Out to Launch
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Ben Affleck hawks Lynx in U.K. ad. The prince of darkness "can't believe it's not butter." Dunkin' Donuts rebrands. Let's launch!
  • Ben Affleck hawks Lynx in U.K. ad. The prince of darkness "can't believe it's not butter." Dunkin' Donuts rebrands. Let's launch!

    The Newport Beach Film Festival launched a TV, print, outdoor and online campaign this month promoting its annual event that screens 350 independent and studio feature, short, documentary, and animated films from around the world. "Drama" features a talking rainbow looking for the purple that someone stole from him, making him unable to play with his rainbow friends. The spot ends with a purple boy doing the breakdance the "worm" on the beach, and the rainbow yelling "Oh hell, no." "Foreign Films" wasn't impressive. It showed black and white Frenchman appearing on the beach offering sunbathers a baguette. A confused man asks, "What did he just call you?" "Surprise Endings" was funny. It shows a group of crabs playing on the beach when a unicorn appears; everyone stops what they're doing to gaze at the unicorn's beauty. One of the crabs suddenly chops off the unicorn's horn and proceeds to stab it with its own horn. Bloody and surprising. Print ads are running in Coast, OC Weekly, OCR Magazines, The Orange County Register and LA Weekly. Bus shelters featuring the ads can be found throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. Young & Rubicam Brands Irvine created the campaign pro bono.

    Keeping with film festivals, the Carolina Independent Film Festival launched spoofed movie poster ads to promote its Cackalacky Film Festival. Ads for the October festival launched this month with the tag line: "Hollywood comes to the South." Film posters parody "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (Breakfast at Denny's), "Moonstruck" (Moonshine) and "Scarface" (NASCARface). Breakfast at Denny's is my fave. Ads are running in regional magazines and newspapers, along with wildpostings in the Charlotte area. BooneOakley created the campaign and the Carolina Independent Film Festival handled the media buying.

    Ahhh. Celebrities and the overseas ads they appear in. Where shall I begin? Ben Affleck seems ripe for picking, or should I say clicking, in an ad for Click, a men's cologne from Lynx. Affleck doesn't utter a sound in the spot, which is carried by a bluesy song. His trigger finger appears to get a workout... or so he thinks. Affleck is seen around town--at the dry cleaners, at a restaurant, grocery store, nightclub--and each time a woman (or man) checks him out, Affleck clicks a handheld counter that he carries with him (doesn't everyone?). At the ad's conclusion, Affleck steps into an elevator, looks at his counter and smiles at the 103 clicks he received. The man next to him, a janitor, takes out his counter that reveals 2,372 clicks. His secret? Click cologne. Bartle Boyle Hegarty created the UK-only ad and Cut + Run/London handled the editing.

    Picture it: Ozzy Osbourne in your kitchen, baking you dessert. It's reality in England, where Osbourne promotes "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." From Fabio to Ozzy. What is the world coming to? The spot shows Ozzy and his "twin" baking a dessert that's featured on a cooking show. Butter is needed, but Ozzy is unable to tell the difference between butter and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Ozzy uses the fake stuff and the spot concludes with Ozzy and his twin discovering their recipe is for fairy cakes. "Fairy cakes?" asks Ozzy. "I am the prince of darkness. I am not making fairy cakes, I am making rock cakes!" The ad is running on national TV in the UK. Mother created the campaign; Cut+Run London handled the editing; and MindShare handled the media buying. Click here to watch the ad.

    Nothing like making me relate to a dog. Clorox Company of Canada is relaunching its Brita Faucet Filtration System by emphasizing that tap water and toilet water come from the same source. "Glass" shows a glass of water on a table and the sound of a toilet flushing in the background. As the toilet flushes, the water empties from the glass. When a woman emerges from the bathroom, the glass fills back up with water. Print ads "Mop Head" and "Grass Beard" follow suit, demonstrating the difference between drinking water, hose water and dirty mop water. The ads are running in Style at Home, Canadian Living and Homemakers. All campaign elements drive traffic to a microsite called You Deserve Better. The campaign is running throughout Canada until the end of the year. DDB Canada created the campaign; Tribal DDB created the microsite; and OMD Canada handled the media buy. Click here to watch the ad.

    Silent communication is the gist of the TV portion of a campaign for USTA that also includes online and print components. The spot shows a father and daughter playing tennis and speaking during their strokes. The dad asks his daughter what's new and she describes being stood up by a boy at school. The ball (complete with copy) wisely follows the ups and downs of the girl's emotions. The ad will air during US Open Series and US Open telecasts on CBS Sports, ESPN and USA Network as well as other tennis broadcasts on The Tennis Channel. Print ads will debut in eight national publications, including Newsweek, ESPN The Magazine, Oprah, Tennis, Runner's World, and Ski Magazine. Online ads are running on Yahoo, AOL, ESPN.com, and Weather.com. In addition, USTA also relaunched its Web site. Hill Holliday handled all aspects of the campaign.

    Dunkin' Donuts has launched a massive ad campaign consisting of eight 30-second and eight 15-second TV spots, nine radio spots, plus print, online and outdoor elements. The launch is the company's first campaign since the brand's parent company was purchased by a group of private equity firms. There's even a new tag line: "America Runs on Dunkin'." Some of the ads are animated and others show ordinary people doing ordinary things (fishing, helping a child climb down from a tree, going to the beach) while singing their stories. My favorite ad is "Pleather," a spot that shows a group of young people heading to the beach and singing about how the backs of their legs get stuck to the pleather of the car seats. The ads are running on all major networks, such as ABC, CBS, and NBC. All other aspects of the campaign debut May 1. Hill Holliday handled all aspects of the campaign.

    The Wall Street Journal has launched a campaign in an effort to boost both its online and print circulation. Fifteen- and 30-second spots tell the story of a thousand dollars saved by a woman that read an article in the WSJ. The front-page story prompted her to invest in something she read about in the marketplace section, which paid well enough for her to take a trip found in the pursuits section. The spot concludes with an offer to subscribe to both the print and online components of the WSJ for eight weeks at a cost of $19.99. The voiceover spews a phone number to call and a URL where consumers can sign up. Those two pieces of contact info should have been included on the screen. I may remember a URL, but the chances of me remembering that phone number are slim to none. The ads are running on cable networks such as CNBC, Discovery and National Geographic through May. Wunderman created the campaign and Mediaedge:cia handled the media buying.

    Ripple Effects Interactive has created an online campaign for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) entitled "Stop The Seal Hunt!" The campaign drives traffic to StopTheSealHunt.com, a site that increases awareness to help fight the annual Canadian commercial seal hunt that's going on now. The event is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world, where seal pups--some as young as two weeks old--are shot or clubbed for their pelts. "Stop The Seal Hunt!" discusses ways to help stop the annual hunt, including signing petitions sent to U.S. Senators and the Canadian Prime Minister, making donations to IFAW, or simply spreading the word. The ads are running until the end of the week on USAToday.com, NYTimes.com, AccuWeather.com, Yahoo.com, Yahoo.ca, and NationalGeographic.com. Ripple Effects Interactive also handled the media buying.