AMW REVAMPS B2B ADS

Okay, so most creatives aren’t clamouring to work on the next B2B account. But, two new print campaigns from Axmith McIntyre Wicht, which launched last month for Newalta and Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, prove that corporate doesn’t have to be boring.

For Newalta, an Alberta-based company that recycles the byproducts of the oil and gas industry, the Toronto-based agency contracted renowned photographer Shin Sugino to shoot breathtaking photos of large, powerful, dirty hands wringing the last drop out of various machinery. Newalta aims to gain attention from potential investors across the country. The print ads launched March 16, and will run for three to six months in national publications like the Globe and Mail, National Post and ROB magazine.

Meanwhile, law firms aren’t known for their sense of humour, but to help launch Osler Hoskin Harcourt’s new logo, AMW decided to have some fun. The four print ads feature abstract, amusing images (see below), accompanied by provocative headlines like ‘The answer vs. an answer.’ The ads broke in February, and will run in magazines like ROB, National Post Business and American Lawyer throughout the year.

Both the ads drive consumers to the company Web sites.

Client: Stephen Lewis, director, corporate communications, Newalta

CD: Brian Howlett

ACD/copywriter: Dale Roberts

AD: Mike Sipley

account director: Tina Fernandez

account executive: Gina Brigantino

photographer: Shin Sugino

Client: Nanette Matys, director, client development, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

ECD: John McIntyre

CD/copywriter: Brian Howlett

AD: Andrew Gillingham

account director: Scott Griffith

account executive: Gina Brigantino

photographer: Katy Lemay

PACKAGED GOODS GO MINIMALIST WITH MAXIMUM EFECT

This visually succinct Tide Cold Water advert is running as a focused campaign in Loulou, Canada’s own shopping rag. Created by Saatchi & Saatchi Toronto, it launched last month and will run for about six months. Cool. Need we say more? Kay then, let’s see more of this.

client: Hesham Tohamy, brand manager; Suzanne Geist, assistant brand manager, Procter & Gamble

CD: Brett Channer

copywriters: Tim Piper, Erik Copplestone

AD: Tylor Serr

account director: Chris MacDougall

print production: Nicola Ducksbury

photographer: Philip Rostron

SHIT HAPPENS

What if dinosaurs were around today? Would they crap on your car, dent telephone wires and devour entire loaves of bread? That’s what the creative team behind ROM’s ‘Feathered Dinosaurs’ exhibit campaign visualized when they came up with these amusing ads, featuring an old man feeding ‘dinobirds’ with bread loaves and a man whose car has been covered in giant feces.

The exhibit includes newly discovered fossils that link birds today with the dinosaurs of yore. So the creative aims to ‘raise the question: Are birds actually dinosaurs?’explains CD Andrew Simon, of DDB Toronto.

Apparently great minds think alike. According to Joel Peter, the ROM’s VP marketing, ‘more than one proposal had similar ideas.’ Toronto agencies Holmes & Lee and Axmith McIntyre Wicht, whose spec work is shown below, did. Al Scornaienchi, AMW’s president chocks it up to coincidence. ‘The proposition was really focused. If you brief a dozen good creative teams, you’ll get a couple of cars hit by poop.’

The campaign broke in February, and will run until the end of August. Elements include outdoor, radio, print, transit and even McDonald’s tray liners. This is DDB’s first work for the ROM.

Client: Joel Peter, VP marketing and communications development,

Royal Ontario Museum

CDs: Andrew Simon,

William Hammond

copywriter: David Ross

AD: Paul Wallace

account management: Gillian Todd-Messinger, Catherine Frank, Pallavi Sodhi

photographer: Mark Zibert

prodco: Silent Joe

producer (radio): Carrie Jeffels

director (radio): Clive Desmond

music: Deschamps Recording Studios, Toronto

MORE HOT SPOTS

BILLBOARDS PROVE THEIR POINT

People will steal anything they can get their hands on. At least that’s what TBWAVancouver demonstrated with its recent stunt for client Black Tower Security Services.

The agency swathed a 10′ x 20′ billboard with grabworthy household items like framed paintings, rugs, pillows and cookware on Friday, Feb. 25. By the end of the weekend all the items had been lifted, revealing the campaign’s simple message: ‘People Steal. Black Tower Home Security.’

‘The client was looking to do some high-impact, low-budget advertising,’ explains senior AD Jay Gundzik, who advised the campaign’s junior creative team. ‘This was relatively inexpensive, and created a lot of PR.’

Creative team Michael Milardo and Bart Batchelor decided to illustrate the need for home security systems by making theft an active part of the campaign. The idea came to them after people stole 3D elements (giant thumbtacks) from a billboard they did at that same location a few months earlier.

Milardo and Batchelor camped out across the street from the billboard, located at the high traffic entrance to Vancouver’s Granville Island, and videotaped the experiment until the wee hours of the launch night. Grainy footage of thieves bagging their loot can be seen at www.tbwa-vancouver.com/peoplesteal.html.

Client: Robert B. Jonatschick, president, Black Tower

Security Services

CD: Pam Fraser

copywriter: Michael Milardo

AD: Bart Bachelor

media director: Angela Dong

You are cordially invited to submit your new, dead clever and previously unrevealed campaigns to: editorial director Mary Maddever at

sstanley@brunico.com, co-curators of strategy’s Creative space.