The Arts - Food for Thought

I ran into these PSAs a few days ago for Americans for the Arts. Personally, I think they are brilliant. The PSAs are entertaining and engaging. Each ad resembles a typical food commercial but helps make famous artists into household names. Below are the "Raisin Brahm" and "Van go-gurt" ads. Every time I watch them, I laugh out loud! Sure, they are blatantly mocking Raisin Bran and most yogurt commercials. But, that's what makes them amazing. The PSAs are directed by Marcus McCollum and filmed by Crossroads Films.

Oldie but Goody

I may hate or strongly dislike Comcast for a number of reasons (the basic one being they are evil), but I love this commercial:



It was directed by Jim Hosking at Biscuit Filmworks. Jim has also directed the Slim Jim wedding commercial, the Miller Lite chant commercial, and the Emerald Nuts druid commercial. He's clearly the director you want for fun, offbeat campaigns.

Winter's Here and I want to be in Sao Paolo

So, winter has come again to Minneapolis. At least, it feels that way today with all the snow coming down and the temperature dropping from a beautiful 70 degrees to something cold that I don't want to focus on. In addition, it's now starting to get dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. Yes, that's right, 3:30. I'm trying to come to terms with all of it, but if it's anything like last winter which was my first winter in the Midwest (now nicknamed the Tundra), the temperature won't be decent again until around the end of May.

Because of all of this, I'm choosing to focus my love of cities with good advertising on Sao Paolo, Brazil. First of, I'm pretty sure the weather in Brazil is great. Hell, according to Wikipedia they haven't had snow since June 25, 1918 and that was just flurries! Not to mention it's not that far from Rio (about 300 miles - about the distance from Minneapolis to Madison) or the ocean (70 kilometers - In Minneapolis that might get you to... the middle of no where!) Plus, Sao Paolo is extremely ethnically diverse and the fourth largest urban area in the world.

And, finally to circle back to advertising, here are some ads coming out of Sao Paolo that I really like.

Line: "The sport you're looking for and much more. ESPN channels. We're crazy about sports, like you." Alt media campaign by Neogama/BBH, São Paulo, Brazil

A campaign with some great lines by Almap BBDO.

Another fun alt media campaign by age.
Hey, it's soccer so, of course, I love it.

More school work

I recently got the results of my end of the semester critique. I did pretty well, but in typical me fashion, I always want to do a lot better than I did. Anyway, one of the campaigns they wanted to see me push forward is my campaign for Jostens. In general, Jostens is a company known for high school and college class rings, but one cool thing about the company is that they actually create rings for fantasy sports leagues too. So, I decided to explore that angle. It seemed like a great way of looking at the company that was totally different. Here's the work I art directed. We are in the process of reworking them, but I would still love to get some feedback.

Art Director - Judy Abel
Copywriter - Sean Jervey

A unique use of social media in advertising

The Nike soccer ad for the Spanish Euro 08 team took a really interesting approach to explain the motivation behind the team. The ad, Nike: Los 5 Magnificos, asked people around the nation to tell the heroes of their national team how to take their game to the Next Level. The Big Five of Torres, Iniesta, Ramos, Puyol and Fábregas internalize the comments through taking them directly to their bodies. Overall, its a really interesting way of incorporating people's beliefs directly into the power of a brand. The commercial was created by Barcelona-based advertising agency, Villarrosas and was directed by Erik Morales.

Some more ads from school

So, its been a while since I've posted. I guess you can say life has been busy between school ending for the quarter, work getting busier daily and my random trip to Chicago to see Dave. Anyway, I'm back (at least for now) and wanted to post a campaign I worked on for this last quarter. The ads are for Nikon Monarch binoculars. I would love to get some feedback on the campaign since I think it can move forward even though I'm kind of stuck right now.

Art Director - Judy Abel
Copywriter - Rachel Anderson

Falling in love with Traktor

My friend, Grant Eull, a senior interactive art director at Colle+McVoy, recently reminded me about this hilarious ad. The spot, which aired for the first time during the 1998 Superbowl, was made by Traktor, which is based in Venice, California and edited by James Hutchins at HutchCo Technologies. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.



I'm pretty impressed with Traktor. They created another favorite spot of mine from 2005, Levis "Nice Try" 505 Jeans.



And, the Barcardi "No Bad Dancing" spot, which I love.



Way to go, Traktor! Cool stuff!

I love EURO 08 ads

I have to admit as a Liverpool fan and someone who is closely following the EURO 08 I really felt this ad was cool. Then again anything that ties Liverpool to EURO 08 especially since England didn't even qualify (Thanks for that, Russia) is exciting. What do you think? Is it cool or just an easy tie-in for Nike?

Client: Nike
Agency: 72andSunny
Creative Director: Glenn Cole,
Bryan Rowles
Copywriter: Jon Matthews
Producer: Juliet Pearson,
Benji Howell
Production Company: Outsider UK
Director: James Rouse
Director of Photography: David Luther
Executive Producer: Robert Campbell
Editorial Company: Marshall Street Editors
Editor: Jinx
Post Production: Glassworks
Audio Post: Factory Studios
Music Company: One More Music Company

Also, while we're at it, you might want to check this out as well: http://uk.youtube.com/23diaspt

Brunswick - It's Personal

I'm currently a student at Brainco: Minneapolis School of Advertising. As a student, still pretty early in the program (I'm in my 3rd quarter out of 7), I figured why not put some of my student work out there and get some feedback. Here's some ads for Brunswick Bowling Balls that I've been working on with Sean Jervey. I would love to hear impressions of the work, comments on what could be improved and any ideas for how to make these better.

Judy Abel - Art Director
Sean Jervey - Copywriter