Wieden + Kennedy's first campaign for Gap is set to launch in September, following the retailer's hiring of the agency this week.

The shop will handle global creative responsibilities—a role previously held by Ogilvy & Mather until Gap parted ways with the agency in late 2012. Gap had been working with Peterson Milla Hooks on a project basis.

"Wieden + Kennedy was a natural choice as an agency partner as we share the same vision for Gap’s evolution as a global brand," said Seth Farbman, Gap Global CMO. "We look forward to our collaboration beginning with our fall 2014 marketing campaign.” 

Global media spending figures were not available, but in the U.S. alone, Gap spent $58 million in 2012 and $37 million in the first nine months of 2013, according to Kantar Media.

The New York office of Wieden will lead the business. As Gap's needs develop, Wieden will pull in other offices around the world. 

Nike running: So easy, a caveman can do it?

Wieden + Kennedy made quite the discovery earlier this month. The agency says it's "pretty damn pumped" to have finally found the first ads it ever made—which happen to be the first national broadcast ads Nike ever aired. The three spots ran during the New York City Marathon in October 1982. Two of the three had been lost for decades.

The agency writes on its blog:

For all you ad geeks out there, we're pretty damn pumped to share something very special with you. We've uncovered the first-ever ads made by Messrs. Wieden and Kennedy, Nike's first-ever nationally broadcast work. Until today, two of these were considered lost and never vaulted. Our digital librarian Phoebe Owens has spent the entire time she's been with W+K searching for them, alongside Nike historian Scott Reames, with the help of David Kennedy. Today, some old, poorly-labeled tapes proved to have what we've been searching for.

These aired during the NYC marathon. They were shot and cut within a couple of weeks, with a skeleton crew. They were a tiny team and they made it happen, and the rest is history.

See the ads below.

Are you ready for some baseball?

ESPN has Major League Baseball's Opening Day covered today with a new "This Is SportsCenter" spot starring the reigning National League MVP, Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The commercial, running online and on ESPN properties, shows a breakfast meeting for the SportsCenter anchors going awry when McCutchen and a band of Pirate mascots (Pittsburgh's Pirate Parrot, East Carolina's Pee Dee, Seton Hall's Pirate and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Captain Fear) break in and loot the breakfast spread.

The ad, by Wieden + Kennedy in New York, breaks this afternoon during ESPN's broadcast of the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Chicago Cubs.

It's a World Cup year, which means only one thing for soccer's major international stars. They're about to feel an almost unbearable amount of hellish pressure.

Nike—which isn't a World Cup sponsor but always creates plenty of marketing around the tournament, just without naming it as such—has often focused on the psychic stresses of soccer superstardom. Its famous 2010 World Cup campaign, "Write the Future," was at least as much about the terrors of failing on the sport's biggest stage as it was about winning it all.

Now, Wieden + Kennedy has launched its first World Cup 2014 spot for Nike. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, it carries a variation on the same pressure-cooker theme. This time the message is: "Risk everything."

The 60-second spot below shows Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, Brazil's Neymar and England's Wayne Rooney preparing for the World Cup under intense pressure to perform well. In each case, the player is seen grappling with the idea of not measuring up. Who else but Ronaldo can carry Portugal? Can Rooney finally score a World Cup goal for England? Is Neymar worthy of Brazil's fabled No. 10 shirt?

A pair of Beats by Dre headphones would probably help each of these guys get in the zone. But since that's out of the question, they have to march to the beat of Ronaldo's footsteps—until, at the end of the spot, they can jog toward the field.

"The expectations—from a nation's hopes to the historic power of a shirt—are massive, but these are players who thrive on that responsibility," says Davide Grasso, Nike's chief marketing officer. "These players play on the edge because they know great moments usually spring from attempts to try something out of the ordinary. Think about Zlatan's overhead kick last year, or Rooney's goal last weekend. Those moments do not occur without fearless risk-taking."

Unlike "Write the Future," which was extremely witty in parts, this first "Risk Everything" ad is exceedingly somber—right down to the "Risk Everything" logo, which is a skull with the swoosh carved into its forehead and a flaming die and soccer ball on either side.

Luck, skill, hope, death. Let's just hope these three guys make it out alive.

