What's New : Portfolio

Blue Fox Fishing Lures AGENCY Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis CLIENT Normark Corp., Minnetonka, Minn. MEDIUM fishing-enthusiast publications CREATIVE DIRECTORs Jim Nelson, Kerry Casey ART DIRECTOR Robb Burnham COPYWRITER Steve Casey PHOTOGRAPHER Jerry Stebbins If you can hook a wary fish, you should be able to hook a guileless reader. Can Blue Fox pass that simple test? It does so by exploiting the ungentlemanly pleasure we derive from reading other people's mail. Small type at the top gives the pertinent product info, but we're lured in by our impulse to see what one fisherman has to say to another. Postcards redolent of fish guts may not be your favorite reading matter, but Bill's missive to Kenny captures the blend of good-natured needling and boastfulness that passes for conversation among avid fisherman. And that, in turn, reinforces a sense that Blue Fox lures are the real thing. Finish Line Stores AGENCY 40 Acres and a Mule, New York CLIENT The Finish Line, Indianapolis MEDIUM consumer print CREATIVE DIRECTOR Spike Lee ASSOC. CREATIVE/ ART DIRECTOR Geoff Edwards ASSOC. CREATIVE DIRECTOR/ COPYWRITER Colin Costello PHOTOGRAPHERs David Masiel, Steve Nozicka How nice for Finish Line to be the official shoe retailer of basketball, pure and simple: "No agents. No holdouts. Just ball." Of course, the shoes Finish Line sells tend to be endorsed by players who do have agents, have been holdouts and have not been exemplars of "Just ball" since their days on the junior varsity. So, is it any surprise that the message has a hollow ring to it? Even apart from that problem, the ad is trapped in a false dichotomy between the unsullied game of the playground and the money-mad business of big-time basketball. When a kid stays out in the cold practicing his 15-footer until it's too dark to see the rim, that's pure basketball. But he's probably daydreaming about having a line of Nikes named for him or getting to the NBA and busting his team's salary cap. Nobody's an amateur anymore in the old sense of the word, so the ad's vision of pristine love for the game wouldn't exert that much appeal even if we could take it seriously in this context. Dbi/Sala Fall-Protection Equipment AGENCY Clarity Coverdale Fury, Minneapolis CLIENT DBI/SALA, Redwing, Minn. MEDIUM trade print CREATIVE/ art DIRECTOR Jac Coverdale COPYWRITER Michael Atkinson PHOTOGRAPHy Vito Palmisano and stock When an ad features a blue-collar worker, one often senses a certain condescension in the way he (or, less often, she) is depicted. Nothing deliberate. But the white-collar people who create such ads are thanking their stars they aren't autoworkers or waitresses or hod carriers, and it shows. It's as if the ads are saying of their subjects, "You're nature's noblemen--and better you than me." This ad is a happy exception to that pattern. The photo says all that need be said about the intestinal fortitude of workers who have occasion to use the client's fall-protection gear. The headline manages to elaborate on the photo's point without driving it into the ground. As such, the copy is able to skip the usual false heartiness in extolling blue-collar virtue. "We can't prevent the willies," it begins. "But we can prevent accidents. That's why we support our ladder and climbing systems with the best training, tech assistance and customer service in the business." If you're the person down at sea level who decides whether to buy the best fall-protection equipment or less-than-the-best, these words will sound compelling. Edwin 503 And 505 Jeans In Japan AGENCY Yomiko Advertising, Tokyo CLIENT Edwin Jeans, Japan MEDIUM 30-second TV, in-theater SENIOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR Takeo Nagasawa CREATIVE DIRECTORS Kenichi Aki, Makoto Negishi PRODUCTION CO. Windmill Lane Productions, Santa Monica, Calif. DIRECTOR Meiert Avis Yes, that's Brad Pitt. The target audience for this brand is assumed to be intoxicated by American youth culture, so Pitt is here as its walking-talking emblem. In the spot's comedy of bad manners, Pitt has come to visit a friend at a hotel. The puckish pal has provided not his own room number, however, but that of the sultry blonde across the hall. So we see Pitt looking puzzled when she responds to his knock on the door. As he takes her in from head to toe--including her jeans, naturally--she suggests he wants room 503, not her own 505. Pitt figures out what's up as he spies his friend peeking out of his door. The vignette is skillfully contrived to confer an aura of hipness on Edwin. The hotel is redolent of downtown chic. Pitt and the blonde look great. What young person (Japanese or otherwise) wouldn't want to live a life in which a friend's playful prank leads to the doorstep of a beautiful woman in a stylish hotel? The trick in such cases is to link the spot's own appeal to the brand it's supposed to be selling. The emphasis on numbers does that job, since Edwin (in the manner of Levi's 501s) designates its varieties by numbers in the 500s. Thus, you feel Edwin belongs in this setting and hasn't simply bought an exhibition of hipness to which it has no connection. What's New submissions should be in the form of proofs, slides or (for TV spots) videotape. Please list creative director, art director, copywriter, agency producer, production company (and its location), director and illustrator or photographer. Describe the media schedule, including break date for the ad. Preference will be given to the newest work. Materials cannot be returned. Send submissions to: What's New Portfolio, Adweek, 1515 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10036.

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What's New : Portfolio

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Mark Dolliver