Out to Launch
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Stoli wants Millennial men to drink what they want. Chipotle launches a love story. Let's launch!
  • Bryce Harper is quite the baseball prodigy, accomplishing countless feats by the tender age of 23. The MLB All-Star is just getting started, chasing "Numbers" in a 45-second ad for Under Armour. "It Comes From Below" features Under Armour's Harper One, the brand's first signature baseball cleat, which Harper will wear in the MLB All Star Game. The ad is narrated by Harper's high school coach, Sam Thomas, who describes the baseball milestones Harper achieved, beginning at a young age. He hit a 570-foot home run at 15 and was a major league baseball player by 19. Harper might be chasing numbers, but these numbers also add pressure to his every time at-bat. Harper visualizes these numbers whenever he's training; they're on stadium seats, his baseball bat and on the stadium board. Where did the fun go? The spot ends with Harper inside the batter's box, hitting a home run. The sound of a roaring stadium trumps any stat any day. There's a tight shot of Harper's feet, wearing his new kicks, twisting as he hits the homer, because footwork matters. Droga5 created the campaign.

  • How do you advertise on a platform that doesn't allow advertising? You hack it... for a good cause. WATERisLIFE, a charity that provides clean drinking water to countries in need, and its agency Deutsch, hacked Venmo, a digital wallet where users can exchange payments with friends. The Venmo Micro Hack was conceived as a way to show Millennials that donating to charity can be simple and possible without an enormous ad budget. On July 4, Deutsch monitored Venmo's public global news feed, determined what people were paying for, clicked their name, sent them a micro payment and then used the entire 2,000-character caption to create real-time targeted ads. People who were paying each other back for anything from a slice of pizza to a movie ticket received a micro payment with captions like: "1 cent can't buy you pizza. But for just 3 cents, you can buy someone clean water for a day." Ads were then published to that person's news feed for all their friends to see it, along with Venmo's global feed, allowing all app users to see it. In 24 hours, 1,000 people received the ads disguised as payment descriptions, which cost the charity $10. Creativity on a budget. WATERisLIFE published all of the micro ads to its website, so that anyone can use them to "hack" Venmo and spread the charity's message.

  • Love, like an E. coli outbreak, hurts. Chipotle launched an animated video, "A Love Story," starring Ivan and Evie, two young entrepreneurs with passions for their businesses -- and, deep down, one another. The 4:15 video follows the pair beginning in childhood, when the two had competing drink stands. Either you like fresh-squeezed lemonade or fresh-squeezed orange juice. When one business excelled, the other had to come up with extreme ways to bring in traffic, which meant neighborhood advertising, bigger signs and additional products that had nothing to do with the original business plan. Next thing you know, these young kids are adults who built enormous empires by compromising their original goals, with all-natural ingredients replaced by artificial colors and additives.

    Both have this epiphany simultaneously, while alone in their dark corporate offices. The artificial ingredients win and throw Ivan and Evie out with the trash. The good news is these two reconnect on a romantic level and return to their original, healthy, all-natural roots. The pair open a health restaurant, have a kid and are seemingly happy. Enjoy the cover of the Bacsktreet Boys hit "I Want it That Way," that narrates the video. The remake is sung by Jim James of My Morning jacket and Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes. CAA Marketing created the video, directed by Saschka Unseld.

  • Millennial men of the world, don't feel pressured to drink craft beer when you really want a fruity drink that doesn't taste like gasoline. Stoli Vodka launched #DrinkWhatYouWant, a digital campaign running through the summer that pushes back at stereotypes via an Instagram campaign, online video and website. In a 90-second online video, one confident man has no problem drinking a blueberry cocktail in a mason jar. He travels through seas of men in a bar, all drinking the same thing: a craft beer or bourbon. Rather than join the crowd, our guy stands out and likes it that way. Plus, he actually enjoys his drink, unlike some of the other bar patrons. There's also DrinkWhatYouWant.com, a website featuring videos with bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler and his rules for drinking and how to use Stoli Vodka in summer cocktails. Men can also post their favorite drinks on Instagram using the #DrinkWhatYouWant hashtag. The Martin Agency created the campaign.

  • Spotify launched a brand campaign that pairs memorable songs with current pop culture happenings. Take the presidential election, for starters. The brand's first ad shows a couple in a truck with their house attached, driving to a new location, as Flo Rida's "My House" plays. For those potentially leaving the country later this year, Spotify has a playlist for you. Did you know that Pope Francis released a rock album? It's what one group of nuns listen to as they're preparing a church for services. Remember "The NeverEnding Story?" Of course you do. That song is still streamed daily on Spotify, much to the surprise of Atreyu and Falkor. FYI: the ad reunites Noah Hathaway and Alan Oppenheimer, who starred as Atreyu and the voice of Falkor, respectively. Wieden+Kennedy New York created the campaign, directed by Tim Godsall of Anonymous Content.

  • Breaking news: music is powerful and emotional. It can make you happy, sad, angry, pensive. For the next part of its "The Next Song Matters" campaign, Pandora played a song and asked music lovers, "How does this song make you feel?" The best part of the ad is that viewers can't hear the song each person is listening to, leaving them to determine the type of song that's heard based upon a person's reaction. This is the first time Pandora launched a campaign sans music or musicians. See it here, created by twofifteenmccann.

  • Geico launched a pair of TV under different brand taglines. The first ad falls under the "It's What You Do" message and stars a pirate about to make an enemy walk the plank. Whatever the pirate says, his faithful parrot mimics. The parrot then went off-script, reciting things his master has said before, about hiding gold from his unintelligent crew. The crew soon turns on the pirate and some lucky soul avoided the plank walk. The next ad falls under "More, More, More" and features two dads building sandcastles with their kids. One dad switched to Geico to receive more benefits and his sandcastle becomes a work of art. The other dad must have regular insurance because his sandcastles look like mine, humps of sand from an overturned bucket. The Martin Agency created the campaign.

  • IMG Academy, a boarding school and sports training destination in Bradenton, Fla., launched "Tomorrow is Ours," a great 2:15 video targeting the "lazy" generation of youth. The video shows how dedicated young athletes are to improving their game. Action shots of runners, basketball players, golfers and tennis stars in the making are coupled with a voiceover describing how kids these days are lazy, lack drive and motivation, yet still want success. These kids work hard, train hard and motivate themselves to get the job done. "Keep Talking. Tomorrow Is Ours," closes the ad, created by Droga5.

  • Random App of the week: Is there too much white noise in your digital life? Ha. Memsaver is an app that helps users organize their digital chaos by putting their favorite files and social feeds in one place. The app lets users cherry-pick their top emails, social media posts, photos and files before storing them in a private content hub. Users can then choose to edit, curate and share them if they choose. Memsaver currently synchronizes 12 apps: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Soundcloud, YouTube, Tumblr, Google Drive, Gmail, Dropbox, Vimeo and Evernote. The app is available for free in the App Store and Google Play.