Fifth and Final Commercial

The fifth and final commercial I will critique and the last thing I will write on this blog for this class is also a great commercial. The commercial is for Volkswagen’s VW passat in the car category. The agency that created the ad is Deutsch inc. Los Angeles, USA. I first saw this commercial during the Super Bowl and I knew after the very first time I saw it that this was going to be one to remember. Of course we talked about the ad in my advertising classes and knew the ad would be aware winning. The commercial shows a pint size Darth Vader trying to use the “force” to move objects in his house. Each time he is unsuccessful and gets disappointed. His dad then drives up in the driveway with a all-new 2012 VW Passat. His dad tries to give him a hug but he shrugs him off. He then looks at the car with complete determination to make the car start. The viewer then sees the boy’s dad automatically start the car just as the boy is using his “force”. The boy gets so excited and scared at the same time while the parents look lovingly on their precious pint sized Darth Vader. The commercial is one minute long and is shot so nicely with the star wars music in the background. The commercial tells a story an amazing story without the use of a single word. The commercial of course won a gold lion and has proven to be a very rewarding ad for not only the agency but also for VW.

Commercial number 4

The After Hours Athlete for Puma is my favorite commercial I saw at the festival by far. The type of entry is product and service, the category is clothing, footwear and accessories. The agency that created the campaign is DROGA5 New York, USA. The commercial is one minute and thirty seconds long. The commercial is shot very naturally using normal everyday people to show people in social settings catching cabs, playing pool and bowling. The camera shows close up shots of people’s hands, feet, and close up portrait shots. What I enjoy the most is the copy writing. The man’s voice is so relaxing and the script is very creative and relatable to the everyday person. The Social PUMA is a creative approach to an athletic shoe. It reminds us everyone can even be an athlete even if that is a pickup game of bowling, or trying to ring the back of a garbage can with a bottle. The campaign relates to a much wider target audience than the typical running shoe normally targets. This ad also won a Cannes Lions gold lion in the film category. When the commercial is over you feel warm inside as if your life was just played out on camera. It is a great campaign and is well deserving of a gold lion.

Commerical number 3

The Slo Mo campaign is in the product and service category. The client is Fosters Group and the product is Carlton Draught. The agency that created this brilliantly entertaining ad is Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, Australia. The ad won a gold lion for good reason. Slowing down the camera and showing how men interact in a pub is very relaxing and comical. The ad is done with a high precision camera and has several up close shots and pans away to show more of the pub and the men’s interactions with the women. I enjoyed the music and the drama it gave to the situation.  The Carlton Drought beer also looked very appealing in the campaign. Due to the creativity of this ad a consumer can relate the men, the beer, and the brand.

Commerical number 2

The Nike campaign “Write the Future” won Grand Prix in the Film category. The entry type was product and service for Nike football. The entrant company was Wieden and Kennedy Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The film was three minutes long and didn’t have the look for feel of a typical ad at all. The film was shot more like a movie than and advertisement. The commerical was shot in many different camera angles  using close up, mid range, and long shot ranges. Some parts of the film the lighting would be dark when the players were on the field at night or a player was in a bar at night and in other scenes the lighting would be brighter. The commercial showed football players in different stages of their life and then flash to them in the future playing soccer. It shines the light on the international elite soccer players who only have one shot to make the team or be forgotten. The goal was to weave the brand into the conversations about the tournament and engaged athletes and fans worldwide. The campaign proved to be effective of a creative level as well as producing a great outcome for Nike and raising their brand awareness. The film was beautifully done. Much time and effort was put into this film to make it so award winning and effective.

Final Day at Cannes Lions

I arrived at the festival with Mallory around ten thirty to meet a guy who said he had an extra gala ticket. I tweeted at him letting him know I was looking for him. During the mean time I sat through two seminars. The first Seminar was AICP Digital. The title was evolving content creators-innovation in advertising. The speakers included Justin Booth-Clibboran, president of PSYOP, Vic Palumbo for Deutsch, Heath Rudduck for Campbell Mithun, and Dustin Callif for Tool North America.

The board discussed the latest in the digital world. Introducing the new technology and how commercials can be a completely CGI production. The board showed the Voltswagen Beetle commercial that ran in the Super Bowl. Vic Palumbo took me through the steps from the idea, to the drawing board to the final productions. He also discussed how the video was played on YouTube and the response the video got from viewers.

The whole board harped on a few topics.  What got my attention the most was how the young film and production employees are so valuable in the new digital world. Vic Palumbo discussed that the young digital minds are not afraid to break the machines and are not afraid to dream big. The reasoning is partly because they are young but mostly because they grew up in a digital world.

The second seminar was called B-Reel, titled digital schmigital for 2012. The speakers consisted of Petter Westlund, Ben Tricklebank, Nicke Bergstrom, Seth Weisfeld, and Marci Ikeler.

