It's agency holiday-card season, and we're going to start posting some of the more interesting and amusing examples—beginning with this one from Victors & Spoils. It's a parody of Tim Piper's "Body Evolution" video showing a model being airbrushed within an inch of her life. (Piper also did Dove's earlier "Evolution" video.) The results of the parody are not as attractive—but are undeniably more festive. Via The Denver Egotist.
The original "Body Evolution" video:
Forget about those famous Internet felines in Friskies' Christmas spot. The real holiday supergroup is in this campaign from Forsman & Bodenfors for UNICEF Sweden.
I'm talking about Jesus, Gandhi and Mother Teresa—dubbed "The Good Guys"—who get together to discuss the sacrifices they made to benefit humanity. They're joined by a typical party dude, who gets to hang with the hallowed do-gooders simply because he clicked on a UNICEF banner to help save kids' lives.
The three spots in the series strike just the right tone. They're mildly irreverent and amusingly low-key, with lots of cute exchanges and details. You've gotta love Gandhi's mod yoga mat; the slacker complaining that Jesus's story, while possibly the greatest ever told, drags on a bit; and Christ accidentally clicking through to an ab-blasting offer when He initially tries the Internet.
It's a good thing Jesus is on board, since it usually takes a miracle to get folks to click on banner ads, even for a good cause.
CREDITS
Client: UNICEF
Director of Communication: Petra Hallebrant
Senior Marketing Officer: Jim Carlberg
Marketing Officer: Åsa Lee
Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors
Art Director: Johanna Hofman-Bang, Agnes Stenberg-Schentz
Copywriter: Marcus Hägglöf
Account Supervisor: Jacob Nelson
Account Manager: Lena Birnik
Agency Producer: Magnus Kennhed, Helena Wård
PR: Desirée Maurd
Designer: Nina Andersson
Original: F&B Factory
ACNE Production
Director: Torbjörn Martin, Tomas Skoging
Executive Producer: Petur Mogensen
Producer: Fredrik Skoglund
Account Manager: Jacob Englund
Director of Photography: Christian Haag
Costume: Patrik Hedin
Make Up: Sanna Riley
Set Designer: Cian Bournebusch
Special Thanks during the film production
Post Production: Chimney Pot
Camera and Lights: Ljud & Bildmedia
Casting London: Aston Hinkingson
Casting Los Angeles: Stone
Casting and Location Sweden: Röster (voices, places, faces)
Stills
Photographer: Pelle Bergström / Skarp Agent
Stylist: Lotta Agaton / Link Deco
Retouch: Bildinstitutet
Radio
Production Company and Casting: Flickorna Larsson
IDEA: It might be one of the toughest jobs they've ever had.
Sure, James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell are legendary actors, known for titanic roles like Darth Vader and Alex DeLarge. But Sprint's new ads from Leo Burnett ask them to inhabit a host of motley characters they've surely never attempted—linguistically florid tween girls, avid and irritated significant others, stultifyingly indecisive bros. (Texting buds Chris and Craig from the latter spot rival Waiting for Godot's Vladimir and Estragon for existential ennui.)
The initial idea was simple: Focus on people in a sector obsessed with tech. "The story of the category is data speeds. The customer is completely left out of the conversation," said Burnett creative director Nuno Ferreira.
So, they had Jones and McDowell literally speak for the customer by reenacting mundane phone calls, emails and texts between friends and family in hilarious dramatic readings that have only gotten funnier with each new spot.
COPYWRITING: The ads open with a yellow title card as a voice says Sprint is "honoring" a call, email or text chat between two people. Cut to a black stage with the actors, in tuxedos, having said conversations.
Three recent spots, as mentioned above, feature great banter between two girls about a boy ("Ryan is a total Hottie McHotterson!" "Obvi. He's amazeballs!"), two guys about evening plans ("Think you'll go out tonight?" "Probably not. But … maybe?") and a boyfriend and girlfriend about each other ("I'm thinking about you." "I'm thinking about you, too." "What are you thinking about, about me?" "Just thinking about you." "Yes, but what about me exactly?" "Have to run to a meeting. Talk later." "Hey. I'm still thinking about you").
The yellow screen returns, and the voice says, "In honor of the important things you do …" and then makes a product offer. The commercials end with the logo and hashtag #HonorThis.
