I need €300 or I’m dead

More interesting pseudo-pranking stuff from Carlsberg. Created by Belgian agency Duval Guillaume, the same people who brought you the equally viral “Bikers in the Cinema” and “Press for Drama” films which you can see below. But does the agency run the risk of being typecast as “the pranking agency”? Is that a bad thing? Who cares, we’re too hungover from Creative Circle last night to even think about it coherently. WHISKEY!

CRUK Update: “Up yours Cancer”

Just breaking my blog-posting strike* to bring you more brilliant work for CRUK, this time from Mother. It fits very snugly with the campaign created by AMV earlier in the year, proving that a strong brand thought can transcend the usual competitor agency bollocks.

Both campaigns are great. Both are different. And both are clearly pissed with cancer. But it’s clear which work comes from which agency. AMV’s is grown up and powerful, while Mother’s is more agressive and emotional (which could easily have gone too far but didn’t). Each is saying the same thing in their own way for different aspects of the charity. Which is spot on if you ask me.

And I could almost feel the writer’s sense of satisfaction with the ”you make me sick” line too. Great stuff, Mother. Great stuff.

-J

*I’m on strike because Angus hasn’t posted once in the six months since we’ve moved to WordPress. But today, I’m a scab. And I’m ok with that.

Stop blaming the client. Sell!Sell! hit the nail on the head…

Just go and read this.

That is all.

Beautiful Meteoric Russian Dashcam Action

We posted a while back about the rise of dashcams in Russian cars. But all that madness is worth it sometimes:

Absolutely beautiful isn’t it.

Edit: And some more from Russia Today:

The truth about advertising (via North Korea)

This wonderfully written film was reportedly leaked out of North Korea (quite deliberately, it would appear) and it’s full of a few home truths about Western society that are hard to disagree with. Skip to 1:08:11 to watch the advertising section, but it’s worth watching the whole thing too.

Or if you’d rather just watch the North Koreans hating on Paris Hilton (and who wouldn’t), just watch this snippet instead:

And here’s a good article in the Indy about the film and where it came from. Makes you wonder why we don’t immediately form a good-old-fashioned Communist dictatorship of our own.

[EDIT: It's a fake, but who cares. It's still a frighteningly accurate satire. Watch the whistleblowers here. Hat tip to Jeff for actually doing some actual real actual research.]

A $4million Superbowl ad could buy loads of the digitals. But why?

There’s an article trending on twitter (twending?) from Digiday. It’s about all the things you could buy in the digital space for the price of one $4million Superbowl spot. It’s supposed to be a pro-digital article. It’s on Digiday after all. But not a single one of the things they recommend would achieve anything like the exposure of one Superbowl TV spot. Especially a good one. Not to mention all the masses of free media (good and bad, both on- and offline) generated by each spot regardless of their merits. There’s a good article how VW maximised this with their 2011 ”The Force” spot here. 

What the Digiday article misses is the fact that it’s not quantity but quality that counts. A superbowl spot is one of those ultimate brand accessories. Why would you want to put a big banner on YouTube for eight days when you could have an ad in the Superbowl (with one of the largest TV audiences in the world)? It doesn’t matter how great your massive interactive YouTube banner is, it’s just not going to have the impact of a TV spot. Nor will anything else for that matter.

It’s a bit like saying to the missus, “You can have that Mulberry handbag you’ve always dreamed about, or you can have these 200 backpacks which can carry so much more stuff“. Dumb right?

Don’t get us wrong, we love the digitals. But good god, where’s the common sense?

People who can’t spell ‘bowl’…

OMG! MUST SEE!

We never run out of chicken.

Screaming into the bowel.

A terrifying new show on Animal Planet.

No-one wants to be at that party.

EDIT: Had to add this one…

We did some stuff for 118 118

A couple of months back, we gave the boys at Watermill (Dave Waters and Bertie Miller (legends)) a hand with a pitch for 118 118. Probably the most fun we’ve had on a pitch for years. And if you’ve watched any movies on ITV recently you’ve probably even seen the spots…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weirder still, I (Johnny) even got to audition to be one of the 118 guys:

Yes, it was nerve-wracking. No I didn’t get it. Yes, that’s a real handlebar. No, I didn’t keep it.

CRUK’s balls and a silent “y’fucker”

We were going to post about the new CRUK campaign over Christmas, but we knew everybody would be too busy getting pissed, eating too much, and smoking fat cigars to read our stupid blog.

Anyway, if you didn’t see the ad on telly over the holidays, you’ll have missed quite how striking it was, especially amid the unrelenting SALE SALE SALE ads and all those “real family” vignettes favoured by the supermarkets this year. Here it is:

Bold visuals. A strong VO. A haunting but hopeful Brian Eno track. But most of all, a startlingly simple message that couldn’t have come from any other charity: “Research has beaten polio. Research has beaten Smallpox. Research is beating HIV. One day, research will beat cancer.” Boom, I get it. You haven’t told me a single thing about the research itself, because I don’t need to know (and it’s rare how many clients get that too, so good on them).

Better yet, the call to action, “Help us make it sooner,” is one of those can’t-argue-with-it lines that comes with a silent “y’fucker” at the end. Like, duh, of course I can do that.

It’s the balls of it that makes the campaign stand out. It’s not whiney or intentionally tearjerky like previous work has been. It’s saying “fuck you cancer, you’re fucking dead” before hefting an SR-47 assault rifle and pumping an entire clip into cancer’s stupid big face.

See?

Refreshing stuff from AMV BBDO  and The Conran Design Group.

This is stunning…

Looks like it’s shot with an AR drone too, which makes it even cooler.

From Ben