Articles from AdWeek Advertising and branding

We've seen lots of "Don't text and drive" ads lately. With this one from Ogilvy Beijing, Volkswagen drove the message home to a captive movie-theater audience in a way they'll surely remember. Watch the spot first to get the full impact. Obviously the video begs the question about how, exactly, the stunt was pulled off.

Y&R New Zealand turns manly beards into cute animals for Schick's "Free Your Skin" campaign, which takes a bold anti-beard stance in this golden age of hirsute ruggedness.  Of course, sneering observers are all calling the Schick models hipsters, so maybe the ads also tap into a sort of cultural exhaustion with all things bearded, buttoned-down and knit-capped.

We’ve all witnessed the power that images have on social media, and research shows that over 40 percent of users are more likely to engage with brands that post pictures. As a result, today’s marketers are learning to be sophisticated visual thinkers. NewsCred and Getty Images teamed up to create “The Power of Visual Storytelling,” a guide for marketers that outlines four main principles of visual media—authenticity, sensory, archetype, relevancy.

Some recent case-study videos have become just as creative—sometimes more so—than the campaigns they tout. As award show entry numbers swell—the Cannes Lions festival got 37,427 submissions this year, up 5 percent from 2013—agencies are fighting to stand out. For example, Droga5 used the voice of a guy with a fake Scottish accent in a 2-plus-minute video about its Facebook campaign for Newcastle beer, and BBDO featured close-ups of hands smashing food in a 2-minute video about its Mobile TeleSystems effort.