Edward Jones ads look like poor investment

Edward Jones talks up face-to-face relationships in some new, bare-bones ads by Cramer-Krasselt (see more here) that achieve the opposite of the intended effect. The spots play like a cross between over-artsy fashion/fragrance commercials and bad Twilight Zone-type episodes.They take place in a monochrome universe where everyone speaks in taglines. Sometimes lips move, sometimes they don't. A bearded guy stares into the camera with such intensity, surely the lens will crack. Is he trying to ignite a stock-market rally with the power of his mind? Why is everyone sitting on little cubes? Get these folks some chairs! The spare setting, choppy visual style and annoyingly ambient background music make the brand appear aloof, distant and disconnected from the here-and-now. These are lectures, not conversations, and the "Join us" at the end enhances the effect. They seem trapped: spokescharacters in search of an exit.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on October 16, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt, Edward Jones, Finance, Gianatasio

Mohawk carpets can handle epic food spills

This new ad by Cramer-Krasselt in Milwaukee, for Mohawk carpets, uses nifty special effects to show a chaotic moment frozen in time inside a family's home, with all sorts of suddenly airborne food about to rain down on the living room rug and ruin it. Clumsy old Dad has slipped on a skateboard in the kitchen, and has lost control of his plates of hot dogs and chips, setting off a chain reaction across the room, where drinks and snacks are flying everywhere. At the far end of the room, a separate incident involving birds is adding to the pandemonium and causing even more food to spill. All of which threatens to stain the carpet. But Mom isn't worried, because this is a Mohawk carpet with SmartStrand, featuring a DuPont Sorona stain-resistant polymer. The frozen-moment thing works pretty well in the domestic setting, having previously been put to more epic use in Philips' grand, Grand Prix-winning "Carousel" spot.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on October 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt, DuPont, House and home, Mohawk, Nudd

Ready.gov ad turns your world upside down

The Ready.gov campaign's emphasis on U.S. citizens' self-preparedness seems to confirm what most Americans already know: We'd better not rely on our government for help in times of disaster. This latest PSA, timed to coincide with the start of National Preparedness Month, was fashioned by Cramer-Krasselt and features some nicely done special effects. We never learn what the disaster is. Nuclear war? Earthquake? Genetically re-engineered dinosaurs? Whatever it is, it's obvious that the shit has hit the fan (and is seriously messing with gravity), so we'd better have our preparedness kits handy. I've got rum and Kleenex in mine, because I'm a big baby and I plan on getting drunk and crying a lot during the apocalypse. Speaking of dinosaurs, the opening shot of the toy raptor sends a neat subliminal message about extinction for those who are unprepared for the worst. Though if hungry T. Rexes have returned to reclaim their world, this family might be better off staying indoors.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on September 8, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt, Gianatasio, PSAs, Ready.gov

Milwaukee police ad keeps you in suspense

This recruitment ad for the Milwaukee police by Cramer-Krasselt really builds the tension. A woman walks down an alley late at night, her footfalls the only sound. Clack-clack-clack. We know something bad's going to happen. We just know someone's going to grab her. There'll be screaming and bloodshed. Clack-clack-clack. Right? The clip's riveting, and succeeds because it subverts our expectations, eschewing a violent and loud ending in favor of a subtle and quiet surprise. We'd all like to live in a world where we'd never have to look over our shoulders to see who might be lurking in the shadows, preparing to do us harm. This spot effectively speaks to those who might consider taking steps to help make that world a reality.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on August 7, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt, Gianatasio, Police

Peter Graves still loves his Turkish prisons

Honors this week for oddest Web-address redirect go to an online campaign by Cramer-Krasselt for AirTran airlines. In one of several roundabout allusions to his long-ago role as a pedophilic pilot in Airplane!, actor Peter Graves mentions "TurkishPrisons.com" as a site people spend time on now that the Internet has made them more productive. Typing in that Web address, with some trepidation, Adfreak found itself quickly re-routed to an AirTran site. The point of the campaign is to emphasize that AirTran offers in-flight WiFi service. Whether they care about that or not, viewers who recall the Airplane! movies (with their parodies of the previous decade's disaster-movie genre) will want to check out the campaign just for the pleasure of hearing Graves intone the phrase "gladiator movies" again.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on July 23, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under AirTran, Cramer-Krasselt, Dolliver

Talk even more crap with C-K's slang book

Ah, agencies with too much time on their hands. Cramer-Krasselt has issued its second annual Cultural Dictionary. Somehow I missed the first one. Was there a clamor for a new edition? Kidding, C-K. The shop's brand planning team compiles invaluable definitions for burgeoning buzzwords like "Spitzer'd," "Slacktivism," "Blackburied" and "Precycling." Does anyone use such terminology for actual communications? I checked the newly launched Wordnik.com, which offers an interactive dictionary with an impressive array of information and statistics about (more or less) every word in the English language. There's lots of social-media cross-referencing, so if a word's in the vernacular to any degree, Wordnik’s got it. "Slacktivisim" and "Precycling," and most of the terms C-K collected, showed up! I guess they are buzzwords after all. I take back my unkind jibes. To take a page from your book (page 25, to be exact) I'm now officially on hate-cation.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on June 15, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (10)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt, Gianatasio

Can anything make an AirTran flight better?

