Used-vehicle retailers have been pumping the pedal on celebrity-driven humor in a big way. Carvana’s campaign with Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell is one example.

Now, CarMax enters the fray, with Jessica Williams cracking wise in a bathtub as part of a broader initiative that breaks today.

Such efforts provide a few laughs and spotlight the ways each brand tries to make the buying experience run smoothly.

Williams—an Emmy nominee for Shrinking and fave from The Daily Show—lathers up in :60 from The Martin Agency. She does so in a home-goods showroom, much to the staff’s consternation:

“CarMax has test drives,” she says. “You can’t have test baths?” Later, she bemoans the “market prices” displayed on a fancy menu, and requests a 30-day money-back guarantee at the tattoo parlor.

Why oh why can’t the whole world be like CarMax? WHY!? (Srsly, the stock’s been racing these days.)

Here are more silly scenarios, sans Jessica:

“There are so many things in life we have to settle for—from shoes that pinch our feet to a living room paint color that’s just slightly too yellow,” Martin Agency SVP, group CD Anne Marie Hite tells Muse. “CarMax wants you to know that you don’t have to settle when it comes to finding true car love, which is especially important when you consider it’s the second-largest purchase most people make in their lives.”

To sell that premise, Williams seems well cast as an appealing but no-nonsense every-gal, and the spots are amusing without going OTT to make their point.

“Jessica was in the tub for about two hours and she was ad-libbing the whole time between takes and we were all dying in the video village,” Hite recalls. “Also, there was this guy whose one job on set was to make sure the bubbles looked good. Who knew that was an actual job!”

In the “Drop Off” commercial, “director Jody Hill let the mom run with her dialogue about all the things she could do now that she’s an empty nester. She went crazy and we were, again, all dying. As a new empty nester myself, I can very much relate,” Hite says.

“It’s such a weird time when you’re so sad your children are gone, but you’re also like, OMG, I have all this time to finally do some things for myself! I can’t say I’m pole dancing, but I am taking French and learning pickleball.”

CREDITS

THE MARTIN AGENCY
Lindsey Netto , VP, Group Account Director 
Caroline Rudzinski, Account Director 
Claire Jones​, Senior Project Manager 
Brittney Woods​, Account Executive
Anne Marie Hite​, SVP, Group Creative Director
Jerry Hoak, Executive Creative Director
Lindsey King​, Creative Director
Madeline Guzzo​, Senior Art Director
Stephanie Vicari, Senior Copywriter
Robyn Makinson, Design Director
Jenni Renas, Designer
Katie Morgan, Content Producer
Heather Collier, Executive Content Producer 
Anna Gilliam​, Associate Print and Product Producer 
Allison Farrell, Art Director 
Nia Shima-Franklin​, Copywriter 
Ali Chastain, Strategic Planning Director 
Allie Ballard, Senior Strategic Planner 
Lexi Magenheim, Strategic Planner
Taylor McKee​, Communications Planning Director 
Alex Angert, Associate Director, PR
Jasmine Lubin, Specialist, PR
Lauren Brennan, VP, Head of PR
Analiese Kern, Associate Director, Influencer Partnerships
Jake Rosenblatt​, Director, Influencer Partnerships
Julia Seng-Sourinho, Senior Social Strategist
Suzanne Wieringo, Associate Director, Business Affairs
Kelly Clow, Associate Director, Financial Affairs
Debbie Douglas​, Broadcast Traffic Director

CARMAX
Vice President, Creative Yujin Heo
Director, Brand Experience Strategy Jaryn Creasy
Creative Director Malissa Mackenzie
Creative Director, Social Jessie Kantor
Sr Manager, Marketing Operation Chloe Bos
Manager, Marketing Operations Agency Management Alice Chambers

SUPERJOY (Editorial + Finish)
Head of Production Kerry Ayers
Senior Producer Chris Frendo
Senior Producer Katherine Leatherwood
Editor Tiffany Burchard
Asst Editor: Tony Schaffner and Will Rummell
Flame Artist: Paul Wiederfold, Ben Fox, Armando DeMarchi

CAVIAR (Production)
Director Jody Hill
Director of Photography: Kira Kelly
EP Tova Dann
Head of Production Cat Craven-Griffiths
Line Producer Maggie McLean

TINY LION (Music)
Jonathan Fuller
Amanda Patterson
Andrew Everding

OVERCOAST (Sound Design)
Producer: Travis Tucker 
Sound Designer: Alec Chojnacki and Jonathan Waller

ROYAL MUSTER (Color)
Colorist: Roslyn Di Sisto
Producer: Mathew Fulton

Okay, here’s the game plan. We have three basketball legends arriving on set: Sue Bird, Candace Parker and Steph Curry. And we have to shoot six spots for our client CarMax today. Plus twelve social units, news media interviews and a photoshoot, all within eight hours. 

