It’s not often that a commercial director gets to helm a full-length music video for a global brand. So, Kat Webber was all in when she was offered the opportunity to make “Armour Up” for sportswear company Under Armour via ad agency Zambezi. 

“This was absolutely a dream job,” says the Fela-repped Webber, who worked with a majority female crew to create the soccer-oriented short released this month to coincide with the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

The clip finds two female rappers from opposite sides of the pond—Gavlyn from the U.S. and Nadia Rose from the U.K.—representing two of soccer’s top players: American Kelley O’Hara and Brit Alex Greenwood. Webber, the agency and the artists worked with Citizen Music to create the track.

Shot with cinematographer Laura Merians Gonçalves in New York (where O’Hara trains) and Manchester, U.K., (Greenwood’s turf), “Armour Up” opens on Gavlyn and Nadia Rose trading lyrics on a stark, minimalist soccer pitch illuminated by pulsating lights.

“I just thought, what a unique way to tie the musicians to the athletes—by putting them on this kind of abstract, glowing soccer pitch,” Webber says of the set, which was built in a Manchester warehouse.

Subsequent scenes featuring O’Hara and Greenwood build on the battle metaphor as the athletes embody the elements that suit them best. O’Hara is fire, running through streets lined with flaming barrels and sweating in a sauna. Greenwood is ice, braving cold plunges and chilling in a cryotherapy chamber.

The fast-moving video briefly slows for a montage that starts with O’Hara sitting high in a tree near the Cherry Street Underpass in New York City, listening to music through headphones. Webber created the scene after discovering that O’Hara climbed trees growing up in Georgia and cranks music to get psyched up before games. 

In addition to being a fun callback to O’Hara’s youth, it’s a visually arresting moment “that takes us out of this adrenaline-fueled edit,” says Webber, who cut the project herself.

She began her career as an editor, though Webber doesn’t handle those chores for every ad she directs. “However, for this piece, because I knew I had my creative executive Karena Evans—one of my longest and closest collaborators—on board, I knew that I wouldn’t get so locked in my own vision of the world,” she says, describing Evans as “that amazing second set of eyes that I respect and am just so honored to have.”

While “Armour Up” amplifies the competition between two soccer stars, it also promotes a unifying message. “Ultimately, they have a shared legacy of wanting to empower the next generation,” Webber says.

Which is why the video also spotlights younger athletes. “Women are told we have to play nice. So, I really wanted to cast kids that right out of the gate are just as aggressive and charging as hard as they can and have that passion for the sport,” Webber says.

One of these standouts is 7-year-old soccer phenom Eleni, the kid in the purple sweatshirt who handles the ball like a champ.

“When I saw her casting tape, her amazing skill and talent and the passion that she had for the sport just came through. I knew I had to give her a single moment and really celebrate that and be like, this is something that these athletes have been doing since they were this age,” Webber says. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to see Eleni on the world stage one day.”

CREDITS

Creative Agency: Zambezi
Chief Creative Officer: Gavin Lester
Creative Director: Matt Sherman
Associate Creative Directors: Andy Holderman, Jamie Kiersted
Senior Copywriter: Alexa Thomas
Senior Art Director: Alayna Zidek
Head of Production: Kara Pierce
Producer: Alex DeSantis

Production Company: Fela
Director: Kat Webber
Creative Executive: Karena Evans
Cinematographer: Laura Merians Gonçalves
Executive Producers: Taj Critchlow and Fuliane Petikyan
Head of Production: Amir Karimi
Producer: Mikayla Fasullo
Production Designers: Susan Linss, Syd Harmony
Movement Coach & Choreographers: Tanisha Scott, Mira Jebari
Operations Manager: Olivia Swayze

UK Production Company: Luti Media
Executive Producer: Luti Fagbenle
Freelance Producers: James Cross, Lewis Nicolson

Music and Sound: Citizen Music

VFX: Cameo FX
Founder/CEO: Sergii Mashevskyi

Color: Royal Muster
Senior Colorist: Roslyn Di Sisto

Edit: Sunset Edit
 

I had a blast catching up with associate director of social strategy at Zambezi, Jasmine Green.

Jasmine has been one to watch for a while in these cultural streets, and was featured in Marie Claire and 30 Under 30 in Kansas City. In this episode of #BlackTea, she speaks on the importance of pitching yourself instead of waiting for opportunity to find you.

She shares her experience so far in the advertising industry and how she has navigated being the “only” or “other” in the room. Her call to action: let’s stop expecting Black employees to teach everyone how to see them as human.

In her rapid career rise so far, she’s already made a tangible difference for her clients, but she’s also got a blog and a clothing line, and has revolutionized networking via brunch for hundreds of women. Enjoy meeting Jasmine.

See more episodes of Black Tea at https://musebycl.io/blacktea.

