Traditional baby strollers were slow and cumbersome, but Bugaboo/Amsterdam offers sleek, compact strollers that can be opened with one hand. A new model, the Bugaboo Bee, will be introduced in the U.S. in September, supported by a campaign that features a video that displays the stroller in “a marriage of styles–modern dance, Cirque du Soleil and a Busby Berkeley musical,” said director Vince Marcello of Tempered Entertainment/Los Angeles.
“Bugaboo Bee” is a 2:48 video that features four dads operating the strollers in a city setting that is overcome with an array of dancers, who transform the film into a work of dance theater. The four dads dance too, deftly pirouetting around the strollers and opening them smoothly, which demonstrates their functionality.
“People want a smaller, more nimble and agile solution and we asked how could we bring it to life?” said John Boiler, creative director at El Segundo, Calif. based ad agency 72andSunny. “We came up with the idea for a dance musical and focused on the dads who play with the strollers, get lost in the city and realize they forgot their babies, so that’s when the moms come in.” They appear near the end of the film and the couples insert their babies into the strollers and walk away smiling.
The four dads were chosen with demographics in mind; there’s “a geeky one from the Silicon Valley and an African American musician from the Village,” Marcello said. Meanwhile, the choreographer Lance MacDonald directed a cast of 20 dancers who merge with the cityscape and interact with the dads.
The film was shot at Hollywood studio The Lot in January with the Sony F900 camera. A key to the postproduction was color correction. “We lassoed the stroller colors to keep the strollers bright and made the colors around them more muted,” Marcello said.
The fast pace of the film is achieved by rhythmic shots from all angles, including overhead. “They wanted a fresh feel so we took modern dance and integrated it with Busby Berkeley-style overhead photography for a kaleidoscopic feel,” Marcello said. “We gave it a combination of modern dance and hip hop with a minimalist modern approach to dance.”
The film, which plays at Bugaboo.com, YouTube, Google Video and other social and entertainment sites, is part of a campaign that also includes print, web banners and outdoor ads. In September, the film will play on the Reuters billboard in Times Square, Boiler said.
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More