The agency that found a way to contemporize an old deodorant brand is venturing into tax preparation software.
Wieden + Kennedy, famous for its award-winning rebranding of Procter & Gamble's Old Spice, is the new lead agency for Intuit's TurboTax, which has left Dailey after 11 years. The software rival to bricks-and-mortar stalwarts like H&R Block spent more than $100 million in media last year, according to Nielsen.
In making the hire, Greg Johnson, vp of marketing at TurboTax, cited chemistry with Wieden executives and the agency's "long history of developing great work that tranforms brands."
The assignment came after a review in which there were three other finalists: Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Goodness Mfg. and Campbell Ewald, according to sources.
Select Resources International in Santa Monica, Calif. managed the search, which began in the spring. Dailey, which is based in West Hollywood, Calif., did not defend.
Last week we wrote about Heineken's JFK airport stunt, in which the brand dared travelers to drop their existing plans and go somewhere new and exotic with the push of a button—without knowing where. Today, we have video of some of the gameplay from the campaign, by Wieden + Kennedy in New York. It's pretty amusing. It begins, fittingly enough, with people who won't play the game—i.e., the sane ones to whom we can most easily relate. Then we get to the nutjobs—those outliers who are willing to make that call to friends and family and say they won't be visiting after all, but will be boarding a flight to who-knows-where at the request of people who've clearly been drinking. Most of the folks who take the plunge seem pretty happy with their new destination, although the guy going to Laos—he looks more than a little ambivalent.
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal, Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Directors: Erik Norin, Eric Steele
Copywriter: Will Binder
Art Director: Jared White
Interactive Producer: Victoria Krueger
Executive Producer: Nick Setounski
Assistant Producer: Kristen Johnson
Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Jacqueline Ventura, Sydney Lopes
Social Strategist: Jessica Abercrombie
Project Manager: Rayna Lucier
Sr. Community Manager: Mike Vitiello
Director of Interactive Production: Brandon Kaplan
Head of Integrated Production: Lora Schulson
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Lisa Quintela, Quentin Perry
Global Travel Director: Colleen Baker
Lead/Sr. Travel Consultant: Angela Wootan
Sr. Travel Consultant: Joelle Wainwright
Production Company: Legs Media
Director: Dan Levin
Post-Production Company: Legs Media In Collaboration with BrehmLabs
Editors: Frederic T. Brehm, Ian Park, Gabriela Tessitore
Sound Designer: Eric Hoffman
Colorists: Frederic T. Brehm, M. Scott Vogel
Information Display System Fabricator: Solari Corp.
Design & Build Team: The Guild
The in-again, out-again Erik Hanson is in again at Wieden + Kennedy in New York—this time as director of strategic planning.
From 2009 to 2012, Hanson worked as a planning director at the agency after spending four years at TBWA's Media Arts Lab in Los Angeles.
Now, he rejoins Wieden + Kennedy from Media Arts Lab in New York, where he worked for a year.
Starting July 29, Hanson will oversee a team of eight staffers at the agency's New York strategy department, which handles clients like ESPN, Delta, Southern Comfort, Heineken and One Kings Lane. He'll report to Neal Arthur, the office's managing director.
The top planning post at the agency has been open since February, when former head of strategic planning Stuart Smith left to join Anomaly in London as a partner. "Those were big shoes to fill," said Arthur. "Erik was immediately the template or the blueprint for what we were looking for."
Hanson's resume also includes six years at Fallon in both Minneapolis and New York, working in both account and planning roles. Hanson and Arthur first worked together at Fallon in Minneapolis.
Hanson will also help oversee the office's digital strategy team while Wieden + Kennedy searches for another executive to lead that department. "He's incredibly competent in that space, so he's going to provide leadership for that group as well," added Arthur. "I think that's going to be a lucky extra strike for us, temporarily."
ESPN's "This Is SportsCenter" is among the handful of classic sports ad campaigns of all time. Launched in 1995 by Wieden + Kennedy in New York, the campaign—originally inspired by the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap—hasn't changed much over the years. And why would it? You don't mess with a winning formula.
The premise of the ads, as we've noted before, is that ESPN's Bristol, Conn., offices are the center of the sports universe—a surreal yet mundane fantasy world where athletes and mascots live and work together with anchors and journalists. Where other marketers portray athletes as superhuman, "This Is SportsCenter" presents them as comically, relatably human. Eighteen years and more than 400 spots later, the campaign continues.
As part of the Adweek story linked above, W+K drew up a list of its 10 favorite SportsCenter ads. Now, ESPN has one-upped its agency—devoting a whole special to its 50 favorite SportsCenter spots of all time. The show, airing this Thursday at 8 p.m. ET and hosted by Jason Sudeikis, will feature anecdotes and stories about the top 50, and fans are encouraged to vote for their favorite spot over on Facebook. Sudeikis will announce the winning spot on the show. (More than 1 million votes have been cast so far.)
Check out the program on Thursday, and click the link below for a sneak peek at ESPN's official top 10 favorite "This Is SportsCenter" commercials.
As questions about marketer conflicts hover over the Publicis Omnicom Group deal, creating the real prospect of client fallout, rival agencies already working for such marketers seem best positioned to gain share.
