McDonalds Baby»»»I nominate this Ad for Most Outstanding Commercial

McDonalds “Baby” is one of the nominations for Most Outstanding Commercial at the Primetime Emmy Awards being held on September 18 in Los Angeles. The commercial, launched in April 2010, features a dad whose attempts to keep his baby asleep involve driving around in the car in the night. He manages to get an order into the McDonald’s Drive Through attendant, but only by circling a few times.

Credits

The McDonalds Baby ad was developed at TBWA\Chiat\Day by chief creative officer Mark Figliulo, copywriter Erik Fahrenkopf, art director Anthony Decarolis, executive producer Matt Bijarchi, senior producer (Media Arts) David Fisher.

Filming was shot by director Fredrik Bond via MJZ, Los Angeles, with director of photography Joost Van Gelder, executive producer Eric Stern and line producer Anita Wetterstedt.

Editor was Gavin Cutler at Mackenzie Cutler with assistant editor Mona Salma and executive producer Melissa Miller.

Music was produced at Human Worldwide.

McDonalds"“A to Z”

McDonalds in the UK is running “A to Z”, an integrated advertising campaign deisgned to reassure parents about the high quality of McDonalds food, commitment to corporate social responsibility, staff training opportunities, environmental initiatives and its commitment to their local communities. “Everything from our ingredients to our people. Discover what makes McDonald’s.” A 60 second television commercial has kids, parents and farmers interacting with each letter of the alphabet to bring to life behind-the-scenes stories. The campaign is carried over online at a-z.mcdonalds.co.uk, instore (trayliners), in print ads and on the side of McDonald’s trucks. Intricate illustrations build on the handmade feel of the TV, each depicting an individual letter and the story it represents or collecting the entire 26 stories together.

Credits

The A to Z campaign was developed at Leo Burnett, London, by copywriter Graham Lakeland, art director Richard Robinson, planner Jessica Summerfield, working with McDonalds marketing manager Jo Webster.
Media was managed at OMD UK, London, by planner Andrew Lloyd.
Filming was shot by director Sara Dunlop via Rattling Stick, London, with producer Stuart Bentham and director of photography Nanu Segal.
Editor was Bill Smedley at Work Post. Post production was done at The Moving Picture Company (MPC), London, by VFX producer / supervisor Anandi Peiris. Audio post production was done at Wave Studios, London. Voiceover is Mark Wooten.
Print work was by illustrator Kate Forrester.

McDonalds| come clean

Integrated Campaign

Problem: People feel guilty about eating McDonald’s food because of negative publicity around its nutritional value. Local governments have even banned McDonalds advertising targeted at children.

Insight: Healthy eaters spring for McDonalds as a guilty pleasure but are ashamed of their secret McDonalds habit. The majority of McDonalds related tweets deal with people rewarding themselves with McDonalds or feeling guilty about eating there.

Solution: Let closeted McDonalds fanatics know that they’re not alone. Have people come clean about their McDonalds habit by publicly confessing.

Print

Digital

We created the twitter account: @McDsConfession and the hash tag #McDsConfessionFeeds for both of these handles display all the McDonalds Confessions worldwide in realtime on the website McDonaldsConfessions.com

Packaging:

Outdoor:

MY ROLE: Concept development, copywriting and twitter creation/updating.

AD: Warner Whatley
CW: Adam Aceino
CD: Mark Fenske

Dunkin Donuts | ”giving it 110%”

Problems: The recession  forced commuters to cut back on coffee, breakfast and lunch from fast food franchises. What consumers don’t know is that Dunkin Donuts was founded on and helped fuel America out of The Great Depression. Most importantly, Dunkin Donuts is a quasi-bakery that doesn’t serve a bakers’ dozen.

Insight: Dunkin’s customers, hard-working Americans, pride themselves on their cliched  ”giving it 110%” work ethic.

Solution: Inspire Americans to keep giving 110% by setting a good example. Give Americans a bakers’ dozen worth of everything Dunkin Donuts sells.

To do this, we created a line of promotional Bakers’ Dozen products to be sold next to their pre-ground coffee in supermarkets and at franchise locations.

To get the word out about the promotion, we created a campaign targeting morning commuters. The target market spends a lot of time with traditional media, especially while commuting. So our campaign features: print, radio, outdoor and point of purchase poster ads to remind commuters to stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way to work.

Radio:

Print:

Outdoor:

In-Store Poster

MY ROLES: Concept development, copywriting, product development/design. 

