We are still moping about trying to accept the news that one of our favorites (and inspiration for our #SCMF) has been jettisoned. Jonathan Goldsmith (AKA “Most Interesting Man in the World”) will no longer be the one saying, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis.”
The Adios Amigo ad made us sad.
We are curious to see what’s next for the brand.
In a previous NVC, we talked about Jerry Lambert (AKA Kevin Butler — the vice president of everything at Sony). It would be cool to get Jonathan and Jerry together to discuss character-based ads — perhaps while drinking some Dos Equis and eating Boston Pizza.
Here’s a compilation of the Most Interesting Man’s “greatest hits.”
BMW 100 ?
Speaking about brands, let’s shift gears to the automotive world. Did you know that BMW (as in “The Ultimate Driving Machine”) just hit the century mark. 100 years! From the sound of it, BMW “Century 2” (AKA BMW VISION NEXT 100.) will include driverless vehicles.
We will watch developments closely.
Meanwhile, let’s jump on the “way back machine” and revisit one of our favorite campaigns: BMW Films.
The Hire was a series of eight short films BMW produced for online viewing.
Here’s an example:
Jeep gets new AOR
We noticed that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has just named DDB Chicago the agency-of-record for Jeep and Alfa Romeo in the U.S. At first we were like, that’s too many changes in the ad world for us to absorb in a week. Then we saw it was the agency that did the “4x4Ever” Super Bowl ad.
We can live with that for sure! Hope they keep the good creative flowing…
> The Return of Archer
Season 7 moves to LA
Here’s the promo:
Are we still doing phrasing?
Love it!
Everything – Coming Soon
Here’s an interesting one — Everything is coming soon to a Playstation near you, according to Creativity Online.
Say what?
Curious, we investigated.
In Everything, every single thing is a playable character; if you can see it, you can be it. The game lets you see the entire universe from the point of view of the thousands of things in it. In other words, there is no distinction between you and the world, or between a level and a character. All these things experience and interact with the world differently.
Everything lets you be anything you want. If you ever wanted to see what it’s like to be a horse, or a paperclip, or the sun, this is for you. Your main power in the game is Being (there are more but I won’t ruin the surprise).
Playing with Mountain…
Still curious, we investigated Mr. OReilly, and found out that his last game, Mountain, followed a similar concept:
- A game about the things we see, their relationships, and their points of view.
- In this context, things are how we separate reality so we can understand it and talk about it with each other.
- San Francisco Chronicle piece: Warriors’ Stephen Curry has trained to avoid fatigue
It sounds obvious, but people have been arguing about what things are since the dawn of time. This was the subject of my last game Mountain, and Everything explores this idea and more in much greater depth, and in a much more fun way.
Time to put pencils down and wrap up this week’s NVC. We are opting to close with a song of the week that we posted on Friday: 311 on 3-11.
We like the lyrics:
You’ve got to trust your instinct
And let go of regret
You’ve got to bet on yourself now star
‘Cause that’s your best bet…
Enjoy!
Thanks for reading! Stay curious and May the Jedemi Force be with you!
-The Gang
Bonus Content
> Adweek Article: Archer Season Coming Soon
> Adage Article: ‘Most Interesting Man’ Creators Spill Behind-the-Scenes Secrets
This was a fun read. Here are a few outtakes.
Notable Quotable from Ken Kunze, Heineken USA, chief marketing officer, 2006-2008
[Now: Craft Brew Alliance, chief marketing officer]
The inspiration was the uncle who never got married and was always doing cool shit, Hemingway-esque. He doesn’t really speak in the spots so he was chosen for his look. We spent more time talking about his beard, whether it was OK to have one and how grey it should or shouldn’t be.
He also said this:
I remember having over a three-hour conversation well into the night with my counterpart in Monterrey, Mexico, discussing the concept, the scripts, etc., trying to explain the nuance of the idea to a guy who was pretty literal and whose first language was Spanish. And at the end of three hours he simply said, “I don’t get it. But we know you are passionate about it and we trust you.”
And this from Christian McMahan, who was Heineken USA, chief marketing officer, 2008-2010
[Now: Managing Partner, Smartfish]
Before we broke the campaign national in 2009, we established the “MIM Commandments” — a series of rules designed to keep the campaign fresh and not wearing it out too soon. As still a small brand at the time, we could not afford having to create something new, we wanted to make sure the campaign had a long run. I can’t reveal all of them, but I think the biggest takeaway was to avoid the “jump the shark” moment. No late-night talk shows, no movie cameos, etc. Not too much later Old Spice launched their “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign and broke almost all of the rules. The campaign was great, but certainly seemed to wear out a lot faster than “MIM” did.
This piece fits nicely with our post AWSI: The Pause that Triggers
Scott Ostler mentions the three C’s: Conditioning, Confidence, Competitiveness (Killer instincts)
Notable on competitive drive:
“I think what goes unnoticed at times,” Kerr said, “is that Steph is a killer. He is an unbelievable competitor. Maybe people are fooled because of the way he looks or his demeanor. Everything seems so easy for him, but he is an absolute killer competitor.”
This is a good write-up of things people may not have known about BMW. https://www.thrillist.com/cars/bmw-21-facts-you-didn-t-know-about-the-german-luxury-car-manufacturer