Mother London enjoys honest holiday spam
This came to our attention too late to include on our list of best agency holiday cards. But it's doubtful any shop will top Mother London's "Giving is Glorious" idea for its combination of cleverness and charity. The agency sent out a spam-style e-mail promising recipients $10,000 if they replied with their full name and bank details. Lots of people responded, but only one guy—commercial director Theo Delaney—was willing to surrender his bank number. He wound up with the money. And in a nice twist (which almost makes you wonder if the whole thing was staged), Delaney quickly decided to donate it to a women's health charity called Forward Nigeria. —Posted by Brian Morrissey
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Published on December 22, 2009 | Permalink
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Schweppes brings 1950s Christmases to life
Mother London adds live-action arms and hands (along with some goofy and mildly smutty humor) to classic 1950s Christmas illustrations in these amusing 10-second spots for Schweppes tonic water in the U.K. The voice talent includes Martin Freeman, who played Tim on The Office. The best line has to be: "Don and Tabitha, you're just in time. I'm about to hose down Felicity!" Via The Inspiration Room. —Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on November 25, 2009 | Permalink
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Polar bears more screwed than you thought
The U.K. is on a roll with its climate-change PSAs. First, there were the dogs drowning in rising seas. Now, we get this gruesome spot from Mother (posted below) for PlaneStupid.com, in which polar bears fall from the sky to splattery deaths—to make some point about airplane emissions. "An average European flight produces over 400kg of greenhouse gases for every passenger … that's the weight of an adult polar bear," the spot says. There's plenty to find objectionable here—the nonsensical connection between that stat and the rain of bears, as well as the general airplane-skyscraper-death theme, complete with a pretty blatant 9/11 Falling Man reference, which will evoke extremely negative emotions for some. Why do environmental groups shoot themselves in the foot like this? Via Animal. —Posted by Tim Nudd Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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truTV's viewers are violent, blithering idiots
"When the stories are real, the effect is actual." That's the tagline for truTV's debut campaign from Mother in New York. It's probably best not to analyze the wording too deeply. Per press materials, the work targets "younger men who love real-life programming that immerses them in worlds they can't normally experience." In the spot above, that includes blows to the face, chest and other regions—experiences that guys have had, if they have brothers or any male friends. Yeah, guys like pummeling each other for any reason. If we get to watch someone else being smacked, all the better. The spot below is less captivating because there's no punching. Mother should feel free to include some gal-on-gal slapping in future commercials, and the gals could be wearing bikinis. I may be a doofus, but I know what I like. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on July 28, 2009 | Permalink
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Dell's laptop factory sure is a magical place
Mother in New York more or less goes the Coca-Cola "Happiness Factory" route for Dell in this musical spot. The Dell factory's a bit too wacky-forced-happy for my taste, with burly hardhats shufflin' and singin' about lollipops as multicolored Dell notebook computers roll off the confection/assembly line. Why should I care that these dudes are happy in their toil? Does that somehow make the product better or more desirable? The upside: If these computers crash, you can always just eat them. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on June 23, 2009 | Permalink
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Stella isn't great for elaborate flirting rituals
Most brewers use their commercials to show how drinking their beer attracts beautiful women. Kudos to Stella Artois, then, for having the balls to suggest that its beer can cause you to lose an attractive woman to some douche with a beard. I guess the hidden message here is that after all your decorative-fountain flirting get sunk by an unforeseen episode of paper-boat piracy, you can still comfort yourself with another Stella. Good on Stella for bucking traditional wisdom, though, with a clever and acceptably random, if counterproductive, ad. By Mother in London. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on June 9, 2009 | Permalink
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A whole lot of backstory on Coke's gremlins
