Southwest's bag cops stake out competitors

Southwest is back to bagging on its competitors for luggage fees in GSD&M's new campaign, "Good Cop Bag Cop," with spots running pretty heavily during NFL games. The ads, with their 1970s crime-movie vibe, are quite a bit more clever than the first round of "Bags Fly Free." If you're wondering, the $120 that's consistently mentioned throughout the spots is what you'd pay to check two bags roundtrip on United and American. (Southwest is nice enough not to point out that those same competitors usually charge an astronomical $100 each way for a third checked bag. Yowch.) See one new ad below, and three more after the jump.

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Filed under Airlines, Griner, GSD&M Idea City, Southwest
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Ex-smokers are awkward, dangerous people

I don't really understand where these new "Become an ex" anti-smoking spots (from American Legacy, the NATC, the Ad Council and GSD&M Idea City) are coming from. The premise seems to be that ex-smokers need to relearn how to bowl and operate forklift trucks. (See the forklift ad after the jump.) I say: As long as they're making life changes, why not aim a little higher? Take up squash, or shoot for a job in middle management. I suppose that would be difficult, though, as recently reformed nicotine addicts are clearly awkward, dangerous and stupid. At the very least, get that one guy away from the heavy machinery.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

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Filed under Ad Council, American Legacy Foundation, Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, GSD&M Idea City, PSAs
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Smokers are weirdos in BecomeAnEx spots

Although its youth-targeted "Truth" anti-smoking ads are better known, American Legacy also has an "Ex" initiative, designed to convert adults who smoke into ex-smokers. GSD&M Idea City has a couple of new "Ex" spots airing now, including the one above, in which a shopkeeper takes an uninvited spin in a delivery truck on his cigarette break because he so intensely equates driving with smoking. A couple of knee-jerk reactions: 1) The guy's got a bad haircut. 2) He's a rugged individualist who plays by his own rules, living out the fantasy of all those sad smokers huddled in office doorways. He'll become their hero, and they'll keep smoking as a sign of admiration and support. 3) Most delivery guys I've met would've punched out his lights. Now that would've given him "a new way to think about quitting." In another new "Ex" spot (unavailable online), a woman blends a frozen drink at work. What, Legacy's got a problem with alcohol now, too? She'll be tons of fun at the office Christmas party!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Previously on AdFreak:
Legacy's mock interviews getting a little old
Big Tobacco now hiring in new 'Truth' spots

Filed under American Legacy Foundation, Anti-smoking, Gianatasio, GSD&M Idea City
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Don Draper covetously eyes BMW's 3 Series

Because the world needed more people talking about Mad Men, BMW sponsored the season premiere and put together this classy, mostly period-accurate ad for Vanity Fair, from GSD&M Idea City and photographer Anton Watts. But as Jalopnik points out, Don Draper drives a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. He certainly wouldn't drive the car featured in that ad. That thing might as well have been a spaceship in the early '60s. Of course, we could see these kinds of anachronisms more often if BMW gives the show any more money. Mad Max Men, here we come!

—Posted by David Kiefaber

See also:
Twitter awash in 'Mad Men' ad-vatars

Filed under Automotive, BMW, GSD&M Idea City, Kiefaber, Mad Men
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Southwest thumbs its nose at the recession

Southwest Airlines is done living in the past! Its new ads tell people to get their bags, because "it's on." Normally, "it" can't be "on" unless someone gets served first. But Southwest marketing bigwig Dave Ridley ignores that and encourages travelers to "put the challenges and difficulties of the past year behind and get going." In other words, don't let your dire financial straits prevent you from taking an ill-advised long-distance vacation. It's convenient that they're suddenly casting financial concerns to the wind, as these new ads replace the "No hidden fees" spots, which would be less effective now that Southwest has just introduced new fees of its own, for pets and unaccompanied minors. (That might be part of the past in which Southwest no longer wishes to live.) But this new plucky attitude is actually refreshing when every other brand in existence is scrambling to appear recession-friendly. That genial pessimism gets a little tiring en masse, so seeing a company with its chin up is a nice change of pace.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Airlines, GSD&M Idea City, Kiefaber, Southwest
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Enjoy this lovely fake winter with L.L. Bean

There are two points of interest in this unabashedly sappy GSD&M Idea City holiday spot for L.L. Bean. One is the appearance of page numbers all around the family's house. It's like a Twilight Zone episode where everyone discovers they're trapped inside an L.L. Bean catalog—and therefore, in hell. The other intriguing note, not apparent from the clip but flogged in the press release, is that "Sticks+Stones director Jerry Brown created an intimate white Christmas, shot on a 95 degree day in Pasadena." L.L. Bean catalog, Pasadena—it really is hell. The spot's title is "Making Christmas," which is apt, as they had to actually make the snow that's falling and the white-powder terrain. If it underscores the "phoniness" of holiday sales pitches, at least the client didn't have to pay for an Aspen junket to capture the perfect winter tableau.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Apparel, Gianatasio, GSD&M Idea City, L.L. Bean
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Unscrew yourself for brighter days ahead

