A new Tostitos website, www.nolaf.org, presents the snack chip as fun, something the National Organization for Legislation Against Fun (NOLAF), would like to get rid of. But viewers of the NOLAF videos might be enticed by the images of the chips dipped in cheese sauce, or they may laugh so much they’ll reach for a bag.
“Fun: A Societal Scourge,” is the one minute thirty-one second video that is one of 30 viral videos that play at more than 50 sites to drive consumers to nolaf.org, according to Todd Crisman, group creative director at Element 79, the agency that created the videos, which were produced by Mekanism, San Francisco. YouTube, Revver, Vimeo, Facebook and Digg are a few of the video sharing and social networking sites that are playing the videos. “Fun” also plays at the Orientation area of nolaf.org.
The video features a NOLAF director who explains how the organization is “dedicated to putting the un in fun” and illustrates examples of fun he wants to eliminate, from a toy monkey to a red rubber ball to Tostitos, “the corn based savory snack that everybody likes, and I hate.”
“Nolaf shines a light on the fun of Tostitos through the lens of the organization that is bent on destroying fun,” Crisman said.
The video was shot in December at the Alameda Naval Air Base in San Francisco, in a “decrepit building,” according to Mekanism director Tommy Means. “We were going for a very designed look, like it was one of the old educational health and safety films for the BBC from the ’70s that was shot on a grainy 16mm Bolex.” He used a Panasonic VariCam with a 35mm adaptor and Cooke lenses. “We used different filters to get that tobacco look and extracted the grain from it in post.”
Scott Parkin, the actor who played the NOLAF director, was a key to the film. “Casting was critical and we looked at 500 actors for an improvisational comedian who could carry the weight,” Means said. “He’s a middle age bald guy and after we yelled, ‘Action,’ we had no idea what he’d say. We had funny scripts to start with but we told the client we found an improv genius so you might not see what’s in here and they gave us the flexibility to run with it.”
“Fun: A Societal Scourge” is part of a campaign that features over 40 minutes of video on the website, from a series of clips featuring Parkin to others focusing on seven consumers in a classroom who ask Parkin questions about how they can assist in the unfun campaign. Visitors click on each consumer to hear the questions.
The website and a series of Free the Fun TV spots are elements of an integrated campaign that “gives consumers a different involvement with the Tostitos brand than they’ve ever had before,” Crisman said. “The videos were created to immerse consumers in a brand experience and engage them immediately, so they don’t run away. We wanted to be as funny as we could and fresh, making sure at the end of the experience people walk away smiling and understand that Tostitos was behind it.”
The campaign also included print, with both TV and print starting in early January before the web videos began playing April 18.
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A Closer Look At Proposed Measures Designed To Curb Google’s Search Monopoly
U.S. regulators are proposing aggressive measures to restore competition to the online search market after a federal judge ruled Google maintained an illegal monopoly for the last decade.
The sweeping set of recommendations filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice could radically alter Google's business, including possibly spinning off the Chrome web browser and syndicating its search data to competitors. Even if the courts adopt the blueprint, Google isn't likely to make any significant changes until 2026 at the earliest, because of the legal system's slow-moving wheels.
Here's what it all means:
What is the Justice Department's goal?
Federal prosecutors are cracking down on Google in a case originally filed during near the end of then-President Donald Trump's first term. Officials say the main goal of these proposals is to get Google to stop leveraging its dominant search engine to illegally squelch competition and stifle innovation.
"The playing field is not level because of Google's conduct, and Google's quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired," the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. "The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages."
Not surprisingly, Google sees things much differently. The Justice Department's "wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision," Kent Walker, Google's chief legal officer, asserted in a blog post. "It would break a range of Google products — even beyond search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives."
It's still possible that the Justice Department could ease off on its attempts to break up Google, especially if President-elect Donald Trump... Read More