If you enjoyed Mother London's "Organ Player" spot for Coke, with the goofy musical gremlins, there's more about them at CokeCreatures.com. The best part might be the biographies of all 10 characters over on their Flickr page. (Crétin and Tincré, in particular, sound about as dimwitted as they look.) There's also a Facebook page and various other gimcrack. (The song from the commercial is available on iTunes in the U.K. but is not yet in the U.S. store.) Meanwhile, some are wondering whether the whole campaign was inspired by this German cat piano from the 1600s. |
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Published on May 11, 2009 | Permalink
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Giant water-hating duck hawks Oasis drinks
It's turning out to be a Mother London kind of day. Here's the agency's latest work for Oasis drinks. Following up on last autumn's ill-fated Cactus Kid campaign, Mother sets this new ad in a Japanese dorm room, where one female student is somewhat suggestively feeding Oasis to another on the bed. A couple of parental types (university employees?) storm in, furious that the teens aren't drinking water, and accuse them of being under the spell of a giant water-hating duck. But the mere mention of the duck, aka Rubberduckzilla, summons the creature to the scene, where it proceeds to destroy everything around it—except for the adoring girls, who snuggle up on its beak. The tagline remains the equally absurd "Oasis. For people who don't like water." |
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Published on May 8, 2009 | Permalink
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Stella keeps the 1960s French Riviera aliveAs much as I enjoyed the vaudevillian switch-up gags in this Stella Artois ad below, from Mother in London, I'm not sure what the guy is so happy about by the end. Sure, he's got a nicer car and better clothes, but that hot blonde chick is long gone by the time he gets to the hotel. At best, he broke even. Whoever commissioned that chicken truck he was driving is bound to be upset, too, but that's more of a Pabst Blue Ribbon ad. The 1960s French Riviera theme extends to the print campaign, which features ads from legendary film illustrator Robert McGinnis, who did iconic posters for James Bond films. Mother convinced McGinnis, supposedly a Stella fan, to come out of retirement to create the ads. |
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Published on May 8, 2009 | Permalink
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Ewok slaves play magical organ in Coke ad
Here's one of the weirder Coca-Cola commercials you'll see. A homeless-looking hipster dude wheels a box up a hillside, unpacks it to reveal an intricate organ with a bunch of Ewok/Spongemonkey type creatures inside who grunt and sing when given squirts of Coke from a series of jets activated by the organ's keyboard. Four more hairballs play as a little band down below. Soon, the music attracts a whole load of young hippie types, who slog up the hillside and dance in the grass, which starts sprouting bottles of Coke. Make of it what you will. By Mother in London. |
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Published on May 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Stella Artois feeling French with film spoofs
How do you feel about Die Hard? How about 8 Mile? 24? Well, Stella Artois, with help from Mother London, has put out a series of online videos reimagining that triumvirate of badassery as pretentious, stylish French films. We have no idea why they did this, either. Still, there they are for your viewing pleasure, and they're pretty authentically French. They all take too long, and they're obsessed with American jazz. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on April 10, 2009 | Permalink
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Virgin Mobile in front row for Britney's tour
Yes, we know it makes one a bit queasy to see the word "mother," or for that matter, the word "virgin," in close proximity to the name "Britney Spears." Our alarm at seeing this threesome in the headline of a press release was allayed, however, when we read on to learn that Virgin Mobile USA had enlisted creative agency Mother New York to help get mileage out of the brand's sponsorship of the 2009 Britney Spears Circus Tour. As the photo here shows, one feature of the campaign (which coincides with the launch of Virgin Mobile's Helio Ocean 2 multimedia device) is an opportunity to win a seat upgrade at one of the shows by dint of speedy texting. See a larger image here. Best of luck to one and all! —Posted by Mark Dolliver |
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Published on March 6, 2009 | Permalink
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No one with talent wants to be your friend
Mother London has created an amusing call-for-entries campaign for the Andy Awards, in which you can send bogus friend-requests to your buddies from top ad-industry creatives. When the recipients of the friend-requests click on the link, they get ridiculed for even thinking that Jeff Goodby (or whoever) knows who they are. Of course, whether or not you'd actually want to be friends with some of these people is another matter. |
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Published on December 10, 2008 | Permalink
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