The rollout of new chips and salsa products isn't inherently dramatic. Nobody waits in line for hours as they would for, say, a new iPhone. But that doesn't mean you can't create drama, which is exactly what Tostitos and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners are doing. 

Today, the brand released its own four-episode telenovela, Botanas del Cielo (Snacks from Heaven), to promote its new spicy chips and salsas: Tostitos Cantina Chipotle Thin chips, Tostitos Dip-etizers Spicy Queso and Tostitos Chunky Habanero Salsa. 

"Telenovelas have become a cultural phenomenon over the past couple years," said Jeff Klein, vp of marketing at Frito-Lay. "We wanted to create content our consumers would find spicy while enjoying Cinco de Mayo." 

The series, which is targeted at millennials, was directed by Pedro Pablo Ybarra and tackles common telenovela themes like wedding surprises and paternity-related drama with chips and salsa playing a central role in each episode.

"Creating a campaign like Botanas del Cielo that incorporates a comprehensive paid, owned and earned strategy allows us to engage the consumer through multiple touch points in their lives over a longer period of time leading up to a holiday relevant to Tostitos," Klein said. 

As part of the brand's effort to get consumers interested enough in the series to post about it on social media, Tostitos created a way for fans to personalize GIFs from the show. Starting April 22, those visiting Tostitos' website will be able to create GIFs of themselves as characters from the series. 

Check out the trailer for the series below: 

CREDITS:

Ad Agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Client: Tostitos
Title of Creative Work: "Botanas del Cielo"
Live Date: 4/13/16

Creative
Partner / Executive Creative Director: Margaret Johnson
Creative Director: Jon Wolanske/Adam Reeves
Art Director: Sean Farrell
Copywriter: Colin Nissan
Junior Designer: John Rodriguez

Production
Director of Production: Tod Puckett
Executive Broadcast Producer: Hilary Coate
Executive Interactive Producer: Leslie Ernst
Broadcast Producer: Christina Wells
Content Producer: Isaak Le

Account Services
Director of Account Management: Brian McPherson
Account Director: Meredith Williams
Account Manager: Kateri McLucas
Account Manager: Lisa Kourakos
Assistant Account Manager: Levi Russell

Brand and Communication Strategy
Senior Brand Strategist: Ralph Paone

Business Affairs
Director of Business Affairs: Judy Ybarra
Business Affairs Manager:  Chrissy Shearer

Production Company
Company name: Tonic Films
Director: Pitipol Ybarra
Director of Photography: Alejandro Perez Gavilán
Producer: Aura Santamaria
Executive Producer: Susie Neill

Editorial Company
Company name: HutchCo Technologies
Editor: Jim Hutchins
Assistant Editor: Patrick O'Leary
Executive Producer: Jane Hutchins

Telecine
Company name: MFD
Colorist: Ayumi Ashley
Color Producer: Matt Notaro

VFX/Finishing
Company name: eLevel
Director of eLevel: PJ Koll
Executive Producer: John Dutton
Post Producer: Carley Ridgway
Editor: Graham Wilcox

Music
Composer: Brian Canning
Audio Engineer: Ethan Walter
Creative Director: Kelly Bayett
Producer: KC Dossett

Mix
Company name: eLevel
Mixer: Dave Baker & Nic Dematteo
Executive Producer: Luke Dillon 

The recruiting of summer interns is in full swing, and Minneapolis agency Solve might have the cleverest (and cutest) solution to finding eager would-be advertising practitioners.

Solve took a miniature version of itself—lobby, collaborative workspace, conference room—on the road to colleges around the Midwest. And it gave potential interns "try-outs" consisting of five-minute job assignments, to get a sense of who'd be the best fit to actually come to Minneapolis this summer and do the interning for real. 

The students who performed well during their five-minute test were interviewed on the spot for a chance at a coveted intern slot.



The agency visited, among other schools, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "The weather at UW-Madison nearly stopped us," Solve account director Ryan Murray tells AdFreak. "A downpour and high winds forced us to open our pop-up a little late—classic agency tardiness—but we still had a dozen recruits waiting for us to open our door. One recruit even stopped 'mid-internship' to help us fix a nearly-falling tent. Now that's thinking on your feet."



Fabricating the mini agency was a lot of fun, too.

"We tried to bring the space design and collaborative feel of our office to campus quads," Murray says. "We partnered with Clamor, an event firm, who built custom cube walls and desks to mimic our actual space. Every portion of the pop-up mirrored our headquarters, from the receptionist desk with the Solve logo to the open offices to the collaborative brainstorming area."



And how did the five-minute assignments actually work?

"Depending on their area of interest—account management, media, creative—they were given a specific five-minute exercise," Murray says. "For example, the account management assignment tasked students with strategically evaluating a Bentley campaign and deciding if it was on brief. In the middle of the exercise, I interrupted them and gave them a President Cheese print ad and told them it needed to be proofed instantly, before shipping off to meet a pressing media deadline."

Juggling the assignments like this "gave us great insight and perspective into their abilities, well beyond a standard résumé or interview," Murray adds. "Best of all, students loved it. We're still getting thank-you notes."

More than 150 students participated in the five-minute internship, which was three times more people than used to send résumés.

The agency will make a final decision on interns by May 1. 

David Droga isn't the only Australian making headlines in the agency world. Sean Cummins has already left a memorable mark on American advertising, and he's ready to make an even bigger splash in the coming months. In short, he's coming for your business.

