Blogbook
IKEA’s new ad pokes fun at food instagrammers. We have to admit, at least 3 of us here in Starship do love our Instagram, but this ad is hilarious: it reimagines what life would’ve been like had Instagram existed hundreds of years ago. Via Adage:
In the spot, created and produced by Acne in Stockhom and directed by Tompa & Rondo (duo Tomas Skoging and Filip Nilsson), an artistocratic family in what looks like 17th-century France sits down to eat a meal. But, before they’re allowed to start, the patriarch summons a painter to create a canvas likeness of the food. It’s then carted off round the country for the rest of society to approve with thumbs-ups, before returning to the family who are finally able to tuck in. The spot, which was shot on location in Budapest, ends with the words: “It’s a meal. Not a competition.”
The ad, the aim of which is to encourage people to rediscover the simple joy of cooking, eating and being together, was released alongside Ikea’s third annual “Life at Home” lifestyle report as well as the retailer’s new 2017 catalog.
“We’ve arrived at a moment in time where the expectations we bring with us into the kitchen hold us back from what we might like to do,” said Johan Holmgren, creative director at Acne in a statement. “Not only expectations that others put upon us, but also those which we put upon ourselves when we believe that we have to present a ‘perfect’ image of ourselves online.”
Credits
Agency: ACNE
Client: IKEA
Creative Director: Johan Holmgren
Executive Producer: David Olsen
Art Director: Cecilia Dufils
Copywriter: Markus Bjurman
Creative: Fredrik Preisler
Creative: Katie Copeland
Client Creative Director: Morten Kjaer
Head of Planning: Morten Lundholm
Project Manager: Mia Malmström
Producer: Fredrik Skoglund
Directors: Tompa & Rondo
Production Company: Acne
Director of Photography: Anders Jedenfors
Final Art: Oliver Juan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9lXgzEFkuo
United Airlines’ Team USA 2016 ad for Rio Olympics turns the airline check-in course into an obstacle course for athletes. Via Adweek:
The 60-second spot “One Journey. Two Teams.” will first air during the opening ceremony next Friday. It resembles past efforts from the brand in that it stars both United employees and American Olympians doing their best to get to the gate on time.
The athletes featured include volleyball star Kerri Walsh Jennings, two-time gold medal soccer player Carli Anne Lloyd and four-time gold medal swimmer Missy Franklin, among others.
The ad, created by United agency of record mcgarrybowen, also features a Rio-style remix of the client’s theme song “Rhapsody in Blue” courtesy of audio production company Yessian Music, which recruited authentic Brazilian street musicians to help create the very active re-imagining of Gershwin’s classic. The voiceover for this spot comes from Mr. Bourne himself, Matt Damon.
“Our 2016 Olympics advertising was a great way to engage and showcase our employees and our partnership with Team USA,” says United managing director of marketing and product development Mark Krolick. “The United team works incredibly hard year round to transport U.S. Olympians and Olympic hopefuls to training, competitions and the Olympics and this campaign demonstrates that in an upbeat, fun and optimistic way.”
Winner of this year’s Best Australian short at the Melbourne International Film Festival, Grey Bull is by 8’s Eddy Bell, made with a cast of mostly non talent trained people from Melbourne’s South Sudanese refugee community. Via the film synopsis:
When Martin, a South Sudanese refugee, happens upon a bull he believes is his spiritual totem, he decides to rescue it from the abattoir he works in. Once home, the bull begins to jeopardise Martin’s family’s chance at fitting in. Martin is torn between his ancient cultural identity and his family’s new life in Australia.
Via Short of the Week:
Winner of Australian Director’s Guild and Cannes Lions Young Director awards Eddy Bell’s Grey Bull is a film with a distinct story and a strong self-belief. Featuring a captivating lead performance from debutant Mayik Deng, Bell’s narrative takes us on an eye-opening cultural journey as we follow South Sudanese Refugee Martin as he struggles to adapt to his new life in Australia.
At a time when migration is a hot-topic worldwide, it’s refreshing to be presented with a story orbiting around an immigrant that truly feels like it’s presenting a positive view of one such journey. Essentially a story about leaving your past behind so you can focus on your future, Grey Bull is a film which provokes its audience into adopting the viewpoint of its main character and ask some important questions about emigration.
Credits
Producer: Khoby
Director: Eddy Bell
Director of Photography: Callan Green ACS
Production Designer: Chantel Covey Lane
Colorist : Daniel Stonehouse
Online Editor: Darius Family
Editor: Ariel Shaw
VFX: Heckler
Color: Crayon
Original Music: Darren Middleton
In this hilarious ad campaign for Tschlin village in Switzerland, Jung von Matt/Limmat’s six-day promotion invited people to call the village phone, and each time a resident failed to pick up, the caller could win a vacation. Via Adweek:
Tschlin, a bucolic community nestled in the majestic mountains of eastern Switzerland’s Graubünden region, is famed for being so peaceful, so quiet, that when the phone rings in the village square, the whole population of 166 can hear it.
