Out to Launch
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Hungry for a boorito? Carl's Jr. weighs in on border wars. Let's launch!
  • Spoiler alert: Lenny Kravitz does not split his leather pants in this 90-second ad for Guitar Hero. He's playing against James Franco, and the pair quickly realize that it's tough to please concertgoers. In "Win the Crowd," Kravitz and Franco both have difficulty giving fans a concert they won't forget. People are booing and holding up signs telling the Grammy-winning Kravitz that he sucks. He wants to pause the game, but Franco reminds him that there's no pausing during a live concert. The best part of the ad is when the pair joke about Kravitz splitting his pants. The ad ends with Franco going all rock-star and breaking the game's guitar on a coffee table. See the ad here, created by 72andSunny and directed by Jonathan Krisel.

  • What happens when NHL phenoms Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon take over a drive-thru Tim Hortons in Cole Harbour, Canada? Orders are messed up, hilarity ensues and customers will take ANYTHING from Crosby and McKinnon, especially the wrong order. The duo had a blast trying to keep the giggles under control as they took customer orders. Consumers were in for a jaw-dropping treat when they reached the drive-thru window. Men let out unexpected expletives, women swooned and offered to take orders that weren't even theirs. Sure, I would order coffee, but a tea from Sidney Crosby? Priceless. Watch the video here, created by J. Walter Thompson Canada.

  • To promote its Tex Mex Thickburger, Carl's Jr. went to the border of Texas and Mexico to settle the score in the only way the brand knows how: with scantily clad women using the fence separating Texas and Mexico as a volleyball net. Women from both countries play in front of fans representing both sides in "Borderball." The spot ends with a man from Mexico and a guy from Texas deciding to wait to tell the women that the burger is both Tex and Mex -- so they can keep watching the women hash things out on the volleyball court. See the ad here, created by 72andSunny.

  • At 90 seconds, this video promoting Chipotle's natural ingredients and yearly Boorito fundraiser ran about 30 seconds longer than necessary. But maybe that's form following content, since the spot showcases the "unnecessary additives" -- artificial flavors, colors and chemicals -- a "Cheapotle" store adds to its food. The Boorito fundraiser follows suit: Between 5 p.m. and closing on Halloween, anyone dressed in costume who adds an unnecessary item to their get-up will score $3 burritos, bowls, salads and tacos. Proceeds from the Boorito promotion will benefit the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. "Endless Line" stars a woman excited to be first in line at her local Chipotle. She soon learns that she entered a Cheapotle store instead, where an endless line of workers adds a different additive to the woman's meal. See it here, created by Piro and directed by Tim Piper.

  • In a tongue-in-cheek video that launched Oct. 1, Pfister premiered its Clarify faucet, with Xtract Filter Mode by GE. The product costs $249 retail, offering a dual-stage home filter and hand-controlled filtration. A 90-second video, "The 'Science' Of Xtract," takes a lowbrow approach to promoting the Clarify, calling water by its scientific name of "wawa." Germs are known as jobbies and the sink itself is referred to as an indoor hose. No stuffy, pretentious attitudes here. The video explains how the faucet purifies water in simple terms, making it easy for even me to follow. The spot runs as a pre-roll on Google Display and YouTube, targeting first-home buyers and DIYers, and consumers identified as having water purity interests. See it here, created by Nurture Digital.

  • Neato Robotics knows how to clean up after messy humans -- perhaps a little too well. At least the vacuums don't judge. In a series of online videos, viewers watch Neato Botvac D Series clean up messes from a variety of people. Let's start with Grandma. She receives mail from her grandchild and when she opens the card, a ton of glitter spills on the floor, and plenty of expletives spill from Grandma's mouth. Neato FTW. See it here. A kid with new-age parents bursts his birthday pinata and covers the living room rug with seaweed chips. No one's rushing to for that prize. Watch it here. After a one-night stand, a woman wakes up to find her dreamy man is covered in hair. See it here. The final two videos involve a woman's messy midnight snack and a man whose house-sitter brings her cats, to which the homeowner is extremely allergic. Doner LA created the campaign.

  • This ad has been out for months and it still gets me emotional. Paper and Packaging Board launched "Letters To Dad," about a boy who misses his Army father serving his country in a faraway country. The boy writes letters, shapes them into paper airplanes, and sends them flying into the neighbor's yard. The neighbor, an older gentleman, looks none too pleased with the paper in his yard, until he reads the letters. He sends them to the boy's father and receives a return shipment of paper airplane letters from the dad to his son. The neighbor flies them into the little boy's yard and the look on this kid's face is just precious. Watch it here, created by Cramer-Krasselt.

  • Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai and the Arabian Radio Network (ARN) created a campaign to prevent tailgating accidents with "Back-Off Radio." Cabs were equipped with sensors that activate once the car reaches 60 mph. If a car gets too close to the back of the cab, the sensor sends a message to the offending car via radio. The same scenario works if the taxi gets too close to a car: The cab's speakers will inform the driver that he's too close to the car ahead of him. The message is delivered in the four most popular languages spoken in Dubai: Urdu, Arabic, Hindi and English. See how the technology works here.

  • Random iPhone App of the week: The Hyde School, a boarding school in Maine and Conn., launched an app, created in-house by faculty and students, that serves as a portable conscience of sorts. The free app, which can be helpful even to those not associated with the school, divides lessons into six categories: Bet On the Truth, Persist, Inner Leadership, Do Your Best, The Biggest Job (Parenting) and Self & Group Assessment. Download the app here.