Commercial

Over the past two years, Stella Artois has consistently impressed me with their advertising campaigns. Whether it’s the work airing here in North America or any of the campaigns found across Europe, there is always something clever about the creative that they use.

In this piece we watch two Italian brothers fight to win a tandem bike race as a tribute to the memory of their father. After disaster strikes, they find themselves faced with a challenging decision, continue the race after fixing their tire or retire to the bar for a pint. You can guess which option they choose, complete with an ending that leaves you smiling.

This ad was conceptualized by Christina Yu and Joseph Bonnici from Lowe London & Lowe Roche, Toronto (With Ben Roberts as the Agency Producer).

Dougal Wilson directed this piece for Blink, London with Ciska Faukner as the Producer and Jan Velicky as the DOP. MPC, London was the post production house with telecine by Jean Clement. Tom Harding was the VFX Supervisor for the work done by Michael Gregory.

Here’s a rather odd new commercial for Snickers from BBDO Moscow where we learn that eating a Snickers candy bar can potentially transform you into a metallic beast capable of jumping off a three story office-complex without so much as a scratch. They should stick to the Mr.T cameos, those were spots we all could agree on loving.

Spy Films, Toronto was the Production Company with Alex & Steffen as Directors, Maher Meleh as DP and Peter Quad as Producer. VFX Artists Alexander Kiesl, Gereon Zwosta, Jörg Häberle, Sebastian Badea, Claudius Urban and Emil Stefanov all worked on this spot for Post Production Company Unexpected Post.

Compositing was done by Steffen Hacker, Claus Rudolph and Alexander Börger along with the character design being credited to Sebastian Badea and Felix Mertikat. Sound Design was by Supreme Music.

Above is one of the more recent spots to come out of the once-giant electronics retail store, courtesy of Euro RSCG Worldwide. Too little too late perhaps as Circuit City announced today that they were filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. This will allow them to hold off creditors while they pray for a Christmas Miracle.

Earlier this month it had announced that they would be closing 155 of their stores and laying off 15% of the workforce only to add an additional 700 positions to the cutting block last Monday.

Ouch.

[source]

Here’s a short little animated bit for DuPont explaining what Open Science is and how it affects both you and the rest of the world. This was created by Ogilvy, NYC and produced by Stink, London (MassMarket did the VFX).

Credits:

Client: DuPont
Title: Open Science
Agency: Ogilvy, New York
Worldwide Creative Director: David Fowler
Creative Director: Jim Nolan
Art Director: Kanad Banerjee
Copywriter: Michael Demos
Executive Producer: Lee Weiss
Senior Producer: Be Garrett
Production Company: Stink, London
Director: Gaelle Denis
Executive Producer: Daniel Bergman
Line Producer: Tracey Cooper
Editorial: Trim, London
Editor: Paul Hardcastle
Visual Effects: MassMarket, New York
Executive Producer: Justin Lane
VFX Producer: Rich Rama, Rasha Clark
Assistant Producer: Kay Chen
Lead Flame Artist: Chris Staves
Flame Artist: Jamie Scott
Junior Flame Artist: Jeen Lee, Dan Boujoulian
Lead CG: Andreas Berner
CG Artist: Cody Chen, Kitty Lin, Jordan Blit, Iggy Ayestaran, Lee Wolland,
Jonah Friedman, Marco Iozzi, Jerry Liu
Previz Artist: Jim Hundertmark
Lead Designer: Anh Vu
Designer: Pete Sickbert-Bennett
Tracking: Joerg Liebold, Joon Park, Jeen Lee

Here’s an interesting new online campaign for the Toyota Corolla featuring kung-fu fighting mutant cats. The first piece of the three part series, 9 Lives and Counting, shows us an action packed heist and the resulting high-speed getaway. No worries though, the second and third installments in the series should be released soon using equally bad puns for titles: Landing on All Fours and The Sound the Furry.

There’s an animated novel for the campaign as well as other goodies related to the series over on their website, so go check it out if you’re interested. This was all produced by Publicis Mojo out of Melbourne, Australia.

The campaign, according to the agency:

Tells the story of a kitten headed hero who battles a gang of feral baddies.The ambitious production was a combination of very well rehearsed fighting sequences, and real, cuddly kitten heads. source

I’m interested in seeing how the rest of the story plays out after watching this spot. I thought the VFX was outstanding. I even liked how he took care of the workers by distracting them with a moving light, clever.

Credits:

Agency: Publicis Mojo, Melbourne
Creative Director: Micah Walker
Art Director: Michael Spirkovski
Copywriter: Grant McAloon
Agency Producer: Jasmin Ferguson
Production Company: Exit Films, Melbourne
Director: Garth Davis
Producer: Karen Sproul
Digital Creative Director: Joel Thomson
Lead Creative: Clint Nielsen
Lead Developer: Hugh Campbell
Digital Producer: Julia Prior
Post Prodcution: Animal Logic- Colin Renshaw
Music: Level 2 Music- Carl Ricter
Sound Mix: Nylon