AdWeek: AdFreak

Another Ad-Agency Music Video That Will Make You Squirm

Tim Nudd — Tim Nudd

As instruments of self-promotion, ad-agency music videos are almost always a terrible idea. SapientNitro learned this the hard way last year in the scathing response to its Rebecca Black-esque "Idea Engineers" video. (Our favorite agency music video ever, though, was the awesomely wretched tribute in song to David Ogilvy by Bold Ogilvy Athens.) Now, a small agency in Fort Worth, Texas, called GCG Marketing has joined the fray—unveiling the video below, in which a bearded hipster dude celebrates the shop's advertising expertise with some hardboiled street poetry. Sample lyrics: "We're experts/Never resting on our blessed expertise/You want results?/You gotta roll up your sleeves. … We are Cyrano to your Roxanne/Central intelligence to your battle plan/We are the river, and you are the damned/Let us go, and we'll turn can't into can. … You bring the grindstone, and we'll bring the nose/We're GCG Marketing, and we thought you should know." The upside—it's not as megacheesy as those earlier videos, and is actually competently produced. The downside—it's a guy earnestly rapping about an ad agency. Nothing good can come of such a thing.

DirecTV Introduces Advertising's Weirdest-Looking Baby Yet

Gabriel Beltrone — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:27:05 +0000

Who does that adorable, pudgy little baby look like? Maybe it's his father. Maybe his grandpa. Maybe the milkman. Probably he's an awkward mashup of one relation's beady eyes, another's bushy eyebrows, another's douche-y 'stache, another's pouty lips, another's receding hairline, etc. He's a cute bundle of weird. Them's the breaks when you roll the genetic dice. Them's also a new ad for DirecTV from Y&R Buenos Aires, because that baby's features are diverse—just like the satellite service's range of channels. In other words, everyone sees what they want to see. Also, because weird babies make for good advertising. It's the single, gravitational law of marketing in the 21st century. What was that ad about again? Who cares. Babies sell everything.

Volkswagen Reimagines the Origin of Classic Movie Scenes

David Gianatasio — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:10:17 +0000

DDB London's latest iteration of Volkswagen's "See Film Differently" series posits that "some of the most famous moments in cinema were never scripted." I can believe it. Lazy Hollywood screenwriters, cashing huge paychecks and pecking away on solid-gold iPads in their platinum hot tubs, not even doing their jobs, while I toil in obscurity, grinding out AdFreak items for peanuts! Sorry. I have some issues. Anyway, three new spots, directed by Ivan Zacharias and supporting independent cinema, amusingly reveal the unlikely origins of key scenes in Jaws, Taxi Driver and The Silence of the Lambs. They're basically one-joke wonders, but the attention to detail rewards repeat viewings. The look and feel of each film is faithfully reproduced, and period touches add to the fun. Note the shaggy haircut and T-shirt/gym-shorts ensemble that dude sports in the Jaws spot. We all looked like that in '75. I still do. Two more spots after the jump.

Pringles Ad Accused of Ripping Off 'One Tiny Hand' Tumblr

David Kiefaber — Wed, 30 May 2012 13:36:44 +0000

[Note: The agency says this spot was never approved to run. See update below.] I'm sure advertisers have ripped off individual Tumblrs before, but it's never been quite as obvious as Grey Mexico's "One Tiny Hand" spot for Pringles, which bears some rather convenient similarities to a blog created by Zach Vitale, Bob O'Connor and James Weinberg, in which they Photoshop pictures of celebrities to make one of their hands comically smaller than the other. I'm sure that's funny somehow. Both Grey Mexico and the blog's creators are keeping quiet about the ad. Given how ad agencies have borrowed from Don Hertzveldt's work, it wouldn't surprise me if Grey Mexico are just biters. But maybe Vitale's blog took its whole concept from Jon Glaser, or Burger King's "Tiny Hands" ads. Call it a wash, I guess. Via Mashable and Copyranter. UPDATE: A rep at Grey tells us: "The work was never authorized by Grey Mexico for broadcast. We do not endorse any part of it—the idea, the content, setting or story line. It should not have entered the public domain."

Rocker Releases Album on Nintendo Gaming Cartridges

Rebecca Cullers — Tue, 29 May 2012 20:33:52 +0000

Rocker Jon Black, who performs as Fort Atlantic, decided to offer his latest album on original Nintendo cartridges. As the music industry's brick-and-mortar distribution method continues to implode, more musicians are releasing limited-edition versions of albums with creative, weird and sometimes wonderful marketing gimmicks. Last month we caught up with Black's oppositely named cohort Jack White, who floated his new single away on a thousand helium balloons. Black's label, Dualtone, didn't have an easy job making the Nintendo thing work. They had to source the cartridges and reprogram them, and scoured eBay for five lucky gold cartridges created from Legend of Zelda games that act as golden tickets. Fans who get the shiny cartridges receive tickets to any Fort Atlantic show they choose, a special mix tape and, of course, a T-shirt. They've already sold out of the original run of 50 cartridges and plan on creating 25 more—a number that would be higher if it wasn't so complicated and time consuming to create the unique packaging. Luckily for those of us who sold their original NES long ago, each cartridge also contains the album on USB in lossless MP3 format. So you'll never have to blow on it. Via Underwire.

