Campaign

Vuitton….Louis Vuitton. Everyone’s favorite James Bond, Sean Connery, can now be added to the list of recent celebrities recruited to star in a Annie Leibowitz shot campaign for fashion designer Louis Vuitton. Promoting their ‘Core Values’ effort, Sean Connery joins other celebrities like Keith Richards, Sofia and Francis Ford Coppola, Andre Agassi and Mikhail Gorbachev. The campaign benefits The Climate Project, which is run by Al Gore. In order to get Gorbachev to model for the campaign, a donation was made to Green Cross International, an environmental organization founded by the former Soviet leader in 1993.

The tag-line reads,

There are journeys that turn into legends

The 78 year old retired actor is pictured relaxing on a dock near his home in the Bahamas. Two other pieces in the campaign are shown below.

Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola:

Keith Richards:

Gorbachev:

Here’s an update on the Mercenaries 2 commercial that I talked about last week on this site. Apparently the people in charge over at DraftFCB have been watching you guys and liked the response that they’ve been seeing over the music used in the spot.

They recently went back to the Wojahn Brothers in Los Angeles (the folks who created the original music score) and had them create a full length version of the song, which is now available for free download on the recently added download section of the game’s website. Or you can click on the direct link to the song here:
Mercenaries 2 - Oh No (Full Length).mp3

Also included is a ‘making-of’ video (found above), showing what went into the production of the commercial thanks to the team over at Shilo.

Fancy that, an agency that is pro-activly responding to consumer feedback! Nice work.

A big ‘tip of the hat’ goes out to Colin McRae + Isaac Clemens from DraftFCB for the update.

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).

Here is a new campaign by Dos Equis where their “most interesting man” gives advice on various subjects. With all of them being only 15 second spots, I think they were pretty cleverly written if you ask me.

My favorite is “Packages“:

Fellows, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pocket, you better use them to call the tailor.

In addition to the two displayed above (The Most Interesting Man & Packages), there are two more commercials in this series -

Mixed Nuts:

Careers:

Created by Euro RSCG/New York with Jeff Kling as Creative Director. Steve Miller directed the spots with @radical media as the production company (Outside Editorial did the post work).

All of these spots are tied-in at the end with our interesting gentleman telling us to “stay thirsty my friends” which is also the web address for their campaign micro-site - www.staythirstymyfriends.com. There you can test your skill in patience and strength (by arm wrestling Mao, Churchill, Stalin, or even our most interesting man), apply to become the most interesting man in the world’s personal assistant and view various photos with our host performing assorted “manly” feats. Pretty funny site to match the spots, kudos.

Update: After a lot of emails regarding this campaign and the talent used, it has been confirmed that the actor who plays “The Most Interesting Man In The World” is indeed Jonathan Goldsmith. This was received via email from production sources. Also, as brentter.com readers “sam” and “Bart” have both pointed out, it is listed as being credited to him on his imdb.com profile.