"The Squirrels," Draftfcb: Dragoş Muşsat (Cuvinte Cheie: Haox, Delfini În Dâmboviţa)
"The Squirrels," Draftfcb: Dragoş Muşsat (Cuvinte Cheie: Haox, Delfini În Dâmboviţa)
"The Squirrels," Draftfcb: Dragoş Muşsat (Cuvinte Cheie: Haox, Delfini În Dâmboviţa)
Draftfcb's Squirrels
The Squirrels are a team of four creatives who worked together on Oreo's extremely
successful Daily Twist campaign. In honor of Oreo's 100th birthday, art director Mike
Lubrano, senior art director Jared Isle, senior art director Jackie Anzaldi, and senior
copywriter Noel Potts created a different Oreo-related design to share on social media for
100 days straight.
Why:
The Daily Twist became a huge success, with some of the more popular designs (you
might remember the rainbow Oreo tower in support of gay pride parades) going
massively viral, and even gaining mentions on late-night talk shows. Asking a team for
100 straight days of great design is a tall order, but the Squirrels rose to the challenge.
Lucey joined Beresford-Hill at BBDO in the summer of 2012, and the two have been on
a roll ever since. The duo won a pair of Cannes Lions for its print and film ads for Foot
Locker, and struck viral gold earlier this month with a moving ad for Guinness.
Why:
Lucey and Beresford-Hill's versatility on the Foot Locker campaign has aided the
company in its ongoing turnaround effort. They used print ads to target hardcore
sneakerheads by humorously comparing them to other collectors and made some
hilariously funny TV spots leveraging comedic chops of NBA stars James
Hardin, Stephen Curry, and Kyrie Irving.
LewisandFitch.com
Matt Lewis and Mark Fitch, as presented on their joint personal website.
Childhood friends Mark Lewis and Matt Fitch have fulfilled the dream of 12-year-olds
everywhere by working together at VCCP and BMB before coming to BBH London. In
the past, they've done innovative outdoor work for Google Voice, and work for Dove that
helped pitch the brand to fathers.
Why:
Lewis and Fitch are best known for their extraordinary 2012 campaign for the Englandbased news media company The Guardian. In a richly detailed, award-winning twominute video, they showed off how The Guardian's print, digital, and video departments
would have offered 360-degree coverage of the fictional trial of the Big Bad Wolf (who
blew down the houses of The Three Little Pigs).
The video perfectly captured The Guardian's many capabilities in a multi-screen world
and even managed to creatively expand on the original story of The Three Little Pigs.
McCann
John Mescall
Mescall joined McCann Australia as executive creative director in Fall 2011 and has
since helped it become one of the most successful agencies in the country. The agency
has made a name for itself with fun, playful advertising exemplified by its campaign for
the Macquarie Dictionary of Melbourne in which it invented and spread the word
"phubbing," a term to describe the practice of ignoring someone in person while looking
at your smartphone. The campaign sought to show the importance of new words to
explain new social phenomena.
Why:
Mescall created "Dumb Ways to Die," the smash hit campaign of 2012, for Melbourne's
public transit system. The campaign was anchored by an impossibly catchy music
video where adorable animated creatures name a bunch of dumb ways for people to die
before revealing that being killed by an oncoming train because you weren't being
careful is the dumbest way of all. The video brought home a ton of awards, and has so
far netted more than 60 million views on YouTube.
12
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DraftFCB's
"squirrels."
Recently, Business Insider asked the major ad agencies and the more
significant boutiques to name the people they felt were the most
creative in the business.
Skip straight to the list >
To prevent the nominations from being self-serving, we asked each
agency to also nominate someone from a competing agencythe sort
of person they'd hire, given a free hand.
We then pored over recent award winners and creatives who have
generated new and exciting buzz.
The result is a ranking that we feel represents advertising's creative
elite.
Methodology:
Threshold Interactive
John Montgomery
Threshold Interactive
RPA
Farkas and McCauley have been two of the most important minds
behind the excellent work RPA has done on behalf of its chief client,
Honda. What sticks out about Farkas and McCauley's work for Honda
is the creative ways they come up with to help Honda make a
difference in people's lives.
