Kapiti ice cream not actually made of shoes
So, I see these ads, and I'm thinking, Great! The next time I have a craving for surrealist ice cream, and I happen to be in New Zealand, I'll pick up some Kapiti frozen treats! Thanks, Colenso BBDO, for the tip, delivered so stylishly in this print campaign. Designer watches, shoes and handbags melt in a most attractive fashion. Then I find the commercial below, and I realize there's a problem: Kapiti treats don't look surrealist at all. They're just ordinary ice-cream bars! OK, they're "designer" ice-cream bars. That makes the snazzy print kind of deceptive, eh Colenso BBDO? I want my melting-timepiece snack! Now I'll have to go to an art museum and take a bite out of this one. I'm not 100 percent sure it's edible, but since it's surrealist, there's always a chance. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
|
Published on December 10, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Homeless in Ireland are like Christmas trees
It's a little early to think about throwing your Christmas tree to the curb, if you even have one yet. But the discarded trees—which enjoy a stay indoors and then find themselves on the street—serve as a metaphor for the homeless in this Irish PSA campaign from BBDO in Dublin. (Click the link to see three full-size ads.) Details like the ornaments clinging to the branches and straggling bits of tinsel enhance the emotional resonance in an unforced, non-denominational way. We've all seen these withered forms, needles starting to brown, discarded in alleys and gutters after Jan. 1. Sadly, one often finds homeless folks in such places, in basically the same condition, year round. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
|
Published on December 2, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (1)
|
Enjoy that Guinness, wherever it came fromHere's the most recent Guinness commercial from BBDO New York, in which a pint of the stuff makes an unlikely slide from quiet neighborhood bar to thirsty corporate ladder-climber. "Fortune favors the bold," the spot says. It also favors guys who drink openly at work. —Posted by Tim Nudd
Previously on AdFreak: |
|
Published on December 1, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (3)
|
New Zealand novels will give you paper cutsMaurice Gee's novel Going West literally springs off the page in this animated spot for the New Zealand Book Council by Colenso BBDO and Andersen M Studio. The clip's garnered a quarter-million-plus YouTube views in less than two weeks, and there's no denying it's visually impressive. Still, I found the monochrome images and droning voiceover a bit turgid at first. After the halfway point, the pace picks up, and the stark colors and distorted narration get hypnotically trippy. A tagline like "Read a book, get high" would work, but instead we get "Where books come to life." If this is a series, my own brilliant tome is available for use, gratis, in upcoming PSAs. Hmm, the council seems to be dedicated to promoting New Zealand authors and their work. Luckily, I happen to hail from New Zealand! Um ... g'day, mate, put another shrimp on the barbie? Oh, just forget it. —Posted by David Gianatasio
|
|
Published on December 1, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (2)
|
Illinois Lottery joying people at the holidaysMaybe I'll take the advice of the Illinois Lottery "Joy Someone" spot posted below (by EnergyBBDO and Spank Music, directed by Aaron Ruell) and give the deserving folks in my life scratch tickets as holiday gifts. Neighbors, workmen, local merchants, business colleagues. Well, not Fred from accounting, who insists on coming to work with a cold, but everyone else. I'll hand each one of them a ticket, plus a dime to scratch with. That's class! Their faces will light up as they throw their arms around me and scream: "I'm rich! I'll buy a new house! I'll buy a new car! I'll date supermodels from Beliz!" I'm sure they'd share some of the money. On second thought, I'm handing out candy canes again this year and keeping the lottery tickets for myself. No one's getting rich on my dime but me. Via Adland.