The scripts aren't meant to be mean-spirited. In fact, some are vaguely autobiographical. "I've had that conversation in 'Thinking About You' so many times, it's why I'm single now. If I'm making fun of anyone, it's myself," said Burnett associate creative director Ryan Wolin.
FILMING/ART DIRECTION: Noam Murro shot about 16 spots in all on a Friday and a Sunday in London. (Jones was busy Saturday with matinee and evening performances of Much Ado About Nothing at The Old Vic—though that day off helped the creatives, who feverishly wrote new scripts knowing how the actors were playing off each other.)
The agency considered having images pop up behind the actors to help tell the stories. "We realized very quickly that anything you added behind them or around them detracted from their performance. It was an exercise in restraint," said Ferreira.
Having fewer visual cues created a "theater of the mind," he added, where viewers can imagine themselves as the characters. The minimalism also makes the campaign easier to parody, which the agency is already seeing on Vine and Instagram.
TALENT: Jones, 82, and McDowell, 70, each signed on knowing the other was committing. (These are McDowell's first ads ever.) "You could feel it on set, this absolute admiration for each other," Ferreira said.
The acting is often brilliant. "With 'Thinking About You,'" said Wolin, "you can see and feel what they're thinking. It wasn't just reciting the lines. You can feel the disdain from Malcolm, and the enthrallment from James, how in love he is with Malcolm's character."
SOUND: The campaign uses a few different holiday soundtracks, including music from The Nutcracker. "It sets the tone and the mood as inviting and fun and playful," said Wolin.
Added Ferreira: "We're honoring these moments, so we wanted them to feel important, and the music gives it that importance."
MEDIA: National broadcast and cable, and online.
THE SPOTS:
CREDITS
Client: Sprint
Campaign: "Everything's Important"
Spots: "Thinking About You," "Totes McGotes," "Probably Not, But Maybe"
Agency: Team Sprint - Leo Burnett
Chief Creative Officer: Susan Credle
Executive Creative Director: Michael Boychuk
Creative Director: Nuno Ferreira
Associate Creative Director: Ryan Wolin
Executive Producer: Nicky Furno, Juan Woodbury
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Noam Murro
Anyone who has lived next door to a motorcycle owner knows that "Harley-Davidson" and "sleep in heavenly peace" rarely go together. But this special holiday video for the brand creates a clever exception.
In a clip called "The Sound of the Festive Season," U.K. agency Big Communications uses a Harley to play the notes of "Silent Night." The agency tells AdFreak that the entire idea was created, sold and executed in just 72 hours.
Credits below. Via Best Ads on TV.
CREDITS
Agency: Big Communications, London
Creative team: Katie Bradshaw, Ryan Griffiths, Stuart Perry
Director: Paul Griffin
Producer: Blue Gecko Studios
What better way to cap off the year in which agencies were obsessed with prankvertising than with an agency pranking its own staff?
Baltimore shop Planit created the amusing video below after luring unsuspecting employees to sing holiday songs on camera. When a Leatherface-masked elf jumps out of the large present next to them, their reactions range from sprinting panic to cool-headed indifference.
There's not much more to it than that, but the wide array of staff responses make it worth a watch. Planit also deserves points for giving the clip a strategic message, ending with the kicker, "We believe the best ideas should scare you."
Jerry Seinfeld has written eight new Acura commercials in collaboration with Boston ad agency Mullen as part of the brand's title sponsorship of his Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The faux-vintage spots—all eight are posted below—will bookend new episodes of the show, coming Jan. 2. They were directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and inspired by actual old car commercials from the '60s.
But while those old spots sound a bit ridiculous these days (Seinfeld ran actual vintage Acura ads as pre-roll on Comedians in Cars last season), these new ads are intentionally silly—playing off the old style but taking it in absurd directions.
Seinfeld spoke with AdFreak on Tuesday about the creative process behind the ads, his experience with Super Bowl spots and what he thought of Will Ferrell's Dodge work.
So, these are fun spots. This must have been an exciting project for you.
You know, I have done a bit of advertising over the years. But I have never been given the creative freedom that I was given on these by Acura. They're gutsier than any other company I've ever worked with. Not that I've worked with that many, but I've worked with a few. Because this work, as you can see, is not like any other work that they've done. And usually—as you well know, being in the ad game—the clients tend to get nervous, especially when they're spending a lot of money. But [Acura marketing chief] Mike Accavitti, I've never seen a guy like this guy. Nerves of steel. It's pretty rare. But I think that's why they came out so good. I would give him all the credit.
