Back in August, Sam Katz, the incumbent mayor of Winnepeg accidentally kicked a teen in the head during a charity soccer match between some adult city workers and a team of kids from the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba. The video went viral and achieved semifame on the internet among Canadians. Now a clip from that video has shown up in a hilarious mock ad supposedly paid for by an unknown group called “FOPATKITFOC” or, “the Friends of People Against the Kicking in the Face of Children.” Nice.

Robert Mackey at the New York Times blog calls it the “mock Canadian attack ad of the year”.
Check out the original video of the facekick, complete with audio:

The best part… the announcer’s commentary: “Oh! He’s booted him in the face in an election year!”

I would imagine that after attaching such a strange contraption to your face while on a plane, one would actually find it more difficult to nap, mostly because of the uncomfortable mumblings from your fellow passengers and all the painful taserings from federal air marshals.

http://www.snazzynapper.com/

This is the new McDonald’s commercial that’s generating all the interest online. It’s called “Come As You Are”.

In it, a teenage boy sits in a McDonald’s, wistfully looking at his class picture and caressing it with his finger while talking to the obvious object of his affection on the phone. As his father approaches, he quickly hangs up and then listens to his dad tell him how much of a ladies’ man he was at his son’s age. The eventual reveal is that the son goes to an all boys school, so the object of his affection on the other end of the phone was another boy. That’s a twist ending worthy of M. Night Shyamalan.

It’s pretty bold of McDonald’s to air such an ad. The question is, is it really necessary? Did French homosexuals previously feel uncomfortable in McDonald’s? Either way, score one for MickeyDees for scooping up the huge teenage homosexual market in France.

The French website Yagg.com interviewed the brand director of McDonald’s France, Nathalie Legarlantezec, and got this explanation:

“We wanted to take a look at how French society is today. We’re very comfortable with the topic of homosexuality, there is obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today”. While the statement sounds a bit naive in a country where same sex couples cannot legally marry nor adopt, the idea was to give a positive image of the brand: “The point was not to show someone who is troubled, especially a teenager. We know it can be difficult for some people, but we wouldn’t have dared show someone who is struggling”.

The Problem: Budweiser’s sales were down 9% last year and are down another 9% this year. The brand’s been losing customer loyalty consistently over the past 5-10 years, as can be seen in their ranking among national product brands – which slipped from 16th in 2003 to 220th in 2010.

The Reason: The major beer drinking age demographic, 21-34 year olds, consists of ironic hipsters and testosterone-challenged “progressives” who are switching to microbrews, wine, and abominations like Smirnoff Ice in droves. In fact, microbreweries specifically have more than doubled their production since 2004.

What Budweiser is doing about it: Good advertising…

The beauty of this ad is in it’s simplicity, and in the fact that it embraces a sense of masculinity that has been absent in most advertising, and is definitely absent in the apparent tastes of most 21-34 year olds. Plus, aesthetically, it’s just a good commercial. It gets me excited about the weekend, makes me want to go get a six pack of Bud.

There are no gimmicks or forced humor, in fact there’s no talking at all, just rousing music and rapid fire shots of baseball, concerts, girlflesh, grilled meat, and swimming pools; and Budweiser between each shot. Plus there is a tiny touch of patriotism there at the end, which is another possible faux pas when you’re trying to appeal to the 21-34 year old self-hating American progressive.

Bud is semi-unfashionable, just like being pro-America is semi-unfashionable. But Budweiser embraces it, because America is cool, concerts are cool, and baseball games are cool – especially when badass fighter jets fly over the stadium while you’re drinking beer.

A few years ago, president of Anheuser-Busch, August Busch IV, said:
First, while beer is America’s favorite beverage with 58 percent of overall alcohol servings, we must continue to improve the image and desirability of beer. Second, we must keep beer fun and social. Third, we must grow beer occasions. And fourth, we must continue to improve our retail execution.”.