CREDITS
Client: Nike
Project: "Risk Everything"

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy
Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte / Ryan O'Rourke
Interactive Director: Dan Viens
Copywriter: Rick Herrera / Jeff Salomonsson
Art Director: Stuart Brown / Johan Arlig / Sezay Altinok
Producer: Andy Murillo
Executive Agency Producer: Matt Hunnicutt
Account Team: Karrelle Dixon / Alyssa Ramsey / Ricardo Hieber
Business Affairs: Karen Crossley
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff / Susan Hoffman / Joe Staples

Production Company: Reset (representing Academy)
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Executive Producer: Simon Cooper / Jeff McDougall
Line Producer: Simon Cooper
Director of Photography: Barry Ackroyd /  Alex Barber

Editorial Company: The Quarry and Rock Paper Scissors
Editors: Paul Watts / Mark Whelan
Post Producer: Shada Shariatzadeh
Post Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver

VFX Company: The Mission
VFX Supervisor: Rob Trent
Flame Artist: Jan Cilliers
VFX Producer: Diana Cheng

Music+Sound Company: Original music by Squeak E Clean
Composer: Original music by Squeak E Clean; Justin Hori, Creative Director
Sound Designer: Johnnie Burn / Stephen Dewey
Producer: Carol Dunn for music

Mix Company: Barking Owl
Mixer: Brock Babcock
Producer: Whitney Fromholtz

Barry the Biscuit Boy splashes onto the scene in a slam-dunk spot for British dairy Cravendale, a cautionary tale from Wieden + Kennedy in London and production house Blinkink.

The heady mix of puppetry and computer animation milks every drop of self-conscious craziness from the script. Barry, literally a cookie-kid, swims in a creamy lake to illustrate how, if the spot's irritatingly addictive jingle can be believed, "you could lose your head over Cravendale." (In the real world, there's "Barry-flavored" Cravendale milk with bits of biscuit for fans who can't get enough.)

"Cravendale is the only branded milk in the U.K., and it needs to stand apart from the ubiquity of cheaper own-label milk in the supermarket," W+K creative director Sam Heath tells AdFreak. "So the spots need to cut through on a limited media spend and somehow lodge the thought in people's minds that Cravendale is superior in some way. The more memorably you do that, the more effective the work is."



The team strived to create "a beautifully detailed, incredibly crafted world that felt charmingly old school and yet quirky and modern at the same time," says Heath. "In the end, the whole thing was brought to life mostly in-camera using a combination of traditional techniques. So all the sets are real models with painted backdrops, and Barry is either puppeteered or animated stop-frame or sometimes a combination of both."

Unlike Chips Ahoy's recently unpacked ads starring cute and mischievous anthropomorphized treats, Barry's adventure has deliciously creepy overtones, as have past cartoon creations from W+K's Cravendale team. Speaking of which, the brand has apparently given those cats with thumbs the finger and sent them packing—at least for now. No doubt many fans will miss the fiendish felines, who clawed their way through some uber-popular ads.

Sorry, kitties. That's how the cookie crumbles.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Cravendale
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, London
Executive Creative Directors: Tony Davidson, Kim Papworth
Creative Director: Sam Heath
Creatives: Max Batten, Ben Shaffery
Producer: Lou Hake
Production Company: Blinkink
Directors: Andrew Thomas Huang, Joseph Mann
Puppetry: Jonny Sabbagh, Will Harper
Executive Producer: James Stevenson Bretton
Producer: Benjamin Lole
Director of Photography: Matt Day

"As we stand on the edge of possibility, we choose the path less traveled."

Set to to the grandiose tune of Richard Strauss's "Thus Spake Zarathustra," aka the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, this new Lurpak butter ad from Wieden + Kennedy London takes place in a world that looks like the love child of Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas.

Advertising the brand's new Cook's Range of oils and butters, the ad transforms ordinary (yet dramatically lit) kitchens into basically the entire universe. 

Of particular note is the GoPro-meets-lunar-landing slo-mo shot of a woman dropping a yolk on an extraterrestrial landscape of beautiful flour. There's also an otherworldly shot that transforms a gas stove into rocket burners and a carrot into a spaceship. This is so cool.

Lurpak and W+K have a long history of doing food porn together, and have a couple of gold Lions in Film Craft from Cannes to show for it. (Their first collaboration that we covered, in 2011, was "Kitchen Odyssey," which we called "the kind of commercial Stanley Kubrick would make if he were still alive." So, they're certainly consistent.)

This new ad, though, is a close encounter of the nerd kind. So say we all.

David Kolbusz, the Bartle Bogle Hegarty creative leader that TBWA\Chiat\Day tried to recruit, has landed at Wieden + Kennedy instead.

TBWA\C\D sought Kolbusz to help lead its office in Playa del Rey, Calif., offering to partner him with Steven Butler, one of three executive creative directors in the office. Instead, Kolbusz will become half of a creative leadership duo atop Wieden's New York office; the other leader has yet to be named.

