Chevy Chase co-stars with the Aflac duck
He's famous for falling down, because he does it with such panache. But while Chevy Chase doesn't take a tumble for Aflac in a commercial from The Kaplan Thaler Group that breaks Wednesday, his clumsiness causes plenty of chaos. Set in a supermarket, the spot shows Chase bringing down a display of oranges after plucking one from a stack. Two women identify him as "the guy who falls," and one commands, "Fall now!" Chase claims he doesn't do that kind of thing anymore. "It's not like I have that insurance," he says. When they ask, "What insurance?" the company's duck makes its signature "Aflac!" quack. The spot ends with Chase leaning on one of the shelves and knocking over a whole row in the store. "He's the perfect fit for Aflac because he's famous for his pratfalls," says agency CEO Linda Kaplan Thaler, referring to Chase's opening sequences on Saturday Night Live. "He was great on the set, very funny." Other celebrities who have appeared in the Aflac campaign are Yogi Berra, the Amazing Kreskin and Wayne Newton.
Hip to Be 'Squares'
Arnold's "Squares," touting the round Volkswagen Beetle in a sea of mundane square images, won the Grandy and its $50,000 prize at the Andy Awards in New York last Thursday. Arnold also won three additional Andys for other Volkswagen work. Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami took home the most Andys, winning seven for its Mini USA work and two Ikea spots. Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., won five Andys for Nike spots including "Angry Chicken" and "Streaker." The number of Andys handed out dropped to 34 from 50 last year, while entries were flat at 6,500. Andys honorary chairman Ted Sann, vice chairman and chief creative officer at BBDO, says the decline in awards does not speak to the quality of the winners. "Everybody going in had concern that it was a tough year, and we wondered what we were going to get," he says. "But once we got down to the choices we made, we all felt pretty good."
Time Warner Cable Fakes It
When Shepardson, Stern & Kaminsky tapped Mike Mills of the Directors Bureau in Los Angeles to direct seven Time Warner Cable ads, he jumped at the chance to distance himself from the realistic approach he's known for (Volkswagen's "Bubble Boy"). The New York shop's $10-15 million campaign, which breaks today, shows people pondering what might happen if they neglect important tasks because of cable problems. "I liked the idea of doing flash-forwards in a really artificial way," Mills says. "Most people don't put me into that box." One spot shows a father imagining his daughter will run away and be adopted by a bear in the woods because he missed her play while waiting for the cable man. The animal is obviously stuffed and the snow artificial. "They're kind of cartoons in a way," Mills says. "But they pull at your heartstrings."
One Show 'Evolves and Grows'
The One Club has added an Advertiser of the Year award and an Innovation in Marketing category to its annual One Show gala. The new honors represent an effort to "evolve and grow" with the ad industry, says One Club executive director Mary Warlick. Mini USA will get the Advertiser of the Year title, and Nike wins that award in The One Show's interactive category, The One Club announced last month. The other awards will be revealed at the ceremonies in New York on Friday. Entries were up 4.5 percent to 14,790 this year, Warlick reports, with much of the increase in the design and interactive categories.