“M.J. was introduced as the greatest player ever and he’s still standing there trying to settle scores,” one Hall of Famer said privately

In the lead-up to and in the wake of Michael Jordan’s big Hall of Fame induction weekend and the (disturbingly petty) speech he gave during it, Nike has been pushing these “Leroy Smith” viral videos. Question is, Who is Leroy Smith?
Check it, Savvyites:

Harvest Leroy Smith is the reason Michael Jordan had to play JV throughout his sophomore year of high school. He’s the man who beat out MJ for the last spot on the Laney High School varsity basketball team, and now he’s an internet meme with Charlie Murphy’s face.

Jordan says getting cut from the varsity high school team was a major turning point in his life, so much so, he even invited the man who got his spot, Leroy Smith, to his Hall of Fame induction. Looks like MJ’s obsessed.

During his speech (which, like I said, is doused with petty whines and weird ramblings) he makes Smith out to be just some goon who played high school ball and only made the team over MJ because some cosmic architect was trying to shape his competitive nature. What he doesn’t mention is that Smith was at least good enough to play ball at UNC-Charlotte, and then overseas in various minor leagues before he decided to quit and settle in with a sales job, get married, and have kids like a regular human being.

However, when Jordan mentioned his version of the Smith story to Nike executives, they created an ad campaign based around a washed up “man who claims to have motivated Michael Jordan”. Granted, it really screws with the image of the real Leroy Smith, but it is effing hilarious. Strangely, I don’t see any plugs for Nike anywhere in these videos. Maybe this is part of Nike’s anti-advertising thang. Whatever it is, they’re really pushing it, there are 15+ videos on the Youtube.com account and there’s even an NBA.com interview with the fake Smith.

So check it, here’s the complete collection:

Leroy Smiths Hall of Fame Petition

News Stories: Leroy Smith Exposed (1/4)

News Stories: In the Recording Studio with Leroy Smith (2/4)

News Stories: Motivation in Action with Leroy Smith (3/4)

News Stories: Behind the Scenes with Leroy Smith (4/4)

Leroy Smith’s ‘My Gift to the Game’ music video

Leroy Smith message for Peter R Casey

Leroy Smith’s 2-on-2 Hall of Fame Challenge

GetYourBasketballOn: Shuffle & Sweat

GetYourBasketballOn: The Mind Maze

GetYourBasketballOn: The Blind Mantis

GetYourBasketballOn: Giant Target Drill

Dragon Attack Drill

ABC Focus Drill

Welcome to Leroy Smith’s Website

via GetYourBasketballOn.com

TAG Heuer recently ran an ad campaign for their Monaco brand watch. It was a contest to guess the winner of the above “Duel” between two important figures in the history of the Monaco series, Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton. The contest officially closed on June 10th, 2009. Apparently, it’s been one of TAG Heuer’s most popular online contests ever.

According to TAG Heuer, Lewis Hamilton won the Duel… but I don’t think anyone wins with this ad. They sliced up the original footage from the Steve McQueen 1971 film Le Mans to shoehorn his image into the ad, and then used a poor quality voice actor that sounds nothing like him to dub over his lines. Ironically though, McQueen’s shoehorn/voiced over performance is better than Lewis Hamilton’s actual performance. And McQueen’s been dead for almost 30 years. Overall, the ad is fairly lame on that level. Still, it has racing footage, so I can’t call it all bad. Check out the full version:

TAG Heuer’s reasoning for using Steve McQueen in this ad is because the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2009, and McQueen helped bring the Monaco brand into prominence by wearing one on his wrist in the film Le Mans.

Complete Ad

Honda’s new commercial for the 2010 Insight has a deceptively simple appearance. A series of shapes and patterns flash across what looks like an old Lite-Brite set, or maybe an LED panel, or perhaps even just a series of computer generated dots on the screen. It’s nice to look at and nice to listen to, due to the pretty music playing along. Simple and nice. The interesting part is that the flashing dots are actually the flashing headlights of 1,000 actual Honda Insights. One thousand full sized automobiles, arranged in a gigantic grid in such a way so they appear to be a perfect rectangle from the camera’s vantage point.