Tell me about the creative process—how you worked with Mullen on these.
Mullen and I sat in a room together. Now, we ran vintage Honda and Acura stuff from the '60s and '70s last season on Comedians in Cars. And everybody kind of enjoyed that. And I said, Yeah, I've looked at everything that exists of the old advertising, and I picked out all the good ones. And I don't have any more. And I thought, Why don't we make new old advertising … that's bad. Because that's what's fun. A lot of the lines are stuff we actually found. We would put our little spin on it.
A lot of the advertising in the old days focused on the size of the car. People felt that you were really getting your money's worth if the car had a big trunk. Which of course is something that no one cares about now. No one buys an SUV and goes, "Well, how big is the trunk?" Because they're all big.
So, it's about taking the old tropes and pushing them a little bit.
Yes. And you know, to me, a lot of things have gotten worse that you could point to in our culture. A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it's kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the '60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake. It always worked. There were three networks. Everyone's going to see this. They're going to buy the car. And now, everyone's more nervous. Eyeballs are harder to get. And everyone's less inclined to take a risk.
You've seen those high stakes firsthand, having done Super Bowl ads for American Express and, of course, Acura.
Yeah. I've done a number of Super Bowl ads. And that is the best advertising of the year. That is when people realize they're going to be compared directly against other ads.
What did you think of Will Ferrell's ads for Dodge?
I like anything Will Ferrell does, so I was a fan of those. But it didn't seem to be a different type of car advertising. It seemed to be a different type of movie advertising. But different is always good.
So, you wrote a lot of the jokes for these Acura ads?
I did. We just wanted to get that feeling of "Hot, handsome and a honey to handle." Nobody says things like that anymore. Or "The perfect car for the big-car man." And the "Yesterday, today and tomorrow" thing. I like the little tension between the spokesman and the spokeswoman, that we can see that they aren't quite getting along.
My favorite thing is: "MDX. Three letters that stand for 'Earth, style and you.' " That's just like, nobody read that over and went, "What do you mean? Why does it stand for that? The letters don't even match up to that. Why are we saying that?" So, it's also part of the drunken, lazy ad culture of the '60s.
You may not have known that shipping containers can dance.
To promote GE Transportation, agency The Barbarian Group teamed up with Reuben Wu of British electronic band Ladytron to create a song and video featuring the company's intermodal products—which help choreograph millions of containers of freight being carried by railroads, trucks and boats—at work at the CSX Intermodal Terminal in North Baltimore, Ohio. Wu recorded some of the sounds in the song at the terminal itself, a trick we've already seen applied to athletes by brands like Gillette and Coca-Cola. The GE video, part of its "Brilliant Machines" campaign, though, is basically industrial-grade technophilia, struggling to make freight logistics anything but incredibly boring. At its heart, the idea is a little silly, but the result itself actually ends up being pretty hypnotizing.
It's especially nice given the subject matter. Creating any kind of emotional connection to complex, dull-at-first-blush technology is a perennial problem for GE. This, at least, creates some interest. But its got some pretty stiff competition in machines you didn't know were powered by GE—especially Marty McFly's DeLorean.
Speaking of Christmas miracles, The VIA Agency would like to make one of its own happen. The Portland, Maine, agency's house band recorded a six-track album of holiday music, and has launched a campaign to get David Bowie to cover one of the songs. Hey, it could happen.
The "Get It to Bowie" site is full of cheerful strategizing, including ways to tweet at Bowie's famous friends and get them to put the pressure on. There's also an amusing "Are you David Bowie? Click here" link, which populates a tweet field with the message, "@TheVIAAgency Yes! I'm in. #gotittobowie." (The project also has a charity element, as VIA is also asking for donations to support Maine veterans living with PTSD—and one of the songs is about a homeless veteran at Christmastime.) You can also, of course, listen to the songs, which are solid—a good mix of funny and heartfelt.
For now, the hashtag is the present-tense #getittobowie. It's a long shot, no doubt, especially now that Bowie is on the comeback trail with his well-received 2013 album, which got him three Grammy nominations. But who knows. Throw in an Angela Adams sea bag—actually, make that Louis Vuitton—and he might just go for it.