|
|
Published on November 12, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (3)
|
Guinness plays God in its latest lavish spot
AMV BBDO didn't take many short cuts for this new Guinness ad (video below), called "World," which breaks today in the U.K. According to the Guardian, they shot in four countries (New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and the U.K.); took three months to build the set for the underwater scene; got army assistance to film the grass-hauling shots at an old bombing range; and hired the set designer from the third Lord of the Rings film to pull it all together. Was it worth it? The ad shows a bunch of men bringing a new world into existence. The connection to Guinness is a bit vague—a churning pint of just-poured Guinness apparently also evokes a sense of rebirth. Or something like that. The tagline, "Bring it to life," is also new, replacing the long-running slogan, "Good things come to those who wait." —Posted by Tim Nudd |
|
Published on November 4, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (3)
|
Living with a gross cancerous blob is tough
An expanding, grody pink blob that takes over a suburban home and eventually smashes through the windows in this spot by Colenso BBDO for the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation. The agency also created an installation in downtown Auckland, with an initially tiny blob growing so large it blocked the street. Local white-collar types didn't seem to mind, and the well-intentioned stunt made the nightly news, drawing attention to the cause. The generally light tone dovetails with other recent category efforts, like "Musical Butts" and "Save the Boobs," though it's less over the top than Grey's NSFW PSA. The New Zealand campaign successfully treads the middle ground: It's "wacky" enough to catch viewers' attention and slightly sinister, emphasizing that early detection can avert problems before they grow out of all proportion. —Posted by David Gianatasio Previously on AdFreak: |
|
Published on November 2, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (1)
|
New Balance running in the wrong direction
As a runner, I'm regularly amused by advertisers' attempts to tap into the zeitgeist of an activity that can at times border on the masochistic. Now, New Balance is writing another sorry chapter in the history of running-shoe advertising. The brand's new spot has a guy running around with feet coming out of his forehead. You see, it's a crazy metaphor for runners thinking of their achy feet all the time, rather than losing themselves in the simple pleasures of a jog. An ER doc fixes things with a brand-new pair of New Balance shoes. This is pretty disappointing from New Balance and BBDO. Their previous "Love/Hate Anthem" nicely captured the complexity of an activity that's addictive yet features inevitable discomfort and the struggle against the understandable impulse to stay put. It would have been nicer to see New Balance take the production budget for the silly feet-on-forehead spot and pour it into "Chasing Kimbia," a Web documentary series the brand has sponsored that puts the spotlight on the often-anonymous lives of great Kenyan runners. That's stuff that will connect more with runners than obtuse metaphors. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
|
Published on October 21, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (7)
|
Growing up hard to do in AMV's Aviva spots
New spots by AMV BBDO in London for financial services/insurance firm Aviva Life evolve the company's "Moments that matter" theme. This time around, we get tales of two dads, both dealing in different ways with growing older. Young professional dad in "Grow Up" (above) has plenty of hair, a go-getter attitude and a perfect TV-commercial family at home. Let's hope he doesn't get disillusioned by the second spot, "Again" (below), with its haggard, beefy dad who can't even do household chores without his wife reminding him that his pants are a big too snug these days. And her cockney nasal twang is like music to my ears! Speaking of music, note the jangly-happy pop for the young dad and the sedate, vaguely ominous tones for the middle-aged guy. Indeed, the tempo slows for us all. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
|
Published on October 14, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
No one's that impressed by your tilt-shift adEarlier we looked at a new German cell-phone TV ad that utilizes tilt-shift photography—the technique of making everything look miniature by blurring the top and bottom of the frame. As Adland points out, Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne, Australia, does the same thing in the new spot above, for National Australia Bank. "Your world just got smaller, because we've doubled your ATM locations," the copy explains. The use of tilt-shift in TV spots does seem pretty new, but the technique's been used frequently in print ads over the past few years. Here are a few notable examples:
|
|
Published on October 6, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (4)
|
Doritos wants all losers to play 'Guitar Hero'
AMV BBDO in London tells the sad-sack story of would-be rock star "Alan" in this amusing four-minute-plus music video for Doritos, pushing the brand's tie-in with Guitar Hero in the U.K. Alan comes out of the womb flashing the devil's horns, but it all goes downhill from there. He has the trappings of rock godness—the pants, the hair, the androgyny—but apparently not the talent. In other words, he's the perfect Guitar Hero hero. He is pretty pathetic, though, and the video is cringe-worthy in parts—even (or maybe particularly) during the supposedly redemptive concert in the living room at the end. Hopefully the lyrics, which are decent, will distract viewers from drawing too many depressing parallels between Alan and themselves. —Posted by Tim Nudd Previously on AdFreak: |