"I moved to the U.S. in order to back up what we've been doing [in Australia]," Cummins, the CEO of Cummins & Partners, told Adweek. "David Droga and I came from the same country so there will be obvious similarities, but we're very different people. We may be a bit more [Australian than Droga5], but that doesn't mean we don't know the U.S.—and we have a fresh take on things."

Cummins & Partners got a lot of attention earlier this year for "Ultrasound," which won the Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" contest, becoming the Big Game's most-shared ad and sparking conversation around the always controversial topic of birth control.

Comparing the American and Australian advertising industries, Cummins said, "Advertising is a universal language, and there's great work that is passionate and fun. But I think that in this market that has been slightly squeezed out. The American ad industry is very serious with clients not having a good time, people fighting over things and everyone with a point of view pulling brands in multiple directions. Generally speaking, the U.S. is a little serious and needs to loosen up."

Sean Cummins

Many who work in the industry would agree. But the real news concerns Cummins & Partners' expanding stateside presence.

Last year Cummins opened offices in Toronto and New York before acquiring Brooklyn-based dc3 and naming its founder, Todd Irwin, as the U.S. network's chief creative officer. In recent weeks, his agency folded Manhattan's Agency212 into its New York operations and named evp, account manager Kristina Tucker as an owner and equity partner. The moves were made in the interest of offering North American clients a full-service shop including media buying, digital and production services, and creative.

"We are scaling up as we go along," Cummins said, adding, "Because the path is modeled around bringing the disciplines together under one roof, we're looking to acquire various shops that have their own specialties."

Cummins hinted to Adweek that there will be news of more acquisitions to come as his independent network brings what he sees as a unique sensibility to an unsteady industry. 

"We have resourcefulness because we don't have big budgets," Cummins said, though his agency's roster currently includes Jeep, Nike and Vodafone. 

Right now, his primary objective is to strengthen the agency's U.S. presence by winning what he called "that big foundation client." Cummins told Adweek the shop has been pitching accounts of various sizes. "These are clients who want a fresh perspective rather than the same pitches you get from agencies," he said.

He positioned the Canadian move as the equivalent of dipping his toes into the North American market and reiterated his focus on New York. "Toronto was not moving along at the pace we wanted, but now, we're primarily interested in getting New York City operations off the ground," he said. "We're all merged together working out of a semisecret location."

Regarding the political conversations stemming from his agency's Doritos ad, Cummins suggested commenters "need to take a chill pill."

"Anything that's kind of funny and a bit out there is going to be controversial these days," he said. "Pepsi felt happy enough to run it. It was totally fantastic ... about as realistic as dogs buying Doritos."

He added, "We hoped and still hope that over time, people will know we were the agency behind it."

Cummins told Adweek to expect additional mergers, campaigns and new business announcements soon. We can only expect future work to be as colorful as the Doritos campaign, if not quite as politically fraught.

Innocence in Danger, the organization that gave us online predator emojis, returns with an equally disturbing ad that transforms youthful symbolism into something tragic. 

For International Children's Day this year, it released "The Witness." Created by French agency Rosapark and flanked by Radiohead's "Exit Music," the ad features a girl falling asleep while a male family member reads her a bedtime story. As she drifts off, he reaches under the covers.

The camera thankfully drifts off, panning to a teddy bear, the sole witness to the crime. 

Warning: The spot may be particularly disturbing to incest survivors. 



The piece ends with a strong tagline: "He can't talk. You can."

Innocence in Danger reports that there are 4 million victims of incest in France, and four out of five of those cases occur before age 18. Only one-third of those complaints are heard.

"It is the duty of every citizen to do what they can to apply the law to these crimes so they can be stopped," says Innocence in Danger president Homayra Sellier, alongside manager Christine Djamila Allaf. "We must intervene in order to protect these children." 

Picking up the mantle, co-founder Jean-Patrick Chiquiar of Rosapark adds, "As a communications agency, it is our duty to intervene, to spread the word about this cause to the maximum number of people, to bring these taboos to light in order to solicit the collective conscience."

The ad certainly does its job in striking emotional chords, but besides raising awareness and potential donations, it does little to teach adults how best to earn the trust of children who may be suffering. Often it is hard to tell; when a guardian or protector is the danger, a child can't gauge who can really help, and may protect herself by behaving in ways that other authorities consider reasonably normal. Symptoms of the trauma may make themselves visible only years later, when they are no longer within reach of the predator.

For its part, Radiohead was so moved by the work that it donated the rights to "Exit Music" and waived compensation.

The campaign is currently running online and on French TV.

CREDITS

Rosapark:
Co-Founders: Jean-Patrick Chiquiar, Gilles Fichteberg, Jean-François Sacco
Creative Directors: Mark Forgan, Jamie-Edward Standen
Account Director/TV Producer: Fanélie Martin

Film Production:
Production Company: Troopers
Director: Josh Patrick Dawson
Producer: Amandine Le Drappier

Sound Production:
Grabuge Productions

Music:
Radiohead "Exit Music"

Innocence in Danger Campaign Coordinator: Dr. Gilles Iazimi

For the second time in as many months, Porsche is taking innovation for a spin with an unusual magazine placement. 

As you may recall, the automaker and its agency, Cramer-Krasselt, ran ads in April issues of Fast Company that brought the new Porsche 911 to life as a floating hologram.

Now, in May issues of Inc., the client-agency team employs LED technology to let readers gaze "beneath" the metal skin of a 911 and inspect its high-tech features. Pressing buttons on the ad reveals graphics and information about the car's sophisticated aerodynamics, connected digital systems and turbo-charged engine. 