Kolbusz, a deputy ecd at BBH in London, will join Wieden this summer and work alongside managing director Neal Arthur. The hire fills one of the roles that Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone vacated in November when the duo departed for Barton F. Graf 9000.

At BBH, Kolbusz has been behind some of the agency’s most well known ads in past three years, including “Three Little Pigs” for The Guardian as well as the “Apollo” and “Peace” campaigns for Axe Unilever.

Before BBH, Kolbusz worked as a group cd for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, working on brands like Denny’s, Häagen-Dazs and Logitech. He also worked at Mother in London earlier in his career.

W+K has clients including Delta, ESPN, and Nike—the agency just found its first ads made for Nike on dusty old tapes—and it recently won global creative responsibilities for Gap.

You probably remember popsicle stick jokes as a fun, charming, innocent part of your childhood. Jason Kreher and Matt Moore are here to wreck those memories.

The pair of creatives at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., have made a fake product called Schadenfreezers—popsicles with the most depressing jokes you can imagine. (For now, at least, they're just animated GIFs.) The tagline is: "The strawberry, blueberry and lemon-flavored joy derived from the suffering of others." When you read them, your sense of happiness drips away much like the sad melting treats themselves.

Kreher and Moore made the first GIFs last year. (Sample jokes: "How many lives does a cat have?" "Only one." "Why did the lifeguard wear pants?" "Because he was ashamed of his body." "Why did the clown go to jail?" "For his collection of child pornography.")

Now they're back with a whole new set. You can check some of them out below, and the rest over at schadenfreezers.com. There are 11 new ones, and more will roll out gradually.

We caught up with Kreher and Moore over email to ask them just what their problem is.

This is round two, but take us back a bit. Where did this twisted idea come from? Did neither of you have a happy childhood?
We honestly can't remember how these came about; it was probably just us wanting to visualize the awful things we think are funny. It's kind of like wagging your penis around in public when you're a little kid … it's the wrong kind of attention, but it's attention nonetheless.



Popsicle-stick jokes are generally corny. Why make them existentially bleak?
I don't think either one of us is particularly cynical, but it's fun to take something innocent and make it profane. There's nothing wrong with pondering life's greatest tragedies while enjoying a nice snack.



What's your joke writing process like? How do you know when you have a winner? And how do you know when you've gone too far?
We probably wrote around 200 of these to get to our final ones. I think they work best when the setup feels like it could be an actual popsicle stick joke, but then stabs you in the gut with the punch line. And with these, there's no such thing as too far. If we suspect one has gone too far that means it's probably going to make the cut.



What are your favorite jokes from the new batch, and why?
Jason: The janitor one is my favorite. It's probably the most dehumanizing and bleak thing that's ever occurred to me, which was kind of my bar for these.
Matt: That plane one feels like it's going to be some awful pun and then it ends up as an awful truth. Kids love that.



There was some outcry about the original round of jokes. Do you think people don't want to see innocent popsicle-joke humor messed with?
The only people who got really riled up were the few who thought this was an actual product, and that we'd somehow bribed the press to feature them. I like thinking of us as a corrupt, fat-cat popsicle corporation greasing the palms of the Huffington Post Arts & Culture editors.



The animations seem more sophisticated this time. Was that just a general improvement you wanted to make?
What a nice thing to say! Matt has been wanting to experiment with stop motion for a while now, and this new round was a great opportunity to make these stand out. We host the site on Tumblr for a couple reasons, but a big one is that Tumblr features a lot of funny stuff and a lot of artful stuff, but rarely do the two meet. These feel different because they're something you want to look at and also something you might laugh at.



Have you ever actually produced Schadenfreezers as a product? If not, would be interested in that?
Sure. If any of your readers are popsicle manufacturers who secretly kind of hate themselves, please have them contact us at your earliest convenience.

Torrance, Calif.-based Citizen has hired Wieden + Kennedy as its global branding agency.

The agency’s Tokyo office will lead the effort, along with the agency’s Amsterdam office. Citizen spent $24 million on media in 2013, according to Kantar.

“We are very proud to work with Citizen and help them share their unique perspective with the world,” said Blake Harrop, managing director of Wieden’s Tokyo office, in a statement.

The first global work will be released later this year.
 

In an age where you can find a Starbucks on every block and a trendy café frequented by coffee snobs who wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks on every other block, the task of making old-school home-brewed coffee appear even remotely cool would seem nearly impossible. And that, presumably, is why Maxwell House isn't even trying.

