Hoping to tap into disdain for cheesy film cliches, Sprint chose Union Editorial to refine a set of movie trailer-style spots. The star? Sprint Instinct.*
In "Launch," a couple outruns cops in a high-impact car chase. Mr. Man looks stressed; meanwhile, Wifey buys a handbag on her phone and has it sent to their hideout -- leading the captors right to them.
In "Romance," one woman wants it all -- not from a man, but from her carrier -- as friends beg her to be more realistic.
Here's another dubbed "Horror," and one just for theaters ("Cinema"). We saw it before The Dark Knight and it totally chafed our pop sensibilities.
If you're feeling deja-vu (in addition to that mild burning sensation), it's for a reason. To promote its Scarlet TVs, LG did more with the same campy idea.
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There may be bugs on some of you mugs, but there ain't no bugs on me. Total rip on the old Meowmix ads, but it's so catchy. Way to grow on the brain stem like a fungus, K9 Advantix.
Apparently this dog, which has had about three months to drive you ballistic every time you switch the TV on, has a name. It's Champ. And he's on Facebook, inviting you to camp.
Who sends their dogs to camp?
Efren Ramirez, better known to us as Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, appears in a new series of ads for Sierra Mist's "Refresh Your Mind" campaign. The format: he walks into a bar, tells a story, concludes, "It's a crazy world; it helps to refresh your mind," and downs some Sierra Mist.
The first spot, "Wedding Girl," is about a girl so desperate to get married she'll put bridesmaids in a coma to catch a bouquet. (Honey, there are easier routes than superstition. Speed dating, for example.)
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His name was Paul Potts. During his unexpectedly spellbinding audition on Britain's Got Talent, he touched the hearts of viewers everywhere. (Really. I don't know if it was his voice or the pop show context or what, but I've never seen anything like that on American Idol.)
The crescendo: Before he went on to win the show last year, he was a mobile phone salesman. So now T-Mobile's using his defining moment in a German ad campaign. (Nice touch with the little girls and businessmen crying over their mobile phones.)
The closer (translated from the German): "Life gives us extraordinary moments. The beauty of it is that we can share them." What a charming lesson in opportunism.
See "Declaration," a :60 ad for Scion's "United by Individuality" campaign by ATTIK. The visuals wed two media cliches: a fleet of cars converging purposefully on one road, and an anarchist leader bleating to somber street warriors from a makeshift platform in the dead of night.
Also, something in the music brought Kevin Costner to mind.
Remember when Scion was nasty and unapologetic about being an individual? I miss that.
- See trailer for Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, a movie guaranteed to alter the tween lexicon for at least six weeks: mutti! Vati! Snogging! Nunga-nungas! Facsimile of a fax of a scam! Saliva-ville. Hits US theatres this October.
- And speaking of a whole lotta words that mean nothin', Spam makes like Weekly World News.
- Plaid wraps up the weekend on the West Coast. "Wash down the bitter taste of capitalism" -- with Coke and pizza?
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This is sorta nifty. Motivated by the assumption that youth adopt ideals based on how they're presented, Grey/Madrid launched Compra esta actitude ("Buy this attitude") on behalf of the Madrid City Council.
The effort tells people to save energy by twisting up gimmicks we're all familiar with. Ads were inspired by shampoo and perfume ads, and even those totally improbable amateur online videos.
Creative is divided by medium: Internet, TV, Radio, Grafica. Run a barcode scanner over each to see the work. The image at left is from the shampoo spoof, where a woman with lustrous hair swings it in the direction of a lightswitch and flips it off. And here's the online video they're pushing: "The light pong masters," inspired in part by stuff like "Guy catches glasses with face" for Ray Ban. Expect some heavily edited, totally improbable ping pong action. Yeah, baby, yeah.
To promote Infiniti's Cirque de Soleil sponsorship, TBWA/Toronto created "Double Lines," which smoothly integrates mid-air performance with roadside performance.
Apt tagline: "Let the performance begin." I've got no complaints.
Yesterday I read an article on JAMZ about Mad Men and how diversity advocates might threaten the show's authenticity. The author called Mad Men un-nostalgic and a "world where white men were kings." In what appears to be a reasonable justification to crystallize Mad Men as its own white male ecosystem, the author concludes:
Everyone is smoking, drinking, closeted, desperately unhappy. Choices and options are limited. That's the fabric that holds 'Mad Men' together. To suddenly throw in a little diversity would rip it to shreds.
I get the dude. It would be unrealistic to pepper those executive suits with black and brown faces for the sake of the PC police.
But it's also dangerous to use Mad Men as an excuse to shut diversity out -- something agencies are still too good at. That's gratuitous and unrealistically romantic. There's plenty of room to broaden Mad Men's scope without harming its precious and purported authenticity.
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Here's a really long trailer for Sons of Anarchy, a gritty FX man-drama about motorcycle clubs and the families that send the burly soldiers yonder.
What you can expect: emotional outbursts, a Molotov cocktail or two, some girl-punches and a swastika. And you thought Mad Men was real!
The ad was built in-house, with a heightened sense of melodrama brought to you by PrimalScream Music, which composed The Dream We Left Behind especially for the show.
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