The insert, created with Americhip, will run in 10,000 Inc. print issues, about 10 percent of the magazine's subscriber run. Those issues will target readers living in affluent areas near Porsche dealers. 

Check out the ad in more detail below. Click to enlarge.



Of course, LEDs have graced print ads before, but Porsche's implementation stands out "because in this case, the LEDs are not just illuminating the message, they're part of the message itself," C-K creative director Rick Standley tells Adweek. "It rejects the ordinary. Every contact with the brand should be the antithesis of mundane—because that's what every Porsche is designed and engineered to be." 

Porsche's April hologram ad in Fast Company—unusual for mainstream magazine spreads, though the approach has been used before—included a small acetate prism. Placing the prism atop a tablet computer, while it runs a special video, unlocked 3-D footage of the car. It's proven fairly popular, generating more than 17,000 video starts (with average time on site of about eight minutes), and 8.6 million Twitter impressions. 

To get the LED ad up and running, "the team tested various print materials—papers and plastics—different image layering effects, and both colored and white light diffusers to come up with the right mix," says Standley. "Other challenges included keeping internal car components from showing when buttons aren't pressed and the ability to light up precise areas of the car." 

At the very least, the ad should drive engagement; it's certainly more enticing than most passive print placements, and represents yet another attempt by legacy marketers and media to move into the interactive fast lane.

Now, if you could push one of those buttons for a whiff of that new car smell, then Porsche would really be firing on all cylinders.

CREDITS
Client: Porsche
Agency: Cramer-Krasselt 

Have you ever wanted to see a Mount Everest expedition unfold live? Now you can, thanks to Snapchat. Sponsored by Eddie Bauer, meal replacement beverage Soylent and Strava, a social network for runners and cyclists, #EverestNoFilter is a journey to the top of Everest chronicled in real time by ski mountaineer Adrian Ballinger and National Geographic photographer Cory Richards.

This week, Ballinger and Richards will begin to climb the world's tallest mountain to raise awareness for the dZi Foundation, a Ridgway, Colo.-based nonprofit that helps remote villages in Nepal rebuild after the devastating earthquake there in April 2015. Throughout the expedition, the alpinists will produce a "Snap-umentary" documenting the journey on Snapchat with short videos and photos posted to the EverestNoFilter account.

Adding to the expedition's intrigue is the fact that Ballinger and Richards are attempting the dangerous climb without supplemental oxygen. More than 7,000 expeditions to Everest's summit have been made with bottled oxygen, but only 193 have been completed without it.

Richards and Ballinger—who has summited Everest six times with oxygen—spoke with Adweek from a village in Nepal where they were preparing for the climb. "Certainly, it's a small group, and for me, it's a peak experience that I've dreamt about for a long time," Ballinger said. "It's something I find inspiring." 

Ballinger added, "We thought about different ways we could tell our story, maybe through blogs or Facebook or Instagram, and we liked Snapchat because it's very difficult to game it. Everything you post has to be posted instantly. You can't edit the photos or videos. It's authentic; it's exactly what's happening to you in the moment. We thought it was a better way to tell the story of climbing Everest."

Eddie Bauer's history with Everest runs deep. The brand equipped the first American expedition to its summit in the 1960s. Ballinger and Richards are a part of Eddie Bauer's guide and athlete program, a slate of skiers and climbers who help the brand create products and provide content for its social media channels.

"It's about inspiring others by telling stories about their adventures," Kristen Elliott, director of marketing at Eddie Bauer, told Adweek. "This was a really direct way for us to tell the story of the adventure of Everest. Our tagline is 'Live your adventure.' We want to inspire people to get out and have an outdoor experience."

 

A team of intrepid climbers are taking Soylent to the top of Everest. Before they leave, you can join team leaders @adrianballinger and @coryrichards for one last (fun) training hike in Boulder, Colorado. Today, 3pm at Mt. Sanitas Trailhead. Details and rsvp link in @adrianballinger's bio. #EverestNoFilter

A photo posted by Soylent (@soylent) on Apr 3, 2016 at 8:49am PDT

Likewise, Soylent has a lot of fans who camp, hike and love the outdoors, making #EverestNoFilter an ideal fit for the brand, said Soylent CMO David Renteln. Ballinger and Richards will consume Soylent along with solid food throughout the climb.

"The idea that they would be climbing Everest while being fueled by Soylent was interesting to us," Renteln said. 

Ballinger will also track the expedition on Strava and provide exclusive content for its digital magazine.

"We're big fans of [Ballinger] and what he's doing, and [Richards] is a world-class photographer," said Strava brand manager Andrew Vontz. "It's an opportunity for us to chronicle a historic ascent of Everest, and it's such a cool and interesting endeavor." 

For their part, Ballinger and Richards are excited to work with the brands and mostly to set out on the expedition. Richards narrowly survived an avalanche in the mountains of Pakistan in 2011 but said he feels ready for this climb, one of his first major expeditions since that disaster.

"It's about spending time on the biggest mountain in the world and seeing how far we can take it," he said. "In terms of being scared, I'd be foolish if I wasn't somewhat nervous. It's Everest without oxygen, but the underlying fear isn't present. The content we're creating and the stories that we can tell is open source, and that's exciting. I don't know where it'll go, and I don't care right now—I just want to get on the mountain and have fun with it."