The original Yule Log television broadcast dates back to 1966, when WPIX-TV aired footage of a cozy fireplace to cheer up New Yorkers who lived in apartments without one. But Netflix really gives it a modern spin this year, humorously advertising its streaming Yule Log channel with a faux-epic trailer and two-minute behind-the-scenes director's commentary video. It's all perfectly stupid and hilarious, particularly the longer video, in which the auteur picks out the right logs on a farm and marvels at particularly serendipitous "ashing" in footage of the burning wood. Great holiday cheer by ad agency Muh-Tay-Zik | Hof-fer.
CREDITS
Client: Netflix
Agency: Muh-Tay-Zik | Hof-fer
Director, Executive Creative Director: John Matejczyk
Head of Production: Michelle Spear
Associate Creative Directors: Josh Bogdan, Tony Zimney
Copywriter: Jonathan Hirsch
Account Supervisor: Carolina Cruz-Letelier
Assistant Account Manager: Emily Mee
Production: Muh-Tay-Zik | Hof-fer
Director of Photography: Chris Wilson
Art Director: Jonathan Nicholson
Producer: Alex Smith
Editing: Beast
Editor: Matt O'Donnell
Colorist: Eric Pascua
Motion Graphics: Spencer Seibert
Executive Producer: Jon Ettinger
Senior Producer: Kristen Jenkins
Audio: One Union
Senior Engineers: Andy Greenberg, Eben Carr
In just a matter of days, Americans will partake of that always festive, sometimes sloppy tradition of popping open a bottle of champagne. Nobody knows how many of us will have a sip of bubbly this New Year’s, but the best estimate stands at 360 million glasses. The French champagne commodity folks tell us that the U.S. imported 17.7 million bottles of champagne in 2013 alone. And while David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox chugged a $100,000 bottle of Armand de Brignac during that little World Series party in October, most of us will invest around 50 bucks for a bottle of Moët & Chandon. With its sales up 6 percent—and a recent deal naming it the official champagne of Times Square 2014—Moët is the top-selling champagne in America.
Which is not to suggest that selling champagne in America is easy. It is not—not even for a giant like Moët. According to veteran alcohol-industry consultant Arthur Shapiro, champagne makers “have tried for years to get people to drink champagne for more than just weddings and New Year’s, but they didn’t succeed because of the cost.”
Or at least the perceived cost. The fact of the matter is that a perfectly good bottle of sparkling wine (the name bubbly takes when it’s not from France) can be had for 15 bucks. But the perception is that good champagne is expensive—an idea that brands like Bollinger (at $650 a bottle) and Krug ($750) do little to discourage. For a brand like Moët, then, an ongoing marketing challenge has been to make the product more accessible to the average American—a task to which these ads are devoted.
Dom Pérignon has long been the marquee brand of the Moët cellars. Trouble is, Americans know it’s fancy as surely as they know they can’t afford it. But in this 1968 ad, Moët decided to use the Pérignon name to promote the workhorse brand Brut Imperial, nudging them together and promising that Imperial was “made in the same great tradition.” It’s a subtle but effective price cue, Shapiro said: “They were trying to present a more affordable champagne with the provenance of Dom Pérignon—it’s called borrowing credentials.”
Jumping ahead 45 years, affordability and accessibility remain the themes of this ad for Chandon California Brut Classic. The reason you don’t see the word “champagne” owes itself to a shrewd move Moët made in 1973 when it purchased a tract of land in Napa Valley, Calif. Since then, the proud French cellar has produced Chandon—the American sparkling wine that still drips with those fancy, old-world associations but won’t cost you a week’s pay.
“In the 1968 ad, Moët is telling the consumer that if he trades down, he’s getting the same tradition but at a lower price—and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were saying: Go to Domaine Chandon and we’ll bring the price down even further,” Shapiro said.
He’s right. These days, while Moët’s Brut Imperial sells for $49.99, Chandon Brut Classic can be yours for $19.99—at Target, no less. Now, who can’t afford that?