This seminar was also talking about the new digital world and integrating social media into the mix. Marci Ikeler talked about the Ford-Gray group campaign giving people with a strong presence on YouTube and Twitter and new Ford Fiesta for a year. All they had to do was blog, tweet, or post videos about their experiences. The campaign was extremely successful and really expanded brand awareness of the Ford Fiesta.

The panel also talked about advertising implanting a Hacker mentality. Companies like whopper with the Whopper sacrifice campaign. For every person you deleted from your friend list on Facebook, the participate would receive a free Whopper. The campaign once again was extremely successful and won awards as Cannes.

By this time It was noon and I needed lunch and I still hadn’t heard back from the man about the Gala ticket. So figured he had left to return to Belgium. After lunch he of course had tweeted me back but by now he in fact has returned back to Belgium. If only I had internet connection everywhere I would have attended the Gala. Oh the power of social media.

The whole group dressed up and attended the Film, Film Craft, Creative Effectives, and Titanium and Integrated Lions Awards. The awards were so fun and very well produced. The television advertising campaigns that won top awards were incredible. After each one Colson and I literally would have chill bumps.

The awards were by far the best way to end this jam packed week of learning from and listening to amazing people in the advertising/public relations industry.

Cannes Lions day 6

Today I went to a master class with HP Graphic Arts & BBDO. The title of the master class was creative engineering: The digital and physical playground. The speaker was Marcos Medeiros the creative director of AlmapBBDO. He is extremely creative and has won 12 gold lions at the Cannes Lions festival. Medeiros and BBDO worked with HP Graphic Art software and Billboard magazine to create crazy portraits. He first would get pictures at thousands of different celebrities. He had to acquire the pictures from music videos of each individual artist to not infringe on any copy write laws. When he had a data base of artists, music fans could take a picture of themselves, pick their favorite artists, and create a picture of themselves made up of tiny pictures of their favorite artists. The concept is very hard to grasp in writing.

Mr. Medeiros was introduced as a rock star. He quickly shot back that he is not a rock star but just in a really great band. He stressed the importance of team work and collaboration to create an amazing product. Which leads me to the next speaker:

The group met with The BBDO CEO Chris Hall. He has been working in the Atlanta area for many years and his son actually attends UGA. He wanted to stress tree key points to us and then he wanted to answer our questions.

#1 why are we here?

Response- creative ads have been proven to be eleven times for effective than ads that aren’t considered to be creative. Being creative gives brands a competitive advantage in the industry. Brands have caught on to this concept and are re thinking the relationships between advertisers and clients.

# 2 This is the golden age of creativity.

Response-  Cannes use to have three categories: press, film, and outdoor. Now Cannes has several different categories to reflect the changes in the advertising industry which includes digital. The advertising industry has progressed more in the past five years that it has in the past twenty five years and it is all due to technology. He said “if you can dream it, you can do it”.

# 3 collaboration is the key to success.

Like Medeiros, Hall stressed the importance of collaboration. Meaning bringing people together with all types of backgrounds and specialties to come together a product a great outcome.

I really enjoyed hearing him speak. He is a great guy and is very approachable. I look up to him and all his great accomplishments.

Cannes Lions day 5

Each day the festival gets more and more crowded, but with this come more and more amazing advertising professionals. Today the group had to opportunity to talk to three people in three totally different jobs within the integrated advertising/ public relations/ marketing world.

Our first speaker was Jennifer Frommer SVP of client relations/branding SVP of Client Relations/Branding for interscope records. Listening to her impressive career path it is evident that women can and will succeed in the advertising industry. She is just a brilliant lady who founded the music industry’s first New Media division. She was very real with us and was very open to helping the group out in the future.

I then caught the tail end of the Time Warner seminar titled thinking inside the box, [The golden age of T.V everywhere.] The men on stage were very entertaining and were all highly trained and experienced in their field of work. Jeff Bewkes who is the chairman and CEO of Time Warner, Piers Morgan (who I love) is the host of CNNs Piers Morgan Tonight, David Simon (later spoke with the group) who is a journalist, author, and TV produce for HBO, and Aaron Sorkin who is a playwright and screenwriter.

The theme of today’s speakers were mostly involving the film and TV industry. The men discussed that social media is not taking audiences away from television but drawing more viewers into the television circuit.

David Simon talked to the group right after his presentation and was really interesting to listen to. He actually said that TV programming is maturing because it has broken the spell of advertising. Meaning consumers are willing to pay for TV programs that they know will be great shows with zero advertising interruptions. He then went to tangents about why the newspaper failed, why wall street is a terribly industry, and his very interesting political views. He admitted that he went to the wrong festival but I’m glad we were able to hear from him because he was so well read and entertaining.

The group then spoke with a really sweet lady Allison Arden. She is a publisher for Ad Age and was really interested in hearing from the students. She wanted to know what we thought of the trip so far and what trends we seem to be seeing in each seminar. Everyone that we have talked to has been very encouraging.

A very funny and Final thought from David Simon when asked to sum up life in 11 words this is what he came up with:

“Fuck the money, leave the world better than you found it.”

Pretty good message I would say!