Ad Nut
Jan 9, 2015

Ad Nut: Flyin' garb, talkin' Weetabix, lovin' enemies, more

Ad Nut scurries all over the internet to bring you notable ads. This week: Ikea's winged migration, McDonald's' entertaining animation, McConaughey's tiresome narration, Newcastle Ale's latest meme appropriation, and much more.

Ad Nut gathers ads from anywhere in the worldcreative works the editors here aren't planning to cover in Campaign Asia-Pacific's 'The Work' section. Many of these come from our US, UK, India and Middle East colleagues (thanks, friends!).

Once a week, Ad Nut presents the latest collection here for your viewing pleasure. Because Ad Nut loves you.

Above: Is that a flock of seagulls? No, it's a flock of textiles, making its way to a some-assembly-required apparel storage system with an odd Swedish name, in a new UK ad for Ikea, by Mother. Is it weird that Ad Nut feels moved by this epic journey? Fly, you brave little T-shirts, fly!

 

As reported by our UK colleagues, Nike and AKQA used data on Nike+ members to create more than 100,000 personalised animations tailored to the members' specific cities, climates and sporting activities. 

 

These "ball boys" fetching for Venus Williams and Svetlana Kuznetsova are pretty good, Ad Nut admits. But next time, why not squirrels? (From ASB Bank of New Zealand and Saatchi & Saatchi.)

 

As you probably know, Dorito's does an annual contest called 'Crash the Super Bowl', where it invites the public to create a Super Bowl ad for the chips, then runs one of those crowdsourced ads during the game, with the winner decided by fan voting. This year, the cheeky people at Newcastle Ale (with co-conspirators Droga5) created the piece of work below, which makes good-natured fun of the amateurish contest entries while 'incidentally' showing and mentioning Newcastle incessantly. (via Ad Freak)

 

This new animated jaunt from McDonald's by Leo Burnett, which is slated to run during the Super Bowl, is certainly a change of direction for the brand. And it must have cost a small fortune in character licensing fees (Grumpy Cat don't come cheap). Ad Nut is glad that somewhere along the line the reported new slogan "Lovin' beats hatin'" got changed to simply, "Choose lovin'". But McDonald's will need more than a new flavour of advertising and a tighter slogan to solve the problems it's facing.

 

Weetabix really wants kids to eat its cereal. Ergo, 'Weetabuddies', a campaign by BBH on which the brand is spending more than $8 million (according to our UK colleagues). The brand's cereal thingies are better suited as dish-scouring pads, if you ask Ad Nut. but if you love the cereal or thsi ad concept, the window below will play you 11 straight Weetabuddy videos.

 

Credit-card companies get equated with imposing but dim-witted mobsters in this ad for Bitcoin processor Bitpay in the US. The agency is Felton Interactive Group. (via Campaign US)

 

Is Ad Nut the only entity on earth who just doesn't understand the McConaughey thing? He's a decent actor, I'll give you that. But his weighty philosophical act (as seen here for Lincoln, by Hudson Rouge) is wearing really thin. "You have to find that balance," he intones in his oh-so-serious, listen-to-the-truth-I-am-laying-on-you-dude voice. "By taking care of yourself, it takes care of more than yourself." Come again?

Also, that is one seriously ugly car. (via Campaign US)


 

Campaign Middle East has the full story on this cool light-painting project done by Infiniti and TBWA/Raad for the Dubai Motor Festival in November.

 

Flying for a business presentation never looked so fabulous as in this UK Virgin Atlantic ad by Adam & Eve/DDB, the agency's first work since winning the account in August (via Campaign UK).

 

The security guard in this ad for dog-food brand Cesar (by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO) might be out of a job if his bosses see the video. (Via Campaign UK)

 

Ad Nut is confident you, brilliant readers that you are, can figure out what's happening in this PSA for the Indian Head Injury Foundation by Ogilvy & Mather, even if you don't speak the language. If you get stuck, head to Campaign India for a walkthrough and a translation of some of the key lines.

wide player in 16:9 format. Used on article page for Campaign.

 

 

The person in this commercial is a synchronized swimmer, and she's reportedly doing exactly what it looks like she's doing—walking upside down underwater (the camera is upside down for the most of the scene). The ad, by Grey London, aims to position a travel company called Kuoni as an upmarket player (according to Campaign UK). Ad Nut wonders whether the spot might have a greater impact on the image of synchronised swimmers.

 

Ashton Kutcher breaks up with a bikini-clad pizza in a new global spot for Wrigley's. Ashton isn't all bad, but Ad Nut resents how much he probably got paid here for 20 seconds of really bad acting. (via Campaign UK)

 

That's all for now. Ad Nut will be back next week with more chestnuts. Please check out The Work section for Asia-specific ads, and follow Campaign Asia-Pacific on Facebook and Twitter (@CampaignAsia) to see new ads and more good stuff throughout the week.

 

Source:
Campaign Asia

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