The 122-year-old, Kraft-owned brand is undergoing a major overhaul in its marketing strategy. But instead of attempting to remake itself into some sort of hip Starbucks alternative—"Hey millennials, these coffee grounds are turnt up!"—Maxwell House borrowed from its own classic "Good to the last drop" slogan to come up with a core message that its product is, well, good.

Seem a bit underwhelming? That's the point, according to the middle-aged everyman protagonist in a trio of TV spots. You see, he tells us, we've gotten so caught up in superlatives—"Awesome," "Amazing," "That's epic, bro"—that we've forgotten the merits of just being good.

"Good is setting a personal best before going for a world record," the Maxwell House man explains. "Good is swinging to get on base before swinging for a home run." And in case the viewer interprets this to mean that Maxwell House coffee maybe isn't so good, the man takes a sip of his steaming cup of joe at the end and begins to proclaim it to be "Great!" before stopping himself and reverting to the more on-message "Good."

A social media element includes a new Twitter handle, @AGoodCoffee, which spouts forth gems of wisdom such as "The good thing about Mondays is that if they didn't exist we'd all hate Tuesdays." But judging by the TV spots, the target audience here isn't the youth of America. It's their dads (and moms, presumably, although we have yet to see a woman make an appearance in the campaign).

So kudos to Maxwell House for accepting that instant coffee isn't going to be the next Skrillex, and instead settling for "good." We appreciate your honesty.

CREDITS
Client: Maxwell House
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy
Creative Directors: Eric Baldwin, Karl Lieberman
Copywriter: Matt Mulvey
Art Director: Lawrence Melilli
Producer: Shelley Eisner
Account Team: Ken Smith, Ryan Peterson
Business Affairs: Cindy Lewellen
Project Management: Shannon Hutchinson
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman, Mark Fitzloff
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Steve Ayson
Executive Producer: Emma Wilcockson
Line Producer: Martha Davis
Director of Photography: Alwin Kuchler

Editing Company: Joint
Editor: Tommy Harden
Post Producer: Ryan Shanholtzer
Executive Post Producer: Patty Brebner

Visual Effects Company: The Mill
Visual Effects Supervisors: Tim Davies, Phil Crowe
Flame Artists: Billy Higgins, John Price
Visual Effects Producers: Dan Roberts, Sue Troyan
Titles, Graphics: WK Studio; The Mill

Music, Sound Company: Tonefarmer; 740 Sound
Composers: Ray Loewy/Jimmy Harned//  mnemonic – Dan Sammartano/Joe Spallina
Sound Designers: Rommel Molina, Scott Ganary
Producers: Liz Higgins, Tonefarmer; Jeff Martin, 740 Sound

Mix Company: Eleven
Mixer: Jeff Payne

Wieden + Kennedy has been given the Weight Watchers business, previously at McCann Erickson New York for the past seven years, sources said.

There was no review. Lesya Lysyi, who took over as president of Weight Watchers North America last November, worked with W+K when she was chief marketing officer at Heineken USA. At the time of her hiring last fall, Weight Watchers also appointed Dan Crowe as chief technology officer. Amid speculation of account consolidation, it’s not immediately clear how his appointment will affect Weight Watchers’ digital agency, Ogilvy & Mather.

Weight Watchers spends around $150 million a year on measured media.

McCann's most recent work has featured celebrity Jessica Simpson. Last January, McCann’s Weight Watchers client, senior marketing vp Cheryl Callan, left the company to become CMO at New York & Co.

A McCann rep confirmed the account move but otherwise declined comment and referred calls to the weight loss marketer. Reps at Weight Watchers and W+K could not immediately be reached.

After just 15 months, Wieden + Kennedy's Colleen DeCourcy has earned her "horns."

DeCourcy, the global co-executive creative director at the agency, is now also a partner, joining a select group of 11 that includes co-founder Dan Wieden, president Dave Luhr and Susan Hoffman, ecd of the Portland, Ore. headquarters.

Each partner has an equity stake in the independent agency and helps shape its priorities. DeCourcy becomes the quickest to make partner since then-global interactive ecd Ian Tait in 2011. Tait exited for Google in 2012, but returned this month as co-ecd of Wieden's London office.

DeCourcy left Socialistic, a social media marketing agency she launched with the backing of Havas, to join Wieden in January 2013. Since then, she and fellow global co-ecd Mark Fitzloff have recruited top talent and set up a group inside the Portland creative department that applies technology to brand problems. The group, known as The Lodge, is seen as a model for the agency's other seven offices.

