Your favorite TV shows of yesteryear will look as if they were filmed yesterday when viewed via Samsung’s AI upscaling technology. To promote this and other product features, the tech giant launched “Best in the House,” a 4-minute video starring Molly Shannon and Tim Meadows as twins (yes, twins) in a ’90s sitcom send-up.

Created by Quality Meats, the vid is a warm, nostalgic hug, playing off Clinton-era prime-time themes like talking pets, quirky relatives and applause track. It begins as grainy footage, then receives a massive glow-up via Samsung’s AI.

Staring contests, thumb wars and a talking hamster look better in high def!

“The campaign brief at its core was all about how to drive awareness for and purchase of the Samsung 2024 TV and audio products in a breakthrough, entertaining way that communicates the product benefits, instead of just focusing on the incredible tech and specs,” a Samsung rep tells Muse.

Additional work with Shannon and Meadows launches later this year.

Gordy and Brian are co-founders and chief creative officers of Quality Meats, a Chicago-based boutique agency.

The duo have collaborated for 17 years. Alongside head of production Kacey Hart, they launched Quality Meats in 2020. The shop’s brand work includes Huggies, Regal Cinemas. Doordash, SAXX Underwear, Olliv Crypto, Marquee Sports and the City of Chicago.

Earlier, Gordy and Brian held senior slots at Leo Burnett, Deutsch L.A. and FCB, working with such brands as Taco Bell, Samsung, Playstation and Netflix. 

We spent two minutes with Gordy and Brian to learn more about their backgrounds, their creative inspirations and recent work they’ve admired.

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Gordy and Brian, tell us …

Where you grew up, and where you live now.

• Gordy: I grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago, and currently live in the city.
• Brian: I also grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago, and now live in a different north suburb of Chicago.

How you first realized you were creative.

• Gordy: My Ultimate Warrior costume when I was 6 years old. The details and craft were impeccable.
• Brian: My mom forced me into doing children’s theater when I was in third grade—and I was not terrible at it.

A person you idolized creatively early on.

• Gordy: My mom. She was good at drawing and other artistic pursuits.
• Brian: My brother. We were always doing shtick and inventing dumb characters.

A moment from high school or college that changed your life.

• Gordy: I was a late bloomer. So being a 5-foot, 3-inch fat freshman/sophomore kid gave me some humility.
• Brian: My high school music teacher encouraged me to try out for this All-American Grammy choir and I made it and got to go to the Grammys. We performed at parties and alongside some semi-famous one-hit-wonders. Entertainment Tonight played a clip of it, and it probably inflated my ego a little too much.

A visual artist or band/musician you admire.

• Gordy: Don’t Fret, a Chicago street artist. I just love the intentionally low-fi naivete. He recently did all of our agency portraits.
• Brian: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 

A book, movie, TV show or podcast you recently found inspiring.

• Gordy: Love is Blind on Netflix. It’s powerful and moving how people can find true love without ever seeing each other. Kidding, it’s absolutely hot garbage.
• Brian: How To With John Wilson on HBO. Sadly it just ended. The concept of a guy trying to give advice but ending up just exposing all his personal issues is brilliant.

Your favorite fictional character.

• Gordy: Billy Ray Valentine. A great rags-to-riches story.
• Brian: Louis Winthorpe III. Great riches-to-rags story.

Someone or something worth following in social media.

• Gordy: Chaparro Chuacheneger. I don’t fully understand what’s happening with most of it, but he makes me stop my thumbs every time. And his “We Will Rock You” is magical.
• Brian: Stewart Pidman, global chief thought leader at Quality Meats.

One of your favorite creative projects you’ve ever worked on. 