|
Published on October 5, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Monster can fix your rampant incompetence
The BBDO spot above, for job-search site Monster.com, explains why doctors shouldn't bring their untrained doofus friends to work with them. The same is true for crime scene investigators, as seen in the spot below. Instead, said doofi could use Monster's Career Mapping tool to find something suitable for them, connecting the joke to the product with a refreshing bit of relevance from a company whose ads aren't normally boiling over with it. What job those two dumb friends could qualify for is another matter, but we think the doctor could use his for medical testing. —Posted by David Kiefaber
See also: |
|
Published on September 22, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Pure Blonde's lonesome dove has rough life
Clemenger BBDO pulls off a satisfying twist in this fun Australian spot for Pure Blonde beer. It's no spoiler to say there's a twist, because you can feel one coming all the way. I thought maybe the Bonnie Prince Billy-ish guy would nurse the pigeon back to health and fatten it up, only to wash it down with a cold Pure Blonde, or that the bird would repay his kindness by pecking his eyes out. This commercial wisely takes an entirely different route, coming around in a full circle at the end. Sans eye pecking. Maybe next time. Via Ads of the World. |
|
Published on September 21, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
We haven't seen the last of 9/11-themed ads
In the wake of the WWF/DDB fiasco, Adland has posted a bunch of other 9/11-themed ads done over the years. Many of them are also pretty tasteless—in particular, the one with the oblivious pilots reading Humo magazine while heading straight for the towers. Adland also points out this 2003 MTV campaign, which similarly compared the death toll of 9/11 with that of other tragedies—in this case, AIDS, famine and poverty. If we've seen this stuff before, Adland asks, why did the DDB ad cause such a backlash? Who knows. It was probably the slow news week and the image of multiple planes, which was particularly upsetting. Whatever the reason, we surely haven't seen the last of 9/11 imagery ads. The visual shorthand of the century's defining image is just too tempting. In fact, there's already a new 9/11 advertisement out—the one above (click to enlarge) from BBDO for the English-language Moscow News. "Things hard to explain, in a language you understand," says the tagline. (There's also a Hiroshima version.) It's pretty harmless, though it does seem more exploitative than it would have a week ago. With future ads, that kind of awareness is probably the best we can hope for—along with a reminder that the total annihilation of New York is never a great advertising theme. See also: |
|
Published on September 8, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (4)
|
New Zealand finds novel ways to rescue you
Colenso BBDO's latest ads for New Zealand Land Search & Rescue show ghostly doorways appearing, Tardis-like, in the middle of forests, mountains and more mountains. "We'll get you out," says the tagline. The doors are supposed to be metaphorical, but these are just the kinds of delusions that folks lost in the wild might actually experience. If you've been stranded for days without food and water, it wouldn't be surprising at all if a portal suddenly materialized out of thin air. The next thing you know, a yeti will walk by and build a campfire. Why does this group advertise so much, anyway? It makes New Zealand seem like an awfully dangerous place. Maybe we could send Teva's "Naturist" down there. But if he vanishes in the wilderness, please don't try to find him. See also: |
|
Published on August 31, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Axe imitators don't always smell quite right
Axe ads are often called misogynistic, but most of them (the BBH ones, anyway) are outlandish to the point of self-parody. (The infamous "Guy Wash" spot from BBH New York is like something out of Austin Powers.) But in the flood of imitation-Axe ads coming from the rest of the category, the results can be a little off. That's the case with Energy BBDO's work for Dial's Magnetic men's body wash. Print ads like the one above, and this "slumpbuster" one, err on the side of meathead-ish. The videos on the Web site (two of them are posted below) are better, with more of a sense of humor, though the NYC group-sniffing event is weird, and gets more so when the MC tells the women they've been "gang-sniffed" by the guys in the bathrobes. Turns out it's not so easy to do this stuff well after all. UPDATE: Here's one of the TV spots, which has a lot of singing and for some reason seems to target married couples. |
|
Published on August 10, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (3)
|
You call the shots in U.K. knife-crime videos
With stabbings on the rise in England, the Metropolitan Police turned to AMV BBDO for help, and the agency produced this pretty interesting "Choose your own adventure" YouTube campaign. The videos place the viewer within a pack of friends hanging out; at the end of each clip, you're asked to make a decision on how the plot should unfold, which then takes you to the next video. The idea is to show young people what knife violence really looks like—though judging by the crime statistics, they already know full well. The YouTube statistics might be telling as well, with 166,000 people so far choosing the "Take the knife" option at the end of this first video, versus 162,000 people choosing "Don't take the knife." See also: |
|
Published on August 4, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (6)
|
FedEx golf trip surely isn't worth the hassle