Specs
Who John Matejczyk (l.), ecd, and Matt Hofherr, president, director of strategy
What Advertising and production company
Where San Francisco offices
Among the latest generation of Bay Area startups to attract attention, Muh-tay-zik | Hof-fer celebrates offbeat projects for an eclectic client list. There’s work like Annie’s Homegrown, which spoofs the Stanford marshmallow experiment that began in the late 1960s, using kids and delayed gratification to sell the brand’s mac and cheese pizza. The 3-year-old shop also recently launched Gallo’s New Amsterdam vodka, and for client Do.com created a short film in which a nursing home resident has 17 minutes to live and organizes his farewell party via the site. Matejczyk teamed up with Hofherr in an “arranged marriage” after creative director friends set up an introduction.;
The world-traveling Molson Beer Fridge became famous for being exclusive—when it visited European cities earlier this year, only people with a Canadian passport could open it. Now, the fridge is back, and being even nicer to one Canadian guy, with help from his friends.
This new spot, from agency Rethink, tells the tale of two friends who surprise a third friend—a rabid hockey fan who for some reason has fled Canada for the remote Gili Islands in Indonesia—by bringing him a red fridge of his own to keep in his little hut, which may or may not have the electricity to run it. The friends also bring a satellite system so the other guy catch the Olympic Games this winter.
It's a fine stunt, as far as it goes, though the surprise isn't quite as delightful as the premise of the earlier video (which was apparently the second most viewed commercial online in Canada this year). Plus, the emotion remains mostly bottled up. Unlike some other heartwarming ads, where people weep only, the fridge recipient here claims he's actually "sweating" and not in fact getting weepy over his buddies' thoughtful gesture.
A 30-second version of the ad will begin airing in Canada on Dec. 26.
CREDITS
Client: Molson Canadian
Title: "The Beer Fridge: Project Indonesia"
Agency: Rethink
Creative Directors: Aaron Starkman, Chris Staples, Dré Labre, Ian Grais
Art Directors: Aaron Starkman Joel Holtby, Vince Tassone, Christian Buer
Writers: Aaron Starkman, Mike Dubrick,
Account Director: Ashley Eaton
Broadcast Producer: Dave Medlock
Production Company: Untitled Films
Director: Tyler Williams
Executive Producer: Lexy Kavluk
Line Producer: Tom Evelyn
Director of Photography: John Houtman
Postproduction: Rooster Post
Executive Producer: Melissa Kahn
Editor: Marc Langley
Assistant Editor: Nick Greaves
Postproduction: Fort York VFX
Music, Sound Design: RMW Music
These are a couple of years old, but new to us—some amazing, beautifully simple print ads for a bookstore in Brazil. Delightful idea, gorgeous execution. It's stuff like this that makes people fall in love with advertising and want to work in the industry. Agency: Lápisraro Comunicação. Full credits below. Via @Brilliant_Ads, which is doing a Twitter countdown of 100 great ads through the end of the year.
CREDITS
Client: Corre Cutia Bookstore
Agency: Lápisraro Comunicação, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Creative Directors: Carla Madeira, Cristina Cortez
Art Director: Francisco Valle
Copywriter: Gustavo Costa
Illustrator: Francisco Valle
It's getting down to the wire, but we're still finding little gems of Christmas cheer in holiday ads on YouTube. This one's for Meijer, the superstore chain, and it should bring a smile to even the most Grinch-like viewer. Sadly, it's only gotten 6,000 views in over a month. Let's help lift that number a bit. Agency: The Distillery Project in Chicago.
GroupM has signed a 20-year office lease in 3 World Trade Center that will entail 516,000 square feet in the tower, scheduled to open in 2017. The WPP-owned media agency group, which includes Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom and Maxus, will occupy nine floors in the 80-story skyscraper (which shouldn't be confused with 1 World Trade Center—formerly called the Freedom Tower).
Other media-based firms that plan to rent space in the new WTC buildings include Condé Nast, BMI, Omnicom, Moody's, WilmerHale, and Fast Company and Inc. magazines. Five million square feet have been leased in the towers, per Silverstein Properties, the realty giant negotiating the multiple WTC spaces.
At the same time, GroupM is the first to sign a lease for 3 WTC in particular, which is under construction at 175 Greenwich Street on the western side of Manhattan's Financial District. The agency will consolidate its 2,400 employees from several Midtown locations to the building. Terms of the lease were not disclosed.
"GroupM is looking forward to becoming part of one of the most vibrant and important neighborhoods in New York City," said Kelly Clark, CEO of GroupM North America.