Um, scratch that. Seven hours. 

What the what? We’re already behind an hour? Cool, cool. 

On this kind of schedule, you have no choice but to play hurry-up offense. Daunting, yes. But also incredibly liberating as it turns out. It forces you to be hyper-focused with your efforts. There is simply no time to overthink. No time to belabor decisions. You have to get in the zone quickly. (Crushing these sports metaphors, y’all.) 

Paralysis by analysis, which happens all too often in production, will 100 percent kill your day. Every creative choice must be made quickly and decisively. And you know what? That’s how it should be, no matter what your shooting schedule is.

But you still have to allow time for spontaneity. Sure, get your approved lines. But don’t overwork the script. You only need one good take. Then let the talent be themselves. Some of our best takes resulted from letting our three superstars to do just that, and adding their distinctive personalities to the dialogue.

The end performance on “Block” was improvised, entirely different from what was scripted. Candace and Steph made the lines their own—yes, we’re all on a first-name basis now—which made everything feel more authentic and fun. In fact, all three athletes were amazing at thinking on their feet (hardly a surprise when you consider their day jobs).

What’s even more important in crunch time? Trusting your teammates to all be on the same page with wanting the best creative hands-down. 

We worked in lockstep with the CarMax brand team, director Danny Corey and the Valiant production company, along with Wasserman, CarMax’s sports marketing and strategy agency. Working from the same playbook was absolutely critical. Because in the game of production, nobody wants to go into overtime. (Okay, scraping the bottom of the sports metaphor barrel.)

This production was a great lesson for us. Maybe for many of you in the business. A reminder to stop overthinking things. Allow for spontaneity. And trust your teammates. Very similar to the game of basketball itself.

Do these things and we can easily shoot six spots and twelve pieces of content in seven hours. 

Wait. That’s a terrible lesson. Give us at least 10 hours next time.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by WNBA (@wnba)

Sure, NBA icon Steph Curry trails WNBA legend Sue Bird in several key categories, such as championships won and all-star appearances.

Still, the Gold State Warrior assures us he’s “working on it” and plans to catch up to the Seattle Storm dynamo, someday, in a cute CarMax commercial, part of an appealing new flight from The Martin Agency and Wasserman Media Group.

Bird solos in a pair of equally amusing ads below. First, she shares her front-gate code…

That’s G.O.A.T., people! And as for her middle name, it’s not really “Buckets”…

…but it probably should be.

Finally, Curry returns to clear up some confusion about how to pronounce his name…

…in a self-deprecating turn that underscores Bird’s status as the campaign’s big scorer, while Steph (don’t call him STEVE-en!) provides some well-timed assists. In a broader sense, the work, a continuation of the “Call Your Shot” campaign, celebrates the upward trajectory of women’s basketball and female sports in general. It acknowledges the greatness of both players and maximizes their pitch-potency through good-natured ribbing perfectly suited to teammates.

Owing to Covid limitations, Bird and Curry were never on set together, reports Adam Zimmer, executive producer at Valiant Pictures, which helped develop the work. “The ‘Quality Cars’ spot was shot with Stephen Curry in San Francisco and Sue Bird in Connecticut two months later. We needed to match the weather patterns and sunlight across the state lines,” he says.

What’s more, in the “Home Delivery” spot, “our production designer built a living room set inside the Connecticut CarMax showroom to save time. We shot the interior scenes with Sue there, while a splinter crew filmed the exterior shots in L.A.,” Zimmer says.

Director Danny Corey makes it all effortlessly hang together, delivering one of the brightest sports-themed tie-ins so far this year.

The spots began popping up on Twitter last weekend, generating retweets from sports stars and Hollywood celebs and nearly 2 million views so far on that platform:

The perfect commercial doesn’t exi…? pic.twitter.com/w9AecQ2E66

— Jessica Slate (@thejslate) March 28, 2021

CREDITS

Client: CarMax
Jim Lyski, CMO
Laura Donahue, VP of Marketing Services
Michael Reeder, Director Brand Video & Sports Marketing
Emily Layman, Manager – Marketing Operations
Shannon Troyka, Manager – Marketing Operations

Agency: Wasserman Media Group
Christa Newcomb, Vice President
Nick Lennon, Director
Zach Sansavera, Manager
Houston Greenberg, Associate Manager

