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Visa – Go World – Michael Phelps Commercials

August 18, 2008 in Advertising as Art, Celebrity, Commercials, Legendary, Olympics | 1 comment

Visa and TBWA\Chiat\Day’s creation, Go World< /em>, has been a widely talked about campaign celebrating Team USA in this years Summer Olympics held in Beijing, China. The most talked about of this series has been three commercials centered around Team USA swimmer Michael Phelps.

Visa first had a Michael Phelps spot as part of their over-all Go World campaign that was nothing out-of-the-ordinary compared to others in the series (as shown above). However after Michael Phelps won his 10th Gold Medal on August 12th in the 200 meter Freestyle, it made him a world-record holder for most Gold Medals won. No one in the history of the world has ever won as many Olympic Gold Medals as Michael Phelps has. To celebrate, immediately after airing Michael Phelps’ victory in the 200 Meter Freestyle, Visa aired a promo congratulating him on his accomplishments.
As Morgan Freeman narrates:

Congratulations Michael, on having won more gold medals than anybody…ever.

Visa – Go World – Michael Phelps – Congratulations:

TBWA\Chiat\Day has mentioned that the idea of a Visa ad commemorating the victory (if it happened) was something that they had conceptualized “as early as April.” They had already purchased the media in case they could use the concept even. Great job, especially for having to turn around the footage into a spot in less than 24 hours!

Shortly after that though, Michael Phelps shattered yet another world record by winning the 4X100 Meter Medley Relay, securing his 8th Gold Medal for the 2008 Summer Olympics. That’s more Gold Medals than anyone has ever won in any single Olympics! To celebrate, Visa aired the following spot shortly after showing his record-breaking performance.
Morgan Freeman once again narrates:

One Gold Medal is amazing. Two is, well, incredible. Three, practically unbelievable. But eight? Eight Gold Medals? Thats… thats, well, we’re going to need some new adjectives for whatever that is. Congratulations Michael.

Visa – Go World – Michael Phelps – 8 Gold Medals

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BBC – Journey To The East – Damon Albarn’s Olympic Ad

August 13, 2008 in Advertising as Art, Animation, Celebrity, Commercials, Eye Candy, Guerilla, Marketing With A Twist, Olympics | Permalink

This was first released a few weeks ago, but better late than never for stuff this good. Here is a BBC commissioned commercial for their Olympic Games coverage set to original music from Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s dramatic remake of the Chinese Legend Journey To The West. As for characters, those of you in the USA may not recognize them but they’re from the cult British TV series Monkey. Named The Journey To The East it shows the animated characters on their quest to “The East” or rather the Olympic stadium.

Damon Albarn, famous for being the creative mastermind behind bands Blur, Gorillaz, The Good The Bad And The Queen and various side-projects, is once again reunited with fellow Gorillaz founder Jamie Hewlett for this 2 minute advertisement. They had both just been involved with a massive stage adaption of the Chinese novel Journey to the West which premiered at the inaugural Manchester International Festival in June of 2007. Called Monkey: Journey To The West, Albarn composed the play’s score, Hewlett designed the costumes, set design and visual concept, and the resulting stage adaption was directed by famous Chinese opera leader Shi-zheng.

RKCR/Y&R was the agency used with Passion Pictures, Red Bee Media and Zombie Flesh Eaters as the production companies (Cara Speller and Deborah Stewart were the Producers). It was directed by Jamie Hewlett.

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Mad Men Season 2 – Evolution of A Campaign

July 28, 2008 in Advertising as Art, behind the scenes, Branding | Permalink

Mad Men Season Two Sketch

With the recent premier of season 2 of critically acclaimed AMC series, Mad Men, comes an interesting post on the AMC blog. Linda Schupack, Senior Vice President of Marketing for AMC, has posted a generalized synopsis of the strategy behind this year’s campaign:

We decided to place Don in Grand Central both for its iconic stature and as a transition between worlds: Work and home, the familiar and the new. And, because Don continues to wrestle with issues of secrets, identity and change, we wanted to place Don amidst a blurred almost chaotic crowd. But he stands still, in high relief.

Included in the post are samples of the sketches used to help guide the creative design for the campaign. Above is a sketch of the look and feel that they ended up using for one of their print ads. Linda Schupack explains that,

Once we decide on an idea, we do sketches. Many sketches. And these sketches will be our guide as we figure out what to photograph.

After shooting the backdrop at Grand Central Station and then the crowd/Jon Hamm in Los Angeles, the shots were combined to comprise the final product (as seen below).
mad men campaign final ad

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