder, Executive Creative Director: Aaron Duffy
Business Lead: Ashley McGee
Executive Producer: George Roca

Production: 1stAveMachine
Director: Karim Charlebois-Zariffa
Executive Producer: Sam Penfield
Producer: David Marks

Indian Production Service: Flying Pigs Productions
Executive Producer: Salil Khurana
Producer: Suhana Sharma
Associate Producer: Arti Gupta
Line Producer: Sachin Singh
Production Designer: Twisha Pal
Wardrobe Stylist: Edward Lalrempuia

Here's the funny thing about Dick and Jane books: We're aware they existed but don't actually remember reading them as kids (probably because their social high point was between the 1930s and 1970s). If they remain impactful today, it's probably more because of the spin-offs they inspired than because of the originals ... which is amazing when you think about it.

This time, the nostalgic throwback is being used to encourage more women to run for office. For organization She Should Run—whose title lends itself suspiciously perfectly to a Dick and Jane tribute—ad agency Geometry Global created a downloadable PDF called See Joan Run.

The 14-page book follows a woman called Joan—whose name carries extra weight for Mad Men lovers—in a world full of Dicks (we liked that joke, and also its Mad Men echoes). One of our favorite passages follows thus:

Bob says, "There are too many Dicks in office."

"Run, Joan, run!" says Sue.

The rest follows Joan running, winning and encouraging other women to run. The last few pages include facts about women in office—when women run, they get elected at the same rate as men do, but fewer than one-third of elected American leaders are women—and how you can help change the ratio (for example by sharing the book). 

Per a 2013 study, the U.S. ranked 98th in the world for the percentage of women in its national legislature—down from 59th in 1998. At the current rate of progress, "women won't achieve fair representation for nearly 500 years," said Cynthia Terrell, chair of FairVote's Representation 2020 project, at the time the study came out.

This is a shame for all of us. Women elected to key national leadership offices yield better economic performance for ethnically diverse nations—sometimes up to a 6.8 percent rise in GDP growth compared to nations with male leaders only.

Similar findings were found in a 2015 MSCI study of company boards: Generally, companies with strong female leadership at the very top saw a return on equity of 10.1 percent more per year, versus 7.4 percent for those without. Companies that lack board diversity also suffer more governance-related controversies.

These stats have been floating around for a while, though, so if a simple-as-dirt nostalgia-driven storybook is what's necessary to galvanize more ladies (and hopefully dudes), we're all for it.

You can download the book, tell a woman to run (at the bottom of the page) or make like Shonda Rhimes and tweet all about it. An accompanying letter to influencers also provides useful stats and even a script for spreading the word:



She Should Run claims that, since the campaign went live, it's enjoyed 2.1 million impressions across 11 countries and a 300 percent rise in nominations. That's a start ... and it's certainly better than investing in The Business Bulge.

The shower is a great place to think deep thoughts—or thoughts that seem deep in the moment, anyway. And Axe is capitalizing on that theme in a new campaign that naturally called "Shower Thoughts." 

In the first video, a dude ponders the real meaning of haters calling him short—because when you stop and think about it, it's really a compliment. To support his logic, he conjures a scene starring none other than basketball legend Muggsy Bogues, who at 5-foot-3 is the shortest player ever to make the NBA. 

Bogues, challenged by some clueless street ballers, takes them to school—vindicating shower guy and every other short man ever (though perhaps not petite Randy Moss).



Axe cooked up numbers to back its shower premise, hiring research firm Kelton to conduct a survey that found 91 percent of American men ages 18-34 agreed that showers make them feel more relaxed, while 78 percent said they think most clearly in the shower. 

Generate, a division of digital content studio Defy Media, created the ad with Mindshare Entertainment, the branded content arm of media buying agency Mindshare. Designed to promote the brand's "Axe Black" body wash, the series will include two more videos. One will feature singer and YouTube personality Chester See, musing on the virtues of the tuba. The other will include Pretty Little Liars actor Brendan Robinson, talking up the importance of style.

If the initial release is any indication, it's a serviceable approach, so long as it sticks with the tongue-in-cheek idea that a lot of shower brainstorms belong down the drain. (The Bogues argument, amusing as it is, probably wouldn't hold up in a court of law.) 

And with Axe, it's always worth praising an approach that's not leering—in the interests of discouraging a backslide from its increasingly refreshing messaging.

Do you enjoy faking orgasms in public places, or telling friends you see dead people? If so, New York City's Tribeca Film Festival has the ad campaign for you! 