Why:
Most recently, the pair helped Honda raise enough money for nine
drive-in movie theaters to purchase digital projectors, without which
they would be forced to go out of business when the major movie
studios phase out analog film in 2014. The Project Drive-In
campaign allowed people to vote for their local drive-in to win one of
nine projectors Honda purchased for struggling theaters and created a
crowdfunding page for people to donate money.
Previously, they helped the car company arrange a prime gig for a
band that recorded a music video in a Honda and created a campaign
for Honda employees to show love to customers who'd gone to great
lengths to show their affection for the brand. It's hard to forge a
sincere connection between a brand and a person, but somehow
McCauley and Farkas have been able to hit the right tenor.
Team One
Chris Graves
As chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi's Team One, Chris Graves
has spearheaded a movement to allow consumers to augment print
ads with their mobile devices. This has allowed Team One to help
Lexus target its technology-loving core consumer with innovative
advertising that plays to their interests.
Why:
Graves' work for Lexus has matched the brand's reputation for
cutting-edge technology. For the 2014 Lexus IS, Graves made the first
collaboratively created stop-motion film using Instagram
photos. Team One helped Lexus target straight men with several
cross-brand promotions involving the Sports Illustrated swimsuit
edition, and blew us away with the CinePrint magazine ad, which
allowed users to place a tablet behind a print ad to make it look like
the page was moving.
72andSunny
Carlo Cavallone
Cavallone has made a name for himself with campaigns for the fashion
brand Benetton that mobilize socially conscious youth by aligning the
brand's goals with those of its target audience.
Why:
Cavallone won a Grand Prix Lion at Cannes in 2012 for his work on
Benetton's Unhate campaign that showed male world leaders kissing.
The brand followed up that success by tapping into the frustration of
millennials destabilized by the global financial crisis with its
"Unemployee of the Year" campaign, which celebrated the out-of-work
dreamers and offered 100 unemployed young people 5,000 Euros to
work on a project they cared about.
Benetton
JWT
Maxam
Deutsch LA
Deutsch LA
Having joined Chipotle in 1999, Espey has seen the company grow
from a regional chain centered in Colorado to the massive
international behemoth it is today. But despite the company's rapid
growth to more than 1,500 locations, Espey has used smart messaging
to help Chipotle's brand maintain its independent feel.
Why:
In the past several years, Espey and Chipotle have commissioned two
terrific animated films that have been huge viral hits and burnished
the brand's image as one committed to using natural products and
having a positive impact on the world around it.
Last month, Chipotle introduced "The Scarecrow," a visually
stimulating short film from the animation studio Moonbot Studios
that shows a scarecrow's journey from the inhumane factory farm he
worked at to a new store he opens himself using natural ingredients.
The Scarecrow left the big city behind for a simpler way
of life.
17. Whit Hiler, creative at Cornet-IMS
You can also thank Hiler for inventing an unorthodox ad unit called
the "Beardvertisement" that was ultimately used by the Dollar Shave
Club.
Why:
In addition to cracking up the internet with viral goodness, Hiler's
creativity has also helped his agency, Cornet-IMS, grow its business.
Hiler helped Cornet become A&W's agency of record by devising
something called a LinkedIn Bomb, through which he and his coworkers coordinated to flood the A&W marketing director with
messages describing their personal relationships with the soda and
fast-food brand.
Cornet-IMS had no prior relationship with A&W, but the stunt helped
convince A&W to name the firm its agency of record shortly after.
Draftfcb's Squirrels
Here's the Daily Twist post about gay pride that went
viral.
Kraft / Facebook
Translation
Steve Stoute
The Nets became the first major pro sports team to call
Brooklyn home since Walter O'Malley took the Dodgers
to Los Angeles in 1957.
Brooklyn Nets
Screengrab Video
Gerry Graf
Since leaving his job at Saatchi & Saatchi to strike out on his own in
2010, Graf has consistently made irreverent, funny ads for clients like
Dish, Kayak, and Little Caesars. The industry veteran has worked to
ensure his firm's longterm success by surrounding himself with an
array of talent from across the advertising landscape, a strategy that
came to the forefront in August, when a man in a horse suit stood
outside Wieden + Kennedy's New York office with a sign telling
passersby they'd have to be a horse's ass not to want to work at BFG
9000. The agency denied involvement.
Why:
Graf's outside-the-box thinking was on full display in an ad campaign
for environmental group 350 Action that proposed naming
hurricanes after lawmakers who have publicly denied climate change.