During the Heroes recording sessions, David Bowie and Iggy Pop spent their downtime hitting up the art museums of Berlin. While checking out the works of German artist Erich Heckel, they began amusing themselves by mimicking the paintings’ unnatural hand poses. Both Bowie and Iggy would recreate those postures on their next album covers (Iggy’s was The Idiot). So there you go, that’s the backstory. It’s cool I guess. But really, who gives a shit? All that matters is that when you see Bowie in that pose you think of that song. THE song. A song that is, for my money, one of the greatest ever recorded. Bowie’s gone, and I miss him as much as you, but Heroes is immortal. 

Herbie Mann
Push Push (1971)

Oh look, it’s the horniest jazz flute record of all time. Though I’d argue there’s no such thing as an un-horny jazz flute album. The genre is rife with lusty LPs like Perm Chutney’s Flutin & Fornicatin or Tottingham Station’s Blowin’ On Them Holes, two albums I completely made up, but you thought were real until just now. Somehow Push Push manages to cram 12 pounds of ’70s macho grossness into a 10 pound flute case. Chest hair glistening with equal parts Brüt and cocaine? Check. Flute hoisted like an axe that only chops down… inhibitions? Check. Legend has it if you put your ear up to Herbie’s belly button, you don’t just hear the ocean, but a sexy-ass orca deep in its depths, whale-singing the Kama Sutra to another sexy-ass orca, who is very into it.

The National
High Violet (2010)

Goddamn I love people who try, and nobody tries like The National. Sure, they’re incredibly white and the saddest, most exhausted of dads, but only these guys can make miserable middle-aged tiredness sound so exhilarating. Their previous album, Boxer, was a minor masterpiece, and its lead single, “Mistaken For Strangers,” is a stone-cold classic. But High Violet is where it all came together. I got so into the record when it came out I completely ignored the cover; it just looked like a bunch of gibberish scribbled on a wall. It wasn’t until I picked it up on vinyl that I paid the cover any mind. It’s a photograph of artist Mark Fox’s sculpture “Untitled (Binding Force).” And those scribbles are actually a Catholic doctrine from the Vatican, chopped up and reassembled. The piece takes a mythic, incredibly grim dogma and explodes it, rendering the blown up bits in bright pastel. Just like a great National song, something heavy and sad has been pulled apart and presented to you in a new way. You can find something beautiful and exciting in it now. All you have to do is try. 

Various
The Miami Bass Wars (1988)

The following correspondence is reprinted with permission from the National Bass War archives, Washington, D.C.

November 7, 1994
Coconut Grove, Florida

My Dearest Abigail, 

I hope this letter finds you well. I hate to disappoint you my love, but I fear that our campaign to end this Miami Bass War by Christmas has been, indeed, a failure. Just yesterday our regiment took heavy losses while trying to secure a critical causeway between the Taco Bell parking lot and that patch of grass behind the Long John Silvers where the goths go to be sad. T’was a brief skirmish but the carnage was vast; the battlefield littered with blown out woofers, scorched tweeters and smoldering bass cannons. I escaped relatively unscathed, though I have suffered severe hearing damage and totally ripped my JNCOs. I dare not speak it, but if I don’t make it home, I will understand if—after an appropriate period of mourning—you move on and go to prom with someone else. Just please not Tommy Inunziatta. That guy’s a poser. 

With all the love and adoration my heart can contain,
Randy O’Hanlon III

Author’s note: Oh yeah, the album cover. It’s trash but it triggers one of my happiest memories: riding to school in the bass-rattled backseat of my best friend’s older brother’s ’88 Ford Tempo. 

Yoko Ono
Season of Glass (1981)

I doubt there’s ever been more emotional wreckage packed into a single image than the one that graces Season of Glass, the record Yoko Ono released just six months after John Lennon’s murder. It’s a chillingly placid image; John’s bloodstained glasses sitting next to half full (empty?) glass of water, Central Park just beyond the window of the bedroom they used to share. It’s Yoko grieving in real time, and reminding the world that not only is Lennon gone forever, but there’s a real person left behind to pick up the pieces in ways more intense and more ordinary than anyone could fathom. 

Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks in… The Life of Chris Gaines (1999)

By the time it arrived on Garth Brooks’ chin for his The Life of Chris Gaines album cover, that soul patch had seen some shit. In 1999, an incident at an Arkansas Cracker Barrel involving a faulty spoon and some piping-hot chili left Brooks unable to grow facial hair below the lip. But later that year, when Garth unexpectedly adopted the persona of emo sadboi Chris Gaines, he knew his look wasn’t complete until he had a gross triangle of whiskers on his Mentolabial Fold*. Luckily, one magical tuft of stubble had been floating from from celebrity to celebrity since the early ’80s. It started when Jackson Browne first summoned it from the dark lord Hirsutismus after his “World in Motion” album failed to go platinum. Since then, every six months, during a full moon, the soul patch bestows the gift of delusional hipness to a different boomer celebrity suffering an identity crisis. Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Ray Cyrus, Kevin Costner—they’ve all taken a trip on this magic mini mouthcarpet ride. And it’s still a friend to those in low places to this very day. In fact, some say that at this very moment it’s somewhere over New Orleans, where it will soon be the fifth-weirdest thing about Nicolas Cage.

