By Ken Liebeskind
CHICAGO --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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SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More