• Gordy: I’ll go with our inaugural Quality Meats project for The Wiener’s Circle, an infamous hole-in-the-wall hot dog stand that spews profanities at its drunk patrons. It was in the heart of the pandemic and they wanted to do something to stay relevant. So, we convinced them to launch “Facetime & Curbside Abuse” as a way to deliver a much-needed human experience in dark times. In a much different vein, the Samsung Olympics commercial we did featuring South Sudan’s first-ever Olympian was a pretty incredible experience.
• Brian: Hands down Playstation MLB 12 The Show, where we brought to life the Cubs winning the World Series. At the time, the Cubs were starting their rebuild that led to them finally winning the World Series in 2016 for the first time in 108 years, and apparently the team used footage of the ad to recruit some of the key players.

A recent project you’re proud of. 

• Gordy: The Huggies Alphabutt Book. It was a pretty intense feat putting together an entire children’s book in a few months. We had a diverse range of 26 illustrators portray a different baby butt shape for each letter A to Z. What started with a run of a couple thousand—with all proceeds going to their National Diaper Bank—turned into an actual publishing deal. So, it’s now available nationwide at bookstores and major retailers. It was pretty rewarding to create something that wasn’t just a piece of advertising, but a product people actually wanted that lives beyond the media buy.
• Brian: What he said, but also the “Baby Butts” song we made for the film that went along with the campaign. It’s just so intuitive that baby butts are what go inside of diapers, yet I don’t recall ever seeing any work in the category that talks about them that way. And I genuinely enjoy the song.

Someone else’s work that inspired you years ago. 

• Gordy: I was always a big fan of the Turbo Tax “Year of the You”  campaign from Wieden. It was really well-written, well-shot, human, smart, dumb, relatable and honest—all at the same time.

• Brian:  Monster’s “Stork” made me question my entire existence.

Someone else’s work you admired lately. 

• Gordy: I enjoyed Callen’s refresh campaign for Nickelodeon “We Make Fun.” I enjoy a kids-centric brand execution that speaks to the child in me. 
• Brian: I’m a sucker for (and highly jealous of) perfectly-crafted simple storytelling like iPhone’s “Detectives.”

Your main strength as a creative person.

• Gordy: Being “not smart.” We always start a project by looking at the product or category as laymen. So we can think of the smartest way to convince our own dumb brains to be like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. I want that.” It’s being able to find the perfect intersection of smart and dumb. 
• Brian: We care a lot about every piece of work and try to elevate them as much as humanly possible.

Your biggest weakness.

• Gordy: Being “not smart.”
• Brian: Caring a little too much.

What you’d be doing if you weren’t in advertising.

• Gordy: A pan flutist. No no no, I kid, I don’t have that talent. Feel like I might be decent on the client-side for some reason though.
• Brian: I’d like to say music or theater in some capacity. But realistically, probably performing at children’s birthdays and nursing homes.

Priced at $35 each, boxes are available at letshaveperiodsex.com for consumers 18 and older.

“Chocolate is culturally considered one of the most satisfying sweet treats and studies have shown it can even alleviate menstrual cramps, which happens to also be a perk of period sex,” a brand spokesperson tells Muse. “The partnership with Phasey was very synergistic with our concept. Phasey believes in saying the word ‘period’ loud and proud, and saying it like it is, just like U by Kotex.”

Hall of Fame catcher Iván Rodriguez makes a great frontman for SAXX underwear.

The work focuses on balls—the kind Rodriguez juggled on the diamond for 21 years in MLB, and the ones gently cradled by SAXX’s rayon fibers.

In the clip below, Iván rocks a jacket, shirt and tie above the waistline—plus snug-fitting branded boxers below.

SAXX and agency Quality Meats are well versed at crafting culturally attuned schtick. They blew up Walter White’s car in April, generating gobs of coverage.

Speaking of coverage, Pudge—that’s really his nickname—could use a bit more. If you catch my drift.

This one drops in time for the latter stages of the MLB Playoffs. As you’d expect, innuendo rolls around like a line drive hit to the warning track—or whichever baseball analogy you’d prefer.

No jokes about high hard ones, please!

SAXX designed its “ballpark pouch” to cradle men’s privates like a catcher’s mitt, lending this enterprise some authentic … bounce.