Agency: The Martin Agency
Myna Sharma, Account Executive
Graham Unterberger, Creative Director
Dustin Dodd, Creative Director

Production Company: Valiant Pictures
Matthew D’Amato, Founding Partner & EP
Vincent Lin, Founding Partner & EP
Adam Zimmer, Executive Producer
Danny Corey, Director & DP

Editorial: Valiant Pictures
Danny Corey, Editor
Dan Edwards, Colorist
Bryan Curt Kostors, Composer

Audio Post: Trailblazer Studios
Eric W Johnson, Sound Mixer
Aurelia Belfield, Sound Coordinator

“The curb,” a narrator begins. “It’s probably not something you’ve thought about. Unless you were parking, or skating, or trying to save the oceans” with stenciled environmental messages.

We see curbs in action—well, they stay put as people interact with them, obviously—and the voiceover concludes, “But now, curbs are having a moment. From restaurants, to your veterinarian, to CarMax.”
 
“It was important that CarMax demonstrate in a relatable way how the company is meeting the needs of customers right now,” Martin Agency senior copywriter Graham Unterberger tells Muse.

One night, while brainstorming with art director Dustin Dodd, “our minds went to curbs themselves—big curbs, little curbs, curbs that hand out parking-garage tickets,” Unterberger recalls. “And now, businesses are using curbs to do their business. We joked that ‘Curbs are having a moment,’ and that line became the heart of the spot.”

The team reached out to Prettybird, “to see how this could be executed,” he says. “They knew Max Malkin was the man to do it. He’s a director of photography turned director” with the cinematography chops to bring the concept to life. “In the wrong hands, this could have been a boring bit of urban planning,” Unterberger says. “But Max made concrete sing.”

Malkin won fame for high-profile work on Apple, Adidas and Nike, and he recently went curbside (on a smaller scale) for Silk Almondmilk in a cute spot recently, starring his wife, son and family dog. For CarMax, he strikes just the right tone, conveying timely information with a suitably light touch.

A second spot, “Safari,” breaks today on social media, but it was assembled in a very different way:

First Covid, now dinosaurs. Will the plagues never end?

“The team had seen neighborhood ‘car-faris’ popping up in the news, but couldn’t track down the perfect UGC clip that captured the experience,” Unterberger says. “Then our producer Jim Burns realized there was one here in Richmond [the agency’s base of operations]. So, I jumped in the car with my daughter and drove over. That’s my shaky iPhone camera work and squealing voice in the background. Thankfully, her reaction more than makes up for it.”

Martin explored similar themes for Carmax in “Birthday Parade” as lockdowns began.

“Cars have always been escape vehicles, and with everyone being isolated and going stir crazy, they’re letting people get out of the house in a safe way,” Unterberger says. “Thanks to cars, humans are finding creative ways to connect again, and we wanted to shed light on the most charming ones.”

CREDITS

Client: CarMax
Vice President, Marketing Services: Laura Donahue
Director, Brand Video and Sports Marketing: Michael Reeder
Manager, Marketing Operations: Emily Layman

Agency: The Martin Agency
Executive Creative Director: Jerry Hoak                
Group Creative Director: Anne Marie Hite        
Creative Director: Lindsey King
Art Director: Dustin Dodd
Copywriter: Graham Unterberger    
SVP, Head of Integrated Production: Tasha Dean
Executive Producer: Tricia Hoover
Producer: Lauren Galanides
Associate Director of Business Affairs: Alice Isner 
Financial Manager: Elizabeth Moore        
Project Manager: DeeDee Hamad        
Group Account Director: Walker Teele
Account Director: Lindsey Netto            
Account Supervisor: Ellie Johnson                                    
Account Executive: Myna Sharma                
Strategy Director: Cecelia Parrish                 
Strategic Planner: Stuart Good                 

Production Company: Prettybird                
Director: Max Malkin                                
President: Ali Brown
Director of Production: Tracy Hauser
Producer: Matt Wersinger

Editorial Company:
Partner/Lead Editor: Ben Suenaga
Assistant Editor: David Bryen
Managing Director: Melissa Mapes
Senior Producer: Adam Roe

Post Production/VFX: SuperJoy
Senior Flame Artist: Peter Charles
Flame Assistant: Marissa Walker
Senior Post Producer: Katherine Leatherwood
Head of Production: Brian Creech

Audio Post Facility: Rainmaker
Producer: Isaac Whalen
Engineer/Mixer: Jeff McManus

Color: Company 3 – NY
Colorist: Sofie Borup
Producer: Alexandra Lubrano

Music Company: Halo Music & Sound
Executive Producer: Peter Gannon