Local creatives critiqued this year’s Super Bowl ads at Thursday’s Ad Bowl at BES Studios. (Jonathan Spiers photos)
If you tuned in to the Super Bowl and saw some of this year’s crop of ads, chances are you saw some with Richmond fingerprints on them.
Roughly a third of this year’s Super Bowl ads involved one or more alums of the VCU Brandcenter, which counted 27 alums on the production credits for 20 spots that aired during, before or after the big game.
On Thursday, a gathering of their Richmond-based peers converged on BES Studios near Rocketts Landing to review and critique a sampling of Sunday’s ads in this year’s Ad Bowl, put on by the Advertising Club of Richmond.
Panelists for the annual event included Justin Bajan, co-founder of Familiar Creatures; Ashley Diddell, an account director at The Martin Agency; Chris Kim, a creative director at Arts & Letters Creative Co.; Sam McCloskey, social media and marketing manager with the Richmond Flying Squirrels; and Patrick Simkins, creative director at Simkins Lightbulb Co.
Among this year’s spots that were up for review were a Martin ad for Oreo, which involved Johnny Roeloffs, a strategy director at Martin and a 2013 Brandcenter alum. With the tagline “Twist on it,” the 30-second spot starred Kris Jenner and showed various scenarios where the twist of the cookie could have decided such events as the Trojan Horse entering Troy.
In comments compiled by the Brandcenter, Roeloffs gave his alma mater insights into how the spot came to be.
“The creative team probably presented 1,000 different vignettes over the past year,” Roeloffs told the Brandcenter. “It was fun brainstorming all of the decisions that the twist of an Oreo could have made but also grueling figuring out which ones to ultimately put in the spot.”
Another spot, Coors Light’s “Chill Train” ad, involved 2012 Brandcenter alums Chris Colliton and Kevin Weir, group creative directors at Droga5 in New York. The spot, which marked the return of the brand’s beer train and featured an appearance by LL Cool J, involved an actual train that was crashed into a house built inside a warehouse, Colliton and Weir told the Brandcenter.
“We only had one take, which we filmed from three angles. For safety reasons, no one was allowed on set except for the (stunt) driver,” Colliton told the school.
“The Super Bowl is simultaneously one of the most exciting things in advertising and one of the most stressful. You often get to take a big swing at some really ambitious ideas, but you also have 110 million people waiting to judge you,” he said. “We’ve done it a few times now and it never gets any easier.”
Judging them Thursday was the Ad Bowl panel, which was lukewarm on BMW’s ‘Talkin like Walken’ ad, mixed on Hellmann’s Mayo Cat ad, and generally liked the weirdness of Cerave Skincare’s Michael Cera ad.
Judging thiis year’s ads were, from left: Familiar Creatures’ Justin Bajan, Martin Agency’s Ashley Diddell, Simkins Lightbulb Co.’s Patrick Simkins, Richmond Flying Squirrels’ Sam McCloskey, and Arts & Letters’ Chris Kim.
Ads touched by Brandcenter alums included Booking.com’s spot starring Tina Fey, which involved 2008 alum Tim Gordon, chief creative officer at Zulu Alpha Kilo NY; Etsy’s Statue of Liberty ad, involving Sarah Garman (Class of ’13), head of strategy at Orchard in New York; and E-Trade’s babies-playing-pickleball spot, involving Anne Marie Wonder (’16), creative director at 72andSunny in New York.
In addition to Martin’s Oreo spot, ads with links to Richmond agencies included a spot for Sentara that involved media planning and buying from Lewis Media Partners and ‘22 alum John March. A full list of alums and their ads are listed on VCU’s website.
Local creatives critiqued this year’s Super Bowl ads at Thursday’s Ad Bowl at BES Studios. (Jonathan Spiers photos)
If you tuned in to the Super Bowl and saw some of this year’s crop of ads, chances are you saw some with Richmond fingerprints on them.
Roughly a third of this year’s Super Bowl ads involved one or more alums of the VCU Brandcenter, which counted 27 alums on the production credits for 20 spots that aired during, before or after the big game.
On Thursday, a gathering of their Richmond-based peers converged on BES Studios near Rocketts Landing to review and critique a sampling of Sunday’s ads in this year’s Ad Bowl, put on by the Advertising Club of Richmond.
Panelists for the annual event included Justin Bajan, co-founder of Familiar Creatures; Ashley Diddell, an account director at The Martin Agency; Chris Kim, a creative director at Arts & Letters Creative Co.; Sam McCloskey, social media and marketing manager with the Richmond Flying Squirrels; and Patrick Simkins, creative director at Simkins Lightbulb Co.
Among this year’s spots that were up for review were a Martin ad for Oreo, which involved Johnny Roeloffs, a strategy director at Martin and a 2013 Brandcenter alum. With the tagline “Twist on it,” the 30-second spot starred Kris Jenner and showed various scenarios where the twist of the cookie could have decided such events as the Trojan Horse entering Troy.
In comments compiled by the Brandcenter, Roeloffs gave his alma mater insights into how the spot came to be.
“The creative team probably presented 1,000 different vignettes over the past year,” Roeloffs told the Brandcenter. “It was fun brainstorming all of the decisions that the twist of an Oreo could have made but also grueling figuring out which ones to ultimately put in the spot.”
Another spot, Coors Light’s “Chill Train” ad, involved 2012 Brandcenter alums Chris Colliton and Kevin Weir, group creative directors at Droga5 in New York. The spot, which marked the return of the brand’s beer train and featured an appearance by LL Cool J, involved an actual train that was crashed into a house built inside a warehouse, Colliton and Weir told the Brandcenter.
“We only had one take, which we filmed from three angles. For safety reasons, no one was allowed on set except for the (stunt) driver,” Colliton told the school.
“The Super Bowl is simultaneously one of the most exciting things in advertising and one of the most stressful. You often get to take a big swing at some really ambitious ideas, but you also have 110 million people waiting to judge you,” he said. “We’ve done it a few times now and it never gets any easier.”
Judging them Thursday was the Ad Bowl panel, which was lukewarm on BMW’s ‘Talkin like Walken’ ad, mixed on Hellmann’s Mayo Cat ad, and generally liked the weirdness of Cerave Skincare’s Michael Cera ad.
Judging thiis year’s ads were, from left: Familiar Creatures’ Justin Bajan, Martin Agency’s Ashley Diddell, Simkins Lightbulb Co.’s Patrick Simkins, Richmond Flying Squirrels’ Sam McCloskey, and Arts & Letters’ Chris Kim.
Ads touched by Brandcenter alums included Booking.com’s spot starring Tina Fey, which involved 2008 alum Tim Gordon, chief creative officer at Zulu Alpha Kilo NY; Etsy’s Statue of Liberty ad, involving Sarah Garman (Class of ’13), head of strategy at Orchard in New York; and E-Trade’s babies-playing-pickleball spot, involving Anne Marie Wonder (’16), creative director at 72andSunny in New York.
In addition to Martin’s Oreo spot, ads with links to Richmond agencies included a spot for Sentara that involved media planning and buying from Lewis Media Partners and ‘22 alum John March. A full list of alums and their ads are listed on VCU’s website.
Thanks for coming last night, Jonathan!