That history inspired the strategy—along with the fact that some dudes neglect their oh-so-sensitive equipment by wearing “inferior” underwear. Likewise, fans cheer for home runs and stolen bases, but don’t give a second thought about the actual baseballs.

This campaign seeks to merge those ideas, explains SAXX vice president of marketing Shawna Olsten. “It was a way to focus on balls, both on the field and in the pants,” she says.

Are you thinking this sounds a tad convoluted—like a (seventh-inning) stretch? You’re safe in that assumption. Still, Pudge and his commercial co-star, baseball analytics expert Eno Sarris, seem to get a kick from exposing their knees.

The work introduces a ludicrously elaborate “Ballgorithm” stat, which celebrates/skewers advanced sports metrics. Fans who correctly guess the Ballgorithm for each game of the upcoming World Series can win SAXX for life.

What’s more, the final tally (similar to a batting average) from each WS tilt will be multiplied by 1,000 to determine an amount donated to the Testicular Cancer Foundation.

As for Pudge’s participation, “He’s caught the most games out of any catcher ever,” notes Gordy Sang, creative chief at Quality Meats. “Also, he’s squatting a lot, so we imagine the comfort of his balls is very important.”

It’s kind of crucial for those of us who slump at our desks and type all day, too.

The campaign will run across digital and social, relying on organic reach, with no media buy.

CREDITS

Client: SAXX
Agency: Quality Meats
Chief Creative officers: Brian Siedband & Gordy Sang
Creative Directors: Jamie Stark & Maxx Delaney
Executive Producer: Autumn Childress
Producer: Cate McManus
Group Account Director: Celeste Toffanello
Account Supervisor: Meredith Metzl

Production Company: Invisible Collective
Executive Producer: Sam Kelly Jr.
Director: Brad Morris
DP: Marcello Peschiera
Post Production: PS 260
Editor: Ashley Ingbreston 

If such weird-ass stuff happened at my house, I’d run screaming to the local multiplex for sure. It’s probably safer there!

“Movie theaters are gathering places where viewers collectively experience important events in pop culture. You’re fully immersed in a story projected on a big screen the way it was intended,” says Regal creative director Rodney Griffin. “If you wait to watch at home, you’re missing out on being a part of that moment.”

“We wanted these to be funny enough to jar people into going to the movies, much like how the characters jar the people in the spots into agreeing to go,” Griffin says.

So … which spot spoofs Barbie?

“It was a lot of fun to bring these over-the-top movie trope characters to life,” Quality Meats co-CCO/co-founder Gordy Sang tells Muse. “Andy is a hilarious human being and a lot of fun to work with. He also had experience getting projectile vomited on by a possessed girl from Scary Movie 2.”

“The puke cannon somewhat malfunctioned on-set and caused that odd false-start puke that stopped and then started again,” Sang recalls. “It was not intended for the commercial, but it was too funny not to use.”

Agency co-founder Brian Sieband cameos in “BBQ,” acing the line, “Ow, my arm!”

The campaign hit (small) screens last week, running across connected TV and social media.

CREDITS

Agency: Quality Meats
Production Company: Story
Director: Andy Richter
DP: Andrew Wehde
Executive Producer: Cliff Grant
Special FX Makeup: Kosart Studios 
Editorial/VFX/Color: 11 Dollar Bill
Sound: Floodgates Audio

You just can’t wipe away the cuteness. Not even with a moist towelette.

There’s an ebook too, plus posters and a special font. Sales will benefit the National Diaper Bank Network serving needy families. 

Quality Meats, known for promoting brands that focus on the human posterior, developed the book, a follow-up to its recent “Baby Butt Bop” for Huggies.

“We wanted to create something that not only telegraphs the product benefit, but make an actual product that’s beneficial to mom and baby, and something that can live beyond a traditional media buy,” agency co-CCO Gordy Sang tells Muse. 

“Also, diapers hold butts, and not much of the diaper advertising has gone directly at butts,” he says. “And kids love hearing and saying the word ‘butt.'”

That’s about as on brand as it gets.