For example, Coca-Cola, a client of Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett, employs many agencies around the world, including independent Wieden+Kennedy, Interpublic Group’s McCann Erickson, WPP Group’s Ogilvy & Mather and Droga5. So, should Coca-Cola choose to not coexist with arch rival PepsiCo in Publicis Omnicom, the beverage giant has plenty of options.
Likewise, MillerCoors, a client of Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi, also works with Cavalry, an agency that WPP Group set up last year to take on the Coors and Coors Light brands (which previously had been at Interpublic’s Draftfcb). In addition, Anheuser-Busch InBev, a client of Omnicom’s BBDO, has a roster of creative agencies that includes MDC Partners’ Anomaly and Translation, an independent shop led by Steve Stoute.
Client defection from Publicis Omnicom Group also could benefit nonroster shops, industry consultants said. After all, moving big brands to brand new agencies is not unprecedented.
In 2010, after Chrysler split with Omnicom’s BBDO, the automaker redistributed much of its creative business among three agencies: independents Wieden and The Richards Group and MDC’s Doner. Before the BBDO divorce, none of those shops had worked for Chrysler.
The decision on whether to shift business out of Publicis Omnicom Group will hinge on several factors, consultants said. One is the level and quality of service a marketer is getting from its current agency: is the business doing well and will a change in horses upset that?
As long as marketers are “seeing stability in their agency,” why change? said Judy Neer, CEO of Pile + Co. in Boston. “That, to me, is what they should focus on right now.”
Another factor is the performance (and bandwidth) of other roster shops. Some may not have the resources to take on another brand, while others may be struggling with current assignments. A third variable? Whether the marketer prefers agency choice to consolidation. Some marketers like to spread their brands across several agencies, thinking that competition among multiple shops leads to better work, according to Neer. Consolidation at fewer shops is antithetical to that strategy.
Finally, there’s the X factor of sheer emotion. As Richard Roth of Roth Associates in New York put it, “Conflicts are emotional and not always real threats or fact. It has to do with the culture of the company.” And for that reason alone, Coke in particular may choose not to share a home with Pepsi.
Southern Comfort is keeping things weird and hypnotizing with its latest work from Wieden + Kennedy in New York.
Just try to take your eyes off the brand's current, silent pitchman—last seen in June sipping the liquor while getting an intense scalp massage from a hairdresser, and now wearing coloring foils while showing off his karate chops, in slow motion, at the same salon.
It's strangely graceful and completely ridiculous. The sequence is paced and delivered to a tee, from the actor's unblinking stare and the sliding of his feet to the gaga eyes of the female patrons. Every detail of the set and costume design—linoleum floors, too-tight jeans—is exactly in place, making for an overall visual style that almost evokes the hairs-on-end atmosphere of the Coen Brothers à la No Country for Old Men, or A Serious Man. Ultimately, though, it borrows more from the deadpan, this-can't-be-real humor of Napoleon Dynamite.
Funnily, the ad wasn't part of the original plan for the campaign, but rather was inspired by the actor's casting tape for the earlier shampoo commercial. According to the agency, he is—in real life—a martial artist and an owner of a couple dojos. So, W+K's creative team and Tim Goodsall, the campaign's director, added a second script written to play up his karate chops.
As it turns out, the secondary spot is better than the first—on par with the series' first, beach-strutting ad from last year. The new hero already fit the current typecast Southern Comfort drinker: portly, mustached, middle aged and long on attitude. But the peculiar-but-relatable vibe is much clearer here. It doesn't hurt that he looks like a cross between Tommy Lee Jones and Danny Trejo—resemblances that didn't come through quite as well in the first ad, and that strengthen this one's punch. He's not a celebrity, but he feels like he kind of could be (a local one, at least).
That sort of self-possessed everyman vanity is what makes these ads work for the brand, rather than just as entertainment. It's pretty unusual for a marketer—especially a booze brand—to celebrate confident, weathered, potbellied oddballs, as opposed to, say, beautiful, sexy, young could-be models. He's also not the balding, whiney schlub of a pudding commercial. When, in the final shot, he snaps his hand over, and a glass of Southern Comfort appears in it, flying the company's little red we-don't-give-a-shit flag, it makes perfect sense. The message: This is the drink of the average winner.
Whether that's true is, of course, an entirely different story.
CREDITS
Client: Southern Comfort
Spot: "Karate"
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal
Creative Director: Jimm Lasser
Creatives: Nick Kaplan, Jeff Dryer
Producer: Orlee Tatarka
Head of Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski
Head of Content Production: Lora Schulson
Account Team: Toby Hussey, Molly Friedman
Strategic Planner: Ben Alter
Digital Strategist: Marshall Ball
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Tim Godsall
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Line Producer: Rick Jarjoura
Director of Photography: Darko Suvak
Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Assistant Editor: Ryan Steele
Executive Post Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld
Visual Effects Company: The Mill
Visual Effects Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Visual Effects Producer: Orlaith Finucane
Lead Flame Artist: Jade Kim
Visual Effects Supervisors: Peter Smith, Peter McAuley
Song: "I'm a Fool to Care"
Artists: Les Paul, Mary Ford
Music Supervisor: Andrew Charles Kahn
Music Supervision Company: Good Ear Music Supervision
Kids, try this at home! Run a marathon! Punch a professional MMA fighter! Humiliate the local street-basketball star! Ride an electric bull in the back of a moving pickup truck! Tell them Nike told you to do so!