More Tasteless Ads That Never Ran: The 2012 Chip Shop Awards

Tim Nudd — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:51:44 +0000

It's time again for the Chip Shop Awards, the one advertising award show that doesn't care whether the ads actually ran or not—or indeed, if you even work for the clients whose ads you're submitting. This has limited value, of course, but at least it leads to some humorous executions. (The categories include Best Use of Shocking Copy, Best Politically Incorrect and Best Use of Bad Taste.) The 2012 finalists have been chosen. This year's entries seem a bit lacking. There's nothing quite on the level of last year's Michael J. Fox and Piers Morgan/Justin Bieber ads. Still, some of them might provoke a guilty chuckle. Check out more of this year's finalists after the jump, and vote for your favorites over at the website.

Best Corporate Apology Ever Posted to Twitter?

David Griner — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:49:57 +0000

Sainsbury's has this whole Twitter thing down cold. Earlier today, popular U.K. blogger October Jones complained that his chicken sandwich from the grocery chain "tastes like it was beaten to death by Hulk Hogan." The company's official PR account promptly responded: "Really sorry it wasn't up to scratch. We will replace Mr. Hogan with Ultimate Warrior on our production line immediately." (If you're not a child of 1980s pop culture, you can rediscover both of the poultry pounders here.) Completing a nice Twitter tandem, another Sainsbury's corporate account replied with a phone number for Jones to call and said the company sincerely regrets that "you had to wrestle your way through the sandwich." Sainsbury's is proving quite responsive to all sorts of unconventional customer complaints. Earlier this year it pledged to change the name of its Tiger Bread to Giraffe Bread thanks to an online campaign that began with a 3-year-old's letter.

Lemonade Brand Tracks Down Lost Actress for Remake of '70s Ad

David Kiefaber — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:34:24 +0000

Way back in the 1970s, British lemonade brand R. White's made an ad in which a woman follows her husband down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and discovers he is a total dork. Oh, and that he's addicted to R. White's lemonade. This ad was recently remade to promote R. White's new lemonade popsicles, using the same actors from the first ad—Julian Chagrin and Harriet Philpin. It took some searching to find Harriet, though—she had moved to Ireland, and only found out about the project when her son saw an appeal for her whereabouts in a London paper. ("My son rang me up and said, 'You won't believe it mum, you're in the papers over here; R. White's has spent months searching for you,'" she said.) While I can't say I approve of Julian's ponytail, and phrases like "secret lemonade licker" suggest darker problems in that couple's relationship, it seems everyone involved with the new spot was having a ton of fun. And man, a lemonade popsicle would be really nice right about now. See both spots below.

Volkswagen Races Beetles (the Insect Kind) on Tiny Course in 'Bug Run'

David Gianatasio — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:05:24 +0000

Those interested in wasting time on the Internet in every possible way might want to check out Volkswagen's Bug Run, an online race for beetles—actual insects, not cute cars—engineered by DDB Stockholm. The races began Monday. DDB tells us: "There will be one race per day broadcast over a five-day period (Mon-Fri). Races on the first four days are qualifying heats with the final being on Friday. Each race will consist of eight bugs, with the two fastest progressing from each heat to the final. In order to rank each beetle, a qualifying heat has been held. Forty beetles entered, and only 32 made it to the heats." My favorite racer is named Shitty Bill. Seriously. We're told on his bio page that he "comes straight from the dumpster." Magnus the bug wrangler assures us all the creepy contestants "are properly cared for and all will be released exactly where they were found." (Behind my fridge, probably.) The 2,920-millimeter racecourse, with its detailed landscape of hills, bridges, buildings and display Beetles—capital B this time—is pretty cool. Play for points to win trips to London, racing and soccer tickets, or Samsung Galaxy Tabs. Lucky folks in Sweden and Denmark can place real money bets, because that's how they roll—or in this case, scuttle—in their pest-infested socialist utopias.

Man Headbutts Wife in Horrible Ad for Social-Event Website

Tim Nudd — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:44:45 +0000

Here's your daily dose of horrible violence against women in advertising—a Portuguese commercial for a social-events website in which a husband gives his wife a nasty headbutt. Lovely. Adweek's resident Portuguese expert, Nick Mrozowski, who sent us this link about the spot, tells us the attack is supposed to be a play on the site's name: "Vai Bater can translate literally to 'go hit,' but the name of the site is more likely a reference to a heartbeat, as in 'a sua coração vai bater,' or 'your heart will beat,' as in, these events are exciting … and maybe you'll find a better girlfriend there. So, the ad is a play on the double meaning." Needless to say, bashing a woman in the head in service to a pun is a questionable tactic. The tagline is: "Vai Bater! Events close to you. Choose the event. Live the moment!" The woman in the ad is Monica Sofia, a singer and Playboy model. The man is apparently her real-life husband.