Colle+McVoy men have a special gift for you
It's about time for the spate of agency holiday Web sites. Colle+McVoy in Minneapolis has an unusual entry that melds e-commerce, charity and humiliation. Agency Ham is a 2010 calendar that features the shop's male staffers shirtless, pantsless or at least in some faux-provocative poses like chopping wood. The calendar goes for a hefty $29.95 and will be on sale for the next 10 days. Proceeds go to the United Way and Community Health. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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Published on December 2, 2009 | Permalink
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Caribou Coffee not catering to unreal people
The talking gourd and pumpkin from Caribou Coffee's fall-flavors ads have apparently gone into hibernation. In the chain's latest spot from Colle+McVoy, we get faux hipsters. And they're really faux, portrayed by animated marionettes. These kinds of creations haven't been big since the short-lived '60s Thunderbirds craze. And even then, they weren't that popular. Still, the couple chillin' at the mall seem like real dolls (ha!), noting that they never get coffee from Caribou because they're not "real" people (literally or figuratively). That's almost certainly a jab at Starbucks. No one's ever called the Seattle super-roaster's brew bogus—just overpriced and generally vile. Its patrons, though? That's another story. Still, I'd rather hang out with these marionettes than most iPhone-tethered, Gucci-clad Starbucks customers. At least the dolls have enough self awareness to admit they're faking it. —Posted by David Gianatasio
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Published on November 13, 2009 | Permalink
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Write your own Kiehl's skin-care comic strip
Kiehl's Acai damage-repairing skin-care products will make you feel like you have special powers. To celebrate this, Colle+McVoy built a brand site where you can create and share your own pop-art-style comic strip. "The Acai berry is considered a super powered antioxidant," says ecd Mike Caguin. "We wanted to tie in the benefits and restorative powers of the Kiehl’s Acai line in a fun way that lets people express their own POW or super power story as inspired by the new products." You can choose from various characters—that muscular superhero is a dead-on double for me, right down to the skin-tight costumes and masks I've been wearing at the office lately. HR says I should work from home from now on. They're just jealous! Pow! |
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Published on September 30, 2009 | Permalink
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A pumpkin and gourd fall for Caribou CoffeeClassic animated teams like Tom and Jerry, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and the newly resurrected Beavis and Butt-head have nothing to fear from Jack and Gourdo, the wisecracking pumpkin and dimwitted gourd brought to life by Colle+McVoy and Puny Entertainment for Caribou Coffee's autumn ad campaign. Why a gourd? Did the yams hold out for residuals? The coffee-addicted characters appear in five clips altogether. They're understated and pleasant enough. The spot below generates a nice creepy vibe as Jack explains why his eyes and mouth have been hollowed out and a fire lit within: "It's almost Halloween, and this is what happens to my kind." When he sips his seasonal caffeinated beverage, the fire dims and coffee spills out through the holes in his face. I can empathize. The annoyingly happy "Savor fall flavors" musical tag that closes the spots makes me feel a little queasy, too. |
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Published on September 9, 2009 | Permalink
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Colle+McVoy gets in character for Monopoly
Like the Minnesota Lottery itself, Colle+McVoy is always changing games. Its creative approach for the client has varied wildly from campaign to campaign. Now, the agency throws everything against the wall with its "Grow your moneystache" effort promoting the new Mega Monopoly scratch tickets. In a 30-second spot, viewable at the bottom of this page, a cute blonde grows a version of the Monopoly mascot's iconic 'stache at work, and her nerdy office-mate is left so utterly speechless, it seems he might faint. C'mon, dude, it's not that weird—live a little! Mustache mirror-clings in bars and restaurants may cause tipsy adults to scratch and claw at their suddenly hirsute visages. Bus shelters converted into red Monopoly-piece "hotels" are eye-catching, though its sobering to consider that folks who spend all their money on lottery tickets could wind up living in one. See also:
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Published on August 19, 2009 | Permalink
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Minnesota Lottery ads heavy on melodramaI never wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to win the lottery, so I'd be rich enough to blast someone else into space and watch it all on TV from the safety of my mansion on Earth. That's my awkward introduction to Colle + McVoy's latest spots for the Minnesota State Lottery. The fairly funny vignettes parody soap-opera situations: a missing space explorer miraculously returns; an amnesia victim wears a big forehead Band-Aid; a nerdy guy limps around a convenience store in an upper-body cast. The idea is that playing the lottery is a way to "add some drama to your day." Strange, but scratching instant tickets usually just adds frustration to mine. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on January 22, 2009 | Permalink
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Colle + McVoy having a very 3-D Christmas
'Tis the season for agency holiday Web sites. Last year's highlight for me was R/GA's Tattoo Santa. Disturbing. This year, Minneapolis shop Colle + McVoy is up first. It began with a run-of-the-mill holiday card, which arrived at the office with some 3-D glasses. The card directs to Snowdin.com, a Flash gaming site with a pretty impressive 3-D experience. Visitors can menace a snow creature, pilot a blimp through a winter wonderland and deliver the evening paper to "Avalanche Alley." The site has countless download options, including a coloring book and printable 2-D dolls and models. To go 3-D, Colle + McVoy went old-school and built an 8-by-12-inch physical model of Snowdin, then photographed individual elements of it to allow the colors to be separated in Flash to create the special effect. Not bad. Assuming you don't have your 3-D glasses handy, you can request a pair by shooting a note to snowdin [at] collemcvoy.com. |
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Published on December 10, 2008 | Permalink
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Colle + McVoy rethinks live lottery drawing
"People love to see stuff get destroyed," says Colle + McVoy group creative director Dave Keepper of the agency's new 60-second nightly drawing show for the Minnesota State Lottery. Now there's a simple, coherent marketing strategy we can all get on board with. The client sure did, so we're treated to giant balls (made of cast iron, weighing 84 pounds each) crashing through cars, furniture, fish tanks, etc. After the demolition, the voiceover says: "Let's drop the winning numbers and see if we can't get you a new [car/furniture/fish tank]," and the night's winning numbers are shown on different falling balls. Hey, it's Minnesota, where winters are cold and long, and pretty much anything passes for entertainment. And Colle + McVoy has made more than 50 of these spots, so they won't get old. Remember the days when lottery-drawing shows had numbered ping-pong balls sucked up into clear glass tubes? Crap, I feel old. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on November 21, 2008 | Permalink
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Minnesotans would fritter away their riches
Colle + McVoy took my advice (or somebody's) and sped up the pace of their Minnesota lottery ads. (The last bunch moved ... too ... slow.) This trio of cute animated spots touting the Millionaire Raffle game show what winners would do with their money. I think it would probably take more than $1 million to build a cabin island, a roller-coaster restaurant or a giant snow-bot, but the cost of living in "The Land of 10,000 Lakes" is pretty low, so who knows? The bot dumps snow into Wisconsin, then Canada. Good, teach those cheeseheads and hosers a lesson. Of course, these ads aren't nearly as deranged as that stop-motion campaign for the BC Dairy Foundation with the profane goldfish. If I won the lottery, I'd buy a tank of goldfish plated with real gold, then flush them down the drain, because I could always afford more. Hey, it's my daydream. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 21, 2008 | Permalink
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Slow down, you move too fast, says lottery
—Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 3, 2008 | Permalink
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