The Ad of the week: "A Merry Hunt " (Cake Film - Netherlands)

December 20, 2011

Creativity (in the highest)
First and foremost, Marry Christmas to all, and to all... peace on earth & -- good will!

And now, the ad of the week:

Credits: "A Merry Hunt" | Cake Film | Amsterdam | Netherlands

Create- evity
The dictionary defines creativity as the result from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative: creative writing.

The fact that "Creativity" comes along when something new is created (a product, a solution, a work of art, a novel, a joke, etc.) that has some kind of value... makes it really hard to stay in the "conventional way of thinking."

Creatives think outside the box ("a little")
In the 60s arrogance made people believe that everything was already invented... time proved them wrong...

The way a creative think is "If all the traditional way to approach people is already creative, then there has to be a different way to be even more creative."

Example: The evolution of the telephone...

For that reason, creatives are sometimes forced to push the boundaries "a little"...  some times going... "a little" too far.

The consequences?

A lot... A LOT of bad, pointless, stupid, tasteless, rude, vulgar, and brain-retardation Ad-material.

But that's just the price to be paid to genius creativity.

See more work from Cake Film at http://www.cakefilm.nl

The good, the bad & the ugly
Stwuart Elliot, from the New York Times, reviewed the  Best (and Worst) Ads of 2011:

The following article was published at the New York Times on Dec. 18, 2011 (To read the whole article click here) This article also appeared in print on December 19, 2011, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Reliving the Best (and Worst) Ads of 2011.

One of the favorite ads of 2011 was a Volkswagen commercial featuring a child dressed as Darth Vader, which has generated more than 45 million views on YouTube.

MANY of the best advertisements of 2011 had something in common: celebrities, whether in front of the camera or behind it.

A two-minute commercial from Chrysler, “Born of Fire,” which celebrated both the Chrysler 200 and the city of Detroit, featured Eminem, its hometown rapper.

The actor Adrien Brody, playing a nightclub singer in a commercial for Stella Artois beer.

The ad campaign that revived the vintage jingle, "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet," featured the "Glee" cast in an elaborate production number.

Unfortunately for Madison Avenue, not to mention put-upon consumers, that was also true for many of the worst advertisements.

Is it really so hard to figure out how to effectively use a star to sell a soap, soup or soft drink? Well, a look at marketer misfires this year would find enough famous faces to fill all the boxes on a revival of “The Hollywood Squares” — and then some.

Of course, not all the bad ads included celebrities; ditto for the good ones. But borrowing star power was a popular tactic during a year in which economic uncertainty made advertisers try especially hard to woo customers.

What follows is a recap of high and low points, with and without celebrities, in alphabetical order.

CHAPSTICK When the ChapStick brand of lip balm sold by Pfizer tried to drum up “buzz” in social media, it was met by a buzz saw. The fiasco began with a post on the brand’s Facebook fan page that asked: “Where do lost ChapSticks go? Be heard at facebook.com/ChapStick.”

The post featured an ad depicting a woman with her jeans-clad hindquarters in the air, diving behind a sofa to, presumably, search for her missing ChapStick. Consumers who considered that sexist sought to “be heard” by posting complaints on the fan page, only to watch ChapStick repeatedly delete them. The more negative comments increased, the faster they were deleted.

AdFreak, a blog that is part of adweek.com, denounced the brand’s “silent war against its Facebook fans” as an example of “a social media death spiral.” Agency: unknown; those responsible have probably been hiding behind a sofa.

CHEVROLET Opinions have been sharply divided over a new campaign for the Chevrolet division of General Motors, which carries the theme “Chevy runs deep.” But one of the best ads in the campaign revived the brand’s vintage jingle, “See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet.”

The commercial, which ran during a special episode of “Glee,” featured the “Glee” cast in an elaborate production number, channeling (and paying tribute to) the jingle’s original singer, Dinah Shore, and her long-running variety series sponsored by Chevy. Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, part of the Omnicom Group.

CHRYSLER Most Super Bowl sponsors offer sneak peeks of their spots, the better to garner additional attention in social media like Facebook and YouTube. Not so the Chrysler Group, which surprised and delighted viewers with a two-minute commercialduring Super Bowl XLV that made a heartfelt plea not only for the Chrysler 200 but also the embattled American automotive industry. The power of the “Imported From Detroit” pitch was amplified immeasurably by the participation of the Detroit rapper Eminem. Agency: Wieden & Kennedy.

FIAT Win some, lose some. As awesome as the spot for the Chrysler 200 was, that is how awful two commercials were for the Fiat 500, being introduced in the United States by the Chrysler parent, Fiat. Both featured Jennifer Lopez in what could be the worst pairing of a star and a car since Celine Dion’s disastrous Chrysler endorsement deal a decade ago.

The first Lopez spot, made without an agency, was a wishy-washy, mish-mash mash-up of a music video and a commercial. The second spot, by the Doner agency, was mocked mercilessly after a blogger disclosed that a body double, not Ms. Lopez, was used in scenes filmed in her old Bronx neighborhood. Fiat, how “Lo” can you go?

GROUPON Cuba Gooding Jr., Elizabeth Hurley and Timothy Hutton appeared in ads before, during and after Super Bowl XLV, which sought to spoof celebrities who appear in ads to proselytize for their favorite causes. The joke, such as it was, fell as flat as a Groupon discount coupon for 1 percent off the price of a Super Bowl spot — and the campaign was discontinued days later. Agency: Crispin Porter & Bogusky, part of MDC Partners.

STELLA ARTOIS The actor Adrien Brody did double duty as a singer in a Super Bowl XLV commercial for Stella Artois beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Not only was it one of those instances when the word “singer” ought to have been placed inside quotation marks, the low-key spot, set in a jazz club, was a poor fit for a brassy, high-energy program like a Super Bowl. Spots for Super Bowls call out for marching bands. Agency: Mother.

VOLKSWAGEN Darth Vader is a celebrity, of a kind, and a spot for the 2012 Volkswagen Passat, which also appeared during Super Bowl XLV, combined a child dressed as the dark lord, some “Star Wars” music and a witty sight gag to produce a delightful commercial that has generated more than 45 million views on YouTube and been widely deemed the best of 2011. Agency: Deutsch L.A., which is the Marina del Rey, Calif., office of Deutsch, part of the Lowe & Partners Worldwide division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.