Last year, Paramount+ ascended to the Super Bowl with a groundbreaking campaign featuring over 30 stars from film, TV, sports, and news series coming together to climb the fabled Mount Paramount.
And just this past weekend, Paramount+ returned to the mountain during the AFC Championship game with this “Bonfire” spot, a nod to the highly anticipated Halo series coming to Paramount+ later this year, with the creative having a little bit of fun with the Halo theme song. “Bonfire” stars iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove, Halo’s Pablo Schreiber, The Good Fight’s Audra McDonald and Christine Baranski, Reno 911’s Thomas Lennon, South Park’s Cartman, Jackass’ Johnny Knoxville, NFL superstars Matt Judon and Jalen Hurts and more talent from across Paramount+ titles. The campaign is also voiced over by Grammy Award winner Tim McGraw.
Also returning to Mount Paramount to direct “Bonfire” was David Shane of production house O Positive.
Credits
Client ViacomCBS/Paramount+ Agency Droga5 NY Tim Gordon, Felix Richter, co-chief creative officer; Dan Kelly, group creative director; Sean Buckhorn, sr. copywriter; Gonzalo Navarro, sr. art director; Emilie Abel, copywriter; Sara Meinecke, art director; Jeremy Fox, executive producer, film; Forrest Holt, sr. producer, film; Adam Vevang, producer, film; Lauren Bautista, associate producer, film. Kathryn Ruocco, group communications strategy director; Emily Mulvey, brand strategy director; Soheyla Escher, sr. communications strategist. Production O Positive David Shane, director; Jeff Kim, DP; Ralph Laucella, Marc Grill, exec producer; Jason Reda, Devon Clark, producers; Maia Javan, production designer; Greg McCollum, first assistant director; Luke Fiegar, production supervisor. Editorial Arcade Dave Anderson, editor; Sam Barden, assistant editor; Sila Soyer, partner/exec producer; Ellen Lavery, producer. Postproduction/VFX The Mill Nathan Kane, executive creative director; TJ Sponzo, exec producer; Colin Blaney, Luis Martin, production supervisors; Joaquina Lopez, producer; Kshitij Khanna, VFX supervisor, 2D lead; Zach Stimell, associate producer; Tara Goodman, production coordinator; James Mulholland, Seon Crawford, CG leads; Oisin O’Driscoll, Joni Brandenburg, colorists; Brian O’Donnell, design; Tara Holland, Luke Midgley, Michael Almodovar, Noah Catan, Andrew Emmerson, Kevan Lee, Matt McDonald, Marxcelo Pasqualino, Tamir Sapir, Akhil A S, 2D team; Abhishek Jain, Bhushan Thakur, Bikash Kalita, Chatta Ravikumar, Chetan Shelar, Jijo Joseph, Jyoti Nikam, Nilesh Patil, Sachin Ranaware, Sagar Gawande, 2D paint; Amit Kumar Shukla, Amit Singh, Apurva Palkar, Ashish Bhange, Avinash Sapale, Deepak Kumar, Jaydeep Rajendra Jadhav, Karthik A, Ketan Prabhakar Gangadhare, Manu PS, Nilesh Kale, Nitin Yashwant Thorat, Rahul Jagtap, Ramchandran Kannappan, Shrikant Jadhav, Vignesh Rajendran, roto; Arsen Arzumanyan, CG previs; Matt Roach, CG FX; Aman Jain, Dinesh B, Dinesh Kanakaraj, Dongili Varaprassad, Kartik Arona, Neveen Srinivasan, Sandeep Kumar Yadav, Shravan Srikanth, Sivasubramanian, CG matte painting; Christian Peck, Michael Davin, CG animation; Arman Matin, Bingi Akhil, Krantikumar Rawat, Nishant Amin, Setty Ashok Chakravarthy, CG lighting; Sathyaraj A, Sriram Namana, Bhushan Ghurade, Santosh Ambre, Vivek Shedge, CG tracking. Music Human James Wells, exec producer; Morgan Visconti, creative lead; Matthew O’Malley, composer. Sound Heard City Stefano Campbello, Evan Mangiamele, Phil Loeb, sound designers/audio mixers; Chenoa Tarin, Ronnie Stapleton, Seth Brogdon, Virginia Wright, Zoltan Monori, assistant engineers; Gloria Pitagorsky, managing director/partner; Sasha Awn, Jackie James, exec producers; Liana Rosenberg, sr. producer; Nick DuVarney, producer; Dylan Stetson, assistant producer.
SecondeChance.org, the French animal adoption platform, looks back at the incredible success of its “Black Dog” operation, launched last October to help black dogs find a family. By using the popularity of Taylor Swift’s song “The Black Dog,” the association has triggered a real tidal wave of visits to these neglected dogs, with exceptional results.
The analysis is clear: black dogs face a sad phenomenon--they stay on average four times longer in shelters because of their color. A disastrous situation also known as the “Black Dog Syndrome”. This phenomenon is particularly problematic after the summer, a period when more than 60,000 animals are abandoned each year.
Faced with this reality, SecondeChance.org decided last October to carry out an original operation to give a boost to the adoption of black dogs. With the help of ad agency BETC Paris, the association had the idea of taking advantage of the craze surrounding Taylor Swift’s song “The Black Dog,” which generated more than 120 million streams and billions of Internet searches, to attract the attention of the singer’s fans.
The operation consisted of renaming hundreds of black dogs with a new and very special name: that of the singer. “Kiki”, “Bonzaï”, “Chipie” and even “Zeus” were thus renamed... Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift but also Taylor Swift.
The objective was clear: to capture the attention of the “Swifties” - the millions of passionate fans of the star, whose power is so great it can change the price of eggs or affect the GDP of Singapore - by using the incredible visibility generated by the song. A successful gamble, which attracted the attention of the media and social networks.