Created by J. Walter Thompson, the push celebrates the event's 15th anniversary with a mix of experiential, digital and traditional components. 

The feature presentation is a machine called the ReActor. Combining voice and facial recognition technology with motion sensors, the unit records people acting out scenes from famous movies, and sends participants YouTube links of their best performances to share with friends. 

How awesomely obnoxious does this get? Watch the video below to find out: 



Well, that was just like watching When Harry Met Sally or The Sixth Sense. Or not. Who wouldn't want those clips flooding their email?!

The machine is also a critic, awarding high-scoring amateur thespians tickets to the festival, which runs from April 13-24. 

"Aside from being good, plain fun, the ReActor is a living representation of the kinds of things you will see at the festival," Bari Komitee, Tribeca's vice president of marketing, tells AdFreak. "Tribeca has been at the forefront of interactive storytelling—from immersive experiences to virtual reality—for a number of years. We wanted to get the community excited about what they can be a part of during the festival, and the ReActor sets the stage for that." 

Starting next week, the ReActor will travel around New York City, visiting various festival theaters and local attractions. Mostly, however, it will pass judgement on folks' acting chops at the Tribeca Film Festival hub, located in Spring Studios at 50 Varick St. in Manhattan.

Check out the festival's new print work below. 

CREDITS

Client: Tribeca Film Enterprises dba Tribeca Film Festival
Break Date: March 25, 2016
Exposure: Digital, Video, Cinema, Print, OOH, Experiential
Project Name: Tribeca Film Festival 15th Anniversary campaign and Tribeca ReActor

Agency: J. Walter Thompson New York
Head of Art & Design: Aaron Padin
Creative Director: Greg Erdelyi
Art Directors: Itai Enselberg, Katie Bourgeouis
Copywriter: Kate Delaney
Designers: Soyeon Yoo, Emely Perez
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Brent Choi
Planner: Matt Baker
Head of Production: Jennifer McBride
Executive Producer: Mary Ellen Verrusio
Producers: Liam Golding
Executive Digital Producer: Zeynep Cingir
UX Designer: Jen Lash
Digital Producer: Nick Orsini
Director of Music: Paul Greco
Project Manager: Juliana Orozco
Art Buyer: Suzanna Shields
Account Team:
Oswaldo Barbosa – Business Director
Haley Rankin – Account Associate
Client Team: Andrew Essex and Bari Komitee

Director: Andrew Hines
Production Company: Current
Post-Production: The Mill
Editing House: J. Walter Thompson
Music House: J. Walter Thompson

Eating Domino's pizza renders folks insensibly slack-jawed and incapable of coherent speech in "The Mouth Boggles," a strange and silly U.K. campaign from Iris Worldwide.

Ads show people in different situations making cooing, mumbling and squawking noises. Their mouths stretch and distort in cartoonish ways, as if the footage had been run through a face-swapping app.

Who wouldn't want to order a couple of Fiery Hawaiian pies after watching this?



A voiceover explains: "Domino's. So mouth-bogglingly tasty, you just can't …" before the narration itself trails off into gobbledygook.

Though it probably won't provoke fits of laughter, the spots, directed by Sam Hubbard at Somesuch, are amusing and memorable. Social extensions include a Snapchat push with custom "Lost for Words" lenses allowing users to create their own wacky lip service for the brand, plus a Giphy channel for those who feel like sharing GIFs that celebrate the product. (Of late, Domino's social menu has featured its award-winning "Emoji Ordering" system and related promos.)



"At Domino's we have a passion for creating great digital experiences that tap into culturally relevant phenomena, experiences and behaviors which we believe increases the accessibility and shareability of our content," says Nick Dutch, head of Domino's digital marketing in the U.K. "We're really excited about the way our core idea can be so well interpreted and executed across all the different channels and platforms."

Fair enough. Plus, the less actually said—in understandable speech—about the taste of Domino's, the better. 

Spotify's new brand campaign from Wieden + Kennedy sings a number of different tunes—employing everything from '80s nostalgia to present-day political anxiety—as it mines the app's data to tell stories about how its users enjoy particular tracks.

The campaign features three new TV spots, including—perhaps most notably—one with Falkor, the dragon-dog from the 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story.

The point of the ad is simple: "The NeverEnding Story," the song by the English pop singer Limahl, is streamed at least once every day by someone in the world. In the spot, Falkor remarks on this oddity, as does Atreyu, riding on his back—except Atreyu is no longer a 12-year-old boy but a 44-year-old man. 