''Colleen DeCourcy, in a matter of months, has firmly integrated our existing digital talent, added more and enhanced their expertise," said Wieden, who's also global chairman. "This accomplished while trotting around the W+K global network with David Luhr and Mark Fitzloff. Trust me: she's the real deal."

Before Socialistic, DeCourcy held top creative roles at TBWA, JWT and Organic. And while she had plenty of authority at bigger shops like TBWA, where she was global chief digital officer, Wieden gave her a partner, ensuring that she wouldn't become typecast (and isolated) as the "digital chick," as she had before. Also, Fitzloff himself represented an opportunity to learn more about the craft of traditional brand building. Beyond all that, though, DeCourcy simply enjoys the agency's no-nonsense approach.

"There's no theory of anything. That means jack shit in this place," DeCourcy said. "You make stuff or you don't. What you do makes other people's work better or it doesn't. So, really it wasn't about territory, decks, procedures or getting collusion."

Asked about her goals moving forward, DeCourcy paused for a moment and replied: "We are in this place where we're kind of questioning what's going on with the industry. It's not about getting more digital. It's not about getting more social. It's not about solving problems. It's just, when did this industry get so boring?"

She added: "Whatever it means to break the dishes in this building and the other seven buildings that are attached across the world is really our agenda for the next year."

Fifteen seconds is short for an ad, never mind a film. But Heineken and Wieden + Kennedy New York premiered just such a movie at the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night—based on a fan's tweet about an evil Abraham Lincoln clone.

"They clone Abe Lincoln's DNA and name the clone president for life ... except there's one problem: the clone is evil," Dennis Lazar, aka @awsommovieideas, wrote as his winning submission to the brewer's #15secondpremiere contest, which asked for fans' wildest movie ideas. Those 115 characters (he had to leave room for the hashtag) were then crafted by a Hollywood film crew into 15 seconds of film—called Linclone.

You can check out the mini-movie below. The credits take way longer than the film itself—luckily there are some outtakes to keep things interesting.



Lazar was flown to New York and given the green carpet treatment by the Tribeca sponsor at the festival. Guests included Robert De Niro himself, who really should have played Lincoln if we're being honest.

Credits and more below.

 
The movie poster:

 
Lazar and DeNiro:

 
A deleted scene from the movie:

 
An interview with the director:

 
CREDITS
Client: Heineken
Project: #15SecondPremiere

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Director: Susan Hoffman
Creative Directors: Eric Steele, Erik Norin
Copywriter: Mike Vitiello
Art Director: Cory Everett
Social Strategist: Jessica Abercrombie
Brand Strategist: Kelly Lynn Wright
Senior Interactive Strategist: Tom Gibby
Community Manager: Rocio Urena
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Producer: Owen Katz
Print Producer: Kristen Althoff
Broadcast Traffic Supervisor: Sonia Bisono
Studio Designer: Chris Kelsch
Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Samantha Wagner, Kristen Herrington
Business Affairs: Lisa Quintela
Project Manager: Rayna Lucier

Production Company: Jefferson Projects
Executive Producer: Chris Totushek
Director: Eric Appel
Line Producer: Ritu Paramesh
Director of Photography: Mathew Rudenberg
Production Designer: Ryan Berg

Production Company: Whitehouse Post
Editor: Alaster Jordan
Assistant Editor: Matt Schaff
Executive Producer: Lauren Hertzberg
Producer: Alejandra Alarcon
Original Music: The Ski Team

Postproduction Company: Carbon VFX
Lead Compositor: Matt Reilly
Smoke Artist: Joe Scaglione
AE Artist: Maxime Benjamin
Executive Producer: Frank Devlin
Colorist: Yohance Brown
Surround Mix: Sound Lounge
Engineer: Justin Kooy
Executive Producer: Harrison Nalevansky

Cast and Crew
Abraham Linclone: Robert Broski
Dr. Satterberg: Eric Satterberg
Chief Justice: Paul Gregory
1st Assistant Director: Scott Metcalfe
2nd Assistant Director: Steve Bagnara
Production Supervisor: Megan Sullivan
DIT: Scott Resnick
Gaffer: Cody Jacobs
Key Grip: Kyle Honnig
Best Boy Electric: Brandon Wilson
Best Boy Grip: Ceaser Martinez
Set Decorator: Mark Wolcott
Prop Master: Eric Berg
Sound: Bo Sundberg
Boom Operator: Danny Carpenter
VTR: Carlos Patzi
Wardrobe Assistant: Beckee Craighead
Makeup Stylist: Kat Bardot
Makeup Assistant: Becca Weber
Production Assistants: Atif Ekulona, Eric Browning, Ewa Pazera, Julio Cordero, Desire Brumfield
Craft Services: Christina Gonzalez

Nike's launch spot for its "Risk Everything" campaign around this summer's World Cup was somber and serious—with the darkness of Jonathan Glazer's direction in some ways running counter to Nike's traditionally lighter treatments of the world's great soccer players.