For the 25th anniversary of its "Just do it" slogan (memo: you're old), the sportswear company and ad agency Wieden + Kennedy are trying something new, or rather, old: "Just do it" for very broad values of "it." This is a good spot, with the dueling narrators, seamless transitions and some impressive sets—rarely has a 90-second commercial looked so freakishly expensive.
The dance party, the marathon, the blacktop, the table-tennis room and the football game all have a surprisingly large number of extras involved, and then there's the use of actual sports stars to put the cherry on the whole thing. It's a massive undertaking by W+K, and director Nicolai Fuglsig manages to keep the whole thing fluid not merely by having the lead actors dress the same way from fantasy to fantasy, but by editing the shots together so that they switch over in the middle of a pan. It's impressive.
Bradley Cooper is adequately wry with his voiceover. And good choice of music, too: "Future Starts Slow" off Blood Pressures by The Kills.
Overall, it's a good, anthemic lead spot for the campaign, with branding that drives the viewer back to the slogan without slapping him or her in the face with it for a minute and a half. And it successfully suggests you can move beyond what you thought were your physical limits, even if you have but a fraction of the talent of a Piqué, Williams or James. (Also, look for the cameo by Chris Pine.) Moving beyond the TV spot, viewers can also explore their own "Possibilities" through activations including Nike+ Running and NikeFuel challenges.
One quibble: The rhino-riding shot is supposed to be cool, but it just makes me sad.
CREDITS
Client: Nike
Spot: "Possibilities"
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Global Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Ryan O’Rourke
Agency Executive Producer: Matt Hunnicutt
Copywriter: Edward Harrison
Art Director: Sezay Altinok
Agency Producer: Anna Smith
Agency Associate Producer: Kirsten Acheson
Account Supervisor: Vanessa Miller
Account Director: Karrelle Dixon
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman
Business Affairs Manager: Amber Lavender
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Nicolai Fuglsig
Executive Producer: Emma Wilcockson
Producer: Suza Horvat
Director of Photography: Greig Fraser
First Assistant Directorts: Cliff Lanning, John Lowe, Todd Thompson
Production Designers: Jeremy Hindle, Peter Andrus
Wardrobe Stylists: Keith Wager, Charlotte Chadwick
Location Manager: Dave Doumeng
Production Supervisor: Evan Wilson
Sports Coordinators: Mike Fisher, Darren Tyson White
Spain Production Company: Widescope Productions
Service Executive Producer: Iñaki Villarias
Service Line Producer: Karim El Masri
Editing Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Angus Wall
Post Producer: Toby Louie
Post Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver
Assistant Editor: Austyn Daines
Visual Effects Company: A52
Visual Effects Executive Producers: Megan Meloth, Jennifer Sofio Hall
Visual Effects Producer: Scott Boyajan
Visual Effects Supervisor: Andy McKenna
Computer Graphics Supervisor: Kirk Shintani
Massive Pipeline Technical Director: Chris Janney
Color, Lighting Lead: Ian Ruhfass
Flame Artists: Andy Barrios, Hugh Seville, Paul Heagney, Steve Wolff, Cameron Coombs, David Parker
Computer Graphics Artists: Adam Carter, Caleb Hecht, Tom Connors, Tim Donlevy, Vivian Su, Joe Chiechi, Wendy Pham, Cody Woodard, Joe Panliagua, Michael Lori, Adam Newman, Andrew Romatz, Shelby Strong
Music: "Future Starts Slow" by The Kills
Sound Design: Barking Owl
Barton F. Graf 9000 says it wasn't involved in a stunt early Thursday when a guy in a horse suit appeared to be trying to poach staff for the agency outside Wieden + Kennedy in New York. W+K's Kevin Wang snapped this photo outside his agency's offices this morning, writing on Twitter: "Dude. BFG just took poaching to a whole new level." The message is pretty blunt, too. "I have no idea who it is or why they'd be doing it," Barton F. Graf's Eric Kallman tells AdFreak.
Barton F. Graf 9000 has been in major growth mode recently. As Gerry Graf told me in April:"We're bringing in creative technologists, people who know the social space. It's a chicken-and-egg thing. If we bring in the talent before we get certain assignments, then we end up getting those assignments. It's always a little bit of a risk, but it's worked out for us."
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: The bar for deodorant ads has gotten really, really high over the last few years.
Don't look at me. I didn't decide this was the category that needed really absurd comedy creative. But Procter & Gamble's Old Spice has proven remarkably game throughout multiple campaigns from Wieden + Kennedy, and its directors—in this case, Steve Rogers of Biscuit Filmworks—have been correspondingly willing to let their freak flags fly.
Old Spice just released four new 15-second spots for the NFL season. First off, these are really funny ads. "Snow Globe" may be my favorite, but "Absent" made me laugh really loud at my desk just now, so that's got to be worth something. It's interesting how directly these spots, done in the same style as W+K's recent Old Spice bar-soap ads, make fun of a specific kind of creative—basically everything with a choral jingle over an otherwise-silent CPG spot in the 1980s. Musically, they're all dead on.
