Parents, This is Your Baby on a Workout Plan

From Brussels-based Pride/TBWA comes a new hidden-camera style spot that compares feeding your toddler regular cereal to child abuse. No, seriously, it does.

What initially appears to be a PSA for fighting infant obesity is actually a commercial for Olvarit, a toddler-targeted Belgian cereal that comes in flavors like “Banana Stars,” “Honey Rings,” and “Choco Balls.” Ha! “Choco Balls,” you guys! The spot features two things that moms tend to share like crazy over social media and epically long email chains: Candid reactions and babies being adorable. In fact, add some sort of flash mob dancing around to the Mama Mia soundtrack/Michael Buble, and this may be the greatest mommy viral video in history.

So, next time you consider feeding your child Honey Nut Cheerios, remember that poor pacifier-sucking baby, and feed it Honey Rings instead. Your child should really switch up his or her favorite breakfast bee mascot from time to time. And, for the record, if this video gets more plays than the entire population of Belgium (about 11 million in 2011), we’re glad we helped.

(via Pop Goes the Week)

Read more at: http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/parents-this-is-your-baby-on-a-workout-plan_b34901

Bud Ice Penguins

Anheuser-Busch packaged Bud Ice in long-necked bottles made to look like, in my opinion, a penguin. The beer company selected the San Francisco-based ad agency Goodby, Silverstein, & Partners, which in turn developed the ads above. "The Oh, and Beware of the Penguins" campaign first aired during the 1996 Super Bowl. The first commercial that aired got such a positive reception that the campaign continued to for the next two years.

The stars of the campaign are sinister penguins whose objective is to scare people and take their Bud Ice. These penguins would go to the extremes to steal people’s Bud Ice. These spots apparently succeeded with target audience of young affluent adults between the ages of 21 to 34, and Bud Ice sales increased by 21 percent in 1996.

Those evil penguins scared people in their homes, in their cars, and other places which is what made them funny in my opinion. What do you guys think of the penguins? Do you remember them from the mid nineties? Leave comments below.

Some information was taken from Marketing Campaigns Case Studies Blog.

Best,
-A.B.

Milka What

You may or may not know that ITA's first blog post involved the E*Trade babies. So showing you that the campaign is still going strong brings a smile to my face. I believe the creative responsibilities still fall on Grey Worldwide. E-Trade has been with Grey since 2007. Yes, the commercials still stick in people's minds. There really isn't much else for me to say except "Milka What!"

Best,
A.B.

Brut Gets To Slappin’

So, if you haven’t heard Old Spice and their advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy came up with this awesome television campaign that became extremely popular. I mean, viral marketing popular, because after the initial TV spots aired, the main character played by Isaiah Mustafa responded to fan questions through short videos through YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter with the same humor used in the original commercials. That sport of interaction made the campaign extremely popular and it might have worked, you can see the video case study in my post: “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” Click on the image above, see if you notice the similarities.

So, here comes Brut, trying to achieve the same sort of success instantaneously by creating a character similar to Isaiah Mustafa’s cool-cat persona. Brut’s man likes to get slapped; I’m not sure how that’s exactly cool? Click on the image above to try out the interactive site.

Oh, and the ad agency behind Brut’s interactive attempt is New Jersey based Sigma Group.

Best,
-A.B.

ESPN and W+K Team Up

Wieden+Kennedy New York went to work for ESPN and created the “It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports” brand campaign to share with the public the norms of the sports world. The only issue I have with it is that it’s like beating a dead horse. People already know that sports discussions are a normal part of American culture. The spot is funny and entertaining but it didn’t tell teach me anything I didn’t already know.

The spot begins with two guys, sitting at a table discussing what sounds like baseball and math. Another group of nerdy friends walk up to the jocks and call them nerds because of their discussion. The best way I could describe the situation is that it’s a visual play on words.

Now, if they would have done something like demonstrate how women can also talk sports, that would have been awesome. Even the nerdiest guy can talk some sports or at least have some idea of how to engage others. In my opinion, they were preaching to the choir with this spot.

Finally, the agency-client collaboration seems to really work. And why not, ESPN is the biggest name in sports media and W+K well we all have seen their work.

Best,
-A.B.

Dutch Nurses Say No to Sex

The Dutch Nurses’ union NU’91 wants to put the world on notice, that sexual services are not part of in-home care. Currently they are preparing a campaign called “I Draw the Line Here.” These wonderful people shouldn’t have to but apparently it happens so often that they felt it necessary to implement a campaign. This took off when a Dutch patient demanded sexual favors from his in-home caretaker, when she refused he tried to dismiss her from the job.

Well folks, here in America if this were to happen we would not pass go and go straight to civil court to be sued and the plaintiff would probably win. For those of you know, this would be called a sexual harassment case. Of course one man has to ruin it for the whole bunch because of taking it too far.

Finally, what medias do you guys think this campaign will utilize the most? Will they use TV, print, interactive, out-of-home to get the message across?

Best,
A.B.

Gaming Industry Upheaval

In the U.K. the game industry is upset because of the new ads appearing in U.K. government's Change For Life campaign, let's just say it puts them in a negative light and the industry isn't too happy about it. The image of the board-looking child with a joystick in his hands and a headline that included the word death really ticked the industry off. The campaign was only intended to promote a healthier lifestyle not cause riots.

The video game industry's main complaint is that the ad pictured above implies that video games can cause a premature death. Now that certainly isn't true but they cause you to not have very many friends, not very well read, and many other things but not death in my opinion of course.

I have yet to discover who the ad agency behind the print ad above.

Best,
A.B.

So Jack Isn't Dead?

I am sure that most of you have heard by now that in an effort to engage the audience Jack in the Box debut a spot during the Superbowl where Jack, their mascot, gets hit by a bus. After he is hit he goes into a coma that he was in for a month. Now that Jack is out of the coma, The Hang In There Jack campaign is coming to an end. You can see the campaign at Hang In There Jack.

The famous Jack is announcing plans for a new logo and a new Web-site design. Advancements do help get people out of comas, right? Personally I was turned off of the burger chain a few years ago because of an incident but that's not saying they aren't good. They just aren't what I prefer.

I can't find the ad agency responsible for the Hang In There Jack" campaign but I am working on it. I must say they went all out for this campaign, developing a site where people can visit Jack, Leave well wishes, and even a physical address to send get well cards. Also you can of course see the drasma happening in the hospital.

One of their ad agencies is Secret Weapon Marketing but I am not sure if they are responsible for the Hang In There Jack campaign. But Jack isn't so they can come up with more cheesy campaigns.

Best,
A.B.