The 3 WTC building, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners, is billed as high-tech and green-friendly. What's more, it should afford convenient commuting for GroupM staffers—there are 11 nearby subway lines to reach New York City's boroughs, as well as the Path train for New Jersey dwellers.
When the WTC locations do open, the development will come as something of a relief to New Yorkers and other Americans. It's been 12 years since the original buildings were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
This holiday, McCann Helsinki is seeking to make copywriters and creatives everywhere hate them with the fire of a thousand slightly burnt gingerbread men. They're offering free, tailor-made slogans in a two-hour turnaround time with their Lean Mean Slogan Machine, backed by a photo of a shirtless guy in a cowboy hat (Liquid Plumr, your ideas are leaking—PUN!). Visit the site, type in your business name, and within two hours you'll have your own slogan.
Some taglines from their gallery:
• Mayer/McCann Erickson: "But ma! Mayer came in last! Why can he always sit in the front?"
• Google: "Don't just doodle."
• Anitotes: "For anyone without a bag."
• FP7/CAI: "Kind of like AC/DC, only advertising."
• Leo Burnett: "Porn to be wild."
• Starbucks: "Covering up mermaid boobs does not make us a sellout."
OK, so maybe the slogans aren't billboard worthy, but it's a fun idea nonetheless. Jyrki Poutanen, one of the creative directors at McCann Helsinki, spoke with AdFreak about the campaign:
What's the story behind the Lean Mean Slogan Machine?
We wanted to give our clients, affiliates and fans something for Christmas. Something that we think we're good at and that they'd hopefully enjoy. Something that would show excessive commitment to plain silliness. And it does, you know—we've been responding to the requests almost 24/7. Especially when the requests started pouring in from your continent; your day is our night. During the first 48 hours we had written about 300 slogans. And there's only three of us writing.
Do you have hate mail coming in? As a copywriter, I'm working on my draft to you now.
Not yet. You'll be the first then. Sure, mail it in, we'll stamp it with a fitting slogan, and you'll have your hate mail back in two hours. :)
Shouldn't you guys look for new jobs if it only takes you two hours to write a slogan?
We've always been good, or at least enjoying, verbal acrobatics. So yes, there may be a better future for us in professional athletics—gymnastics, that is. And if you're referring to the slogan machine mocking the copy profession, luckily there's so much more to our work nowadays than just taglines. And naturally the really, really great ones, the ones to live with us for decades, take a bit more than two hours to create. But I'm also a big believer in spontaneous stupidness that just might become some greater universal stupidness just because it wasn't so analyzed, chopped to pieces through and through.
What's your favorite slogan ever?
Hmmm. Tough one. I remember really liking Honda's "The Power of Dreams" when it first came out. Having said that, it really doesn't portray my typical favorite slogan. I usually like them 40 percent rebellious, 40 percent stupid and 30 percent clever. Yeah, I know, the math's not right, but I may have proven a point there? But I can't think of any of that sort right at the moment. So maybe my favorites really aren't that good, then. Oh, there was this slogan once for PeakPerformance (I think) ... "Boredom Comes to Those Who Wait," which really stuck to my mind.
Santa needs a new slogan. Any ideas?
A rebel with a claus.
Mercedes-Benz USA puts the "demo" in demolition derby for this fun 60-second spot by Merkley + Partners touting the latest high-tech safety features of the automaker's M-Class vehicles. All hell breaks loose when a woman drives her shiny silver SUV into a crash-crazed competition of mangled metal and screaming steel. Smash! Bang! Screeeech! This particular carmageddon, pulse-pounding but also played for laughs, was impressively staged at an old California factory where the final confrontation in Terminator II: Judgement Day was shot.
Naturally, the M-Class emerges unscathed and its driver unharmed. Her ordeal was fiery and fierce, but notably less stressful than the wars waged for parking spaces at malls across America on any given Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
Last month, Business Insider published an article headlined “Why Advertising’s Most Powerful Creative Thinks So Few Women Are Able to Break Through,” quoting Susan Hoffman, ecd of Wieden+Kennedy, as saying: “I went to The 3% Conference, but I didn’t see a lot of great work there. I didn’t see a lot of portfolios, but the few I saw, it was like, ‘Well, I know she’s a woman, but I don’t think I’d hire her.’ I’m sure there’s talent out there, we just have to dig, dig, dig.”