And after spending countless hours sifting through case studies to
assemble this list, we couldn't help laughing at BFG 9000's hilarious
mock overview of a fake social media campaign.
350 Action
BBDO
Foot Locker
Dave Pinter/Flickr
New York tastemakers Anthony Sperduti & Andy Spade do a little bit
of everything out of their Manhattan store/creative office, from selling
artwork and cool artifacts to producing award-winning short films.
They've put this creativity to work in the advertising field
with innovative experiential work for Warby Parker, striking portraits
of celebrity AOL users for the company's 25th anniversary, and some
absolutely beautiful work for Target. You also might have heard of the
brand Andy Spade manages with his wife, Kate.
Why:
LewisandFitch.com
Matt Lewis and Mark Fitch, as presented on their joint personal website.
Childhood friends Mark Lewis and Matt Fitch have fulfilled the dream
of 12-year-olds everywhere by working together at VCCP and BMB
before coming to BBH London. In the past, they've done innovative
outdoor work for Google Voice, and work for Dove that helped pitch
the brand to fathers.
Why:
Lewis and Fitch are best known for their extraordinary 2012 campaign
for the England-based news media company The Guardian. In a
richly detailed, award-winning two-minute video, they showed off
how The Guardian's print, digital, and video departments would have
offered 360-degree coverage of the fictional trial of the Big Bad Wolf
(who blew down the houses of The Three Little Pigs).
The video perfectly captured The Guardian's many capabilities in a
multi-screen world and even managed to creatively expand on the
original story of The Three Little Pigs.
Here's the great Three Little Pigs spot that landed them
on the list.
10. Chris Baker and Mike Lacher, freelance (formerly at
Buzzfeed)
Chris Baker
It's a sign of the times that we just couldn't do this list without anyone
from the native advertising/sponsored content field. Chris Baker
worked at major ad agencies R/GA, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and
BBDO before becoming a creative director producing sponsored
content for Buzzfeed alongside Mike Lacher. The duo has since parted
ways with the company to do freelance work, but not before doing
some of Buzzfeed's most innovative creative work.
Why:
In a collaboration between Buzzfeed and Improv Everywhere, Baker
and Lacher had "Seeing Eye People" lead folks around Manhattan
while they were busy looking down at their phones so that they could
walk safely as they were texting. They also made waves with a sendup
of tech culture called the Startup Legitimizer, and the
famous/infamous Buzzfeed Listiclock, an app sponsored by Pepsi that
allows users to see a different presentation of three Buzzfeed lists for
every second of the day.
Buzzfeed
AT&T
Since debuting during the 2012 NCAA Tournament, AT&T's "It's not
complicated" campaign has been one of the best on television.
Featuring sketch comic Beck Bennett and a cadre of adorable
schoolchildren, the campaign has done wonders for humanizing a
telecommunications brand often thought to be impersonal.
Though the Beck Bennett/AT&T collaboration has been handled by
numerous people across BBDO since being launched with Brackets By
Six-Year-Olds during the 2012 NCAA Tournament, creative directors
Stephen McMennamy and Alex Russell have helped keep the
campaign hot over the past year.
The campaign worked out pretty well for Bennett, too. In August, it
was announced that he'll be a cast member on SNL.
Why:
McCann
John Mescall
agencies in the country. The agency has made a name for itself with
fun, playful advertising exemplified by its campaign for the Macquarie
Dictionary of Melbourne in which it invented and spread the word
"phubbing," a term to describe the practice of ignoring someone in
person while looking at your smartphone. The campaign sought to
show the importance of new words to explain new social phenomena.
Why:
Mescall created "Dumb Ways to Die," the smash hit campaign of 2012,
for Melbourne's public transit system. The campaign was anchored
by an impossibly catchy music video where adorable animated
creatures name a bunch of dumb ways for people to die before
revealing that being killed by an oncoming train because you weren't
being careful is the dumbest way of all. The video brought home a ton
of awards, and has so far netted more than 60 million views on
YouTube.
Draftfcb
The altruistic nature of Polar's work was on display in two ads he's
produced in the past year that were both extremely creative and
impressively effective.