And here’s a TikTok tie-in, with influencer and mom of two, Abbie Herbert:

@abbieherbert #ad Do the #HuggiesBabyButts Bop for a chance to win (link in bio). @Huggies® ♬ Huggies Baby Butts Bop – Nett Windel

Frankly, we’re a tad skeptical about this approach. That’s not to say the ads aren’t funny. Indeed, it’s superior work in the Barton F. Graf tradition. It’s well done and right on point.

And yet … crypto feels so tarnished, so 2021 in the wake of the FTX fiasco, that, at least for now, it may be impossible to give those tokens a fresh shine.

FTX had greats commercials. It put Larry David on the Super Bowl, for pity’s sake. But the category feels too risky. As a “normal person,” I’m steering clear.

“Strategy-wise, our goal was to speak to the crypto-curious—not the typical tech-bro audience, but a wider, more inclusive pool that might be open to alternative financial options and give them the push they need to try it out,” Quality Meats co-founder/co-CCO Brian Siedband tells Muse. “We set out to prove that Olliv is the easiest, most accessible onramp to getting into crypto, by making crypto totally normal. So normal that anyone can see themselves using it.”

He adds: “As crypto became more ‘on the outs,’ we had more permission to push against the negative/off-putting perceptions of the category even harder. On a personal level, we basically acknowledged all the questions, fears and doubts we personally, as crypto laypeople ourselves.”

Gordy Sang, the agency’s s other CCO/founder, picks up the story:

“Most of the advertising out there for the category felt pushy and/or ‘too cool for school’ with fancy celebs and stuff, trying to almost create a sense of FOMO for the non-crypto users. With the climate of crypto changing, we knew it would be a challenge to sell a new/different crypto platform. So, it felt important to us and Olliv to acknowledge the negativity and concerns everyday people had.”

With that in mind, “Self-awareness and poking fun at the industry tropes felt like a way to disarm the consumer and have them open their minds,” he says. “We basically wanted to bring crypto down to earth, not with a lofty promise of ‘fortune favoring the brave’ or whatever. But with everyday use cases that can actually be helpful in everyday life.”

Can you buy a jetpack with crypto? Maybe I should reconsider my position. It’s not like the dollar’s so hot these days.

CREDITS

Client: Olliv
Chief Marketing Officer: Steve Gradman
VP of Marketing: Elle Wypasek
Creative Agency: Quality Meats
Co-CCO: Gordy Sang & Brian Siedband
Account Manager: David Kaplan
Agency Producer: Cate McManus
Production Company: HOBBY
Director: Beatrice Pegard
Executive Producer: John Gerard, Renee Krumweide
Director of Photography: Sebastian Winterø
Editor: Biff Butler
Post Producer: Chandler Raub
Production Design: Mary Minty
Wardrobe Stylist: Robin Osrin
Gaffer: Wiseman Dinizulu
VFX/Online Artist: Mark Youngren
Colourist: Mattieu Toullet
Sound Design & Mix: Joe Flood
Service Company: Juice Films
Line Producer: Jacqui Beek
Casting Director: Bénédicte Roumega
 

Huggies diapers have curves to better fit babies of all shapes and sizes. What better way to show some love than with a catchy tune?

There’s smushy, cushy, mushy and tushy butts for starters. Extra props for working mostaccioli into “Baby Butt Bop.” Quality Meats crafted the earworm and accompanying TV spots.

“We wanted to make a fun, quirky dance-styled song to highlight a variety of different shapes of butt, and associate each with some sort of active moment,” says Quality Meats co-CCO and co-founder Brian Siedband. “And in general be as specific as possible with interesting details and actions. Inspiration-wise, we liked the repetitive nature of 2010s hip hop but wanted to lean into a vibe that was less ‘cool’ and more fun and weird. Which morphed into a funky Euro-ish electronic kinda thing.”

Videos feature snippets of the song as babies play, run around and make messes.

