New Campaigns

Client: Kansas Lottery
Agency: Barkley Evergreen & Partners, Kansas City, Mo.
Art Director: Matt Stegman
Copywriter: Brad Scott
Producer: Andrea Martin
Director: Steve Eshelman
Production Company: Paddock O’Farrel
Music: ASA Productions
With their top prize of $10,000, the Kansas Lottery’s instant games are not likely to make anyone a megamillionaire. But rather than shying away from that reality, Barkley Evergreen & Partners’ latest campaign gleefully embraces the notion that even a modest prize can go a long way.
“Model plane,” shot in black-and-white, begins with a close-up of an airplane propeller. A pilot approaches from the background, scarf fluttering. An announcer says, “People who play the Kansas Lottery don’t play instant scratch games because they have dreams of being captains of industry.” A hand then plucks the aircraft, which is revealed to be a model plane, from the ground. The spot closes with the plane buzzing over the “captain,” who is operating it with a remote control, as the voiceover announces the lottery’s theme: “It won’t change your life, but it could make it a little better.” -Aaron Baar

Client: Consumers Energy, Jackson, Mich.
Agency: Bozell Worldwide, Southfield, Mich.
Executive Creative Director: Gary Topolewski
Creative Director: Chris Elliott
Copywriter: Maureen Donnellon
Art Director: Don DeFilippo
Producer: Jim Brown
It’s becoming harder and harder to take alarms seriously. Car alarms hardly merit a second glance. A blaring alarm clock is quickly silenced with a whack to the snooze bar. Fire and tornado warnings are disregarded as “just a test.”
Bozell acknowledges the reality of our noisy lives in a new 30-second TV spot for Jackson, Mich.-based utility Consumers Energy. But one warning device, the ad insists, can’t be ignored without deadly consequences: the carbon monoxide detector.
The commercial features an animated “talking detector” that outlines the three steps to be followed when the alarm goes off: opening the windows, turning down the thermostat and turning off appliances.
To get viewers to pay closer attention, the agency enlisted Detrick Bater -Oswald on The Drew Carey Show-as the voice of the talking detector. The spot ends with the company’s tagline: “Count on us.”
The spot broke last month in Michigan markets serviced by Consumers Energy. Michigan’s largest natural gas and electric utility, Consumers Energy serves 6 million of the state’s 9.5 million residents.
-Tanya Gazdik

Client: Compuware Corp., Farmington Hills, Mich.
Agency: Arian, Lowe & Travis, Chicago
Creative Director/Art Director: Mike Fornwald
Copywriter: Robert Fox
Photographers: Bob Cranston (sharks), Sam Walsh
Photography (mountain and desert) Producer: Lee Lunardi
Director: David Wagreich
Knowing what you need is as vital in business as it is for personal survival, this new global campaign for Compuware Corp. tells executives. Each of three 30-second TV spots begins by setting up a perilous situation-a Navy SEAL submerged in the ocean among sharks, a man alone in a desert, a climber scaling a mountain-and suggesting, through superimposed copy, some things that might be needed most. For the SEAL, the fundamental need is not shark repellent but, finally, oxygen. The common tagline for the branding effort is, “What do you need most?”
The TV spots and print executions appear on cable and in business publications here and in Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, as the 25-year-old company seeks to increase brand awareness. -Scott Hume

Client: Treasure Island Resort and Casino, Red Wing, Minn.
Agency: Periscope, Minneapolis
Copywriters: Mark Wegwerth, Charlie Callahan
Art Director: Dave Dickey
Director: Charlie Diercks
Producer: Patti Hofstad
Minnesota and the tropics aren’t too closely linked in most people’s minds. But this campaign for the Treasure Island Resort and Casino offers an uplifting escape from the winter doldrums by suggesting the two aren’t as far apart as one might think.
In one spot, currently airing, a swimsuit-clad woman sits in the sand, applying suntan lotion. When the camera pulls back, though, it turns out she is perched on top of a sand truck -used in colder climes to help melt ice and increase traction on the roads-in the middle of a Minnesota winter.
“Now you can get a touch of the tropics right here in Minnesota,” says a voiceover, as the scene shifts to gamblers at slot machines enjoying tropical drinks at the Native American-owned casino. The tagline is, “You’re just minutes away from hours of fun.”
A second spot, “Cow limbo,” continues the theme. Set to break in the spring, the ad shows a Rastafarian dancing up to a cow in a pasture and lithely limboing under it.
The ads are intended to make the most of Treasure Island’s tropical motif, which was designed to differentiate the facility from the many others in the area, said Periscope creative director Charlie Callahan. It’s a safe bet no one else is using the “cow limbo” image. -Aaron Baar