In one, Polar helped the Peruvian Cancer Society reach its fund-raising
goal by reaching out to an unlikely group of donors: occupants of the
country's most dangerous prison. Even more innovative was his work
for a Peruvian engineering university, for whom he helped erect a
billboard that harvested humidity from the surrounding air to produce
clean drinking water.
Anselmo Ramos
Anselmo Ramos has traveled all over the world for his advertising
career, working for Y&R in Lisbon, Madrid, and Miami, and for Lowe
New York before returning to his native Brazil in 2007.
At the time, Ogilvy's Brazil practice was No. 47 in the agency's internal
creative rankings. Since then, Ramos has brought Brazil all the way up
to No. 1 , while also founding DAVID, a global agency within Ogilvy
that offers a Latin American perspective on creative work.
Why:
Ramos is responsible for one of the most viral advertisements of all
time, Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches," which used an FBI-trained
sketch artist to draw portraits of women first based on how they
described themselves and then based on descriptions of the women
offered by strangers. The result was a heartwarming, if not necessarily
true, message that women are more beautiful than they think they are.
The video was viewed more than 114 million times worldwide in its
first month.
Droga5
Del Savio and Hoak are two of the creative forces behind some of the
best work from Droga5, one of the it agencies in the advertising
industry. Though Droga5 is focused on digital work, Hoak and Savio
used the throwback medium of the pay phone in an awesome
campaign for the New Museum's exhibit covering the year 1993.
They put stickers on every pay phone in Manhattan that advertised a
phone number people could call to hear taped recordings of people
telling stories about what the neighborhood they were in was like in
1993. The recordings came from oral histories done by 150 real New
Yorkers.
Why:
While it's easy to do great creative work for an art museum, Del Savio
and Hoak are on the list for their work on the Prudential Challenge
Lab, a beautiful, interactive site that made saving for retirement seem
totally interesting.
The site used interactive quizzes to teach people about the need to
save, and presented videos about the fascinating brain science that
explains why people so rarely consider their future well-being when
making decision in the present. The project won a Titanium Lion at
Cannes for its originality.
Droga5
Jason Apaliski
body every morning, and a woman he falls in love with named Leah.
Because Alex was a different person every day, Intel and Toshiba
invited the public to try out for roles in the series and to film
themselves saying certain lines of dialogue, which were then included
in the series.
Why:
The six-part, 30-minute video was filled with beautiful
cinematography and a compelling love story with a universal message
about inner beauty. The videos were extremely creative in telling a
moving story that was relevant to a product, the computer chip, that is
not always easy to tell stories about.
"The Beauty Inside" was unique in the way it allowed the public to
participate in telling its story, helping the film series win an
unprecedented three Grand Prix awards at Cannes.
Barbarian Group
Andrew Bell
AARON TAUBE
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DraftFCB's
"squirrels."
Recently, Business Insider asked the major ad agencies and the more
significant boutiques to name the people they felt were the most creative
in the business.
Skip straight to the list >
Threshold Interactive
John Montgomery
John Montgomery started his career in the 90s as a fashion designer for
brands like Hot Topic and Dr. Martens before eventually gravitating to
creative services at the beginning of the new millennium. He founded
Media Arts Group and merged with Threshold Interactive in 2005.
Now he oversees creative campaigns for Nestl brands like Butterfinger,
Hot Pockets, and Poland Spring, among other clients.
Why:
Montgomery has helped build the Hot Pockets brand's cach among the
hard-to-reach male youth demographic with a steady stream of first-rate
goofballery. He's the one responsible for last year's "Pocket Like It's Hot"
collaboration with Snoop Dogg, as well as the brand's bizarrely
entrancing new video that also features model Kate Upton. He also
signed up YouTube star Tobe Turner to create similarly silly Hot Pocket
branded videos for Turner's nearly 5 million subscribers.
Threshold Interactive
RPA
Farkas and McCauley have been two of the most important minds
behind the excellent work RPA has done on behalf of its chief client,
Honda. What sticks out about Farkas and McCauley's work for Honda is
the creative ways they come up with to help Honda make a difference in
people's lives.
Why:
Most recently, the pair helped Honda raise enough money for nine drivein movie theaters to purchase digital projectors, without which they
would be forced to go out of business when the major movie studios
phase out analog film in 2014. The Project Drive-In campaign allowed
people to vote for their local drive-in to win one of nine projectors Honda
purchased for struggling theaters and created a crowdfunding page for
people to donate money.