“We knew were onto something with this track because we couldn’t get it out of our heads, and not in an annoying way but in a good way where we just wanted to keep listening to it and singing it ourselves,” Gordy Sang, also an agency co-CCO and co-founder, tells Muse. “And we noticed it had the same effect on everyone else we forced to listen to it, including our families. There’s something magical about it, maybe the way he says ‘butt?'”

In other baby related news this week, it’s time for little ones to get their sh*t together.

CREDITS

Agency: Quality Meats 
Co-Chief Creative Officer, Co-Founder: Brian Siedband
Co-Chief Creative Officer, Co-Founder: Gordy Sang
Creative Director: Jamie Stark
Creative Director: Dan Jordan
Head of Production: Kacey Hart
Executive Producer: Heather Black

Client: Kimberly-Clark, Huggies
Brand Manager: Jessica Barker
Senior Director: Ben Gladstone
Sr. Associate Brand Manager: Jacob Lehman
VP Infant Care North America: Robert Raines

Production Company: Caviar
Director: Keith Schofield
Executive Producer: Kim Dellara
Line Producer: Ed Callaghan
DP: Damian Acevedo

Animation:
Lyric Video Animator: @JoeyD76
Still Photography 
Photographer: Sasha Gulish
Edit House: Work Editorial
Editor: Niles Howard
Assistant Editor: Jacob Bottorff

Music & Sound Design: Future Perfect
Composer, Partner: John Connolly
Sound Design and Mix: Adam Carl
Producer: Blaire Brinster

Finish House: Jane Studios
Head of Production: Ben Sposato 
Visual Effects Director: Westley Sarokin

Color House: Royal Muster
Colorist: Gregory Reese
Sr. Producer: Christina de Guzman

AGENCY: Let’s buy Walter White’s iconic underpants from Breaking Bad. For $32,500. We’ll blow them up in the desert. Let’s blow up a car, too.

CLIENT: Great idea!

Nearly a decade after airing its last episode, Breaking Bad continues to enjoy a pop-culture revival in 2023. First, we savored Popcorners’ loving Super Bowl spoof with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul recreating their iconic roles of Walt and Jesse.

Today, an incendiary tribute emerges from underwear brand SAXX and agency Quality Meats. They acquired the mighty-whities in an auction, stuffed them with tannerite, headed out to the middle of nowhere … and had a blast:

A Pontiac Aztek (Walt’s model, but not actually from the show) also met its fiery fate at Adrenaline Mountain in the Nevada dessert. The video lampoons two famously explosive Breaking Bad plots. In the end, we learn that all proceeds from April sales of SAXX’s white briefs or boxers will benefit the Testicular Cancer Foundation.

OK, what exactly was the brief for this ballsy stunt?

“The goal was to make a statement for what SAXX stands for and believes,” Gordy Sang, co-chief creative officer at Quality Meats, tells Muse. “And they believe that no pair of underwear without a pouch that gently cradles your man-pieces [SAXX’s big selling point] should be near any man’s pieces. So, taking the most infamous pair of those gross [pouch-free] undies and eliminating them from the planet seemed like a nice way to make that statement.”

He continues: “SAXX came to us mentioning the [Walter White] underwear was on auction, and they were going to bid on them. Initially they wanted to do something small, only lob $5,000 at it. But the bidding went higher and higher, so they went for it. They weren’t entirely sure what they wanted to do with the underwear once they got them. They just knew they needed to be the owners. Within five minutes of finding out we said, ‘You need to blow them up.’ And they lit up. They knew that was the only answer.”

Clearly, nothing else would do.

“There was some fear of offending the Breaking Bad fans,” Sang recalls, “which is where the idea of saving some burnt scraps for a select number of people came to life. And that put SAXX at ease to blow them off the face of the planet.”

So, 25 purchasers will receive commemorative charred shreds from the infamous undies. (List them on eBay. Who knows, maybe some kooky brand will pay you $32K.)

Past fun stuff from the SAXX-Meats team includes this tutorial on “How a Gentleman Treats His Balls,” and a playful March Madness 2022 online “registry” for dudes with sore testicles.