Ah, office humor. One of the few benefits of a recession is that when all the white-collar jobs dry up, marketers might not look to Dilbert for inspiration quite as often. Still, the guy's matador outfit in BBDO New York's FedEx Cup spot above (the related "Plant" spot is below) makes up for how otherwise predictable these wacky co-worker jokes have become. Although one does wonder why these guys don't just cast their lots in the actual contest like everyone else instead of buttering up the prick in the neighboring cubicle. Same odds either way, by the looks of things. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
|
Published on August 3, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Trashing the beach has never looked so funBBDO West fares pretty well with its send-up of '60s surfin' flicks in this Keep California Beautiful PSA, which urges young people not to trash the beach this summer. The spot captures the look and feel of the genre, but there's a fundamental problem: In the clip, it seems like a whole lot of fun to trash the beach! You get to dance the frug with bikini babes, and you don't have to pick up after yourself — sounds great to me. Honestly, which would you rather attend: a "squeaky-clean" party where everyone acts responsibly, or a dirty, filthy beach bash? I say crank the tunes, toss those plastic six-pack rings to the seagulls and trash it up. |
|
Published on July 24, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
Jackson hair-on-fire footage finally unveiled
Video footage of one of advertising's seminal moments has finally been leaked 25 years later—that of Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire, due to mistimed pyrotechnics, at a 1984 shoot for a Pepsi ad by BBDO. See the video here, which Us Weekly released exclusively this week. The accident at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. on Jan. 27, 1984, left the pop star with serious burns and allegedly kick-started his addiction to prescription drugs. |
|
Published on July 16, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (1)
|
Drive safely in spite of the bloody billboardsWhat were we saying last week about New Zealand safe-driving campaigns? Oh yes, that they're insane. Here, the Papakura District Council resorts to "bloodvertising" to slow motorists down during the rainy season. Three big roadside billboards with children's faces on them are equipped with sensors that "bleed" red liquid when it rains. The effect is startling. Problem is, the kids look like they've been ravaged by syphilis rather than speeding cars. And if safety is the goal, shouldn't roadside ads be a little less distracting? Via Copyranter at Animal New York. |
|
Published on July 1, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (2)
|
Another lovely New Zealand safe-driving ad
Ah, New Zealand road-safety ads. Always so subtle and understated, except when they show children's bloody heads smashed on windshields or, in the new PSA posted above, a dead guy flopping around and terrifying his injured buddy after their drunk-driving accident. The spot is meant to be brutally unsettling, but there is a bit of unintentional comedy—the dead guy's body looks a bit like a dummy at times. Though of course, the point is that both of the guys are dummies. The tagline is: "If you drink then drive you're a bloody idiot." By Clemenger BBDO in Wellington. |
|
Published on June 24, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (3)
|
'Economist' loves vintage pop-culture trivia
This Economist billboard from BBDO appeared in Dallas, so of course it makes the point that people in Texas are idiots. Not really. The message is that we're so immersed in pop culture (even 30-year-old TV shows) that we're ignorant of current events. But isn't that especially true of people in Texas? The ad makes the magazine seem kinda snooty, but I'll keep it in mind the next time I need a source for boring and violent global news and insights I can't understand. The answer to the J.R. question, of course, is "Kristin." Not that I'm old or vapid enough to remember losing about 1,000 bets by backing "Sue Ellen" when the episode originally aired. |
|
Published on June 15, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (2)
|
Heinz ketchup ads do fine without the bottleThis Heinz spot from AMV BBDO in London is right about one thing: Holding an invisible glass bottle upside down while you pretend to slap the bottom of it is indeed the international sign for ketchup. Heinz ketchup, in particular. The fact that they can replace the product with the motion of using it, and still get the point across, doesn't even do justice to just how ubiquitous the brand is. A combination bet made up of 57 individual bets is called a Heinz (after the "57 Varieties" slogan), and mixed-breed dogs are often referred to as Heinz dogs because of their complicated lineage. But I suppose a little slow-motion poetry makes for a better ad than listing a bunch of arcane Heinz trivia. It's certainly better than depicting violent infighting among Heinz products. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
|
Published on June 10, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (5)
|
Drink Pepsi and climb to the summit of rock
CLM BBDO in France (which won a Grand Clio yesterday for this Alka-Seltzer print campaign) created this new Pepsi spot, in which a young man, thirsty for glory, ignores the advice of teachers, parents and employers and scales all obstacles in pursuit of his dream ... of being a rock star. This involves a literal climbing of giant objects. He's good at that, anyway, so if he ends up being terrible at music and feeling a Tenacious-D-like cosmic shame, he can always try a career in professional rock climbing. |
|
Published on May 13, 2009 | Permalink
| Comments (2)
|