Previously, they helped the car company arrange a prime gig for a band
that recorded a music video in a Honda and created a campaign for
Honda employees to show love to customers who'd gone to great lengths
to show their affection for the brand. It's hard to forge a sincere
connection between a brand and a person, but somehow McCauley and
Farkas have been able to hit the right tenor.
Team One
Chris Graves
As chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi's Team One, Chris Graves
has spearheaded a movement to allow consumers to augment print ads
with their mobile devices. This has allowed Team One to help Lexus
target its technology-loving core consumer with innovative advertising
that plays to their interests.
Why:
Graves' work for Lexus has matched the brand's reputation for cuttingedge technology. For the 2014 Lexus IS, Graves made the first
collaboratively created stop-motion film using Instagram photos. Team
One helped Lexus target straight men with several cross-brand
promotions involving the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, and blew
us away with the CinePrint magazine ad, which allowed users to place a
tablet behind a print ad to make it look like the page was moving.
72andSunny
Carlo Cavallone
Benetton
JWT
Maxam
Deutsch LA
Gordy Sang and Brian Siedband specifically requested we use the photo
you see here, so we suppose they would like you to know they drink
alcohol sometimes. When sober, Sang and Siedband have been on
something of a creative roll over the past year and change, working
together on well-received Deutsch LA projects for Taco Bell and
Playstation.
Why?
The duo worked together on Taco Bell's popular "Viva Young" Super
Bowl commercial that featured senior citizens sneaking out of the house
and making mischief as the band Fun sang a poorly-accented version of
their hit "We Are Young" in the background. They also came up with the
simple but effective "World's Most Obvious Idea" ad for the hotly
anticipated Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco.
Our favorite, though, was last year's "Cubs Win" for Playstation's "MLB
12: The Show" video game, in which the Chicago natives imagined how
the Windy City would react if the Cubs ever won the World Series. The ad
perfectly captured the intense emotions of sports fandom, but
Playstation transferred the account to BBH New York shortly afterward.
Genius is never understood in its own time.
Deutsch LA
Having joined Chipotle in 1999, Espey has seen the company grow from
a regional chain centered in Colorado to the massive international
behemoth it is today. But despite the company's rapid growth to more
than 1,500 locations, Espey has used smart messaging to help Chipotle's
brand maintain its independent feel.
Why:
In the past several years, Espey and Chipotle have commissioned two
terrific animated films that have been huge viral hits and burnished the
brand's image as one committed to using natural products and having a
positive impact on the world around it.
Last month, Chipotle introduced "The Scarecrow," a visually stimulating
short film from the animation studio Moonbot Studios that shows a
scarecrow's journey from the inhumane factory farm he worked at to a
new store he opens himself using natural ingredients.
The Scarecrow left the big city behind for a simpler way
of life.
17. Whit Hiler, creative at Cornet-IMS
You can also thank Hiler for inventing an unorthodox ad unit called the
"Beardvertisement" that was ultimately used by the Dollar Shave Club.
Why:
In addition to cracking up the internet with viral goodness, Hiler's
creativity has also helped his agency, Cornet-IMS, grow its business.
Hiler helped Cornet become A&W's agency of record by devising
something called a LinkedIn Bomb, through which he and his coworkers coordinated to flood the A&W marketing director with messages
describing their personal relationships with the soda and fast-food
brand.
Cornet-IMS had no prior relationship with A&W, but the stunt helped
convince A&W to name the firm its agency of record shortly after.
Draftfcb's Squirrels
The Squirrels are a team of four creatives who worked together on Oreo's
extremely successful Daily Twist campaign. In honor of Oreo's 100th
birthday, art director Mike Lubrano, senior art director Jared Isle, senior
art director Jackie Anzaldi, and senior copywriter Noel Potts created a
different Oreo-related design to share on social media for 100 days
straight.
Why:
The Daily Twist became a huge success, with some of the more popular
designs (you might remember the rainbow Oreo tower in support of gay
pride parades) going massively viral, and even gaining mentions on latenight talk shows. Asking a team for 100 straight days of great design is a
tall order, but the Squirrels rose to the challenge.
Here's the Daily Twist post about gay pride that went
viral.