They're kind of perfect for ad nerds, actually. Remember the Doublemint ads where everybody loaded their gum into their mouths in exactly the same ridiculous way? Right, OK. Now, see how these guys sniff the deodorant sticks in exactly the same ridiculous way no one has ever sniffed a deodorant stick (in public, at least)? That's some deep CPG ad knowledge right there, my friends. Learn from it.
That, ultimately, is what makes these ads so good—they're super-accurate pastiches of a specific kind of ad with one huge, horribly wrong difference. You may not know all the little ins and outs of the parodies—I'm fairly sure I'm missing several—but we've all seen somebody transported to a beach by the taste of his beer/smell of her laundry detergent/experience of sucking Cheeto dust off his thumb. Yet for some reason, lizards are never eating that guy's legs, as in the "Lizards" spot, although Wes Welker of the Denver Broncos will probably never catch another forward pass now. (The other guy in the ads is New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo.)
Really, if you think about the number of inexplicable beachside teleportations that go totally well, this is just the law of averages finally working itself out.
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Jason Bagley | Craig Allen
Copywriter: Nathaniel Lawlor
Art Director: Croix Gagnon
Producer: Lindsay Reed
Producer: Jennifer Fiske
Account Team: Liam Doherty | Nick Pirtle
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples | Susan Hoffman
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Steve Rogers
Executive Producers: Shawn Lacy | Holly Vega
Line Producer: Jay Veal
Director of Photography: Ben Seresin
Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Adam Pertofsky
Asst. Editor: Marjorie Sacks
Post Producer: Julia Batter
VFX Company: The Mill
Head of Production: Arielle Davis
Producer: Christina Thompson
Coordinator: Ben Sposato
Creative Director: John Leonti
Shoot Supervisor: John Lenoti | Narbeh Mardirossian
Visual Effects Supervisor | Lead Flame Artist: Tim Davies
3D Lead: Lu Meng-Yang
2D Artists: Ben Smith, Narbeh Mardirossian, Adam Lambert
3D Artists: James Ma, Thomas Briggs, Mike Di Nocco, Jason Jasnsky, Brian Yu
Matte Painter: Daniel Thron
Music: Libman Music
Composer | Arranger: Paul Libman
Record | Mix: Avatar Studios
Engineer: Jay Messina
SFX Studio: Lime Studios
Sound Designer: Loren Silber
Color Transfer: Company3
Artist: Sean Coleman
Producer: Matt Moran
Dodge Dart hits the bull's-eye with this spot from Wieden + Kennedy and Caviar director Keith Schofield that demonstrates how to make the vehicle in "100 Easy Steps." "Step 1: Study the competition," says the voiceover. "Step 2: Get angry—they're boring. 3: Make a car from scratch, the Dodge way." The remaining tongue-in-cheek instructions include driving the vehicle through a brick wall and putting pictures of it on schlocky promotional calendars, preferably surrounded by bikini gals and hunky firefighters rather than cuddly puppies—woof! (Those preferring a single step can take their cue from a previous Dodge spot and travel ahead in time to a date when the Dart of their choosing has already been made by somebody else.) W+K's campaigns for Dodge are underrated. The work's been consistently amusing and offbeat for the category, while staying on-brand and avoiding the kind of full-throttle, pedal-to-floor tomfoolery that could easily go off track. Credits below.
CREDITS
Client: Dodge Dart
Spot: "100 Steps"
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Aaron Allen, Michael Tabtabai, Kevin Jones
Copywriters: Justine Armour, Matt Rivitz
Art Directors: Matt Moore, Gianmaria Schonlieb, Tyler Magnusson
Producer: Erika Madison
Account Team: Lani Reichenbach, Cheryl Markley, Jourdan Merkow
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman, Joe Staples
Agency Executive Producer: Ben Grylewicz
Production Company: Caviar
Director: Keith Schofield
Executive Producers: Jasper Thomlinson, Michael Sagol
Line Producer: Eric Escott
Director of Photography: Jeff Cutter
Editing Company: Joint
Editor: Tommy Harden
Post Producer: Ryan Shanholtzer
Post Executive Producer: Patty Brebner
Assistant Editor: Steve Sprinkel
Visual Effects Company: Method Studios
Lead Flame Artist: Claus Hansen
Flame Artist Assist: Sergio Crego
Visual Effects Producer: Ananda Reavis
Music, Sound Company: Joint
Sound Designer: Tommy Harden
Song (if applicable): "Atlas" by Battles
Mix Company: Eleven
Mixer: Jeff Payne
Assistant Mixer: Ben Freer
Producer: Caroline O'Sullivan
Heineken and Wieden + Kennedy in New York revisit the concept of unscheduled trips in this sequel to their popular Departure Roulette stunt. That effort, from the summer, dared JFK travelers to ditch their plans and immediately fly to more exotic locales chosen at random by pushing a button. For the follow-up, the brand made surprise visits to people who had tweeted during the earlier campaign that they would want to try Departure Roulette—and let them do so.
