By KATHY DeSALVO
Typical feminine hygiene and tampon spots are high on the cringe factor for viewers, both male and female. Weve all seen product demonstrations with blue liquid and those monologues in which women talk earnestly about freshness and absorption. Ick.
There is none of that in a new spot campaign for Proctor & Gambles Tampax tampons. The ads were created by Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, and directed by first time commercial helmer Lesli Linka Glatter of Creative Film Management International (CFM), New York, whose directorial credits include the feature Now & Then, episodes of NYPD Blue, ER, and Twin Peaks and a 85 Oscar-nominated short film, Tales of Meeting and Parting.
The spots, Woodstock and Spring Break (a third yet-to-break spot is said to focus on product), represent the first major branding effort for the client and are unique in that they dont show the product, contain no dialogue and dont mention Tampax until the very end. Instead, the ads present scenariosaWoodstock and spring breakawhich illustrate the tagline Tampax was there.
The campaigns co-creative director Chris Haxager said that the themes of the ads were freedom, empowerment and Tampaxs role in liberating women. She added that Tampax, the brand leader and inventor of the category (Tampaxs next closest competitor, Playtex, is 30 years younger), made many things possible for women. This campaign was meant to celebrate the products heritage.
The idea was to show events both in the past and in present day, said Haxager, and to say ATampax was there and to realize that, it had to have been there. Women with their periods could not have been participating that way if it hadnt been there.
The spot Woodstock opens on a stock shot that pans across the hundreds of thousands who attended the historic music festival. But it quickly switches to new footage directed by Glatter and DPed by Peter Sova (whose feature cinematography credits
include Diner and Donnie Brasco). Set to the Zombies Time of the Season, the rest of the spot recreates Woodstock with shots of assorted women who strum guitars, embrace, flash the peace sign, hold a baby, sleep on blankets on the ground, and dance; one of the last shots shows a woman dancing wildly as rain pours down. It then segues to the last shot of copy; Tampax was there.
Spring Break presents a then/now tableau. It starts off with a beach scene that a super relates is Ft. Lauderdale 63. We see men and bikini-wearing young women limboing enthusiastically as we hear a 60s-sounding limbo song. Cut to Cancun 99; the music switches to a rock track (the spots music was scored by David Blamires of Steve Ford Music, Chicago), but visuals depict similar playful activities as men and women splash around in the water.
The boards had an immediate appeal to Glatter, who assessed them as exceptional and unique. As well, Glatter has a 15-year background in modern dance choreography. Before embarking on a career in filmmaking, she spent 10 years overseas (five in the Orient, five in Europe) as part of a government grant-sponsored cultural exchange program. In that time, she taught, choreographed and performed modern dance and learned about the local dance styles; she says she was the first woman to perform in the Grand Kabuki. So the idea of setting up these scenes that had a lot of movement in them and told a mini-story was totally fascinating to me, said Glatter.
The spots were filmed over five days in Australia, which was chosen because it provided the summer weather the spots dictated (even though it rained one day, forcing them to move to a new beach and cut several planned scenes from Spring Break that depicted other time periods). Besides dealing with the weather, Glatter said, one of the jobs main challenges was staging the Woodstock scenes realistically.
Its a hard period to recreate well, said Glatter, who nonetheless described the experience as great fun. It can look very silly. [For instance], when I got to the set in the morning, everyone had a headband on. Thats what people remember about that era, but it wasnt the reality. So I went around and took them off. The idea was to make it look like a documentary; hopefully I brought some sort of life to it. One thing I did do was have music playing all the time. I think that helped the actors feel that they were in that world.
Additional agency credits go to group creative director Gerry Miller and co-creative director Charlie Schreck. For Spring Break, Schreck also served as art director and Haxager as copywriter. For Woodstock, credits go to art director Deionna Wilburn and copywriter Diedre Reed. Stock footage for Woodstock supplied by Worlds Best Stock Footage, Tampa, Fla. Both spots were produced by Burnetts David Moore and edited by Chris Claeys at Cutters, Chicago. Music credits for Spring Break go to composer Blamires at Steve Ford Music.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More