Traditionally, brands and agencies rely on a network of freelancers for their creative work. But antiquated management processes can make keeping track of independent professionals a nightmare: Assignments and feedback are reluctantly dragged out over email, singular relationships create a lack of talent visibility and legal contracts are processed manually—risking human error and misclassification. 

Click to download.

Today, these inefficiencies have reached a tipping point. Publishers and brands such as Forbes, Vox Media and The Washington Post are so fed up that they're creating on-demand talent networks—highly transparent freelancer databases that provide the tools for engaging the right freelancer at the right place and time—to help alleviate the management headache. 

Our e-book, "Before and After: 5 Ways Managing Your Freelancers Has Changed," breaks down what on-demand talent networks can do for marketers and brands. It starts by laying out the befores and afters of freelance management—that is, how the process has changed. For example, building freelance networks from scratch used to be a manual process. Now, there are existing databases that automatically assign work based on location, expertise, etc. It then details how on-demand systems have made the entire process more efficient.

The freelance economy is changing. Savvy companies are tired of current management systems, and are turning to new database technologies to optimize everything from communication to execution to payment. Sound like the calmness and ease that your freelance process needs? Check out our e-book.

Read More

Your grandmother is probably already on Facebook. But in case she's not, she might enjoy GramGram, an amusing concept from some BYU advertising students who went rogue in a social media advocacy class. 

"We tried to imagine social media in a reversed skeuomorphism form and had tons of fun with it," says one of the students, Brad Hill.

As illustrated in this video, the concept is amusing—and certainly gives Grandma a thrill:



"Most of the class decided to pick more serious issues like depression, immigration and Islamophobia, but we were feeling a bit cheeky and wanted to do a fun campaign for something important but not super serious," Hill says. "Our 'cause' ended up advocating millennials to reach out to their grandparents and take time to carry some offline communication."

Hill was inspired by an article he'd read a few years ago about how everyone loves receiving hand-written mail. "I thought that it is no different than receiving messages on social media," he says. "We combined the two and created 'Project GramGram.' It is the perfect blend with my background with digital/social media and my printmaking skills."

Initially, the team looked into some mailing companies and APIs to help process the social media, thinking they'd actually bring GramGram properly to life. But that proved a bit daunting.

"I even spent a week or so trying to find disappearing ink that would vanish over a few days so we could do Snapchats in the mail," says Hill. "Eventually we just opted on creating something quality for our portfolios and that could tell a great story."

Hill plays the printmaker in the spot. Another member of the team, Stew Tribe, plays the main character, and his actual grandma plays the grandma. The video was shot in various locations around Provo, Utah.

So, could GramGram really exist? "I don't think Project GramGram would be a great lasting product, but a short-term, 'limited-edition' run might be fun to do," says Hill. "My team and I have considered running a Kickstarter and seeing how far we could go to making it real, but to be honest, everybody is on Facebook. My grandma isn't quite on Snapchat or Peach, so that might be worth looking into." 

BBDO Moscow takes the "You're Not You When You're Hungry" campaign for Snickers into meta territory with these three print ads, in which the Snickers bar isn't itself—it's packaging to look like Mars, Bounty and Twix bars.

The concept is a little off, seemingly implying that Snickers itself is hungry for a Snickers—though it's not too far removed from the brand's recent real-world packaging stunt, in which hunger symptoms replace the brand name on the wrapper.

Mars, Bounty and Twix were probably fine with this. They're all Mars Inc. brands, after all. 

Via Ads of the World.

CREDITS
Client: Mars/Snickers
Agency: BBDO, Moscow, Russia
Creative Director: Alexey Starodubov
Art Director: Dmitry Vtulkin
Copywriter: Dmitry Semenov

Take a bowel, Ilana Becker!

The actress and comedian tells Adweek that portraying "Irritabelle," the personification of a stomach ache with diarrhea, in campy ads for IBS-D (Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Diarrhea) medication Viberzi, has been a dream come true. 

"I wanted this job from the moment I laid eyes on the copy," she says. Originally hired to provide voiceovers when the work was in its animatic/storyboard phase, "I remember thinking how much fun it would be to be able to bring Irritabelle to life." 

Fashioned by Arnold Worldwide for pharma giant Allergan, the campaign broke nationwide last week, starring Becker as a kooky colon who makes life difficult for her owner. Clad in a jumpsuit decorated with a goofy digestive-tract illustration, her hair and lips painted atomic red, Becker makes a distinct impression in "Home," the 60-second launch spot: 



"By creating a manifestation of IBS-D symptoms using a real person, we were able to show the changing dynamics of their relationship [to the condition] more effectively and meaningfully," says Arnold executive creative director Gary Scheiner. "Many patients wait years before seeing a doctor about their symptoms, so we wanted this work to be highly relatable and effective in engaging patients, and to motivate them to take action." 

Contrast this live-action approach with ads for Salix Pharmaceuticals' Xifaxan, which ran a spot featuring animated pink intestines during the Super Bowl in February. 

"We intentionally parodied some of the category conventions like walking on the beach or riding bikes," says Scheiner. "Done with Irritabelle, those activities become fresh and memorable."

Fittingly, Becker went with her gut to achieve the right comic tone. 

"There's definitely an aspect of my personality there, just with the volume turned up," she says. "Irritabelle doesn't intend to be irritating, or even remotely hurtful—so I wanted to be sure the character came from an honest yet playful place. Also, as someone who has struggled with stomach issues myself, I wanted to be clear on how frustrating the condition can be and not make fun of it in any way." 

