AdPunch points us to a commercial for the Danish Road Safety Council from last year which replays backwards what seems to be a real accident. Everything from the flying glass, exploding airbag and facial expressions are caught as the women in the accident narrates the commercial wishing she'd driven a bit slower, could turn back time and apologizes to the apparent death of a young couple she caused. Powerful stuff.
There's an even more shocking version of the campaign here (on DailyMotion which is like the world's slowest video site, unfortunately) in which a man hits a boy on a bike and he ends up going through the windshield. The campaign was created by Locomotion in Denmark. We'd love to know how this campaign was shot and if, in fact, these are actual accidents shot backwards.
While there are probably quite a few ads that make us go, "How do they do that?" the question isn't answered often enough to be worth pursuing very far.
Adland, however, posed the question about an ad for Orange entitled Belonging. Oddly enough, it was answered. Sam Akesson of Fallon London confesses, "[Belonging] took A LOT of takes, and we spent about 2 months of rehearsing to get all the choreography and movement right. Basically it involves a lot of people running and jumping into holes..."
We were like WTF until Fallon elaborated with its own version of Making the Video. Way more interesting than anything P. Diddy does behind the scenes of his hitmakers, it probably could still have used a catfight or two. But how often do you get to see people jumping into holes? Not nearly enough.
Ask at Ad-Rag confides, "Belonging doesn't use any CGI. Instead they rely on running away, jumping into holes and the camera's blind spot. I think it's neat." We do too.
In fact, we think behind-the-scenes efforts like this are a great way of building intimacy between brands, audiences and even - yes - agencies. If it worked for Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, it can work for us too. Creative endeavours make fertile ground for screaming, crying and potential taboo trysts, yeah?
It was only a matter of time before Wrigley's Candystand, whose candy-tagged games get progressively better, would start testing waters in real gamer territory.
Candystand and Wii just joined forces in a bizarre cross-branding where Wii web games are peddled on Candystand and Candystand is totally accessible through the Wii browser.
The relationship isn't exactly low-key - within 24 hours of launching on Wii's Internet Channel, Wii.Candystand.com drew 6000 visitors and a ton of positive reviews. That is, according to Scott Tannen, Wrigley's director of global digital marketing.
This is the first branded site to link to the Wii browser, which will definitely get competitors sniffing at the door to be next in line. Candystand's content offerings are also formatted for television instead of computer monitors.
Kudos to Wrigley for creating a series of branded offerings that seem able to stand alone in gaming world. It hasn't been an easy trek, considering Candystand was first introduced in '97 - building this kind of recognition takes time. Just ask Target.
We still harbor doubts that our Socom buddies would be deeply impressed to hear we destroy the competition on Altoids Sheep, though.
Tim Hardaway chases his recent anti-gay remarks with an apology that's feeble at best. Meanwhile gay comedian and activist George Takei makes a judicious retort, assuring the paranoid Tim he's not only liked by gays; he's liked by gays.
An apt response. There's even a bit of rubbing, and who can do without maniacal laughter?
Post Red Bull, peddling liquid energy is the thing to do, regardless of whether the drinks actually work. (Consider the oxymoronic nature of energy beers.) So how to make your carbonated Kool-Aid sell? With a Gremlins throwback, of course.
Digital Domain creates a quirky spot for Amp, an energy drink from Pepsi. A guy up late gets attacked by Lilliputian paper monstrosities composed of his reject pile. Eventually he mans up and fights back. Then he has some Amp and starts writing the payoff piece.
We don't get why the trashed oeuvres turn into gremlins and attack, but we guess it has to do with the adventurous unpredictable lifestyle Amp drinkers lead. Either that or Amp is a hallucinogen, which would arguably sell better than yet another taurine-and-ginseng potion. Pepsi, are you listening? People don't want more energy. They want 'shrooms.
Irv Blitz-directed spot Swing, by agency Momentum for Grolsch, involves the most synchronized dancing beer bottles we've ever seen. And that's saying a lot considering when our own beer bottles dance, they are never nearly this snappy.
We haven't tried Anheuser-Busch's Grolsch lager, but suddenly we're curious, in part because we think it will make us better dancers. And we know this for a fact because listening to jazz, or at least something jazz-like, makes you smarter. It's been proven by science.
Like the queen bee on the quad, some people just get off on making other people look lame in comparison. We're guessing that's how this spot for Vilara is supposed to encourage people to go there. Apparently Vilara is super-awesome because chavs (a slang term for working-class uneducated folk, according to handy Wikipedia) don't know where it is. And the website notes places only get It status when they're virtually unheard-of.
So why advertise for it? Who are they talking to exactly? Won't this in fact make chavs aware? Does that mean they stop being chavs? And what TV-watching demo will actually be relieved that the topless kissing chicks featured in the ad won't be at this dream spot?
Until the arrival of Danica we didn't think of racing as much of a hottie sport. But these new Allstate spots with Evernham Motorsports' Kasey Kahne might just change our minds.
Set to air during the Daytona 500, the ads continue a campaign from last year and feature yummy Kasey getting repeatedly eye-raped by women from Allstate's Girls Day Out campaign. Watch him get bullhorn-frisked, and here's a spot where he tries driving away before damage is done.
In case you're wondering, the spots are for Allstate's Accident Forgiveness and Your Choice Auto Insurance packages. Unfortunately for us the Kasey package isn't one of the plans you can add to your policy, but that's okay, because he'd probably cause more accidents than prevent them.
Any campaign with the tagline "it's always big" generally finds us paying a bit more attention to it than others and this new Colle+McVoy-created Minnesota State Lottery television campaign has us very interested. But, not for the sick reasons dancing around in your head right now. No. We like this campaign because it's a game. And it's game, called What's the Difference, that starts on the tube and ends online. In the ads, the viewer is asked to find the six differences between two images in the ad that represent a $20 million jackpot winner and a $200 million winner. Winners of the game are entered into a drawing to win cash and prizes.
With everyone in the industry latching onto the latest and greatest ad babble term of the day, engagement, it's nice to see something real come out of board room blather. We're giving props to Colle+McVoy on this one. See the ads here, here and here.
We all sort of wondered what happened to would-be rap star Chunky Pam, and as if to satisfy our wildest dreams she mysteriously reappears just in time for the heart-shaped holiday.
In a new MTV-produced video celebrating the merits of griddles and grills, Pam says she wants to be pampered in a way only a blinged-out pizza epicure can. Our favourite line involves Swedish fish and Swedish massage.
Unlike other sultry blondes who slinked into skinnier skins, Pam embraces decadent consumption wholeheartedly and makes it her forte. What talent. What art. What size. If only everyone were so easy to please on the 14th of February.
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