AD: Stuart Knowlan
CW: Adam Aceino
CD: Cabell  Harris

Making Mona Lisa copycat-sad

The copycat(er)
Big Mac - Mona Lisa - McDonald's Belgique









The 2nd copycat(er)
Neviot - Mona Lisa

The Original

Brunch Mona Lisa

Benihana Kuwait: Bloggers Unite

PLEASE COPY THIS POST AND POST IT IN YOUR OWN BLOG, TUMBLR, FLICKR PHOTO OR WHATEVER IN SUPPORT OF A FELLOW BLOGGER.
FOR THE STORY, SKIP TO THE END.

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My Benihana Experience

A few days back I posted about Benihana opening up at the Avenues and yesterday night I decided to pass by with Nat and try it out. The service wasn t too bad for a restaurant that’s just been open for a few days and the staff were really friendly. The restaurant itself is made up of islands and bars with a grill in the middle of each one. You sit around the grill and the chef will come to your table and prepare the food right in front of you which makes things entertaining. It’s actually why I prefer sitting at the bar in Japanese restaurants in general, since you can talk to the chef and watch them put your dish together. The problem with my experience last night though was with the food, it was disappointing to say the least.

We ordered beef negimayaki for starters followed by an Orange Blossom maki and a Hibachi Chicken. The negimaki arrived looking good and was probably the best thing we had there even though I prefer Maki’s negimaki which has a richer teriyaki sauce. The Orange Blossom was very ordinary, wouldn’t order it again. Now the Hibachi chicken which is basically grilled chicken, that was the worst. The chicken was very chewy (I could swear it was undercooked if not raw) and tasted terrible. Even after I had the chef add some more teriyaki sauce in hopes of improving the taste it didn’t work. I tried to dip it into the sauces that came with the chicken but it was hard to figure out if they were actually making things worse or not. Nat only ate one piece of chicken and left the rest while I needed my protein since I’m on a strict diet and forced myself to eat my whole plate (I can do that) but the after taste was really bad. Even the rice and the veggies that came with it tasted bad AND were under cooked. Once we left I considered picking up a frozen yogurt from Pinkberry even though I hate frozen yogurts but I just needed something to get rid of the aftertaste. A few moments later we ended up at Chocolate Bar ordering the gooey chocolate cake (bye bye diet).

I shot the two videos [video one and video two] above of the chef preparing our meal. Benihana are known for the live shows they perform when preparing your dish so I was expecting to see [This] but ended up with the above. Would I go back to Benihana? No I wouldn’t. Their sashimi and maki s are pretty cheap (KD1.5 for 5 pieces of Salmon sashimi for example) but there are two other Japanese restaurants at the Avenues, Wasabi and Maki, and I would prefer either one of those to Benihana.

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The above post is a reproduction of Mark Makhoul’s original post on his blog 2:48AM. Mark, a blogger living in Kuwait, is now the subject of a $18,000 lawsuit filed by the Kuwaiti franchisee of global Japanese restaurant chain Benihana. Mark’s crime? Posting a mildly critical restaurant review on his blog, 2:48AM. A frank but even-handed review, even if negative, does not warrant legal action and that this is not how global brands like Benihana should engage with bloggers.
Despite a massive outcry on blogs, social and mainstream media, both Benihana in Kuwait and Benihana of Tokyo, the New-York based franchisor, have steadfastly refused comment and the court case is, as of the time of writing, still set to commence on 8 March 2011.
Benihana in Kuwait first deleted critical comments from its Facebook page and then blocked anyone who had been outspoken against them. Benihana of Tokyo has not replied to a single request made using the contact form on its website, despite a promise to return comments within 24 hours. Neither has it responded to calls on this from bloggers and journalists.
We are defending bloggers’ rights to freedom of expression.
We believe that suing a consumer for expressing an opinion is totally unacceptable. We believe that a company arrogant enough to ignore the very real expressed concerns of thousands of consumers is arrogant enough to think it can press ahead with this suit – one which would set a very worrying precedent for Middle East bloggers. We want to send a clear message out – that today’s consumer has the right to express an opinion online – whether that be satisfaction or dissatisfaction – without fear of bullying and litigation from companies.
Consequently, today, 14 February 2011, bloggers are posting a copy of Mark’s original My Benihana Experience post to their own blogs and Facebook pages.
In an effort to highlight both Mark’s predicament and Benihana’s apparent keenness to sue bloggers, friends of Mark and fellow bloggers around the world can join us in re-posting a copy of Mark’s original Benihana post today. They sued him – will they sue all of us?
It’s not too late to join us! The day is young…
You can follow the hashtag #BenihanaKUW on Twitter and Like the Boycott Benihana Kuwait page on Facebook.