"Unscrew America" could work as a slogan for most of the remaining presidential candidates. But it's been snapped up by GSD&M Idea City for a pro-bono campaign aimed at getting Americans to unscrew their old lightbulbs and replace them with energy-efficient ones. The youth-friendly Web site, UnscrewAmerica.org, features a jittery land- and skyscape with comically named sections like “The high cost of awesomeness” and “Personal economics, or ‘Suck it, Earth!’ ” TV spots are due by the end of the week. For now, the “videos” section is limited to footage of a kangeroo playing the Australian national anthem on a keyboard guitar—Australia having already banned the sale of incandescent light bulbs.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under GSD&M Idea City, Nudd
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Beware the giant, cozy marijuana cocoon

GSD&M has created a couple of new spots for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. One is pretty ordinary, showing a couple of teens who are burning their possessions, having apparently burned out themselves. The second one is a bit trippier, showing a teen building—and then encasing himself inside—a large and pretty snuggly-looking marijuana cocoon (with a street value off the charts). But the fun doesn’t last: He soon emerges from his fuzzy lair, looking at least a decade older, chubby and balding. Apparently, smoking pot can turn you into Kyle Gass, minus the talent.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under GSD&M Idea City, Nudd
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Juan ad award you might not want

In case you haven't seen this, those of you whose work didn't make the cut at The One Show still have hope.  You could win a Gold Toothpick at The Juan Show.  Under the direction of Donald Davis Jr., aka "Don Juan," aka "The Juan," the show's rules are simple.  Just send Juan some of your advertisements if you want him to look at them.  You can send them one of two ways, though only one way is identified: by email.  "Just make sure you don't send me more than five of those meg things," he advises.  The site contains lots of background on Juan, who became an expert on advertising when he stayed home from school for 17.5 weeks after an construction accident.  Snoop around a little bit more and you discover he's actually the byproduct of viralists at GSD&M in Austin.

—Posted by Richard Williamson

Filed under GSD&M Idea City
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Taking aim at the military mindset

How do you advertise a killing machine without sounding scandalously callous? At Interpublic’s TM Advertising, it’s sometimes a close call, says art director Stephen Lohr. Four years ago, Lohr and company created a print ad that showed one of client Bell Helicopter’s AH1Z attack helicopters rising from a flaming background, armed to the teeth with missiles aimed directly at the viewer.  The headline, supplied by a TM copywriter, read: “We made it beautiful because it’s the last thing some people will ever see.”  To the civilian world that text might not fly, Lohr acknowledges.  But “to the military mindset, it allows the message to be sent without being harsh or abrasive.”  But when it came to the recent effort to relaunch Discovery Channel’s Military Channel (it had been called the Wings Channel), war is positioned as the ultimate reality show.  One ad from that effort, created by Omnicom’s GSD&M, shows a cockpit-eye view of fighter jets flying in formation under the headline:  “Less about who’s sleeping with whom and more about who’s covering your butt.” Meanwhile, agencies might want to put on their thinking caps for robotic warriors that are the subject of military research today. Actually, TM’s headline for the reconnaissance helicopter might work: “I seek out the target, I destroy the target without ever becoming the target.”

—Posted by Richard Williamson

Filed under GSD&M Idea City
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Tossing out ideas ... and lots of crap

After eight years in their landmark Austin headquarters, known as Idea City, Omnicom's GSD&M decided it was time for a house cleaning.

The purge of accumulated junk last month came on the heels of a disappointing bid for Kia's $270 million ad account in December and an apparently thwarted win on Subaru's $165 million account a month earlier.  That gave the house cleaning a symbolic meaning to go with the literal. "You can’t go into tomorrow carrying yesterday’s garbage,” agency co-founder Roy Spence told his troops in announcing the clean-up and barbecue.

By the time the project was over, the shop’s employees had filled a 30-yard construction dumpster with more than 10,000 pounds of discarded items.  And that didn’t include donated what-nots such as toys, pens, notebooks, beach balls, crutches, hats and a variety of canned food.

“Some weird things showed up,” observed spokesman Eric Webber. “There was a deck of playing cards with naked men,” he said.  “But some of the cards were taken, so there were only 42 in the deck.  Fortunately, we pulled that out of the charity contribution pile before it was sent out.”

—Posted by Richard Williamson   

Filed under GSD&M Idea City
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