Since IBS-D most often strikes women, "we set out to cast a female for the role," says Scheiner. Becker's distinctive delivery—both affable and annoying, like a friend who's outstayed her welcome—enhanced Arnold's early presentation. Once the campaign got the greenlight, the agency invited the actress, best known for her appearances on MTV's Girl Code, to try out for the lead role.

"She actually auditioned via Skype from her bathroom," Scheiner says. "While we saw hundreds of talented people, she was the unanimous choice." 

Becker says she's "particularly proud of the long-form content on the web." That work includes a three-minute film in which Irritabelle explains IBS-D in detail, along with a cardboard cutout of herself and other wacky props: 

Another film depicts an intervention by the friends and family of an IBS-D sufferer, with Irritabelle refusing to admit there's a problem ("I can stop any time I want," she says):

In both long- and short-form spots, Tool of North America director Sean Ehringer achieves a self-aware, sitcom atmosphere that serves the scripts well. This make frank and funny discussions of IBS-D, a highly personal and private condition, seem completely natural. 

And Becker's performance is winning her fans in unexpected places. 

"My favorite reaction so far was a message from someone I don't know, who works in a classified military 'war room' with those giant TVs that show things they're tracking, along with world news," she says. "The commercial came on, and they all stopped and belly-laughed. I hope I don't get him in trouble, but to be the reason someone takes a moment to laugh is kind of the best thing ever."

CREDITS

Client: Allergan
Executive Vice President, President of Branded Pharma: Bill Meury
Vice President, Marketing Gastroenterology: Chuck Sabino
Executive Director: Jorge Martinez
Product Director: Marc Pieroni
Multichannel, Consume Marketing: Itiel Katz

Agency: Arnold Worldwide
Global Chief Creative Officer: Jim Elliott
Executive Creative Director: Gary Scheiner
Associate Creative Directors: Kyle Jutkiewicz, Brittany King
Art Director: Mike Pilato
Junior Art Director: Pat Gamble
Copywriter: DeMane Davis
Junior Copywriters: Brian Nowakowski, Sarah Cookson
Senior Art Director: Michele Mason
Senior Planner: Amy Liebesman
Broadcast Producers: Pete Scudese, Lisa Kaplan
Project Managers: Ross Field, Danielle Maccone, Kristin Marsden-Milligan
Business Affairs: Lynne Rouffa

Agency: H4B
Marketing: Steve Nothel, Lisa Durels, Nicole Navon
Planner: Kristin Witty

Production Company: Tool of North America
Executive Producer: Robert Helphand
Line Producer: Jeff Tanner
Director: Sean Ehringer
Cinematographer: Don Davis

Editing Company: NO6 (TV spots)
Editor: Justin Quagliata
Producer: Malia Rose

Editing Company: Studio 6 (online videos)
Editor Erik Emond
Producer: Colin Tarpey
 
Music Company: Duotone
Track Title: "Belle's Theme"
Composer: Jordan Lieb

Sound Mix: Sound Lounge
Sound Mixer: Tom Jucarons

The saccharine Apple Watch dreamworld lives on.

To show how the high-tech timepiece can make each day more perfect, the marketer just released eight new 15-second ads. Celebrities star in four of them, with Chloë Sevigny returning for her second appearance in the series. Alice Cooper, Nick Jonas and Jon Batiste join her this time, each demonstrating the upside of having a miniature supercomputer on your wrist. 

Fitness is a recurring theme, taking up half of the spots. The best might be Cooper's, a quirky slice of life in which he swings futilely at golf balls (he's a golf enthusiast in real life)—but in the end settles for burning some calories, as measured by his watch.



If you're more like Nick Jonas, you might find yourself running around and panting while perpetually trying to catch up with your older brother Joe. Thankfully, you now have data to quantify that state of being constantly behind, which started the minute you were born. 



Two spots feature less famous actors working out. In one, a woman runs up an endless white staircase, racing against her friend in a visual setting that risks coming across as an uncomfortably apt, if melodramatic, metaphor for life. 



In another, a woman presses through a grueling rowing workout, with some positive reinforcement from the robot attached to her arm. 



The other ads extend that playful tone to a broader set of scenarios. Sevigny loses her phone in a scattered pile of fashionable clothes (exactly where she left off in her last Apple Watch ad, down to the same dress she's wearing). Luckily, the watch enables her to trigger a beep from the missing device. 



Meanwhile, Batiste fields text messages from Quincy Jones, telling him to dress down for an event. He obliges—by switching to a pink rubber watch band (and keeping the suit). 



If you're more of the smug superior type, you might enjoy the zen experienced by a woman who hoists her umbrella up at just the right moment, smiling while the clueless, ill-prepared suckers around her scatter in the rain. 



Lastly, a more socially adept woman uses her watch to coordinate a surprise party for her friend, switching the lights off in her purple living room with a tap of her wrist. 



Like the earlier ads in the campaign—which featured celebrities like Leon Bridges and RZA—these are deft, beautiful little pieces of persuasion. Apple masterfully blends utility and fashion; more so with this product than most, it illustrates how it can make your life easier (and prettier). 

What's worrisome is that the ads' atomized, almost isolationist aesthetic, which felt disconcerting at first, now seems totally normal—even appealing. What is the endgame, if not a sleek minimalist lifestyle wrapped in the soft glow of a frictionless existence? 

The answer: Do what you want with who you want, when you want, and avoid the rest. 