“The key to success was the interaction,” JVM senior consultant Christoph Kinsperger tells Adweek. “People could become part of the campaign, whether you were from Tschlin or a caller.”
Callers visiting the contest website were able to see who they were talking to in Tschlin. That was a neat way to forge a connection, literally, between a destination and potential visitors, and in keeping with the spirit of other recent tourism campaigns designed to creatively convey a sense of local color. In fact, JVM and Graubünden have teamed up for innovative campaigns twice before, dispatching a wacky yodeler as a goodwill ambassador last year and leveraging Facebook in fun fashion in 2011.
Credits
Client: Graubünden Tourism
Manuela Ruinatscha-Michel: Head of Product Development
Nicole Derungs: Project Manager
Agency: Jung von Matt/Limmat
Samuel Christ: Executive Creative Direction
Johannes Raggio, Marco Zimmerli: Creative Direction
Alain Eicher: Copy
Lukas Frischknecht, Andrea Klainguti: Art Direction
Joelle Hauser: Graphics
Marco Dettling, Monika Arnold, Roman Mösli, Roman Meister: Consulting
Sarida Bossoni: Art Buying
Ralf Brändli: Head of Technology
Matthias Wobrock, Dominik Habermacher: Online Marketing
Christoph Kinsperger: Public Relations
External partners:
Luc Kämpfen: Film Production: ferrari.kämpfen
Jingle Jungle AG: Sound
Nicolas Henri Sieber: Tech: Kamerawerk GmbH
Valentin Altorfer: Tech: Simple Mechanik
CNN’s content studio, Courageous, has created a 360 video ad for Norfolk Southern Trains, highlighting various elements to help people better understand the freight train industry. Via Adweek:
The movies, which people could view with Samsung Gear VR headsets at a CNN-hosted restaurant next to the convention centers in Cleveland and Philadelphia, let viewers ride atop, alongside or underneath the massive machines in a way that brought them closer than ever before.
Bruno Maestri, Norfolk Southern’s vp of government relations and corporate communications, said the goal was to help educate convention delegates, policymakers and other attendees while they were gathered in one place.
“I think what you want to take out of it is that it’s a complex industry and that it takes a lot of people,” Maestri said. “We have 30,000 people, and it takes really quality people to make this thing happen.”
In one movie based at a facility called Moorman Yard, Courageous used drones to shoot 360-degree video from above the vast railyard to show how the trains are transported.
According to Otto Bell, vp and group creative director at Courageous, the work had a deliberately “understated tone” and was inspired by the humility and pride of Norfolk Southern’s employees, rather than being highly scripted promotional material.
German rapper Kontra K has a new music video that is an interactive murder mystery. Created with interactive digital studio Unit 9, it lets fans jump between the present and the past in order to solve a mystery. Via Unit 9:
Director Maximilian Niemann and producer Gerrit Klein worked with Berlin music label Four Music to create this unique project, co-produced with Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. The experience showcases Kontra K’s new song “Next To You” (“An Deiner Seite”) and features the rapper as one of the main actors in the short film.
[Director Maximilian has said that] “Our immersive experience challenged everyone to keep both films in mind at all times. At all points in the experience, the storylines need to work on their own but also together. This was a challenge in terms of planning, but also for everybody involved on set. The crew did an outstanding job and I was especially impressed with how readily our actors embraced the concept and brought it to life.”
Click through to the link above to watch it on the microsite.
In this hilarious agency promo, Roundhouse sends its copywriter into the wilderness with just its clients’ brand products for 5 days. From the video:
LivingOffTheBrands.com – Every ad agency talks about “living their clients’ brands,” but what would happen if an agency tried to actually, truly (and quite literally) live off of only their clients’ products? At Roundhouse, we decided to find out by sending one reluctant copywriter into the wilderness for five days to survive by Living Off The Brands. From Monday, July 18th – Friday, July 22nd, follow along LIVE through LivingOffTheBrands.com, RoundhouseAgency.com
Considering that the agency, from its press release, doesn’t have any food brand but a chocolate brand, the fact that (spoiler alert) copywriter Lee Kimball has survived is amazing. This promo is for Roundhouse’s 15th anniversary, and (naturally) is documented over most social media outlets, like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter etc. Kimball was dropped off in Oregon’s Lower Crooked River last week.
We’re not entirely sure why they sent a copywriter, but looking at the Instagram feed, Kimball hasn’t actually just had to live off chocolate and Red Bull – he’s been able to trade for commodities like potato salad, from random people he’s met in Deschutes National Forest.