In the sequel video, camera crews confront unsuspecting tweeters at their front doors, at work and on the sidewalk, with the big green Departure Roulette board in tow. The board becomes something of an actor in the drama, popping up behind tweeters during interviews and suddenly appearing around street corners. It's creepy and goofy at the same time, keeping the subjects off balance but generally adding to the fun. And there's an amusing bit halfway through the three-minute clip in which a brand ambassador knocks on a person's apartment door and calls out, "You're totally gonna miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" A neighbor steps into the hall to see what the commotion is about, takes in the scene with the lights and cameras, and quickly retreats back inside.
One guy who wins a trip to Bucharest seems less than stoked. "Romania … OK. I'll go to Romania. I guess." Maybe he was hoping for Budapest. Other destinations include Marrakesh, Morocco; Reykjavík, Iceland; Seoul, South Korea; and Panama City. As with the original Departure Roulette, the sequel is designed to capture Heineken's bold, adventurous spirit. Personally, I prefer Tui Brewery's approach to stunt marketing. They pump beer through your pipes so you can take off without ever leaving home.
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal, Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Directors: Erik Norin, Eric Steele
Copywriter: Will Binder
Art Director: Jared White
Executive Producer: Nick Setounski
Assistant Producer: Kristen Johnson
Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Jacqueline Ventura, Sydney Lopes
Social Strategist: Jessica Abercrombie
Project Manager: Rayna Lucier
Community Managers: Mike Vitiello, Rocio Urena
Director of Interactive Production: Brandon Kaplan
Head of Integrated Production: Lora Schulson
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Lisa Quintela, Quentin Perry
Global Travel Director: Colleen Baker
Lead, Senior Travel Consultant: Angela Wootan
Senior Travel Consultant: Joelle Wainwright
Production Company: Legs Media
Director: Dan Levin
Executive Producer: Tom Berendsen
Line Producer: Sara Greco
Postproduction Company: Joint Editorial
Senior Producer: Michelle Carman
Editor: Jon Steffanson
Assistant Editors: Stephen Nelson, Noah Poole, Brian Schimpf
Motion Graphics Director: Yui Uchida
Information Display System Fabricator: Solari Corp.
Design and Build Team: The Guild
Audio Company: The Lodge
Audio Mixer: John Northcraft
Color: Nice Shoes
Colorist: Danny Boccia
Producer: Melissa Dupre
How do you say the word grey in a dozen languages?
It doesn't really matter. What matters is that Coca-Cola is here to save you from your drab urban existence with a bright red truck filled with bright green grass.
In this new Coke ad from Wieden + Kennedy in Amsterdam, the truck rolls out the turf in unexpected places like a concrete square, filling it with color. "A pop-up park!" said some marketing person, somewhere.
If you are a thin, happy millennial, or otherwise young and appealing, you are invited to kick off your shoes and do toe curls on the grass. It's better than your nearby park, too, because it has one of the domineering vending machines that Coke loves to create and every other brand loves to copy. Give the machine your bare feet, and it will give you sugar water.
Bring your fluffy pet rabbit. It will enjoy eating the grass. (The grass is real, not artificial, and was eventually donated to a child's care home so it wasn't wasted. However, a separate "portable park," packaged in a suitcase and sent to journalists including this one, used fake turf. See below.) Bring your fluffy pocket dog. It will enjoy being fluffy. Bring your sunglasses and guitars and soccer balls because you are fashionable and arty and fun-loving.
Coke is just here to get in on the action by making you happy—but only if you are drinking Coke in a pop-up park in the middle of a city square.
CREDITS
Client: Coca-Cola
Global Group Content Director: Guy Duncan
Global Digital Brand Strategist: Christy Amador
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Director: Edu Pou
Art Director: Max Gebhardt
Copywriter: Max Arlestig
Head of Production: Erik Verheijen
Agency Producers: Judd Caraway, Lars Fabery
Group Account Director: Kirk Johnsen
Account Manager: Alex Allcott
Business Affairs: Emilie Douque
Production Company: Brenninkmeijer & Isaacs, Amsterdam
Director of Photography: Clemens Baumeister
Executive Producer: Jelani Isaacs, B&I
Producer: David Leite, B&I
Production Designer: Martin Krejzlik
Line Producer: Gerda Serbentaite, Grandma Films
Editing Company: The Gentlemen's Club, Amsterdam
Editor: Benjamin Putland
Audio Post: Audentity Music and Sound, Amsterdam
Sound Designer, Mixer: Niels den Otter
Music: Niels den Otter
Postproduction: Darlings Post, Amsterdam
Executive, Post Producer: Sander Brenninkmeijer, B&I
Compositing, Finalizing: Robert Okker, Darlings Post
Color Grading: Robert Thomas, Darlings Post
Does feminism need rebranding? Elle U.K. thinks so, and invited three British ad agencies—Brave, Mother and Wieden + Kennedy—to work on it with three feminist groups.
The results, published in November's issue, are posted below. Brave, working with teenage campaigner Jinan Younis, produced a flow chart called "Are You a Feminist?" Mother, working with the newly launched Feminist Times, created an ad focused on equal pay. And W+K, teamed up with online magazine Vagenda, produced an ad about stereotypes that women have to deal with.
See the work below. Does any of it scratch the surface of the issue?