En route to annihilating humanity, would robots take time out for a bathroom break? Apparently they would, if this amusing slice of high-tech potty humor from DDB Chicago, touting Kohler's Veil Intelligent Toilet, can be believed. 

At a futuristic housewarming party, humans and bots mingle ... until the bots make like C3-Pee-O and head for the loo (for some urgent downloads, no doubt). The machines snap selfies with the cybernetic crapper, basking in the glow of its cobalt-blue LED nightlight. 

"The spot taps into the human truth that when at a party, people tend to congregate in the kitchen," Jean Batthany, executive creative director at DDB, tells AdFreak. "In this case, all guests robotic are drawn to the bathroom—where the real action is. There's also a layer of 'robot truth' in the shared social anxiety of trying to fit in and the relief in finding a kindred high-tech spirit."

The spot was directed in slick cinematic style by MJZ's Dante Ariola, Most of the automatons were represented by foam cutouts during the shoot for blocking, and brought to life in postproduction by effects house Jamm Visual. The humanoid couple was portrayed by flesh-and-blood actors, and the CG team matched their movements with bot-body imagery later on. (Wait until the the robot union hears about this!) 

"We are talking to the new sophisticate," Batthany says. "They are early adopters of technology and use design as a mode of self-expression. In a world where Siri and other lifelike technology is becoming more integrated into our daily lives, these bots help us tell a story of the very near future with a toilet as the star." 

In case you were wondering, Veil's functionality includes full or light flush settings, self-cleaning and automatic deodorizing systems, a heated seat with adjustable temperatures, and hands-free opening and closing of the seat and cover. 

About the only thing it doesn't do is sing "Bicycle Built for Two" (yet). But if the thing ever asks, "Just what do you think you are doing, Dave?"—it's time to get off the pot.

CREDITS
Client: Kohler

Agency: DDB Chicago
Chief Creative Officer: John Maxham
Executive Creative Director: Jean Batthany
Group Creative Director: Nathan Monteith
Creative Director (Art): Kurt Riemersma
Creative Director (Copy): Matt Ben Zeev
Chief Production Officer: Diane Jackson
Executive Producer: Debora den Iseger
Executive Art Producer: Suzanne Koller
Senior Print Producer: Carla Nieto
Senior Business Director: Jenn Nolden
Account Executive: Kate Karens
Account Manager: Kirby Summers
Production Manager: Scott Terry

Production Company: MJZ
President: David Zander
Senior Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Director: Dante Ariola
Line Producer: Natalie Hill
DP: Phillipe Le Sourd
Production Designer: Christopher Glass

Editorial: No6TV
Editor: Amanda Perry
Assistant editor: Danny Fogarty
Senior Producer: Kendra Desai

VFX: Jamm Visual
VFX Supervisor/Lead CG Lighter: Andy Boyd
VFX Supervisor/Lead Compositor: Jake Montgomery
Lead CG FX Artist: Zachary DiMaria
Flame Artist: Pat Munoz
Flame Artist: David Hernandez
Nuke Artist: Kenneth Brown
CG Artist: Nha Ca Chau
CG Artist: Huisoo Lee
CG Modeling: Aaron Hamman
CG Modeling: Joel Durham
Executive Producer: Asher Edwards
Producer: Ashley Greyson

Color: Company 3
Colorist: Stefan Sonnenfeld
Executive Producer: Rhubie Jovanov

Music House: PullPullPull
Composer: Mitch Davis
Executive Producer: Scott Brittingham

Audio Post: The Studio, Chicago
Sound engineer(s): Nicholas Papaleo

Sound assistant: Bobby Lord

Audio Post Producer: Stacey Simcik

Print Post production: Gianini
CGI Artist: Tim McMahon
CGI Artist: Sebastian Szyszka
CGI Artist: Jeffrey Gilles
Director: Scott Giannini
Executive Producer: Kevin O'Connell

Photography:
Photographer: Michael Huijbregtse (Kohler Co.)
Retoucher: Tom Waterloo (The studio, DDB Chicago) 

You've probably seen them before, those ads where a professional woman springs out of bed before the sun even rises, already looking impeccable and ready to do an hour of hot yoga in her underwear or make an elegant meal for her family all before leaving for work. There might be women like that out there, but a new campaign from Organic Valley says most women don't do that, and it has the statistics to back that claim up.

Touting the brand's line of organic balance protein shakes, Organic Valley created the "Real Morning Report" campaign to learn what women's mornings are really like. Humanaut, also behind Organic Valley's hilarious "Save the Bros" campaign, created the latest "Real Morning Report" work.

SoundView Research conducted some original research on the topic in February 2016, polling 1,000 American women between the ages of 25 and 54, all of whom work full time. According to the data, women rank doing their hair and makeup and showering as more important than eating breakfast. Additionally, 79 percent have eaten in a moving vehicle, and 36 percent say they will re-wear dirty clothes. 

The agency took some of the most interesting results from the research to create an illustrated survey online, posing questions like "How often do you check your work email before getting out of bed?" and "Have you ever eaten breakfast in a moving vehicle?"

After analyzing the data, which revealed that no, women do not typically wake up feeling #blessed that it's Monday again and that 33 percent of them never make their beds, Organic Valley came up with a humorous 90-second spot to illustrate its findings.

"There seems to be a growing disconnect between the perfect way women's lives are portrayed on social media and in many commercials, and what our busy, hectic lives really look like," Nicole Mydy, innovation manager for Organic Valley, told Adweek.