Kraft / Facebook
Translation
Steve Stoute
The Nets became the first major pro sports team to call
Brooklyn home since Walter O'Malley took the Dodgers
to Los Angeles in 1957.
Brooklyn Nets
Screengrab Video
Gerry Graf
Since leaving his job at Saatchi & Saatchi to strike out on his own in
2010, Graf has consistently made irreverent, funny ads for clients like
Dish, Kayak, and Little Caesars. The industry veteran has worked to
ensure his firm's longterm success by surrounding himself with an array
of talent from across the advertising landscape, a strategy that came to
the forefront in August, when a man in a horse suit stood outside Wieden
+ Kennedy's New York office with a sign telling passersby they'd have to
be a horse's ass not to want to work at BFG 9000. The agency denied
involvement.
Why:
Graf's outside-the-box thinking was on full display in an ad campaign for
environmental group 350 Action that proposed naming hurricanes after
lawmakers who have publicly denied climate change. And after spending
countless hours sifting through case studies to assemble this list, we
couldn't help laughing at BFG 9000's hilarious mock overview of a fake
social media campaign.
350 Action
BBDO
Lucey joined Beresford-Hill at BBDO in the summer of 2012, and the two
have been on a roll ever since. The duo won a pair of Cannes Lions for its
print and film ads for Foot Locker, and struck viral gold earlier this
month with a moving ad for Guinness.
Why:
Lucey and Beresford-Hill's versatility on the Foot Locker campaign has
aided the company in its ongoing turnaround effort. They used print ads
to target hardcore sneakerheads by humorously comparing them to
other collectors and made some hilariously funny TV spots leveraging
comedic chops of NBA stars James Hardin, Stephen Curry, and Kyrie
Irving.
Foot Locker
Dave Pinter/Flickr
New York tastemakers Anthony Sperduti & Andy Spade do a little bit of
everything out of their Manhattan store/creative office, from selling
artwork and cool artifacts to producing award-winning short films.
They've put this creativity to work in the advertising field with innovative
experiential work for Warby Parker, striking portraits of celebrity AOL
users for the company's 25th anniversary, and some absolutely beautiful
work for Target. You also might have heard of the brand Andy Spade
manages with his wife, Kate.
Why:
LewisandFitch.com
Matt Lewis and Mark Fitch, as presented on their joint personal website.
Childhood friends Mark Lewis and Matt Fitch have fulfilled the dream of
12-year-olds everywhere by working together at VCCP and BMB before
coming to BBH London. In the past, they've done innovative outdoor
work for Google Voice, and work for Dove that helped pitch the brand to
fathers.
Why:
Lewis and Fitch are best known for their extraordinary 2012 campaign
for the England-based news media company The Guardian. In a richly
detailed, award-winning two-minute video, they showed off how The
Guardian's print, digital, and video departments would have offered
360-degree coverage of the fictional trial of the Big Bad Wolf (who blew
down the houses of The Three Little Pigs).
The video perfectly captured The Guardian's many capabilities in a
multi-screen world and even managed to creatively expand on the
original story of The Three Little Pigs.
Here's the great Three Little Pigs spot that landed them
on the list.
10. Chris Baker and Mike Lacher, freelance (formerly at
Buzzfeed)
Chris Baker
It's a sign of the times that we just couldn't do this list without anyone
from the native advertising/sponsored content field. Chris Baker worked
at major ad agencies R/GA, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and BBDO before
becoming a creative director producing sponsored content for Buzzfeed
alongside Mike Lacher. The duo has since parted ways with the company
to do freelance work, but not before doing some of Buzzfeed's most
innovative creative work.
Why:
In a collaboration between Buzzfeed and Improv Everywhere, Baker and
Lacher had "Seeing Eye People" lead folks around Manhattan while they
were busy looking down at their phones so that they could walk safely as
they were texting. They also made waves with a sendup of tech culture
called the Startup Legitimizer, and the famous/infamous Buzzfeed
Listiclock, an app sponsored by Pepsi that allows users to see a different
presentation of three Buzzfeed lists for every second of the day.
Buzzfeed
AT&T
Since debuting during the 2012 NCAA Tournament, AT&T's "It's not
complicated" campaign has been one of the best on television. Featuring
sketch comic Beck Bennett and a cadre of adorable schoolchildren, the
campaign has done wonders for humanizing a telecommunications
brand often thought to be impersonal.
