Olympics

AT&T and BBDO NY have recently been airing two commercials as part of their 2008 Beijing Olympic Games campaign. Butterflies (shown above) began airing about a week before the opening ceremonies with We premiering on August 8th.

AT&T is the “official telecommunications sponsor” of the Olympic Games and also secured an exclusive deal allowing them to offer live coverage of the games on their mobile network (A move that had Verizon grumbling).

Butterflies features American gymnast Nastia Liukin and promotes their live coverage of the games, available on the AT&T wireless network.

We, displayed below, shows us the three ways in which viewers can watch the Olympics via the AT&T network - by TV, PC and mobile phones.
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W+K just launched a new campaign for Nike which features a television spot showcasing various athletic displays of “courage.” The video is accompanied by a page on Nike’s website - www.nike.com/nikecourage/

On the website I thought the video display was pretty neat - They tied-in the time mark on the video clip with the various events posted around the page so that as a new event appears in the video, the marker switches to give you an explanation of what occurred. You can also select an event with your courser to jump right to that description.

At the end of the video it prompts you to visit their YouTube page and submit your own version of “Courage.”

So far (Thu. night) the only video shown in the group is the same one from the Nike website. There are also only six members in the group and a few of them look like spam-accounts/fake.

This courage-montage was produced by Endy Hedman (Ben Grylewicz was the agency EP) with creative direction provided by Jelly Helm, Steve Luker and Hank Corwin.

Ralf Schmerberg directed this piece for @radical.media (With Ben Schneider and Donna Portaro as E/EP). Online credits are given to Vendetta Post, Audio post was done by “Lime and the song playing is called “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers.

Wieden + Kennedy brings us this new spot for The Coca-Cola Company featuring animated versions of Yao Ming and LeBron James in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. Pretty cool 3D effects in this spot as each character brings out stereotypical icons from China/USA in preparation for their battle. It ends before it even starts though as both superstars eventually bond together over a cold bottle of Coca-Cola (I didn’t see that one coming), giving us the message of “Unity.”

Dylan Lee and Mira Kaddoura schemed up this spot as the copywriter/art director with Hal Curtis and Sheena Brady as the W+K creative directors. The commercial was produced by Kevin Diller and had Nexus as the production company. Smith & Foulkes directed with Melody Sylvester as the producer (Julia Parfitt was the executive producer). Cliff Wilson from Digital One did all the post production audio work with music credits going to Eclectic.

Looks like Chicago is eagerly vying for the 2016 Olympics as they have unveiled their proposed logo early this week. Done as pro-bono work by VSA Partners, it definitely looks better than some of the previous years concoctions, [cough]Sydney 2000 [cough].

Taken from the press release:

The Chicago 2016 logo is styled in the shape of a torch and consists of three distinct visual components. The flame, in the shape of Chicago’s skyline, reflects the international significance of Chicago architecture and speaks to the vitality of a city that rose from the ashes. The body of the torch merges a color palette that represents the blue of Lake Michigan with the vibrant green of the city’s park system — further underscoring Chicago’s commitment to the environment and sustainability. Together, these visual elements evoke the spirit of the Olympic Games and its values.

Seems like a power-play on the part of Mayor Daley, it should be interesting to see if it pays off.