Cramer-Krasselt's latest campaign for AirTran focuses on phony brainstorming sessions at Mindflow Consulting, supposedly hired to figure out "what AirTran should put on every flight." The two actors work hard in the 15-second clips to elevate the stale-feeling material, and for the most part they do OK, with decent comic timing, delivery and chemistry. They'd be well cast as workmates in a sitcom—perhaps Trust Me would have been better with these two. Some of their discarded brainstormed suggestions—haircuts, Xboxes, Belgian waffles, history lectures—don't sound so implausible, and would go a long way toward reliving the tedium of circling O'Hare for three hours on a foggy night. And they shouldn't discard the notion of balloon animals so fast—a plush variation's been popular on Carnival Cruises for years.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on May 12, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under Airlines, AirTran, Cramer-Krasselt, Gianatasio

Benjamin Moore has every color you'd want

In a famous scene in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, the Myrna Loy character gives the painter elaborately detailed instructions about the color she wants for each room—for instance, an apple red that's "somewhere between a healthy Winesap and an unripened Jonathan." New ads for Benjamin Moore's youngish-and-hippish Ben line of paints (via Cramer-Krasselt in New York) channel that spirit. See the full version of this ad here. Do your lips really turn a more vivid purple if you go outside in December with wet hair rather than dry hair? Sounds like material for a science-fair experiment.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on March 20, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (3)
Filed under Benjamin Moore, Cramer-Krasselt, Dolliver, Home improvement

C-K floating the idea of lighter CorningWare

Cramer-Krasselt introduces the concept of lighter CorningWare in this commercial, which shows dinner guests levitating around a room. See Adweek's writeup here. The point: that the company's SimplyLite line is "50 percent lighter than traditional ceramic bakeware." Sounds great, but how heavy is the regular stuff? I can lift it just fine. Who complained that it was too onerous? Was it that 98-pound wimp with the pigeon chest who gets sand kicked in his face in the comic-book ads? Maybe it's my arrested adolescent sensibility, but seeing dinner guests rising up toward the ceiling makes me wonder if they're suffering Willy Wonka-esque bloating (best avoided in mixed company) or enjoying a subversive, mind-expanding experience. Dude, what's in the lasagna?

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on December 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under CorningWare, Cramer-Krasselt, Gianatasio, House and home

Aussie wine fan Godzilla is a nasty drunk

Here’s some vintage Godzilla footage, complete with bad dubbing and that awesome monster roar and Akira Ifukube score, as the surly saurian destroys a Japanese temple and shills for Yellow Tail wines. The creature’s big scaly tail turns bright yellow as he shambles across the countryside. This seems to imply he’s on an especially bad bender. Who knew you could get this stoned from Yellow Tail chardonnay? Cramer-Krasselt/Hampel Stefanides in New York fashioned the spot. Also, here’s “Bambi Meets Godzilla,” still cool after all these years. And speaking of green monsters, Toyota is airing a new spot featuring “time-lapse photography of the creation of a Prius made from natural elements of the earth.” Coming soon: “Godzilla vs. Swamp Prius!”

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on November 7, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt, Japanese monsters

Jet-skis save the day in Sea-Doo Films

I’ve seen next to nothing written about Sea-Doo Films, the three short online movies created by the sport-boat maker and its ad agency, Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago, along with Backyard Productions. (Click on the movie ticket to launch the film player.) The first film, “Harbour Towne,” starts off promisingly but swerves off-course just as it gets interesting. The other two, though, “Hijacked” and “Rusty Dogs,” are very entertaining, even if they’re straight out of the BMW Films mold—good guys and bad guys locked in campy, action-packed chase scenes, on jet-skis instead of in cars, with lots of guns and explosions. (Eric Roberts gives a comical, ultracool performance in “Rusty Dogs.”) The films are 8-10 minutes long, but with the latter two, that includes lengthy “testimonial” chats by the characters after the films end. Here’s the press release about the project as a whole. Spotted at YesButNoButYes.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on June 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt

Asheville, N.C., asks tourists for TV spots

Most cities grovel like dogs before potential tourists. Asheville, N.C., prefers to put them to work. Asheville has set up a Web site called Any Way You Like It (which is the tagline of its current campaign), where it’s hosting a video contest to get tourists to submit their own TV spots about the city. The eventual winner will get $1,000 and (the best part) a “vacation getaway trip” to watch Asheville’s ad agency, Cramer-Krasselt in Orlando, Fla., produce the winning idea for a 2007 campaign. (This print ad here—“Stop and smell the cappuccino”—is from C-K’s current campaign.) An Asheville tourism rep explains the contest this way: “With the prevalence of mini DVs, digital cameras and even cell phones, who is in a better position to capture the unique, enriching, memorable moments in a vacation than the travelers themselves.” Not C-K, seems to be the implication there. Of course, no matter how the agency feels, there is one key benefit to having visitors create your tourism ads. When the locals bitch about your idiotic, tone-deaf creative choices (as they so often do), you can just blame the out-of-towners.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Cramer-Krasselt

Steve Madden: Big-headed no more

Those offended by the long-running Steve Madden campaign featuring digitally manipulated models with giant eyes and larger heads take note: the models are no more, and the company is trumpeting the fact in a print and outdoor campaign by Cramer Krasselt in Chicago, which went up in New York just before Thanksgiving. One ad displays a Steve Madden shoe with the copy: “Attention all models: we are no longer looking for girls with huge heads.” The ad, along with six others, are a way to alert Madden fans the brand is evolving from a shoe company targeting teens to a broader company with clothes and accessories targeted at an older demographic, says brand director Rob Schmertz. “As a fashion company we have to evolve and try new things,” he says. Here's another example of that: Steve Madden's blog.

—Posted by Mae Anderson

Published on December 8, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (5)
Filed under Anderson, Cramer-Krasselt