Via Adverblog: New Autobahn stunt viral for the Mini Cooper Clubman has a sense of humour…

The documentary series we’ve been working on about the Scarborough Hospital is now live on the foundation’s new website (designed by our friends over at Lush Concepts – check ‘em out). The series is part of the Scarborough Hospital Foundation’s new PR initiative, and is aimed at educating the public about some of the amazing things that are going on at TSH. (more…)

It’s true, such a thing exists and I’ve discovered it.  Whilst perusing through the latest offerings on YouTube, (now with new widescreen player!) I came across this little gem that’s sure to be a classic in the brand film world.  The JCB Action Brand Film!. Admittedly they we’re probably just setting out to make a really cool film about their construction equipment but I was pulled in to what is probably some of the most heartfelt brand emoting I’ve ever done. Seriously, after watching this I simultaneously wanted to own a JCB construction vehicle and make a career out of digging holes in the rain while in slow motion.

Would I have done anything differently? No absolutely not. This film is a masterpiece of extraordinary cinematography and editing. My only addition might be to intercut scenes showing a rain soaked battle between vikings and medivel knights happening in between the construction vehicles while bikini-clad, models playing electric guitars rocked out on top of the diggers.  If JCB wanted to take this viral anyway…

But in all serious I tip my hat to this production team, they’ve explored new frontier in the burgeoning brand film genre and it is sure to be repeated by others.

check it out:

JCB

So there’s been some buzz going around about Ogilvy Toronto’s newest effort for Dove.  An interactive choose-your-own-adventure microsite/webseries called Waking Up Hannah.  Now what I find interesting about this series isn’t necessarily the interactivity features (which are well integrated if somewhat superfluous) what I’m excited about is the fact that this is one of the first branded web series to adhere to TV quality production values. (more…)

Nintendo has an interesting spot up on their Experience Wii YouTube channel. It doesn’t seem that special at first, but give it 30 seconds – it’s pretty surprising.

How do they do it? Well without getting too geeky on you…

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Two examples for you. First, a childhood hip-hop mashup:

Second, a drunken twist on historical docu-drama (after the jump)…

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Something I missed mentioning in the annotation post: Samsung is out ahead in the commercial annotations game with their campaign for the Samsung Instinct.

Follow Your Instinct is an annotation-powered choose-your-own-adventure movie in which you (a young heterosexual male office worker) must make a series of choices between (1) having sex and (2) doing boring shit. You’re rewarded for following your rebellious instincts (jury’s out on how the compulsively boring dudes out there feel about this).

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Sometimes it’s better to avoid MTV. Promoting their new unpronounceable album “Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust”, Sigur Rós’ video for Gobbledigook (NSFW… why do I find myself typing that so often?) isn’t the kind of thing the FCC smiles upon. I don’t think most people would find it offensive – far more disturbing things routinely make it onto afternoon television – but naked Scandanavians frolicking in a forest are more of an online-only thing. And while the Internet isn’t free from content censorship either (you won’t find this on YouTube), this is a nice way to take advantage of online freedom. It’s the kind of thing that otherwise would only find distribution on DVD or in a gallery, but can reach a much wider audience this way (and better serve its purpose as a promotional film).

-Nick

Video for Santogold’s “L.E.S. Artistes”

I wrote earlier this week about EMI’s legal attack on Hi5, and the advertising value its subsidiary Virgin Records got from the Daft Hands meme (which was exactly the kind of material EMI objected to Hi5 serving).

I’ve been listening to the new album from mashup artist Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) a lot over the past couple of days and it brings up some issues in the same vein.

2006’s “Night Ripper” (torrent | complete list of samples) launched him into Pitchfork shininess, and the critical acclaim is well deserved. To give you an idea, here’s “Hold Up”, in which the samples range from Ludacris and 50 Cent to Weezer and the Pixies (NSFW):

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