As we mentioned on Friday, Ferrell has filmed some spots for the Dodge Durango as his Anchorman character ahead of the release of Paramount Pictures' Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. Check out the first eight spots below. The first few aired on TV this weekend, and Ferrell perfects the role of comically idiotic pitchman—with help from a roomy glove box and a "worthless" horse. The ballroom spots will premiere tonight on Dancing With the Stars.
Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., worked with Funny or Die writers on the scripts. FoD's production arm, Gifted Youth, which also produced Ferrell's famously offbeat Old Milwaukee ads, teamed with Caviar to co-produce this work. This is just the beginning, too. Chrysler chief marketing officer Olivier Francois told the ANA Masters of Marketing conference in Phoenix on Friday that this is "just a little appetizer," and that Chrysler was producing another 67 videos for the Web. "It's massive," he said.
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Aaron Allen, Kevin Jones, Michael Tabtabai
Copywriter: Mike Egan
Art Director: John Dwight
Interactive Art Director: Chuck Carlson
Producer: Monica Ranes
Account Team: Kyleen Caley, Lani Reichenbach
Business Affairs Manager: Dusty Slowik
Executive Producer: Corey Bartha
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
Co-Writing Company: Funny or Die
Production Companies: Gifted Youth, Caviar
Director: Jake Szymanski
Executive Producers (Gifted Youth): Chris Bruss, Dal Wolf, Josh Martin, Ryan McNeely
Executive Producers (Caviar): Jasper Thomlinson, Michael Sagol
Line Producer: Stephan Mohammed
Director of Photography: Tim Hudson
Editing Company: Arcade
Editor: Geoff Hounsell
Post Producer: Leslie Carthy
Post Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Visual Effects Company: Method
Visual Effects Supervisor: Ben Walsh
Lead Flame Artist: Claus Hansen
Visual Effects Producer: Colin Clarry
Executive Producer: Robert Owens
Titles, Graphics: Trailer Park, W+K Motion
Color Correction: Company 3
Colorist: Dave Hussey
DI Producer: Denise Brown
Song: “Grazing in The Grass,” The Friends of Distinction
Mix Company: Barking Owl
Mixer: Brock Babcock
Producer: Kelly Bayett
We've seen only a handful of the 70 videos that Dodge filmed as part of its Ron Burgundy campaign for the Durango. But it appears the campaign will have a real-time response element, too. Check out the video below. It stars a talking horse who replies to a Breeders' Cup tweet from Monday about how Burgundy underestimated the horsepower of a horse when he compared it to that of a Durango in one of the launch spots. Funny stuff. And this is in addition to the batch of spots that Jake Szymanski filmed—making a big campaign even bigger. We'll see how far they take it.
IDEA: Fictional '70s anchorman Ron Burgundy doing parody ads, which double as real ads, for a 2014 sport utility vehicle? Olivier François, who has broken the mold before as CMO of Chrysler and Fiat, was ecstatic to try it—even though he'd never heard of Anchorman and knew only vaguely of Will Ferrell.
The idea was actually born in a Fiat meeting, where then North American brand chief Tim Kuniskis proposed Burgundy as pitchman for the Fiat 500L—since the car, like the man, is "kind of a big deal." The idea died, but François finally saw the movie. And when he learned Anchorman 2 was in the works, he suggested Burgundy do ads for Dodge (where Kuniskis is now CEO) that would also promote the sequel.
"My pitch to Paramount was: Let's remind everyone how funny and great Ron Burgundy is," said François. Ferrell was game, and it was perfect timing for the 2014 Dodge Durango launch. So, Dodge agency Wieden + Kennedy got down to work with Gifted Youth, the production arm of Ferrell's Funny or Die, producing a campaign that, in humor and scope, would exceed almost everyone's expectations.
COPYWRITING/TALENT: W+K wrote the first scripts, focusing on how a local celebrity in the '70s would pitch a car made 40 years in the future.
"Once Will was on board, he really engaged and sent us back notes and new spots," said W+K creative director Aaron Allen. "We would send changes back to him. It was very collaborative, and oddly unstressful."
The first four spots broke last week, in eight versions with different jokes and punch lines. (A batch of 25 scripts produced 70 videos that will roll out over several months.) In the first ads, Burgundy raves about the Durango's glove box, can't pronounce "MPG," ridicules a horse for its single horsepower, and chases ballroom dancers away from the car.
Gifted Youth/Caviar director Jake Szymanski found W+K's scripts very funny and just kept adding to them. "We'll start with a script, but we might add five or 10 versions of a punch line," he said. "And then we'll improvise on set, yelling out other lines for Will to try."
The spots close with on-screen pitches, in black lettering backed by gold lights and trumpet music (the opening bars of the Friends of Distinction's version of "Grazing in The Grass"), for the vehicle and the movie, which hits theaters at Christmas.
FILMING/ART DIRECTION: Szymanski shot for three days—two with Ferrell, one just with the car—on two large stages at MBS Stages in Los Angeles. The first was a large circular stage with a curtain in the back and the car on display.
"We talked about doing it on a big white cyc [cyclorama]," Szymanski said. "But for this, I wanted it elegant and sleek, to juxtapose the buffoonery of Ron Burgundy."
Allen said the set had both a "modernity and a retro feel, which allowed the Durango and the character to both feel at home in the same space." (Other ads, yet to break, were shot on a second stage. "I'll just say you'll probably see him behind the wheel at some point," Szymanski hinted.)