"Like most women in commercials, I love to start each day doing yoga in my underwear," one woman says in the ad. In reality, what women do have time for—and no, it's not crow pose or fermenting your own small-batch kombucha—is a quick and easy breakfast in the form of a protein shake.

Organic Valley said the goal of this campaign wasn't to make groundbreaking creative work that would revolutionize the way people and ads portray a woman's morning routine. Instead, it's meant to be silly and lighthearted, and of course, get you to try a morning shake instead of opting for a bowl of cereal or skipping breakfast altogether.

"This campaign is less about trying to change people's behaviors or cultural perceptions, and more about having fun sharing the stories and life hacks of our crazy mornings," Mydy said.

Few packaged goods have as strong an association with design-driven work as Häagen-Dazs, with little narrative typically needed as the brand visually communicates its high-end positioning. In its first work from new U.S. creative partner, J. Walter Thompson, Häagen-Dazs advances that tradition and introduces a tagline playing off its name: "äah."

"Häagen-Dazs has always aspired to a nice, clean aesthetic. They strip everything down to the essentials—focusing on simple, pure, ultra-premium ice cream," explained Chris Dealy, ecd at JWT, New York. "Aesthetically, we wanted to treat the layout like a very high-end fashion brand."

The campaign is the first since Häagen-Dazs quietly switched agencies on April 1, leaving longtime partner Goodby Silverstein & Partners for JWT, which is now Häagen-Dazs' lead creative agency in the U.S. GSP picked up the brand in 2003, replacing JWT, Chicago, and the Nestlé ice cream became one of Goodby's most visible clients. (Early ads showing Häagen-Dazs's concern over the plight of honey bees—and their reduced pollination—also helped draw consumer attention to that problem.)

The new JWT campaign launches this week with 15-second national TV spots and will be followed by a four-city, out-of-home (OOH) pitch next month. The entire campaign uses a clean, simple imagery, while the commercials employ a voiceover asking viewers how to describe something "so pure, yet so indulgent."

A spoon elegantly scoops vanilla ice cream, revealing the word "äah." Even at the spot's end, the brand's ionic doily logo is reduced to its basic shape sans the container.

CREDITS

Client: Häagen-Dazs
Agency: J. Walter Thompson, New York
Campaign: "äah"
Executive Creative Director: Chris Dealy
Creative Director: Dominic Al-Samarraie
Art Director: Jessica Stewart
Copywriters: Erin Copithorne, Kate Delaney, Kyle Provo
Chief Creative Officer, JWT, NY : Brent Choi
Project Manager: Scott Kogos
Agency Account Team: Simona Margarito, Global Business Director;  Katie Gallagher, Account Supervisor; Charlotte Deavers, Associate Account
Client Account Team: Kim Peddle Rguem ,VP, Marketing; Alex Placzek, director of Marketing; Kerry Hopkins, Brand Manager; Kim Chitra, Associate Brand Manager
TV Director: Torsten Eichten
Production Company: The Marmalade Films GmbH & Co KG
Photographer: Nigel Cox
Media Agency: Metavision

Normally you smoke weed and then have an uncontrollable urge to eat pizza. But mobile app Push for Pizza suggests you do it the other way around—and has the perfect invention to make it happen.

The app recently collaborated with the Nikolas Gregory design studio to create a very special pizza box, one section of which peels away and folds into a smokeable pipe. The cardboard forms the sides of the pipe, and the little plastic piece that keeps the box top from crushing the pizza becomes the bowl—though it isn't plastic here but temperature-resistant white ceramic.

"It is common to crave food when one gets high. It is also typical practice to order a quick pizza to satisfy this craving. We are aware of these trends and decided to combine these two interests in a actual product," says Push For Pizza co-founder Cyrus Summerlin.



"The pizza is in hand before the munchies set in, leading to a more relaxed and enjoyable experience without the interminable delay of its delivery or the pain of gnawing hunger," he adds. "And the pipe comes at no additional cost. Its materials are 100 percent recyclable."

Is it durable? "The pipe should last a long time," Summerlin says, who says the pipe has been fully tested. "Unless you are very careless with the flame, it will not burn."

At this point, only the prototype has been made, though Push for Pizza says it might do a limited run depending on how well it is received. If it does move into mass production, it will likely use a a temperature-resistant vegetable-based recyclable plastic instead of the ceramic. 

Y&R New Zealand's celebrated McWhopper campaign took home the highest honor, the Grandy, at the 52nd annual International Andy Awards on Tuesday night. And Y&R staffers from around the globe celebrated in a fun (if not very healthy) way—by making their own handmade McWhoppers, as seen in the cute video below.

It's rare and refreshing to see this kind of network camaraderie, particularly around awards, where offices far from the winning one might not ordinarily feel much of a connection.



For the McWhopper stunt, which happened last August, Burger King reached out to McDonald's and suggested they partner up and actually make a McWhopper for Peace Day. McDonald's politely declined, which meant it was never officially made—outside of the rudimentary efforts of amateurs (including, at the time, AdFreak's own official fast-food tester David Griner).

Y&R had a brilliant showing at the Andys. In addition to the Grandy for McWhopper, the network won the Richard T. O'Reilly Award for Outstanding Public Service for its "Melanoma Likes Me" work, created by GPY&R Brisbane in Australia.

"We are simply ecstatic," Tony Granger, global chief creative officer of Y&R, said in a statement. "We are so proud of winning the two top awards. Both ideas are terrific proof that brave clients get the work they deserve." 