Now, though, with part two released today, Nike gets its sense of humor back.

The new four-minute film, titled "Winner Stays," from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., and Rattling Stick director Ringan Ledwidge (in his first major ad job since making the Guardian's "Three Little Pigs"), is just vintage Nike.

Created in the same spirit and style as "Write the Future" from 2010, "Winner Stays" follows much the same formula as that celebrated spot—i.e., stunning action shots expertly offset by comic relief, all woven into a mini-narrative whose momentum builds to a quietly explosive set piece (in both advertising and soccer parlance) at the finale.

It features quite the cast of characters, too.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr. and Wayne Rooney get the top billing, but they're joined by Zlatan Ibrahimović, Gonzalo Higuaín, Eden Hazard, Andrea Pirlo, Gerard Piqué, Andrés Iniesta, Mario Götze, Thiago Silva, Thibaut Courtois and David Luiz (times two). And in a treat for American fans, U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard gets a major cameo, as well.



But the celebs extend well beyond the soccer world, with Kobe Bryant, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Irina Shayk and even the Incredible Hulk making memorable appearances. It all adds up to a freewheeling, joyful spot that manages the rare trick of making some of the world's most elite athletes seem both completely rarefied and yet eminently approachable.

The differences between "Write the Future" and "Winner Stays" are notable, too. Whereas "Write the Future" was all glitz, glamour and high comedy, the new spot is more down to earth, right down to the central conceit introduced in the first few seconds—that these are actually just regular pickup-game players pretending to be their idols.

In many ways, that fits Nike's ethos even better.

"We connect to players' passion for the game, whether it is the world's best in Brazil or players in the park or street," said Davide Grasso, Nike's CMO. " 'Winner Stays' taps into an experience that every young player around the world will recognize—competition with friends and the idea of playing with your heroes, or pretending to be them."

That kind of earthier World Cup, celebrating the everyman, is what Brazil 2014 promises. And this Nike spot sets the table just about perfectly.



CREDITS
Client: Nike
Spot: "Winner Stays"

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Ryan O'Rourke
Interactive Director: Dan Viens
Copywriter: Jeff Salomonsson
Art Director: Sezay Altinok
Agency Producer: Endy Hedman
Production Assistant: Julie Gursha
Agency Executive Producer: Matt Hunnicutt
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
Account Team: Karrelle Dixon, Alyssa Ramsey, Ricardo Hieber
Business Affairs: Laura Caldwell
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman, Joe Staples

Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Ringan Ledwidge
Executive Producer: Jen Barrons
Head of production: Joe Biggins
Line Producer: Sally Humphries
Director of Photography: Ben Seresin

Editorial Company: Work
Editor: Rich Orrick
Post Producer: Sari Resnick
Assistant Editor: Eleanor McNaughtan

VFX Company: The Mill
Senior Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Executive Producer: Gemma Humprhies
Executive Color Producer: LaRue Anderson
Producer: Christina Thompson 
Color Producer: Natalie Westerfield
Project Lead/Creative Director: Tom Bussell
Production Coordinator: Benjamin Sposato and Clare Melia
Shoot Supervisor: Tom Bussell, Austen Humphries and Andrew Wood
Lead Senior 2D Artist: John Shirley
Colonel Muster/CD: Andrew Wood
Colorist: Adam Scott
Design: Kyle Moore and Greg Park
2D Artists: Grant Connor, Peter Hodsman, Siro Valente, Jonathan Westley, Zoe Cassey, Frank Hanna, Gary Driver, Joseph Tang, Tim Davies, Adam Labert, Brad Scott, Olivia O'Neil, Patrick Heinen, Patrick Munoz, Eleanor Risdon, Ben Smith, Daniel Thursesson, Jake Maymudes, Martin Karlsson, Cameron Smither, Gianluca Di Marco, Andy Godwin, Zoe Cassey-Hayes, Paul Downes, Georgina Ford, Scott Wilson  
3D Artists: Tom Raynor, Adam Droy, Adam Darrah, Phillip Maddock, Edward Hicks, Paul Donnellan, Charlotte Akehurst, Arthur Larsen, Sergio Xisto, Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Graham, Mathew Fuller, Anthony Northman, Jake Flint, Hartwell Durfor, Danny Yoon, Michael O'Donoghue, Marta Carbonell, Fabrice Le Nezet, Margaux Huneau, Vasilis Pazionis, Lucy Luong, Jake Flint, Anthony Northman, Andy Wheater