Check out the “Making of…” video near the end of this post:

The calming music used in the commercial is “This Little Light of Mine” by Berend Dubbe.

The commercial’s director, Erik Van Wyk, set out to film the ad entirely “in-camera” – a daunting task given what he wanted to show. According to the Van Wyk, he “was quite militant about doing it all in-camera using real lights in a gigantic grid. People sense the honesty in the sweat and commitment of other people, not CG.” Which is, of course, absolutely correct.

Filming something like the “Let It Shine” ad is extraordinarily complex. Given the way perspective works, you can’t just line up the cars and expect it to look right. The process includes a lot of math and a lot of trial and error. The crew apparently used laser sights, GPS, and surveyor’s equipment to get all the locations right. The heights and angles and exact distances had to be tweaked and re-tweaked to make sure everything was in the right place.

Van Wyk said of the final edit, “After all the research and precision planning required; seeing the test animation play out for the first time from camera position 61.5 meters up in the sky was inspiring. It was perfect”

The Making of the Commercial…

—Official Press Release—
Honda Shines Bright In New TV Ad To Support Affordable Hybrid Car

‘Let it Shine’ was directed by Erik van Wyk and creative directed by Jeff Kling, John Norman and Sue Anderson.

Ahhh… Debbie Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas, together at last. Plus this movie has a mega shark and a giant octopus, apparently. How can it go wrong? My answer: In every possible way.

I don’t know what the makers of this movie were thinking. Maybe they wanted this movie to be the next Snakes on a Plane; maybe they had a lifelong vision of a mega shark and a giant octopus doing battle, and finally had the chance to make that vision a reality on the big screen. Maybe this is some sort of tax scheme or ploy a la “The Producers”. Who knows. Who cares. Whatever.

This German ad for Bontrust Finance is… unexpected, to say the least. This sort of thing would never fly in the US. Well done though. Unfortunately, it looks like the Bontrust girl is a total whore. How dare she cheat on Lincoln… and with Mao of all people.

Credits:
Client: Bontrust Finance
Agency: Grabarz & Partner
Creative Director: Fedja Kehl,
Paul von Mindahl
Production Company: Optix Kreation
Animation Director: Andreas Pohl
Art Director: Petra Delitsch
Lead 3D Artist: Markus Geerts
3D Artist: Michael Gottschalk,
Florian Weyh,
Marc Goecke

LaSexta is the sixth nationwide broadcast television station in Spain and, starting this year, the only channel in Spain that broadcasts Formula 1. So they commissioned the creative agency Kotoc to make some intro spots and they came out really nicely. My only complaint is that the ships don’t look like their going fast enough. Other than that, the pod racer feel of the whole thing is pretty interesting and the look is definitely nice.

Check out the rest of the intro spots:

Client: laSexta
Produced by: Kotoc | Director: Freddy Córdoba | Executive Producer: David Diéguez | Direction: Roger Córdoba | Art Director: Ruben Córdoba | Production Manager: Vanessa Diéguez | 3d Modelling: Alex Monge, Bernat Fortet, Kepa Casado, Marc Calvelo, Omar Sarmiento, Roger Tortosa, Ruben Córdoba | Animation: Freddy Córdoba , Hugo Garcia, Marc Calvelo | Light/Render/Compositing: Eduardo Lasierra, Marc Calvelo, Roger Tortosa, Sergio Pinto | Graphic Design: Josep Bernaus | Visual Effects: Bernat Fortet, Roger Tortosa | Audio Direction: Alex Candela FLow-Audio | Recording Studio: The Room Bcn Estudio (Jordi Navarro, Gorka Desbrach) | Collaborators Audio: Xuxa Levy, Miguel Pino | Systems: Fran Quinto

via Kotoc