US Creative Works: Featuring Barkley, Havas, 72andSunny and more

Minor League Baseball mascots have the hottest job in sports. All summer long they dance, sweat, and chafe in their synthetic fur. These mascots suffer from Major League underwear funk. That’s the subject of a new documentary-style campaign from Russell and its agency Barkley.

In a partnership with Minor League Baseball, Russell became the unofficial underwear mascot of mascots who hail from the hottest cities in America, offering them its odor-fighting FreshForce Performance Underwear

The brand will release three documentaries featuring Chico the Chihuahua from El Paso, Cosmo from the Las Vegas 51s, and Orbit from the Albuquerque Isotopes. The first piece directed by British documentary filmmaker Andrew Lang, brings the story of Chico to life.

The brand is also sending fifty other mascots in the form of “Mascot Relief Kits.” Adorned in fur that matches the undercarriages of the receiving mascot, the kits come with a pair of FreshForce underwear, a thermometer and a bottle of talcum powder.

Havas Health & You unveiled its latest positioning and branding in a video focused on the future of health-and-wellness marketing: you.

The campaign was inspired by the company's new name: Havas Health & You, which naturally raises the question: Who is 'You'? The answer is simple yet multifaceted: Havas is a company that serves all kinds of 'Yous', including clients, customers, employees and all of 'yous' in those groups. 

The campaign consists of a new website, ad banners, print, social media and videos that combine animation, live action and original music.

The idea transforms the "O" in "YOU" into a head, which creates animated characters that represent Havas Health & You's for multiple audiences.

 

Yoplait is anchoring its new brand campaign platform, 'Mom On', with an all-new 60-second TV spot of the same name. It features a montage of moms from all walks of life confidently narrating their feelings about situations and issues that commonly elicit judgment, such as working from home, breastfeeding and having kids later in life.

The women in the spot are bold and unapologetic about their choices, a nod from Yoplait to all of the moms making the best choices for themselves and their families.
 
Also, this summer, Yoplait is partnering with the hilarious Facebook web series, #IMOMSOHARD. Yoplait has teamed up with the comedians and mothers behind the series, Jen Smedley and Kristin Hensley, to bring the duo’s “Mom’s Night Out: Summer Break Tour” comedy tour to 40 markets across the country. Through a night of camaraderie, Yoplait and #IMOMSOHARD will unite moms across the country in laughter about the ups and downs of motherhood.

The partnership between Yoplait and #IMOMSOHARD also includes an undercover social experiment video demonstrating that moms have more support than they likely realize. Produced and distributed by the NBCU Content Studio, “Moms Undercover” uses a hidden camera set-up to test if moms would help a fellow mom in a tricky parenting situation, or simply sit back and judge. 
 

For high school students taking the SAT and ACT, the stakes can be high, but there tends to be a disconnect that these tests can be practiced for. The College Board and Khan Academy turned to real high school students to explore how practice played a role in their daily lives and harnessed these insights for the Better Takes Practice campaign. 
 
The College Board and Khan Academy are helping clear a path to college by providing free, world-class and personalized SAT preparation for all students with Official SAT Practice. In collaboration with The Butler Bros, The College Board and Khan Academy are promoting these game-changing tools by featuring real students who used Official SAT Practice with the Better Takes Practice campaign. High school students were incorporated throughout the campaign development process, starting with a collaborative blitz where their insights helped shape a mini-documentary series that represents how practice is a journey that is intrinsically personal to each student.

For Nescafe Sweet & Creamy, WIP created a new coffee shop experience without all of the transactional activity that comes from visiting one – long lines, expensive bills, messed up orders, and more.  
 
In their reinvention of the brand, WIP brought to life the Nescafé Coffee Taproom – a pop-up coffee shop in Toronto created specifically for Nescafé coffee drinkers where the key to open the door is a Nescafé Sweet & Creamy sachet. To enter the exclusive coffee shop, consumers scan a Nescafé Sweet & Creamy sachet on an iPad and receive a secret code to unlock the doors. WIP’s concept offers consumers everything they want from a coffee shop like delicious coffee, fast Wi-Fi, plenty of outlets and comfortable places to sit but without the lines, complicated menus, expensive drinks, or baristas. Cups of coffee are actually made on demand by Nescafé consumers – with their own Sweet & Creamy sachets and the 12 hot water taps located on-site. And for those that enjoy seeing their names misspelled on a coffee cup, there are 50 different custom cups that feature misspelled versions of common names.
 
The NESCAFÉ Coffee Taproom is today open on Toronto’s trendy Queen Street and will live on through June 28th. Consumers are encouraged to socialize their experience using the hashtags #nescafeca and #taproom. 

TD Bank is launching content to promote its voice recognition security software, VoicePrint. With this technology, when customers call, the system is able to verify their identify simply using the sound of their voice. This puts TD ahead of the curve in the US financial services market, and represents an important step in keeping their customers' identity and information safe and secure. 
 
