Everyone knows there are cockroaches in New York, but not everyone knows how to exploit them for an advertising campaign. Agency davidandgoliath/Los Angeles created a campaign for Ecko: Zoo York, that uses cockroaches to promote their footwear and skateboards in two online video ads that are also running on TV. The spots were produced by Rockhard Films/Los Angeles.
Tough, a :30, features two cockroaches sitting on a park bench discussing how tough they are until a skateboarder wearing Zoo York shoes lands on the bench and crushes one of the roaches. Spread the Word, a :60, features the Zoo York Skate team, who traverse down Wall Street with bags of roaches and empty them onto the street, shocking pedestrians.
“Zoo York is proud of their unbreakable New York spirit,” said Colin Jeffery, executive creative director of davidandgoliath. “When you think of New York cockroaches, they’re unbreakable. They’re the only thing that could live through a nuclear blast on the streets, but maybe Zoo York is even tougher than the cockroaches.
“In Tough, you see two New York cockroaches talking about how tough they are, with the dialogue and New York accents. In Spread the Word we took a different tack, we fused the street culture with the cockroaches. We said what would happen if we took on the man using cockroaches, so we went down the corporate part of town and put the man back in his box.”
The spots are playing at www.ZooYork.com/Roaches, YouTube, AOL Video, Google Video and a variety of blog sites. They began playing online and on TV (MTV, Fuel TV and ESPN), on April 1.
Tony Petrossian, the Rockhard Films director, said Tough was a simple shoot. “We were letting the cockroaches do their thing. Nothing crazy camera wise, we didn’t want to get in the way.” Spread the Word “was more complex. We wanted it to seem like the skaters went out and shot it Blair Witch style. We wanted to make it look slick without looking directed, so we made sure it looked like it could have been shot by someone, and if a kid couldn’t be holding the camera we didn’t use that shot.”
For Tough, Petrossian had to shoot two cockroaches, which wasn’t easy since the spot was shot in November in cold weather. “They were freezing, so the handler and I figured out a way to keep them moving and we were able to get some cool animated gestures,” he said.
Petrossian used a Arri Super 16mm camera for Tough and shot Spread the Word with a Panasonic DVX100 HD camera. “We wanted a filmic look for Tough and a real documentary style look for Spread the Word,” he said.
This is the first work davidandgoliath has done for Ecko: Zoo York. The company had done viral advertising in-house previously, Jeffery said. He selected Rockhard Films and Petrossian because he wanted a director who “moves fast and thinks on his feet. He understands skateboard culture and shot it run-and-gun style.”
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