Wonder Bread – still slicing up Goodness

As a mom just returning from a visit to my college-aged son, this spot from Wonder Bread really hits home. And actually the whole series is a fun take on an old and often-bashed, over-processed food from my (and many people's) childhood. Using voice over and stop-action these ads combine visual and audio into engaging storytelling about everyday relationships. Great work by The Hive, Toronto.

It's all about the storytelling...

Verizon wireless' recent commercial starring Edward Norton unravels a crazy story line where his Droid repeatedly comes to the rescue. Structured like a neo-Noir thriller, a flashback story line takes us through his last 48 hours that start amazingly enough with Norton wrestling himself out of a metal drawer in a darkened morgue, naked, and continues through outlandish snippets of scenes showing him singing karaoke, being captured by a toothless farmer, flying a private plane as it hurls toward crashing and gambling– via Connect Four– with a Russian Mafioso and his pet ferret. A genius spot by mcgarrybowen New York.

A Sugar Fix from Big Lots

 

Remember when Twinkies "died"? When Hostess went bankrupt and the foamy, yellow sugar torpedoes could be found on Ebay for $5,000? Then Apollo Global Management and Metropoulous & Co bought Hostess Brands and partnered with ad agency Bernstein-Rein to re-launch Twinkies with "The Sweetest Comeback in History Ever" in July 2013. Now, Big Lots, the "Official Hostess Thrift Outlet", has released quirky new promos for the snack cakes that are "just the beginning of a whole new marketing approach" according to Adweek. In the new spots by Chicago's O'Keefe Reinhard and Paul, moms robot dance in the parking lot and young professionals sing in the car in celebration of their Twinkie purchases. Similar to the little unnaturally bright yellow cakes, these ads are just the right combo of sweet playful weirdness.