TD Bank partnered with TBWA\Chiat\Day to create a video experiment to test the VoicePrint technology, which is running on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. In the film, we see a professional voice impersonator attempt to fool the TD VoicePrint system by mimicking customer's voices on the phone. They watch in awe as he learns their speech patterns, and converses with their closest friends and family. 
 
TD VoicePrint uses over 150 different characteristics that make up your voice, transcribing them in real time into a unique algorithm that cannot be replicated, so customers can skip security questions and get secure access to the help they need faster. 

Underwear company Jockey International, Inc., has added to its inspirational brand campaign 'Show ’Em What’s Underneath, Show ’Em Your Jockey'. The newest hero to be featured is former Navy SEAL and actor, Remi Adeleke, who shows people that with resilience, you can accomplish anything.
 
The #ShowEm campaign introduces Adeleke, proudly wearing Jockey in a personal, intimate video and series of portraits illustrating what’s underneath, both literally and figuratively. #ShowEm honors everyday heroes who embody the spirit and values of Jockey and the characteristics that make them unique, including resilience, perseverance, courage, family and hope. It has featured the stories of Chris Van Etten, a US Marine veteran who shows perseverance always wins; Lisa Cusimano, a firefighter who defines courage as serving something greater than yourself; Michael Cottone, an adoptive father who exemplifies the gift of family, and Michaela DePrince, a war orphan turned ballerina who demonstrates that with hope, anything is possible.

Adeleke was born into a life of privilege in West Africa until his father’s death at the age of five. The Nigerian government seized his family’s assets driving Remi and his mother to relocate to the Bronx in New York City. The void left by his father’s death led Remi to fall in with the wrong crowd and after years of no direction, Remi joined the Navy and became a SEAL, making it through a program that only about 15-20% of trainees complete. During his 13 years on active duty, Remi found his faith and eventually became a youth pastor and motivational speaker. Most recently, he has taken on a new role of aspiring actor with a breakout part in this summer’s blockbuster Transformers: The Last Knight coming out June 21. 

Conceived by marketing partner Pure Growth Consulting, the campaign will be supported by national print ads. The campaign will be activated online with video, digital ads and a local market presence through out-of-home and mall advertising.

HP and Giant Spoon have tapped Christian Slater once again for a glimpse into common cybersecurity hacks with massive implications to highlight its secure printers and PCs. The second installment of the series uncovers chilling cybersecurity holes within healthcare provider networks.

Slater's character, directed by Emmy Award winning cinematographer Lance Acord, highlights coordinated ways that a hacker would gain access to vulnerable patient data.

This film begins with oblivious employees but quickly escalates to manipulate his prey’s medication, wipe records, and then rename the patient, rendering them unsearchable within the system. 

The goal of this web series is to build awareness and create a sense of urgency in the business community, leading IT decision makers to HP’s industry leading security features to ensure these threats are stopped dead in their tracks

When it comes to perfect pairs, milk and extreme sports probably aren’t the first things that come to mind. But that unlikely combo is the star of the new #BonesLoveMilk campaign from California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) and United Collective, a communications group.

The social and grassroots initiative, developed by Gallegos United, leverages extreme sports professionals, experiential activations, social media and digital components to reach the tween target demographic.
 
The #BonesLoveMilk team partnered with professional BMX riders and skateboarders Kilian Martin, Andrew Cast, Garret Hill, Sean Ricany and Eric Lichtenberger for a day of epic “freestyle deliveries” featuring insane tricks while delivering the delicious combo of milk and pizza. In addition to being delivered by professional riders, the pizzas were packaged in boxes featuring original #BonesLoveMilk artwork by Matt Cantrell.
 

Los Angeles-based Central Films award-winning director Rodrigo Garcia Saiz teams up with Ogilvy Brazil and former military CNO’s (Casualty Notification Officers) to deliver heartwarming news to hopeful organ-awaiting patients in poignant PSA ”News of Hope” for NYC organ donation network LiveON NY.

The emoyional spot follows three former CNO’s, who were previously tasked with one of the most difficult jobs imaginable: delivering the life altering news of the death of a service member to family members. After years of treating this duty with the utmost respect and reverence, the sentiment is shifted and they are given the opportunity to become Hope Notification Officers and deliver news that will change the course of a person’s life in an entirely different way. The former CNOs pay a surprise visit to ailing hospital patients to present them with the news that they will be receiving their long-awaited organ transplant. Emotions run high for both the organ recipients and the officers, united by the uplifting and hopeful exchange.

HotelTonight has launched its first out of home (OOH) advertising campaign in the New York City metro area. Aimed at appealing to residents and visitors to the city, this is the latest in a series of major marketing initiatives for the last-minute hotel booking app, which included partnerships with the New York Yankees, Madison Square Garden, AEG and Chelsea Football Club.

The campaign, which runs through the end of the summer, will be featured at more than 2,000 high-traffic locations, including subway/rail platforms, buses and other commuter viewpoints (including a large billboard over the Lincoln Tunnel's westward entrance). HotelTonight ads will also be heard across radio, podcasts and streaming platforms in the NY market.