Hulk VFX Company: Luma Pictures
Executive Supervisor: Payam Shohadai
VFX Supervisor: Vince Cirelli
Senior VFX Producer: Steven Swanson
Commercial Executive Producer: Vicki Mayer
VFX Producer: Michael Perdew
Animation Supervisor: Raphael Pimentel
CG Supervisor: Richard Sutherland
CG Supervisor: Pavel Pranevsky
Digital FX Supervisor: Justin Johnson
Design Supervisor: Loic Zimmerman
Look Development Lead: Jared Simeth
Character TD Supervisor: Thana Siripopungul
Senior FX TD: John Cassella
Lead Digital Coordinator: Catherine Hughes
Technical Coordinator: Daniel Kepler
Model, Texture: Dulshan Keragala / Cosmin Hrincu/ Safari Sosebee, Oded Raz
Animator: Alon Helman, Marcos Romero
Lighter, Compositor: Satoshi Harada, James Waterson, Alex Cancado, Joey Sila, Joe Censoplano
Roto, Paint Supervisor: Glenn Morris
Lead Roto, Paint: Jessica Bakke
Roto, Paint: Cameron Sorgi, Marcel Caue Martins, Prin Nimmannitya, Garrett Wycoff

Sound Company: Formosa Group
Sound Designer: Julian Slater
Sound Producer: Branwen Prestwood Smith
Song (if applicable): "Miss Alissa" Eagles of Death Metal

Mix Company: Lime Studios
Mixer: Rohan Young, Loren Silber
Producer: Susie Boyajan

A woman's love for her boyfriend is compared to her love for resort amenities while vacationing without him in Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam's latest ad for Booking.com.

The man doesn't fare so well in the comparison, though to be fair, neither does the woman. She is "Brianless" because Brian apparently doesn't enjoy seafood, the ocean or horseback riding. (How could someone be such a curmudgeon?) And she sure takes advantage of his absence, letting loose with cartoony antics that echo other spots from the high-energy campaign. (Is it just a coincidence that "Brianless" is an anagram of "brainless?")

While the spot is mostly harmless, the kernel of the idea—that a woman could possibly (gasp) enjoy a vacation without her boyfriend—falls solidly in the patronizing camp.

If World Cup fever is getting to you, well, you're not alone.

This new 30-second spot from Wieden + Kennedy in New York, shot mostly in New York, shows American soccer fans talking obsessively about their team—and not just the American team, but their national teams of their ancestral homelands. The tagline is: "Every 4 years the conversation starts again."

The ad uses real U.S.-based soccer fans, including a German butcher, an Italian barber and a cabbie from the Ivory Coast. These guys are passionate.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the pessimistic Englishman, who feels like a punch line (of course this guy's a downer) as he mentions penalty kicks toward the end of the spot.

ESPN has also unveiled the first posters from what will be a series of 32—one for each team—designed by Brazilian artist and graphic designer Cristiano Siqueira. Check those out below, too, and get excited for the tournament, which runs from June 12 to July 13.

Procter & Gamble, the self-described "Proud sponsor of moms," always has something special planned for Mother's Day. Last year, it was the spot with Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Maria Shriver. This year, the company has revived one of the great early entries in Wieden + Kennedy's "Thank you, mom" campaign for another run.

The tear-jerker of a spot, titled "What I See," stars Special Olympics athlete Molly Hincka and her mother Kerry, who provides the emotional voiceover. It's simply and nicely crafted, beginning in the present day and traveling into the past through old video footage and photos. It ends on a lovely moment with Kerry holding Molly aloft a baby.

"They felt that she would never walk and she would never talk," Kerry says. "I never saw the things my child couldn't do. I only imagined what she could."

The spot first aired way back in 2011, and also got a modest amount of views when it was reposted to the Special Olympics YouTube page earlier this year. But it predated P&G's first truly major viral success in the "Thank you, mom" campaign—2012's "Best Job" spot, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. And so, P&G clearly feels like it deserves (and can get away with) a revival.

"What I See" is now front and center now on P&G's YouTube page, with 5 million views since the latest version was posted April 27. (Many of those are paid views, as P&G is inserting the ad into YouTube search results under the heading "Happy Mother's Day.")