YouTube’s latest music ad campaign celebrates the diversity of its user base. In promoting YouTube Music, which launched in the U.S. in November, the company’s clearly decided that one of its most competitive advantages is its base. Despite the rise of Spotify and similar sites and apps, YouTube is still the biggest streaming music site in the world. From Adweek:
“We are proud that YouTube gives everyone a voice and a place to belong. This campaign reflects those values, together with the wonderfully diverse people who come to YouTube every day to find, watch and share music,” says YouTube CMO Danielle Tiedt. “We want these spots to shine a light on this diversity and individuality, while also showing how anyone can find something to love on YouTube Music.”
That’s charming and all, but YouTube’s got other issues that may not necessarily be solved with a masterful thrumming of heartstrings.
Music apps are a commodity. They basically all do the same thing, with variances so minor that it’s hard to convince people to try new ones. And while YouTube Music was born with a competitive advantage—the fact that lots of people already use the video service to play music—it’s facing a lot of the same industry problems that other music platforms have.
Per fresh research from MIDiA, YouTube rights payments to artists totaled $740 million in 2015, up 11 percent from 2014. This sounds like a plus … until you consider that total views rose by 132 percent—meaning that artists who were paid $0.002 per stream in 2014 got half that the year after.
This means that as users grew, YouTube opted to pay less: Ad revenue is faltering as streams rise.
Credits
Client: YouTube
Agency: Anomaly New York
Production company: Park Pictures
Director: Lance Acord
Photographer: Olivia Bee
Editorial Company: Arcade Edit
Editors: Jeff Ferruzzo (Kristen, Alex), Brad Waskewich (Afsa, Jaysn), Ali Mao (Tina)
Editorial Assistant: Dan Gutterman
Executive Producer: Sila Soyer
Producer: Fanny Cruz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBxMpuiBO7Q
Samsung’s new TVC for Rio 2016, The Anthem, combines the anthems of the world into one stirring song calling for international unity. Via Adweek:
From Leo Burnett Chicago and Leo Burnett Sydney, the new TV and digital spot does more than just promote the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. At a time when the world feels like a scary, fragile place, it focuses on bringing people together at one of the world’s biggest events.
“The Anthem” opens with a young girl holding the Samsung phone and singing the national anthem of Botswana while enjoying a beautiful view of the sea. Instead of continuing with the same anthem, the spot jumps to another country, another person and another song.
With the introduction of each anthem, viewers are introduced to a new location, intentionally contrasting with the home of each song. The anthem of Malaysia is sung by a woman in Paris, for instance, and New Zealand’s national anthem plays loudly in England, highlighting the notion that we live in a world without borders.
“‘The Anthem’ is a reflection of the Samsung brand and our continuous pursuit to break down geographic barriers and unite the world through technology and borderless communication,” said Younghee Lee, evp of global marketing and mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics, in a statement. “By singing one anthem, fans and athletes across the globe can feel a shared sense of pride and unity and together celebrate collective progress, which is integral to the spirit of the Olympic Games.”
Heathrow Airport’s first ad campaign in its 70 year history features a little girl with a cute Owly luggage, heading through security and onto a plane. IMO, pretty much only a very young child would find navigating Heathrow remotely magical, but it’s a great spot, set to a nostalgic David Bowie song, “When I Live My Dream”. Created for Heathrow Airport by Havas London, which won the account in March, it’s part of a campaign celebrating Heathrow’s 70th anniversary, along with a competition tie in with Qantas, offering 70 people the chance to win ‘The Ultimate Trip’: a five-night stay in Sydney, Australia, travelling from Heathrow. Travellers are asked to share their favourite Heathrow stories to qualify. Via Heathrow:
Heathrow’s Chief Executive Officer John Holland-Kaye said, ‘Heathrow has been proudly connecting the UK to the rest of the world for 70 years. Our campaign subtly celebrates the work that goes on behind the scenes by more than 400 organisations to make flight possible at Heathrow. The story is told through the eyes our heroine who sees the result of the airport team’s work as touches of magic throughout her journey with Heathrow.’
Havas London’s Executive Creative Director Ben Mooge said: ‘We’ve seen so many stories that have started and ended at Heathrow over the last 70 years; from the Beatles departing for America to Princess Elizabeth landing as our Queen.”
“But just as importantly, every day Heathrow starts another of its millions of personal journeys, so we wanted to bring to life a small but universal one – the story of a little girl taking her bag on a first ever flight.”
Credits
Client: Heathrow Airport
Agency: Havas London
Executive Creative Director: Ben Mooge
Creatives: Barnaby Packham, Daniel Bolton
Group Business Director: Caroline Saunders
Senior Account Director: Julia Mahoney
Agency Producer: Kiri Carch
Assistant Producer: Femi Ladi
Production Company: Outsider
Directors: Dom and Nic
Producer: John Madsen
Director of Photography: Alex Barber
Editing: Ed Cheesman, Final Cut
Post: The Mill
Sound: Antony Moore, Factory