Actually, The 3% Conference (mission: “Building The Business Case for More Female Creatives”) isn’t a portfolio review, as founder Kat Gordon will confirm. And what Hoffman talks about isn’t a gender problem. It’s a “How we define what constitutes great work in a male creative leadership-dominated industry where what is deemed creative is set and reinforced year after year by predominantly male ecds, creative directors and creative awards juries” problem.
That’s a problem because our industry is failing to tap a huge source of creativity with the power to redefine our product, the way we do business, how we make money and how we positively influence popular culture. I call it the New Creativity, and it’s female-informed.
Stuart Elliott covers agency startups and New York office openings in his advertising column in The New York Times. Last year, every announcement featured an all-male founding/management team lineup (virtually always all-white). When I called each one out on social media, responses ranged from the odd shamefaced “You’re right” tweet to (most often) deadly silence. Only Mike Duda, the new CEO of Johannes Leonardo, acknowledged this was an issue and reached out to me to ask for help in changing it.
Men feel more comfortable working with, hiring, promoting and co-founding agencies with other men, and they do this unconsciously. Working with/hiring/promoting/co-founding with women is uncomfortable—because we’re “other.” We have different perspectives. Women ask tough questions that disrupt the closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys. We challenge the status quo because we’re never it. Right now, that challenge is exactly what our industry needs.
When Anne Bologna left her managing director post at MDC in April last year, I urged her to start the holding company of the future. I’d seen Anne in action at MDC, and I was very impressed. I saw an opportunity for her to leverage her experience and business creativity into reinventing the holding company concept. Plus, in my entrepreneurial endeavors, I’ve come across plenty of people interested in funding the future of advertising—or rather, funding anyone with the creativity, the experience and the confidence to invent the future of advertising. Ultimately, TripAdvisor made Anne an offer she couldn’t refuse—but the opportunity remains.
In one 10-minute conversation with Susan Credle, ecd of Leo Burnett, at Advertising Week 2013, I heard more radical, innovative creative thinking that could benefit our industry than I had on any (white male-dominated) stage all week. The New Creativity that can be applied to inspire not only more creative product but more creative ways of producing it.
Women in advertising burn with the same ambition as men. They want to create amazing advertising, win awards, get to the top, build successful businesses. Equally, there are as many men in advertising as women who don’t want to work nights and weekends, all the time, who want to spend quality time with their children. There are as many men as women who don’t have children, who want to spend quality time with their friends, their family and themselves.
Applying female-informed perspectives to redesign the way our industry works and makes money and creates a happier, more creative and more productive working environment for all of us.
Want to start tapping the New Creativity? Here’s how:
• Identify the areas within your agency/business/holding company that are all-male or male-dominated. Change that.
• Don’t change it by hiring or promoting just one woman. She’ll be isolated and surrounded by the status quo and will have to adapt to it, and she won’t be able to make a difference. Two women doesn’t work either. Make it at least three. Three or more women at the top of your creative department, on your management team, on your board begin to make a real difference and change the environment, the culture and the output.
• Do this on merit. (Nobody is suggesting for a moment that you hire or promote women just because they’re women.) Actively search out the talent overlooked in your agency because it doesn’t fit pattern matching. Tell recruiters you want to see an equal number of brilliant male and female candidates for every brief.Demonstrate publicly that you’re part of the New Creativity. You’ll attract the best women—and the best men.
We urge our clients to buy great creative work that makes them uncomfortable, and run it. Well, now it’s time to buy great creative women who make you uncomfortable, and run with them.
Out of discomfort comes greatness—for all of us.
Cindy Gallop (@cindygallop) is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld/MakeLoveNotPorn and former chairman of BBH New York.
Old Spice appears to be gunning directly for Axe with a new line of refresh body sprays, two new spray scents—with the explosively awesome names of Bearglove and Lionpride—and some of its first spots targeted directly at the fragile psyches of teenage boys.
The concept is that Old Spice will make you smell like a man, which will make ladies treat you like a man, which will make your poor mother cry. Easier than running afoul of the law and far more satisfying than simply talking back, men around the nation now have a healthier way to rebel: Just spray to get laid.
