Hasta La Ideas

A candid rap on motherhood, a filmic ode to football fans and some nice work for charities feature in our latest round-up of advertising from around the world.

Fiat’s new ad for its new 500L MPV by Krow Communications has been dividing opinions with its amusingly off-putting lyrics about life as a mother.

Meanwhile, as the Government’s anti-smoking campaign by Dare sparked complaints for its graphic shock tactics, the new campaign for Cancer Research UK, by director Frank Budgen with AMV BBDO, uses striking imagery to underline the power of research in combating cancer. Although use of the visual effect of dropping pigment in water is not new (see this trailer for the BBC’s Art Revealed by Giles Revell, for example), it works well here, representing the possibilities of laboratory-set scientific advance alongside other visual cues. The film forms part of a wider campaign launched on Boxing Day, which positions research as ‘the enemy of cancer’.

The Assembly also uses an interesting visual approach in a new press and outdoors campaign for Parkinson’s UK. The images show six everyday tasks, such as making a cup of tea or putting on a tie, but jumbled into a visual puzzle to convey the reality of life with Parkinson’s disease. Produced by art director, typographyer and photographer Alexandra Taylor, the posters challenge viewers to reassemble the confusing images and text to piece together the campaign message.

From Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai comes this illustrated set of print ads extolling the benefits of adopting a dog for Indian animal charity World for All. Very nice – let’s hope they’re not just scam ads.

Evian, meanwhile, is encouraging Londoners to abide by its ‘Live Young’ tag line. It is setting up adult-sized playgrounds that allow users to cheer up their drab January by making it snow – the more they play the more it snows through kinetically triggered snow machines. A giant set of swings launched in Canary Wharf yesterday, with a seesaw in Finsbury Square due tomorrow. Both installations are created by Havas Worldwide and supported by a wider digital and outdoors campaign.

Orange is promoting its sponsorship of the Africa Cup of Nations with an epic tale from MarcelAgency of a boy and his dad’s journey to a football match. Possibly verging on the saccharine, it is directed by Drake Doremus with a heart-string-tugging reinterpretation of fan anthem ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ by Nigerian singer Kuku.

Another endearing ad comes from Mercedes Benz. Directed by Germany’s Andreas Bruns, with ad agency Jung von Matt, it shows a similarly epic journey – a boy’s quest to hitch a ride in a swish Merc.

CR in Print
The January issue of Creative Review is all about the Money – well, almost. What do you earn? Is everyone else getting more? Do you charge enough for your work? How much would it cost to set up on your own? Is there a better way of getting paid? These and many more questions are addressed in January’s CR.

But if money’s not your thing, there’s plenty more in the issue: interviews with photographer Alexander James, designer Mirko Borsche and Professor Neville Brody. Plus, Rick Poynor on Anarchy magazine, the influence of the atomic age on comic books, Paul Belford’s art direction column, Daniel Benneworth-Gray’s This Designer’s Life column and Gordon Comstock on the collected memos, letters and assorted writings of legendary adman David Ogilvy.

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