If you're looking for a good deal on a home in England, you might want to consider an address on Crotch Crescent, Turkey Cock Lane or Clitterhouse Road.
Check out this promo for Kevin Costner’s new movie, 3 Days to Kill, reimagined in a dream sequence to star Pro Bowl NFL wide receivers Dez Bryant, Michael Crabtree and Alshon Jeffery. The somewhat silly set up has them imagining themselves as action stars in the movie, but the surprise is that they actually might have been amazing in it. I would watch a movie staring these dudes over 3 Days to Kill anyday. The stunts were choreographed by Action Factory and led by Eric Linden to mimic actual football plays.
When alcohol brands try to broaden their reach beyond their core crowd, the results can often be awkward or even laughable. The best ads are those that acknowledge the brand's base but create a story compelling enough to draw in new audiences. That's the difficult balance Jägermeister achieves with its new U.K. spot, "Journey to Surf," from London agency The Red Brick Road.
Canadian snack maker Krispy Kernels had a sleeper hit a couple of years ago with its "Couch" commercial, a delightful bit of oddvertising that absconded from Cannes with a Bronze Lion. Now the brand is back with this amusing new ad, "Meditation," which mixes zen meditation with furtive snack eating, with unexpected results.
Frank knows Jack. I'm talkin' Sinatra and Daniel's, baby! The legendary crooner, who passed away in 1998, returns in a push by Arnold Worldwide to pitch a high-end version of the whiskey rolling out nationwide in June. Would you pay $150 and up for Sinatra Select? It's 90 proof—regular Jack is 80—so your ol' blue eyes will get bloodshot faster than ever before. (The variant has been sold in duty-free stores in airports for a couple of years.) There's digital, print and a 30-second spot mixing archival photos with big-band music stylings and nightclub scenes.
Many older marketing pros may feel millennials have a lot to learn. But this week served up an important reminder for all of us: If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't send that email. Kelly Blazek, head of the Cleveland Job Bank, has deleted most of her digital presence and issued a lengthy apology after sending at least three scathing rants to applicants who had asked for her help.
Bacon is everywhere. (No, not Kevin Bacon.) And it seems everyone loves it—even pigs! It's so great, it once helped a man negotiate his way across the nation dealing exclusively in bacon. Thanks, Oscar Mayer. Now, the bacon craze is hitting the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. The IronPigs this week unveiled what I can only imagine was a highly anticipated bacon-themed Saturday uniform, which includes a bacon-strip logo on the cap, and a "first-of-its-kind" bacon-style piping down both legs of the pants.
Just a few years ago, consumer packaged goods brands didn’t know what success in a new world powered by content and social media looked like—never mind how to achieve it. But the recent past has brought a slew of content marketing breakthroughs and successes for CPG brands, which in turn has led to bolder experimentation. This is welcome news, but it doesn’t change the fact that most players in this space still have a long way to go.
Woodstock Bourbon's ad showing its hometown's enthusiasm for the brand is pretty funny (well, besides that "Barrellel Parking" sign—groan). But it's right on the brink of being one of those fake homespun liquor ads that Henry Rollins used to laugh at, what with the fiddle music and rural aesthetics. It's like O Brother Where Art Thou? but less subtle. Perhaps this is because it was made by Australian agency CumminsRoss for the Australian market, and so it needs to show a somewhat cartoony version of Kentucky. Still, you can't deny the funny visuals.
Outdoor ad geeks, here's your latest bit of brilliance, courtesy of Ikea. German ad agency Thjnk and production studio I Made This teamed up to create Ikea's "RGB billboard," which—much like Ikea furniture itself—makes the most of some very limited space. The board features three different headlines superimposed on each other in different colors—cyan, magenta and yellow. At night, the board shines red, green and blue (RGB) lightbulbs on the board, revealing, in turn, the different headlines.