In the three spots from the "Smellcome to Manhood" campaign, by Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., the lamentations of the mothers are conveyed in amusing musical fashion as they stalk their sons. The frumpy old moms are seriously creepy, dressing up like janitors, washing up on beaches like corpses and sliding up the ball return at the bowling alley as their sons are out on dates with nice young ladies. Even better, the nice young ladies actually look like nice young ladies and not lingerie models twice their age. For extra mom-upsetting value, the two :15s are both interracial. The :30 is better than the :60, which is a more in-depth bildungsroman and has some seriously weird parts in it.
Fun fact: While the spots don't get into it, the campaign is part of an education effort by the brand to prevent the scourge of overspraying—you know, where young men overcompensate for the hideous smell of their pubescent bodies by dousing themselves with the magical juice that promises to bring bikinied babes running at them in slow motion, except all it does is set off the fire alarm or cause kids in the school to be hospitalized. Supposedly, Old Spice is tackling that somehow with these spots. (See more in the infographic below.) But more important, it's doing it with an awesome PSA about how to scent responsibly that involves synthesizers and a guy in a mullet.
If anyone can spray goodbye to boyhood hygiene habits, Old Spice can.
CREDITS
Client: Old Spice
Project: Old Spice Global | Re-Fresh Body Sprays
Global Marketing Director: Bobbie Jo Ehlers
Global Brand Manager: Mathew Krehbiel
Global Associate Brand Manager: Charlie Nutting
Agency
Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Craig Allen | Jason Bagley
Copywriter: Justine Armour
Copywriter: David Povill
Art Director: Ruth Bellotti
Senior Producer: Lindsay Reed
Account Team: Liam Doherty | Diana Gonzalez | Yaya Zhang | Jessica Monsey
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman | Joe Staples
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
Production
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Steve Ayson
Executive Producers: Emma Wilcockson
Line Producer: Mark Hall
Director of Photography: Ryley Brown
Editorial
Editorial Company: HutchCo
Editor: Jim Hutchins
Asst. Editor: Patrick O’Leary
Post Producer: Jane Hutchins
VFX
VFX Company: The Mill
Head of Production: Arielle Davis
Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Producer: Adam Reeb
Coordinator: Ben Sposato
Creative Director | Flame Lead: Tim Davies
Shoot Supervisor: Steve Anderson
3D Lead: Meng-Yang Lu
3D Artist: Mike Di Nocco
2D Artist: John Price
2D Artist: Lisa Ryan
2D Artist: Margolit Steiner
2D Artist: Scott Wilson
2D Artist: Jale Parson
2D Artist: Edward Black
2D Artist: Steve Cokonis
2D Artist: Tara De Marco
2D Artist: Tim Robbins
2D Artist: Dag Ivarsory
Music
Music Company: Walker
Producer: Sara Matarazzo
Assistant Producer: Abbey Hickman
Composer | Arranger: Brad Neely
Music Record: Warehouse Studio and GGRP Productions Vancouver, BC
Music Record Engineer: Vince Renaud
Composition Engineer: Graeme Gibson
Music Engineer Assistant: Zach Blackstone
Record Coordinator: Derick Cobden
Final Mix Studio: Barking Owl
Post Engineer: Brock Babcock
Producer: Whitney Fromholtz
Color Transfer
Company: MPC
Artist: Mark Gethin
This eerie safe-driving PSA from New Zealand employs an Outer Limits-style time freeze to impressive, heartbreaking effect as we watch two drivers, poised to collide in a matter of seconds, emerge from their vehicles and discuss the situation.
One driver, with his small son in the back of his SUV, has misread the other's excessive speed while pulling into an intersection. Both concede it was "a simple mistake." But as the oncoming car creeps ominously ahead, shattering the otherwise frozen backdrop, they realize with mounting horror that there may be nothing they can do to avoid the inevitable. They walk back to their cars, and we share their sense of anguish and helplessness.
"This campaign aims to reframe the way people look at their speed when they're driving," the New Zealand Transport Agency says. "We usually get to learn from our mistakes, but not when driving—the road is an exception. Even the smallest of mistakes on the road can cost us our life, or someone else's."
The spot, by Clemenger BBDO, marks a departure from the agency's recent work for the client, which successfully used humor and charm to highlight the dangers of driving while stoned. Here, the tone is intensely serious, and the riveting results are memorable and stand up to repeat viewings. Amid the terrifying prospect of a side-impact crash, this ad's power hits you head on.