That's because W+K New York got Noah Hathaway to reprise the role. And in fact, that's Alan Oppenheimer doing the voice of Falkor, as he did in the original movie.

Check out the spot and a behind-the-scenes video here:

Two other spots focus on other other random data tibdits. The first is that the Flo Rida track "My House" keeps popping up in Spotify users' playlists about moving. The second is that Pope Francis has a rock album. 

Those info-nuggets are amusing communicated in unexpected ways:

The ads, directed by Tim Godsall of Anonymous Content, begin airing Monday on TV, in cinema and online. Digital and out-of-home ads drive to custom playlists available for free to all Spotify and non-Spotify users. Those playlists are available at NeverEnding80s.com,MovingUpToCanada.com and RockingNuns.com.

The OOH includes a life-size mural of Falkor hand painted in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, N.Y.

The idea to focus on the Spotify stories behind the songs, not just the songs, came from a need to start a conversation beyond hard-core music fans. Thus, the message is: If you don't use Spotify, you're missing out on a fun, collective experience—as well as great music.

CREDITS

Client: Spotify
Chief Marketing Officer: Seth Farbman
Vice President, Creative, Brand Strategy: Jackie Jantos
Global Brand Director: Alex Tanguay
Global Creative Director: Alex Bodman
Vice President, Global Consumer Marketing: Amy Ferris
Head of N.A. Consumer Marketing: Marian Dicus
U.S. Marketing Manager: Alexander Cole

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Director: Karl Lieberman
Creative Directors: Erwin Federizo, Brandon Henderson
Art Director: Jed Heuer
Copywriter: Will Binder
Creative Tech: Craig Blagg
Senior Producer: Orlee Tatarka
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Account Team: Casey Jennings, Molly Friedman, Kerry O'Connell
Head of Art Buying: Deb Rosen
Art Buyer: Ali Berk
Head of Project Management: Yann Samuels
Senior Interactive Strategist: Tom Gibby
Senior Social Strategist: Jessica Abercrombie
Group Media Director: Ryan Haskins
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Keri Rommel, Lindsey Timko
Broadcast Traffic Supervisor: Sonia Bisono
Print Producer: Jeannie O'Toole
Retouching: Chris McClelland, 150 Proof
Studio : Tara Kennedy, Chris Kelsch, Nathan Dalessandro
Creative Services Director: Chris Whalley
Studio Manager: Jill Kearton

Production Company: Anonymous Content
Director: Tim Godsall
Executive Producer: Eric Stern
Directors of Photography: Andre Pienaar, Darko Suvak

Editorial Company: Final Cut
Editor: ("NeverEnding"): Michael Dart Wadsworth
Editor ("Nuns" and "Moving"): Jeff Buchanan
Assistant Editor: Spencer Campbell
Post Producer: Jamie Nagler
Post Executive Producer: Sarah Roebuck

Visual Effects Company: Method Studios
Executive Producer: Angela Lupo
Senior Producer: Heather Saunders
Lead Flame Artist, Creative Director: Tom Leckie

Music Supervisor: Beth Urdang

Mix Company: Sonic Union
Mixer: Steve Rosen

How do you make a sitcom like Friends, which went off the air 12 years ago—a year before YouTube even existed—seem relevant to YouTube users today?

If you're Netflix, which recently acquired the rights to stream all 10 seasons (that 236 episodes), you launch responsive preroll ads that take a user's search terms and dig up particular scenes from the show that are somehow related.

See how the clever campaign, from Ogilvy Paris, worked in this case-study video:



Ogilvy says it tagged thousands of YouTube's top searched videos in creating the campaign, and claims it's the first of its kind in the category.

Ogilvy Paris has a history of doing novel campaigns for Netflix, including this one from 2014 that brought GIF to out-of-home ads.

CREDITS
Client: Netflix
Project: The Friendly Preroll Campaign
Agency: Ogilvy Paris
Directeur Général: Philip Heimann
Executive Creative Director: Baptiste Clinet
Creative Director: Nicolas Lautier
Creative Team: David Martinangelus (ACD), Erika Reyes & Mateo Fernandez (AD)
Business Director: Anne-Sophie Carbo
Account Supervisor: Nadia Lasfar
Head of Strategic Planning: Alexandra Mimoun
Strategic Planner: Amélie Delacour
Head of Integrated Production: Antoine Bagot
Production Company: Fighting Fish
Media agency: Google