Bestads Top 6 of the Week – reviewed by Mark Tutssel, worldwide CCO, Leo Burnett, Chicago
Well, notthebestads this month. Ideas were thin on the ground. But there were a few.
Best Outdoor: Let’s start with the most interesting category, Outdoor. The two stand out pieces both involved disguising food. First up was an innovative idea for the international delivery service, FedEx. A food truck masquerading as a FedEx truck was parked at the SXSWi conference in Austin, serving free food daily to the attendees. Each day of the conference it served international cuisine from different countries in FedEx boxes, ‘piping hot’, as if it had just been delivered from abroad. Great drama around instant delivery.
Next up was the best of the category. This highly original idea for McDonald’s recently garnered a 360 Lotus Gold at AdFest. The first in Indonesian history. During the month of Ramadhan restaurants and food outlets cover their windows from dawn to dusk to avoid temptation beyond endurance. This integrated campaign demonstrated wonderful cultural understanding and was brought to life in a fresh, engaging way. Media was used in a highly creative fashion. Food commercials were aired the week before Ramadhan began, and during the fast, the exact commercials were re-run, this time wrapped in McDonald’s wrappers to avoid craving. The idea was extended to translites in-store and the icon 3D Golden Arches outside the restaurants. When the people broke fast the images of food were unwrapped. This campaign promoted McDonald’s in a highly enjoyable way and gained massive PR attention.
Best TV: In Film, the subject matter was mostly cars, a category that has an incredibly high creative standard. VW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Mini have a rich history of producing world-class work, but sadly this latest installment was very poor. Nothing to write home about.
The one piece of work that held my attention was an animated spot for Aides. Based on what looks like Walt Disney’s ‘Steamboat Willie’ (Maybe it’s a homage to him? Protect your Willie). The title card at the beginning and the style of the animation echo this Disney classic. It follows the sexual exploits and nine lives of the pussy cat, Smutely, as he plays away with a turtle, bunny rabbit, blowfish, dolphin, a bondage pig, three seals, red cocks and an elephant with jumbo nuts. It is littered with hidden messages and Joan Jeff provides the music track, ‘Bad Reputation’. It’s beautifully crafted and has exquisite attention to detail, but the idea, that unlike promiscuous cats, we only have one life, so ‘Protect yourself’, is not that original.
Best Print: In Print there were lots of campaigns that invited people to decode the content. I personally love work that credits people with intelligence and invites you to participate in the idea. But the key to success is that it has to be highly rewarding for the reader. Sadly, a lot of this work failed abysmally. The one campaign that at least grabbed the reader by the eyeballs and drew them in, was for the Clio Awards. Art directed to portray the ‘Mad Men’ era, the ads showcased agency creative presentations of breakthrough thinking, ‘YourSelf Television’ and ‘Book of Faces’. It’s point was that today is truly the golden age of creativity. An era where we have technology at our fingertips, infinite opportunities to enrich people’s lives and a creative canvas that has no borders. This campaign will not win any awards, but it was the best of an average body of work.
Best Interactive: In Interactive, the cupboard was bare. The calibre of work was extremely disappointing. Nothing future-facing or category defying, which is a real shame. If I was forced to single out a piece, it would be for K-Swiss. It’s a ballsy strategy to attach your brand to Kenny Powers. But the content of this NCAA March Madness promotion felt a little pedestrian.
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