Via AgencySpy.

Ikea's image is built on being approachable, well-designed and unbearably twee, all of which certainly apply to the chainless bicycle it is now producing. 

The Swedish home-goods brand made a bike before, but it was an electric model that wasn't widely available. This new bike, known as the Sladda, uses a cogged drive belt instead of a chain, and promises to be light and low-maintenance.

It also has a "clip-on" design for baskets and tow carts—an image we just cannot take seriously, though we are trying. It just feels like one of those things that's going to look dorky and try-hard until modern life becomes totally unsustainable and we all have to live with it. 

What's more frustrating is that a company that boasts about affordable products wants to sell sustainability to the public for $800 per bike. That's still cheaper than a car, and it won a Red Dot and all, but that price tag sticks in our craw. 

See the full bike below. Click to enlarge.

 

Here's a great bit of packaging design work from Jones Knowles Ritchie—pizza delivery boxes for Domino's that recreate the brand's logo across two boxes.

The design shop explains:

Over the years, Domino's packaging had been overloaded with generic messaging that had little impact on consumers, and the brand mark had become relegated to a small endorsement on pack. Our task was to make Domino's the definitive article once more by redesigning its delivery boxes in the U.K.

We wanted to celebrate Domino's distinctive and unique brand character by making it bold, simple and charismatic. We started by removing all the generic category communication from the boxes, focusing only on what Domino's owned: its once iconic red and blue domino logo.

Knowing that 96 percent of all Domino's pizzas are sold in pairs, we decided to make the brand's logo pivotal to the design with one red box, one blue box. The result was bold, brave and simple packaging design. An open invitation for sharing and play.

Now, they just need to Velcro the sides and put all different numbers on the top—and you could play a giant game of Domino's out on the lawn.

Via The Dieline.

Samsung Electronics is already a big winner for this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, scoring the award for Marketer of the Year. The brand will be honored during the festival in June.

"When you look at Samsung's wins at Cannes Lions, even just last year, what strikes you is the diversity of Lions that they are taking home through their overarching commitment to creativity. They're excelling across the board, including in areas such as healthcare communications, craft and branded content, as well as picking up a Titanium Lion," Terry Savage, chairman, Lions Festivals, said in a statement.

At the 2015 festival, Samsung walked away with 27 awards for some of its work including the innovative live-saving technology to be fitted onto big trucks, the Samsung Safety Truck—which was also awarded the Gravity Award for Adweek's Project Isaac Awards honoring creative innovation, last year—from Leo Burnett Argentina. The agency and brand scored a Titanium Lion for the work.

In the past year, Samsung has continued to create innovative campaigns, pushing further into virtual reality and collaborating with companies like Vice and 20th Century Fox to bring VR experiences to life for consumers. Other recent campaigns include work from Wieden + Kennedy for the Galaxy S7 starring Lil Wayne and a spot from Leo Burnett Italy featuring new technology for motorcycles that check texts, calls and emails.

"At Samsung, enriching people's lives is at the center of everything we do, and our marketing reflects this philosophy," Moon Soo Kim, evp of global marketing center at Samsung Electronics, noted in a statement.

Each year, Cannes Lions selects one marketer that has gone above and beyond, creating campaigns that are both innovative and inspiring. Previous honorees include Heineken in 2015, Coca-Cola and McDonald's.

To demonstrate the photographic precision and power of its Xperia Z5 smartphone camera, Sony Mobile has created an Instagram image that you can actually zoom in on.

Obviously, Instagram doesn't offer a zoom feature—to the frustration of many a lurking Instagrammer. But French agency Rosbeef made do with what was available.

When you click on this first image—a Where's Waldo-caliber clusterfuck of weird things happening around an otherwise innocuous Parisian Haussmann building—a tag appears. When you click on the tag, you're driven to another account, where the first image has been broken down into a cluster of separate photos. (The copy explains the concept, and also gives you the chance to win two tickets to the Champions League semi-finals.) 

The first click gets you here, and this is where you can start making interesting choices:



You can zoom up to five times (hence the Z5) before you're sent back to square one. For research purposes, we clicked on the T-Rex, which ultimately led us to a tiny penguin in a window, chillin' alongside a diminutive King Kong: 



But don't take out word for it; play with it on your own.

There are a few strategic plusses to this approach: It's an imaginative use of social mechanics and totally native to the platform. Over 100 Instagram accounts were created to give this bad-boy life. And when you start digging into the nitty-gritty details, you end up spending a lot of time with the ad itself, which nicely expresses the tactile sensation of a 5x zoom (though it's confusing to see figures like X3, X4 and X5, which appear as you progress, when the product is actually called Z5).

As for that whole Champions League thing: From April 4 to 18, users can poke around for a secret code hidden within the experience. As mentioned, if you win, you score two tickets to the semifinals, for which Sony Mobile is an official partner.

The video below shows the campaign in action. 



CREDITS

Advertiser: Sony Mobile France
Alexandra De Chazeaux, Head Of Brand Marketing
Agency: Rosbeef!
Agency Managers: Victoria Schnell, Antoine David, Frans Mccabe
Head Of Creatives: Frans Mccabe
Head Of Strategy: Antoine David
Art Supervisor: Melody Hary
Da: Paul Viollet
Digital & Social Media: Xavier Delelis-Fanien, Michael Gayet, Marc Minart, Eva Charpentier, Pierre-Edouard Vidal, Pauline Pecorini
Media Agency: Mediacom