Though the Beck Bennett/AT&T collaboration has been handled by
numerous people across BBDO since being launched with Brackets By
Six-Year-Olds during the 2012 NCAA Tournament, creative directors
Stephen McMennamy and Alex Russell have helped keep the campaign
hot over the past year.
The campaign worked out pretty well for Bennett, too. In August, it was
announced that he'll be a cast member on SNL.
Why:
McCann
John Mescall
in the country. The agency has made a name for itself with fun, playful
advertising exemplified by its campaign for the Macquarie Dictionary of
Melbourne in which it invented and spread the word "phubbing," a term
to describe the practice of ignoring someone in person while looking at
your smartphone. The campaign sought to show the importance of new
words to explain new social phenomena.
Why:
Mescall created "Dumb Ways to Die," the smash hit campaign of 2012,
for Melbourne's public transit system. The campaign was anchored by an
impossibly catchy music video where adorable animated creatures name
a bunch of dumb ways for people to die before revealing that being killed
by an oncoming train because you weren't being careful is the dumbest
way of all. The video brought home a ton of awards, and has so far netted
more than 60 million views on YouTube.
Draftfcb
The altruistic nature of Polar's work was on display in two ads he's
produced in the past year that were both extremely creative and
impressively effective.
In one, Polar helped the Peruvian Cancer Society reach its fund-raising
goal by reaching out to an unlikely group of donors: occupants of the
country's most dangerous prison. Even more innovative was his work for
a Peruvian engineering university, for whom he helped erect a billboard
that harvested humidity from the surrounding air to produce clean
drinking water.
Anselmo Ramos
Anselmo Ramos has traveled all over the world for his advertising career,
working for Y&R in Lisbon, Madrid, and Miami, and for Lowe New York
before returning to his native Brazil in 2007.
At the time, Ogilvy's Brazil practice was No. 47 in the agency's internal
creative rankings. Since then, Ramos has brought Brazil all the way up to
No. 1 , while also founding DAVID, a global agency within Ogilvy that
offers a Latin American perspective on creative work.
Why:
Ramos is responsible for one of the most viral advertisements of all time,
Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches," which used an FBI-trained sketch artist
to draw portraits of women first based on how they described themselves
and then based on descriptions of the women offered by strangers. The
result was a heartwarming, if not necessarily true, message that women
are more beautiful than they think they are. The video was viewed more
than 114 million times worldwide in its first month.
Droga5
Del Savio and Hoak are two of the creative forces behind some of the
best work from Droga5, one of the it agencies in the advertising industry.
Though Droga5 is focused on digital work, Hoak and Savio used the
throwback medium of the pay phone in an awesome campaign for the
New Museum's exhibit covering the year 1993.
They put stickers on every pay phone in Manhattan that advertised a
phone number people could call to hear taped recordings of people
telling stories about what the neighborhood they were in was like in
1993. The recordings came from oral histories done by 150 real New
Yorkers.
Why:
While it's easy to do great creative work for an art museum, Del Savio
and Hoak are on the list for their work on the Prudential Challenge Lab,
a beautiful, interactive site that made saving for retirement seem totally
interesting.
The site used interactive quizzes to teach people about the need to save,
and presented videos about the fascinating brain science that explains
why people so rarely consider their future well-being when making
decision in the present. The project won a Titanium Lion at Cannes for
its originality.
Droga5
Jason Apaliski
In order to tell consumers about the importance of the Intel chip inside
Toshiba laptops, Apaliski and his team came up with a remarkable social
video series about the importance of inner beauty. The story centers on a
person named Alex, who wakes up in a different body every morning,
and a woman he falls in love with named Leah. Because Alex was a
different person every day, Intel and Toshiba invited the public to try out
for roles in the series and to film themselves saying certain lines of
dialogue, which were then included in the series.
Why:
The six-part, 30-minute video was filled with beautiful cinematography
and a compelling love story with a universal message about inner beauty.
The videos were extremely creative in telling a moving story that was
relevant to a product, the computer chip, that is not always easy to tell
stories about.
"The Beauty Inside" was unique in the way it allowed the public to
participate in telling its story, helping the film series win an
unprecedented three Grand Prix awards at Cannes.
Barbarian Group
Andrew Bell