TD Ameritrade has found a new lead creative agency. A unit of the holding company Havas has landed the account after a review in which the other finalists were the New York offices of FCB Garfinkel and DDB, according to sources. Annual media spending is estimated at $100 million. The Havas unit could not immediately be identified.
"It's the little things in life that makes us happy." That's the message in this print and outdoor Coca-Cola campaign from Ogilvy Berlin, and it's true in advertising generally. Unusually little things tend to get big props—whether you're talking doll houses, mini Abe Lincolns or tiny billboards. Ogilvy placed these mini kiosks in five major German cities. They sold mini cans of Coke, which was the whole point, but also various other miniature products. They even had a pint-size vending machine.
Leave it to the auteur Gus Van Sant to take some of automotive advertising's biggest clichés—self-glorifying narration over footage of a luxury car in the desert—and somehow still turn them into something beautifully compelling. Van Sant, best known for his Oscar-nominated directing of Hollywood hits Good Will Hunting and Milk, helmed three new spots for BMW's upcoming plug-in hybrid, the i8. They are, as one would expect, artfully shot, using a shifting focal depth to bring some new perspective to the age-old images of a cutting-edge automobile tearing across barren wastelands.
Major League Baseball fans who want a more intimate look at players' lives can now digitally tour their homes, courtesy of a new video series presented by Coldwell Banker and MLB.com called Coldwell Banker Home Field Advantage. The somewhat fresh spin on the voyeristic MTV Cribs debuted today.
Get out your Kleenex, because Ogilvy Amsterdam and funeral insurance company Dela have brought back their Cannes-conquering "Why wait until it's too late?" campaign—urging people to "say something wonderful" to those they love here and now.
Paris investment bankers Natixis have put forth an intriguing scenario that explores the possibility of Publicis Groupe launching a hostile bid for Omnicom, asking: “Is the story over?” On the heels of the collapse of the proposed Publicis-Omnicom merger, there is no evidence such a move is under consideration.
Ikea would like to remind you that the odds are pretty good your parents produced you by having sex on its furniture. New print ads from the brand in Germany offer a twist on the family-tree motif, with pictures of Ikea beds—dating back to its first, from the late 1940s—inserted in between generations of ancestors. The tagline is, "Where family starts." That's based on a fun fact—that 10 percent of Europeans were conceived on one of the brand's beds—unearthed by German agency thjnk, which created the campaign (and also made Ikea's clever space-maximizing RGB billboard earlier this year).
If you thought the U.S. had weird political ads, check out this bit of insanity from Denmark: a 90-second cartoon that stars a character called Voteman, who isn't apathetic about voting, or about getting pleasured by five ladies at the same time at the 12-second mark.
If you've been to the candy aisle of a grocery store at any point in the past couple of years, you're probably aware that pretty much every name-brand candy bar—Snickers, Milky Way, Kit-Kat—now comes in a little chocolate-dipped, bite-sized (not fun-sized, mind you) form of condensed candy bar goodness. One candy, however, didn't get that same treatment: the lowly Twix. Luckily, Mars is finally remedying that with the long-awaited debut of Twix Bites. And judging by the product's new ad campaign from BBDO New York, Mars knows they missed the boat.
It's awards season, and the case studies keep rolling in. This one, from Jung von Matt in Germany, for a campaign to get drivers to stop talking on their mobile phones, should do well among radio judges who enjoy simulated violence for the greater good. The agency set up a stunt during a live radio show (not during a commercial break) in which a person called in to request a song—and admitted he was driving on the highway. Of course, from there, it doesn't end well. Adweek responsive video player used on /video.
