Naughty LG Commercial for Big Screens

It's hard to tell if some of this isn't fully scripted but either way it's a flawlessly executed commercial. 

I love the ad but I generally can't go into a bar or restaurant that blast TV these days.

However hats off to LG for seeing this done properly.

Chipotle's TV Ad Raises Factory Farming, Steroids and Antibiotics In Food

I can't imagine the Chipotle are completely farm fresh organic ingredients but this new ad does address the hidden ingredients and suffering that go into most food that is advertised on television. 

I don't see this Chipotle video as a commercial at over three minutes but it is nevertheless superb storytelling and hopefully a glimpse of how the food industry will have to respond to growing claims that they mostly sell low grade ingredients unfit for consumption.

Millions of hits for this ad so it's touching a nerve beyond the advertising echo chamber who have latched onto it given 95% of their output is low concious communications.

Tarantino On Violence - Only If There's A Buck In It

Notice how he does that Valley Girl/New York homosexual finger circling/head waggling "I'm shutting your ass down nigger" body language. I think he uses a form of post-modern racism on Khrisnan Guru-Murthy. Absolutely essential viewing. 

Did QT put his teeth in for the interview? Is that Botox he's done?

Red Hot Chilli Peppers Finally Sold Out

Ugh, such bad taste. I'll be tossing out their CD's later.

Tom Selleck - First TV Commercial

I was doing some research on Reagan and Iran Contra. One thing led to another and, well, you know how it is. The video uploader writes:

I directed this spot with Tom, Patti Deutsch, Teri Garr and Penny Marshall. This was Tom's first and he was so terrific, I gave him the wardrobe. He told me many years later that it was his only suit and he wore it for every casting interview. 

Patti, Teri and Penny had done very little work at this early point in their careers. It was a pleasure directing all of them. This commercial was written by Jackie End, a creative force at Wells, Rich, Greene in NY. She was a favorite client then and happily for me, she is still a dear friend today.

Is @AlecBaldwin A Two Faced Credit Card Pimp?

I quite like Alec Baldwin's interaction with people on Twitter but I find his support for Occupy Wall Street followed by his subsequent ill informed and patronising advice at odds with his credit card commercials pimping.

Why Is A Business Conference In Saudi Attended By Clinton Taking UFOs Seriously?

I wrote back here towards the end of the post that I started to take the leaking of information a bit more seriously when the business world started charging money to talk about the subject. At the recent Fifth Annual Global Competitive forum in Jeddah with tickets at $5000 a pop Bill Clinton also appeared and a number of speakers began to talk about the possible commercial opportunities to be had should confirmation that our planet has never really been unknown to extra and inner terrestrial life emerge.  Those videos are now online at Youtube and I think the first one by Stanton Friedman is the most compelling.

Former academic turned Silicon Valley investor Jacques Vallee was a favourite scholarly Ufology writer to Terence McKenna. He reconciled the transdimensional nature of the subject with things like fairies in mythology. We increasingly have a similar understand of a lot of things though his polymath skills are superior to mine.

The last speaker of interest is Physics Professor Michio Kaku who makes a reasonable case for keeping an open mind but often appears as the 'authorized voice of materialist science' on Television for the American information consumer.

If you think this is all nonsense you'll be delighted to learn I intend to begin sharing my learnings from some of these pretty compelling topics. I doubt I'll be able to do more than point my fingers in directions to rather than rap my knuckles on something more concrete than pattern recognition and best-guess speculation. But I'm sort of obliged to to get it out there on the understanding you do your own homework too once in a while.

Via ATS

Dakine Coffee Bean

Dakine Coffee Bean

Tokyo Gore Police - Wrist Cutter G commercial

It's very tempting to drill down a bit more into my knife is what you make it post and explain that story about the Singaporean girl who took me to Ajarn Noo to get that tattoo done. I noticed that she had a lot of self inflicted cuts on her arms on top of the tattoos. It's about as nuts as this fake commercial. I shouldn't really.

Instead if I urge you to listen to Jake Adelstein's interview on BBC world about Sex and the Yakuza. It's a cracker.

Original (?)

I almost think this ad is so good partly because nobody outside the UK will understand it. In any case I keep going back to it so I think it deserves another plug. Well done W&K  London who made this ad and also because they recently snapped up Rob as regional Planning Kahuna for their Shanghai office (and well done Rob too).

We Are Animals

A while back I wrote 'Go Forth' was the best commercial I'd seen since since Freedom to Move by Levi. Actually the former ad has more qualities because to me it signalled a shift in the rasion d'etre of brands vis a vis the cul de sac logic of consumption. Most people I know disagreed with me about that but after seeing this latest Wrangler commercial I enjoy that this type of content is a break from tedious commercial breaks.

