If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a rather perfectly orchestrated remake on the Isaiah Mustafa and Wieden + Kennedy’s Old Spice Commercials.  Instead of manly fragrances, gravity defying swan dives, and rugged mustaches BYU communicates all the amenities of our Harold B. Lee Library.

They could not have timed the launch more perfectly. Old Spice had just ended an intense direct response campaign with on the spot writing when the TMA department and Library launched their genius.

It’s been featured on small networks like CNN, BING, and YAHOO! not to mention a plethora of blogs, local and non-local news stations and newspapers.

Now over 1.5 million views we gladly tip our hats, our books, our sandwiches and our creative noggins to our comrades across campus.

- Dane Rahlf, copywriter

World Record Water Balloon Fight BYU 2010 from (LTAV) Jace LeRoy on Vimeo.

We became the task force for BYU Spring/Summer, an on-campus client we’ve been working with for several months. They wanted to make this record-breaking water balloon fight happen, and we were the ones that were going to make it happen. Not only were we tasked with accomplishing this Guinness Record, but we also pitched the water balloon idea to McCann-Erickson New York, who we were also working with to produce a music video for Kyle Andrews. His song has recently been featured in a series of Holiday Inn ads. They agreed and thought the idea would be great for a video. So after weeks of planning, all the details were in place and we were ready to roll.

As we came to find out, the hard part had only begun. As much as we were excited for the video shoot and water fight to arrive, we also needed as much time as possible to actually fill 120,000 water balloons. Nearly everyone in the lab helped out at some point along the way, and a ‘lucky few’ even stayed for 48 hours to make sure we reached our goal. At about 8:00 AM on the day of the event, we finally finished.

As you’ll see from the video link before, there was nothing that could have prepared us for the pandaemonium that ensued. All the balloons that took multiple days to fill were gone in about six minutes. But everyone had a blast, and the event was a success. Props to us for so much manual labor! The first official count said we broke the record, previously held by the University of Kentucky, by 25 people and 1,000 balloons.

The shoot for the music video portion ran into a few hold-ups because of the logistics of filming a water-soaked event, but we made the best of it. The TMA students did a great job of working with what they could considering the circumstances. We are excited to see the final product. The lab got all sorts of publicity for the event, and we are happy to get our name get out there for the work we do.

-Scott Stevens

Copywriter

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700047397/Ys-AdLab-just-as-good-as-the-pros.html

Remember this…we built the Lab for the students. It’s because of the students I pour my soul into the work. And the students are what make the whole thing work and an amazing success. I love you guys! -Jeff

The pitch team along with a few other students met with a few representatives of Haagen Dazs at the Dreyers headquarters in Oakland. Needless to say, the hard work over the past few months payed off and the pitch went great! They loved our ideas. We then spent some time answering questions and talking about the process we went through. Everyone there was incredibly positive and helpful, and they even gave us a few free scoops as a show of hospitality—although some of us were holding out for the free years’ supply. Maybe next time.

Our group of about a dozen or so students then tried to keep up, quite literally, with Jeff as he guided us around the city. The next day, he had set up a few visits with agencies in San Francisco. We first met with DDB and got to ask a lot of questions and find out a lot about their mentality and personality as an agency. Shortly after, we headed a couple blocks away to Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners. It was helpful to talk with different people about their experience in the advertising field and their opinions about agency life. We even got to meet a few former Ad Labbers who were currently employed at Goodby. What was it that the majority of people liked most about working in San Francisco? The big city feel like New York, with the layed back atmosphere of California. I’m sold.

Overall, the trip was a huge success. For almost all of us, it was a first chance to visit a real agency outside of Utah. Simply meeting with HR people, account managers, and a few creatives was a huge help. Pitching to a company like Haagen Dazs is also something that we might not get at any other program. Props to Jeff for setting everything up for us.

-Scott (Copywriter from Salt Lake City)

Over the past year in particular we have seen some interesting lessons learned from difficult, pain-in-the-neck, just plain bad, clients. What the students have learned however is invaluable:  always understand the client expectation, manage that expectation, and try and over deliver on that expectation FIRST, before you deliver what you think they should do instead; never burn a bridge; and it’s OK to fire bad clients.

That last idea of firing bad clients brings to mind a famous quote from Bill Bernbach about the value of working with people that are…well, people worth working with. He meant it regarding staff but I think the lesson is equally applicable to clients you choose to work with:

“When we started our agency, we had in mind precisely the kind of people we wanted with
us.  There were two requirements: You had to be talented and you had to be nice.  If you
were nice but without talent, we were very sorry, but you just wouldn’t do.  We had to ‘make
it.’ And only great talent would help us do that.  If you were a great talent, but not a nice
person, we had no hesitation in saying ‘No.’  Life is too short to sacrifice so much of it, to
living with a [fill in your favorite expletive here].”