The ads could be criticized for selling Burgundy more than the Durango, but in fact, the vehicle gets tons of screen time. "In most of my Chrysler ads—Eminem 'Born or Fire' or RAM 'Farmer'—I've had a lot of story and not a lot of car," said François. "In this work, we have a lot of car."
In any case, Francois said the campaign is about getting exposure for the Durango, not necessarily direct sales. "I don't think an ad can ever sell anything," he said. "It will never tell you everything about a car. The purpose is to grab you and drive you to another medium, which will fill you in."
MEDIA: Some ads will air on TV; all will be on YouTube.
Szymanski, who also shot Ferrell's quirky Old Milwaukee ads, said he loves the meta nature of the work. "You're deconstructing a car ad or a beer ad while still being a car ad or a beer ad," he said. "It's not anti-product, ever. It's about deconstructing the form—and a lot of the forms have been overdone in typical commercials."
THE SPOTS:
CREDITS
Client: Dodge Durango
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Aaron Allen, Kevin Jones, Michael Tabtabai
Copywriter: Mike Egan
Art Director: John Dwight
Interactive Art Director: Chuck Carlson
Producer: Monica Ranes
Account Team: Kyleen Caley, Lani Reichenbach
Business Affairs Manager: Dusty Slowik
Executive Producer: Corey Bartha
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
Co-Writing Company: Funny or Die
Production Companies: Gifted Youth, Caviar
Director: Jake Szymanski
Executive Producers (Gifted Youth): Chris Bruss, Dal Wolf, Josh Martin, Ryan McNeely
Executive Producers (Caviar): Jasper Thomlinson, Michael Sagol
Line Producer: Stephan Mohammed
Director of Photography: Tim Hudson
Editing Company: Arcade
Editor: Geoff Hounsell
Post Producer: Leslie Carthy
Post Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Visual Effects Company: Method
Visual Effects Supervisor: Ben Walsh
Lead Flame Artist: Claus Hansen
Visual Effects Producer: Colin Clarry
Executive Producer: Robert Owens
Titles, Graphics: Trailer Park, W+K Motion
Color Correction: Company 3
Colorist: Dave Hussey
DI Producer: Denise Brown
Song: "Grazing in The Grass," The Friends of Distinction
Mix Company: Barking Owl
Mixer: Brock Babcock
Producer: Kelly Bayett
Halloween is always a good time for frightfully dark ad campaigns. And Wieden + Kennedy in Amsterdam has delivered one of the most gorgeously creepy efforts this year—a series of movie-style posters for Booking.com that dare you to stay at seven of the most haunted hotels in America. The properties, listed below, are all apparently inhabited by ghosts—and all get amazing hand-painted posters courtesy of renowned illustrator Akiko Stehrenberger.
• The Queen Anne Hotel in San Francisco • The 1886 Crescent Hotel in Eureka Spring, Ark. • The Gettysburg Hotel in Gettysburg, Pa. • Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas • The Historic National Hotel in Jamestown, Calif. • The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo. • The Vinoy Renaissance Hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The posters will roll out in movie-theater lobbies across the country beginning Oct. 25. The copy at the bottom of each ad, designed like movie credits, is wonderfully written, too—see larger details of those blurbs, along with the full posters, below.
There's also a TV commercial focusing on the Queen Anne Hotel, where room 410 is supposedly haunted by Miss Mary Lake, the headmistress of a school that used to be housed at the property. An online partnership with Fandango extends the experience.
"From The Shining to Psycho, accommodations have played a key role in the cinematic history of horror," said W+K executive creative director Mark Bernath. "It was important for us that the work stay true to the genre and pay homage to the content and design that horror fans crave. It takes a really brave client to make a truly scary advertising campaign—one that I hope will be appreciated by a very specific audience who have already opted into having the daylights scared out of them."
A closer look at the "credits" sections of the posters:
CREDITS
Client: Booking.com
CMO: Paul Hennessy
Brand Director: Cort Cunningham
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Directors: Zach Watkins, Gen Hoey
Art Director: Craig Williams
Copywriter: Zach Watkins
Head of Production: Erik Verheijen
Agency Producer: Elissa Singstock
Planner: Daisy Andrews
Group Account Director: Jordi Pont
Account Director: Courtney Trull
Account Manager: Alex Allcott
Art Buyer: Maud Klarenbeek
Digital Producer: Matthew Ravenhall
Project Manager: Jackie Barbour
Business Affairs: Justine Young
Media Buy: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Production Company: Concrete Films
Director: Mark Bernath
Director of Photography: Maxime Alexandre
Producer: Hani Salim
Time narrows your options and forecloses on your freedom. But in a Jeep Cherokee, at least, you can feel young again—your opportunities as limitless as the sky above the open road.
That's the gist of a new anthem spot by Wieden + Kennedy in Shanghai for the 2014 Cherokee. Unveiled Monday, the 60-second commercial, set to Bob Dylan's 1962 track "Motherless Children," carries the new theme "Built free"—referring to car and driver both.
"There was something to be found in everything," the voiceover says of your hungry, carefree days. "And little by little it changed. People told you things. Where to go. What to do. What not to do. Little by little, the world started to feel smaller. Only … it isn't. You're still here. And you're still you. The horizons haven't gone anywhere."