That is a long discussion about the possible emerging purpose of brands in a moral sense. Too big for me to go into now though I did have some ideas about all that when John Grant was writing The Green Marketing Manifesto. His new book is out now, and I think he may be writing a post about it here so keep an eye out for that.

Anyway, some might say the Wrangler work is derivative but I like the sense of basic necessities that is being communicated. The poetry if you will.

Update: Original Commercial deleted

And Love

My career is dotted with ads I ideas I couldn't coax through the system. There was the "Freedom" idea for Coca-cola or "We Miss You" for Post Tsunami Thailand and yet when I see work like this, I feel that I'm not the only one to roll this way. Levi's suddenly become relevant again. 

I'm reminded that I recently read that Americans often insist on having their Jeans Made in the USA (complete with label), and that the luxury end of the market is paradoxically robust. This just makes sense as the United States is the home of Denim (Well you get what I mean). Great work from Levi's here. Via Influx Insights

UPDATE: The director for this movie is Cary Fukunaga and the words are by Walt Whitman who you may remember from back here. The more I see this film the more I love it.

I'm Loving It

Holy crap I should really write a PhD thesis on McDonalds because like my Microsoft post they're so big they often get an enormous kicking over everything from the environment to fast culture and I guess there's lots for them to be responsible about, but really while trying to hunt down my most cerebral comment/thought piece - the one about the social function that McDonalds plays in Hong Kong I'm a bit lost. Mainly because it's an excellent brand platform and fits nicely to the commercial I've embedded below. So I'm not far off the mark.

I do remember from an observation I culled the last time I was here in Hong Kong, while frequenting the Causeway Bay restaurants for my beloved McBreakfast, and which I'm not sure if I wrote about on this blog, in the comments or somewhere else but which definitely have been used by me for other global brand categories in a few meeting rooms around the world when trying to contextualize the whole do-good-power or potential of planet sized brand spiel.

Not a subject I talk lightly of either.

But while I try in vain to hunt it down you might want to check out this execution by DDB Hong Kong because it really doesn't get much more contemporary and Asian, than with the Web Cam McDonalds 24/7 Home Delivery Service they're just rolling out here in HK (the commercial that is) and that's one I could write a few thousand words on because between you me and the internet I'm highly familiar with this service and can even reel off some off the finer points of the service in Bangkok such as breakfast kicks off at 5.00 am, the Spinach pies are awesome, and the delivery lads didn't mind doing a few errands for me as I tipped them handsomely and we both chuckled like mad when I gave back a hundred or so sachets of unused tomato ketchup and asked for more coffee creamer (thanks guys that was fun).

I will write a post about my kamikaze tipping in my last few months of Bangkok, because, well, I was in the mood and yet it led to some heated scenes of frenzied artificial popularity that I don't wish to repeat in. But anyway, watch the ad and see what you think. Can you understand it?

I have to say I'm a bit of unusual about the Cantonese accent. It's about as sexy as a Cockney one, which that too can work nicely although is highly subjective, unlike I think a thick Brummie accent which doesn't do as well. Anyway I love those drawn out vowels on Canto chicks.

This movie and specifically this clip might have something to do with it as I first watched Chung King Express in the 90's, and which I've lifted off (nicked) for both my creative briefs and on this blog. I mean check out that blue heart action on Fay Wong which is to die for and frankly there probably is no better director than Wong Kar Wai than in this movie, except for 'In the mood for love'. Possibly one of the most beautifuly directed movies ever (outside of the sensational Korean location based Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring by Kim Ki Duk of Korea)

I'd really like to embed a couple more clips, specificially the Korean movie I just mentioned and a last Fay Wong bopping to the Mamas and the Papas in the food stall but it's just too precious this formatting at the moment, so until another time you can check out more of the McDonalds information over here.

JC Penney & Saatchi Saatchi

This is a beautiful ad. It feels more wholesome than prurient to me. I understand that Saatchi & Saatchi are saying this ad is nothing to do with them but they are nonetheless trying to take it down.

Mentos

I'm very critical of using the word creative in China when its often a case of the Emperor's new clothes. So I want to plug an ad by BBH Shanghai that I saw at the AAAA awards in December. I liked it then and I like it even more now I can see some more strategic thoughts behind it.

Crucially I think it gets across some critical points about the product such as mouth feel, proximity to an open mouth and lastly (most weakly) a new product attribute of the green filling at the end. It's not brilliant but it is good and its fun. I'd expect this sort of creative to come out of Thailand usually.

Now if I could only get the commercial for children's clothes where the strategy, endline and creative was about "Children are illogical little things". It smelt like it had good planning on it. Hat tip to Madison Boom for reminding me.

Fin de siècle

Cheesy and horrifying isn't it? 'Let it be cool' they tell us, just like the following brand spanking new ad from DDB which asks with a firm handshake and no hint of irony, 'When was the last time you smelt something real?'



So now I'm left with the question. Why do people flee from the cities to the coastline to get some clean air in the first place?