Here’s to surrounding yourself with people who are talented and who are nice too. Life is too short and I for one am grateful to be in the AdLab working with all of you.

-J

So what do you think? Is this really among the the best Nike has ever done? The spot is no doubt very well done. In fact, it may actually be one of my favorite spots, personally. But why would Nike go out on a limb and make a statement like this before the spot even launched?

Here’s one reason I thought of—what was your first reaction when you heard that Nike itself thought it was the best? Did you want to see it? Did you think to yourself, “I’ll be the judge of that?” If you are anything like me, you made sure it was the first thing you watched when you woke up in the morning. My guess is that millions of other people around the world will do the same thing. Nike made a believer out of me.

I don’t want to suggest that this was only a tactic used by Nike to increase the exposure of the ad, because maybe they really do think this is one of the best. If it is, then the statement solidifies their position as a brand and the impact it has over sports fans worldwide, and the spot will become an instant internet sensation. Well done, Nike. Well done, Weiden + Kennedy.

The Tap Duel is the best way to take your charity fights to the street. Nothing hurts more than a charity drop kick to the chin. My roommate lost all arguments after that fateful day in the grocery store because I could always come back with a sick “oh yeah, well you don’t care about children with muscular dystrophy” jab to the ego kidneys. Now that the Tap Duel exists I can put all my Facebook friends under my charitable dominion. Isn’t this the purpose of charity? To compare the size of ones heart to the heart of another? To be able to walk away from a San Francisco Giants game and think, “Well, my team lost. But at least I’m more charitable than that guy across the street”? Tap Duel provides hard evidence of charitable prowess.

We came up with the Tap Duel knowing that people didn’t donate out of the goodness of their hearts, they donated out of concern for their social image. In today’s society image could easily be considered our most prized possession. In making the Tap Duel we felt that people wouldn’t think twice to donate a few bucks to children who needed water if it meant they were maintaining a stellar image of themselves.

Tap Duel was received by UNICEF with excitement. They shared our enthusiasm for the competition of donating. I have always felt that the best advertisements are the ones where everybody gets exactly what they want. Tap Duel is the perfect execution of this ideology. I get to donate in a game like setting that will entertain me while I boost my ego. My opponent will will enjoy the same level of entertainment, and even when I beat them they will be able to walk away from the duel and use it as a sign that they need to change their sad lives. And all the while more and more money gets donated to the Tap Project which means more and more clean water for children around the world who need it to fight off water related diseases. And that is what this is all about.

I have already beat a friend of mine in a duel… and now I know I am better than him.

So what did we think would be the best way to raise money for the cause? Sadly, humans really like their money and can rarely be talked into giving it up. We’ve all seen the emaciated African child with puppy dog eyes–Yes, it makes us feel awful, but has become overused enough that it is somehow ignorable. We wanted an attention grabbing solution that could spread quickly. Naturally, we turned to the center of the ‘viral’ world, FACEBOOK.

We developed a facebook app called TAP DUEL. The solution comes from something we like to call PDC’s, or Public Displays of Charity. Players can challenge each other to a public duel to show who really has the bigger heart. Think of it as a silent auction gone digital, an ebay bid war over saving lives. We’re hoping people’s pride will work in our favor, resulting in thousands of dollars in donations. Did I mention that just a $1 donation provides someone with 40 days of clean drinking water? I know, right.

So now is the time to out-charity your friends! Click here to start saving lives and don’t forget to tell everyone you know.

Smith & Wollensky from BYU Adlab on Vimeo.

I like lions. They are so awesome that they are considered the king of the jungle even though they normally live thousands of miles away from the nearest jungles. Something interesting happens in the life of a young, male lion. As soon as the juvenile lion begins to show signs of strength the alpha male of the pride will challenge the juvenile lion in an attempt to maintain his own dominance over the pride. There will be many confrontations between the alpha and the juvenile male leading to a point where one of two things happen: 1) the alpha male drives the juvenile away, or 2) the juvenile rises to the challenge and drives the alpha away, thus assuming his position as leader of the pride. Something similar has happened to the BYU Adlab this year.

In October there was an article calling out the juvenile lions in the world of advertising. A veteran of the advertising world challenged the youth attempting to take their places in the industry by stating that advertising cannot be taught in a college setting. The BYU Adlab accepted that challenge. We feel like we have something special at the BYU Adlab, and it is something that has taken years to build and nurture. Maybe this last challenge was one more step towards taking over the advertising pride for the BYU Adlad. If you ask me, I think we came out of this particular challenge one step closer.