Educating Yorkshire, Telstra Scammageddon and more: top creative ads of the week

Every week, I attempt to share clutter-breaking creative ideas from around the world. This week, ad for Telstra featuring Steve Buscemi, brilliant on-ground activation for the TV show ‘Educating Yorkshire’ and more.

Channel 4: Educating Yorkshire trailer

Educating Yorkshire returns to Channel 4 in the UK after a 12-year gap.It is a documentary series that follows the lives of students and teachers at Thornhill Community Academy in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. The trailer for the new season wasn’t just an ad agency scripted film. They got actual students to create the trailer in a collaboration that involves everything from science, art, music and dance. While it appears that the supposedly ‘natural’ conversation between students is scripted, the film clearly is about actual talent of students without the aid of professional actors or stuntmen.

Agency: 4Creative

Pidilite: Roff Tiles

Will AI replace creative teams? It might certainly do mundane tasks and even create passable content, including headlines and copy for advertising collateral. But there is that intangible something about creative strategy and connecting dots in advertising that thankfully only human minds are capable of. Copywriter Vikki Ross has created a Pinterest page ‘Lines I don’t reckon AI could write‘ which has ample examples of this. It is not just about clever word play. It is about creative thinking to solve a real business problem or address an opportunity: a mix of strategy and creative smarts. A new outdoor installation for Roff tile adhesive demonstrates that.

Agency: Ogilvy

Telstra: Scamageddon

It’s not just Truecaller, even mobile networks claim to prevent spam by screening incoming calls. Most networks alert the user for potential spam through on-screen warnings. The problem is real as most such calls can be mistaken as genuine. Telstra in Australia has released an ad with Steve Buscemi as some sort of evil overlord who commands his minions to conquer Australia through a cyber attack, only to be foiled becaue they attempted it on a Telstra network.

IKEA: Brighton opening

Tactical announcer ads can be fun too. Earlier airlines would use new destinations through ads which cued the unique landmarks or trait for which they were known. A new ad announces IKEA’s outlet in the seaside town Brighton.

Agency: Mother

Currys: stuck in the past

Outdated gadgets – especially laptops are common. Moreover, Windows laptops tend to get obsolete faster with advancements in processor speed and other specs. A new campaign for Currys take the humour route to position those with old-ish laptops as ‘stuck in the past’.

Agency: AMV BBDO

Creativity from the archives

Nike Chalkbot

Back in 2010, Nike created a campaign which was one-of-a-kind and way ahead of time in using digital technologies. The campaign was for was for the the brand’s LiveStrong cancer initiative, which works with Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, who has himself survived cancer, and his foundation.

The context: chalking the roads is a Tour de France tradition. Spectators write messages of encouragement to their favourite riders. The campaign encouraged people to send messages of hope in the fight against cancer. People sent in messages to the ChalkBot via Twitter, SMS and a dedicated microsite. Such messages were then printed by a computerised road painting machine – a custom-built array of 48 spray nozzles that acted as a dot matrix printer, on the course of the Tour de France event. 36,000 messages were received and chalked on the road during the event. The campaign won cyber lions grand prix at the 2010 Cannes Advertising Festival among other awards.