You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. But you can make a Silk pitch from a cow’s mouth–that is if you’re Berlin Cameron United, New York, which has created a tongue-in-cheek package of TV spots to promote its client Silk Soymilk, working with interactive ad shop IMC2, Dallas, which developed the online program.
Silk’s first campaign since 2004 is looking to cultivate a new generation of soymilk drinkers. And to gain new customers and milk converts, Silk has enlisted the most unlikely of “spokes-animals”–an articulate herd of cows (people in cow suits)–to trumpet the health benefits and good taste of soy milk.
The “Cows for Silk” campaign debuted on national primetime TV with “Domestic Dispute,” the first in a series of TV commercials. The spot features a mother of two calves convincing her “bull-headed” husband to try soymilk. Also in the offing at press time were a series of :15s in which Frank Bull, Connie Cow and Amanda Cow each sing the praises of Silk soymilk.
All the commercials drive traffic to a Web site: www.CowsforSilk.com–a kind of super fan site that features the cows from the campaign. On the site, the starring cows pen their personal blogs, express why they love Silk, and share their favorite recipes.
Visitors to the site can also view longer versions of the :15 TV spots, as well as send out e-cards featuring their favorite cow. There are even bios of the cow available on the site.
Excerpted thoughts from Frank, Connie and Amanda are tinged with humor. Consider Connie’s observation, for example: “It sounds so much more pleasant when you get the call that your kid was sent to the principal’s office for squirting Silk out of his nose.”
Amanda observes, “Silk is high in ‘that girl is ripped’ protein and way low in ‘maybe someone should be wearing sweatpants’ fat. Silk makes it simple to look nothing short of irresistible.”
Meanwhile Frank extols Silk’s taste virtue: “I drink Silk because it tastes great. It just happens to be healthy. Don’t confuse me with one of those wacky health food fanatics.”
Errol Morris of bicoastal/international Moxie Pictures directed the spots. The DP was Bob Chappell.
The Berlin Cameron creative team consisted of executive creative director Ewen Cameron, creative director Izzy Debellis, associate creative director/copywriter Neil Riley, associate creative director/art director Taras Wayner, executive producer Dane Johnson and producer Leigh Fuchs. Editor was Adam Jenkins who at the time was with Bug Editorial, New York. (He has since joined Cut+Run, New York.)
Web site credits at IMC2 go to account manager Ryan Oleson, project manager Allison Butler, creative directors Mary Ridgway and Bart Hirneise, designer Charles Grant, copywriter Duane Jones, production staffers Robert Barfield and Bryan Parker, information architect Dina Ray, technical consultant Matt Samuels and Web engineer Elijah Hardin.
Supreme Court Seems Likely To Uphold A Law That Could Force TikTok To Shut Down On Jan. 19
The Supreme Court on Friday seemed likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.
Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, the justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company's connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.
Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified his main concern: TikTok's ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company's requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government's intelligence operations.
If left in place, the law passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will require TikTok to "go dark" on Jan. 19, lawyer Noel Francisco told the justices on behalf of TikTok.
At the very least, Francisco urged, the justices should enter a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to keep operating. "We might be in a different world again" after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, also has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a "political resolution." Francisco served as Trump's solicitor general in his first presidential term.
But it was not clear whether any justices would choose such a course. And only Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded like he would side with TikTok to find that the ban violates the Constitution.
Gorsuch labeled arguments advanced by the Biden administration' in defense of the law a... Read More