The visuals mix in shots of the Cherokee with a buffet of freedom imagery—deserts, rivers, oceans, mountains and plenty of that open road.
"The Jeep brand has a rich history steeped in the unrelenting pursuit of freedom," Olivier Francois, chief marketing officer of Chrysler Group, said in a statement. "The return of Jeep Cherokee and the 'Built Free' campaign serves as a reminder that we can fulfill our daily responsibilities and still follow our innate desire to explore new and different experiences."
"The return of the Cherokee nameplate to the Jeep brand brings with it the opportunity for consumers to experience an exciting vehicle that will move the midsize SUV segment forward," said Mike Manley, president and CEO of Jeep Brand. "Whatever path consumers choose to follow, they can be assured that the all-new Jeep Cherokee will provide them with the craftsmanship, technology, safety, ride and handling and efficiency that modern living requires."
The anthem spot will air across national broadcast and cable television, and the campaign includes in-theater, print, digital, social and experiential extensions. A 30-second spot will begin running across broadcast and cable on Nov. 11.
Well, it's official. The in-flight safety video is now definitely the best part of flying. In fact, two new safety clips released this week, from Virgin America and Delta, are practically worthy of in-flight applause.
True to its brand, Virgin America goes way over the top with its ultra-hip song-and-dance number about the merits of oxygen masks and powering off electronic devices. There's a "robot rap," a gyrating nun and countless back-breaking dance moves, all filmed by Step Up 2: The Streets director Jon M. Chu (who also did this recent Microsoft Surface ad) and choreographed by frequent Chu collaborators Jamal Sims and Christopher Scott.
Delta's video, from Wieden + Kennedy in New York, is a bit staid by comparison, but it's still good for quite a few chuckles. The airline continues its series of odd cameos with a holiday-themed clip featuring Santa, Scrooge, the Nutcracker and … Alex Trebek, for some reason. Sadly, the video informs us that the sexy leg lamp from A Christmas Story is not, in fact, an approved portable electronic device.
CREDITS
Client: Delta
Spot: "Pay Attention": In-Flight Holiday Safety Video
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone/Ian Reichenthal
Creative Directors: Sean McLaughlin + John Parker
Copywriter: Greg Rutter
Art Director: Alan Buchanan
Head of Content Production: Lora Schulson
Producer: Cheryl Warbrook
Account Team: Nathan Stewart + Dipal Shah + Jasmina Almeda
Director of Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski + Quentin Perry
Production Company: Arts & Sciences
Director: Matt Aselton / Azazel Jacobs
Executive Producer: Marc Marrie
Managing Director: Mal Ward
Line Producer: Zoe Odlum / Dina Oberly
Director of Photography: Corey Walter
Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Ian Mackenzie
Post Producer: Evan Meeker
Editorial Assistant: Nick Divers
VFX Company: MPC
VFX Lead Flame: Marcus Wood
VFX Compositors: Marcus Wood
Producer: Philip Whalley
Telecine Company: Company 3
Colorist: Tim Masick
Mix Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Sound Designer: Sam Shaffer
All of Miami, or so it would seem, follows LeBron James around as he bikes, jogs, swims and plays pickup basketball in "Training Day," a new Nike spot from Wieden + Kennedy that promotes the LeBron 11 sneaker and debuts as the four-time MVP begins his 11th NBA season. "The message is obvious," James tells the AP. "I want people to feel like they're at one with me, and I had a lot of fun shooting it all over Miami, and to have all those kids, it was great."
The 90-second video accomplishes that mission, and benefits from the inclusion of "My Shoes," a mellow yet upbeat John Legend track, produced by Mike WiLL Made It, that has yet to be officially released. The clip generates an epic feel-good aura—like a trailer for a hoop-themed Disney blockbuster—but also seems kind of intimate despite the large cast of extras and busy visuals. What's more, it reflects our relationship to modern-day heroes and speaks to the place of big-time sports and superstar athletes in a media-saturated world.
Throughout the film, fans pursue their idol, just to say hello, wish him well and, by association, share in his greatness for a while. James doesn't try to avoid them. He's comfortable with the adoration and happy they're along for the ride. Even so, the fans are left waiting outside when he gets to the gym for an intense solo practice session, and again at the finale, as he vanishes behind the gates of his swanky home, calling back, "See you guys tomorrow." It's telling that at these two key moments, when, in a sense, James is most uniquely himself, he's alone, going places where his fans can't follow.
That's basically how it's always been between heroes and admirers, and the dynamic remains unchanged—perhaps it has even intensified—in our always-on, multiscreen age, where we demand that our superstars interact with the masses more than ever. A little space is healthy for both sides, and separation balances the equation.
When we get too close to our heroes, they can lose their glow. We come to realize they're just like us: ordinary folks, highly imperfect, even if they are blessed with high-priced skill-sets and all the accoutrements of fame—fast cars, fabulous friends, fancy homes. Familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt. It's best not to know them too well. I find it reassuring when they lock the gates and remain a tad aloof. It makes them seem just a little bit better than the rest of us. And hopefully our presence in their lives, even pedaling in their wake or looking from the outside in, reminds them what the hard work and sacrifice, beyond the paydays, is all about.