The ad ends with a link to donations. In honor of Mother's Day, P&G will be matching Special Olympics donations up to $200,000 through June 1. Give at http://www.specialolympics.org/mom.



CREDITS
Client: Procter & Gamble

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Karl Lieberman / Danielle Flagg / Eric Baldwin
Copywriter: Tatum Shaw / Darcy Burrell
Art Director: Ken Meyer / Matthew Carroll
Producer: Jennifer Fiske
Account Team: Eric Gabrielson / Jesse Johnson / Jordan Cappadocia
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff / Susan Hoffman / Joe Staples
Agency Executive Producer: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: Anonymous Content
Director: Malcolm Venville
Executive Producer: Dave Morrison
Line Producer: John Benet
Director of Photography: Dion Beebe

Editorial Company: Joint
Editor: Kyle Valenta
Post Producer: Shelli Jury
Post Executive Producer: Patty Brebner

VFX Company: A52
Flame Artist: Paul Yacono
VFX Producer: Megan Meloth
Titles/Graphics: Brand New School

Music+Sound Company: Stimmung
Composer: Chip Jenkins
Producer: Ceinwyn Clark

Mix Company: Lime
Mixer: Loren Silber
Producer: Jessica Locke

Photo Retouching: Amy Corcoran

Spence Kramer has joined Crispin Porter + Bogusky as global managing director, a newly created role. 

He will work on global business across the agency's eight offices (Los Angeles, Boulder, Miami, São Paulo, London, Gothenburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm) and be responsible for finding new growth opportunities. He will be based in Miami. 

"As we continue to broaden our overall scope, working with brands that are looking for multiple office capabilities, we have decided to create the role of global managing director," said president Steve Erich in a statement. "Spence has an incredible amount of experience and success with leading multinational business, and most importantly, he shared our philosophies on all the key things that create great work and business results for clients." 

Kramer comes from Wieden + Kennedy, where he worked since 2007. He was in charge of Coca-Cola's global business and before that, Nike's global business. Kramer also previously served as Virgin America's vp of marketing and communications and as ESPN's vp of advertising and promotions. 

The MDC Partners' agency works for clients including Turkish Airlines, Kraft, Mondelēz International and Domino's Pizza. 

Further information could not be gathered by press time. Media relations representatives for CP+B and W+K did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Idle hands are the devil's playthings, and those hands look particularly evil when they have 14 fingers or the heads of chickens.

Earlier today, Old Spice posed a simple question on Twitter:

How many fingers am I holding up?

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

The answers came flooding in, and the team at Wieden + Kennedy has been busy ever since, whipping up Photoshopped images of some of the more peculiar replies.

Check some of them out below, and give Old Spice a hand for another inspired time-waster.

.@Koolik0 You're right! pic.twitter.com/IQcbKrQl9m

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

.@denbickey You're right! pic.twitter.com/Uiymzd0NoF

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

.@fcroftcaderao You're right! pic.twitter.com/n7JYEa4NEc

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

.@zanarama You're right! pic.twitter.com/CVaGQFgaXJ

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

.@MagicThompson22 You're right! pic.twitter.com/wKkQYsn7cU

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

.@VLYSSX You're right! pic.twitter.com/8YHe8UYQ2m

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) May 8, 2014

After a global review of a handful of its biggest brands, Reckitt Benckiser has added three agencies to its creative roster.

Droga5 has picked up creative responsibilities on Air Wick and Clearasil, while McCann Erickson has landed Mucinex and Delsym. Wieden + Kennedy, meanwhile, has won Finish's creative account.

Global media spending was not available but in the U.S. alone last year, the brands collectively spent more than $100 million in media.

Most of the brands were previously handled by Havas Worldwide, which remains a leading roster shop that works on more than a dozen brands. Advertising for Mucinex and Delsym had been handled in-house.

Going into the review, Reckitt said it was focusing on three core brands: Air Wick, Clearasil and Finish. Coming out, however, the company saw an opportunity to shift even more business.

In a statement, Heather Allen, an evp of global category development, said, "Creativity is at the heart of our growth strategy and we are very confident that we have the right partners to grow our brands."

Havas Worldwide CEO Andrew Benett acknowledged the shifts, saying that he understood Reckitt's desire to work with multiple agencies. He added that his shop is "deeply honored to still act as a key agency partner and retain the rest of the extensive brand portfolio. We look forward to working with RB and their new partners to build on the success and results that we are proud to have been a part of over the last decade."

Agency Assessments International helped manage the search process.