*Source: WebMD

The Pharcyde
Bizarreride Ride II The Pharcyde (1992)

I don’t like Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle album cover. The record is a classic but the artwork is aggressively shitty. On the other end of the spectrum is Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde. Unlike Snoop’s outsized bravado and debauchery, The Pharcyde’s debut is an exercise in vulnerability. It’s like listening to four razor-sharp class clowns pine over girls, get rejected constantly, and explore—with hilarious honesty—what it’s like to be held hostage by your own urges and shortcomings. The cover illustrates the record’s theme just as brilliantly as the music; that navigating the social minefield of figuring out who you are in your twenties is a thrilling, nauseating rollercoaster ride into completely uncharted territory.

Dolly Parton
My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy (1969)

By the looks of it, someone’s about to become a Blue Ridge Mountain Man.

Jane’s Addiction
Nothing’s Shocking (1988)

Jane’s frontman Perry Farrell belongs on the Mount Rushmore of ’90s cultural architects alongside Tupac, Kurt Cobain and Madonna (you could make an argument for Tarantino, but by the time you finished his forehead there wouldn’t be enough granite left for anyone else). Not only did Farrell invent Lollapalooza, his breakthrough album Nothing’s Shocking essentially created alternative music. Apparently the cover image came to Farrell in a dream, which seems about right. It perfectly evokes the heavy, dark, transgressive music Jane’s was firing into the zeitgeist in that weird cultural rut between the death rattle of hair metal and the rise of grunge. It’s worth noting that the model for those flame-headed conjoined twins was Casey Niccoli, Farrell’s muse and creative partner. She doesn’t get nearly enough credit for her role in the band’s artistic output and overall influence on the cultural trajectory of the decade. 

Criminal Elament
Hit ‘Em Where It Hurt (1995)

I’ve been to the end of the internet yet I cannot find the artist responsible for Criminal Elament’s Hit ‘Em Where It Hurt album cover. That’s likely because it’s not man-made, but was actually snapped by a red light camera at the intersection of Holy and Shit. You could show the most advanced A..I art generator 10,000 straight hours of Steven Seagal movies and inject peyote straight into its algorithm—it still couldn’t create an image as gloriously unhinged as this. “Is that a rabid dog riding a freight train?” No Grandma, that rabid dog IS a freight train. This is the problem with overbreeding. Chihuahuadoodles and Corgipoos are one thing, but crossing a Bulldog with an Amtrak? That’s hubris bro. And what do you feed it? Coal? Because honestly we’re too dependent on that shit as it is. Labradocomotive aside, the rest of the cover is an orgy of red flags. The train track seems to originate IN THE OCEAN, upon which a racehorse and an unmanned lowrider are speeding away from each other. Why? Did a jockey and a car enthusiast decide to settle a beef with a good old fashioned Sea Joust and the driver lost? Towering over it all is the Criminal Elament crew; a quartet of white T’d sirens singing you to shipwreck your feeble mind on the rocks of their jagged genius. Perfect. No notes. 

If you live in the western world, by now you’ve likely heard of the absurdist horror-comedy film, Cocaine Bear.

If you haven’t, let me catch you up: it’s based on the true story of a black bear that ingested 30 kilos of pure cocaine in the ​​Chattahoochee National Forest in the summer of 1985. Elizabeth Banks’ movie imagines the bear—high out of its gourd—on a joyous rampage, terrorizing a rogues’ gallery of shady drug dealers, horny park rangers and bungling cops.

Paying attention yet? If you’re in the business of brand marketing, you should be. Because Cocaine Bear already made its production budget back during opening weekend. It’s on its way to being one of the most profitable films in Hollywood. A nouveau cult classic. And a likely franchise, if the buzz is real.

The movie’s breakout performance is even more impressive when you consider its title means Cocaine Bear is banned from advertising on most mainstream platforms. Relying instead on omfg-can-you-believe this?! word of mouth and the age-old Saatchi marketing philosophy: brutal simplicity. 

Here are five things agency creatives and brand marketers can learn from the runaway success of 2023’s craziest movie:

Keep it simple.

Cocaine Bear. A two-word movie title so telegraphic it doesn’t even need a tagline. The Saatchi brothers would approve. In a world where no one cares about your ad campaign until you earn their attention, how can your messaging be reduced, reduced, reduced? Be ruthless. Because your audience is. The best example may be “Just Do It,” but there are plenty of other examples where it’s “be brief, be brilliant, be gone.”

Know thyself.

Gen Z consumers don’t hate advertising, they just hate being treated like a click. They’ll play along as long as they’re in on it, so let them in. This movie is fully itself—from the key art to the closing credits. Brands need to be themselves too, fully. If you’re Crocs, be ugly and comfy. If you’re Listerine, be the taste you hate twice a day. If you’re Diesel, be dumb and sexy.

Strong flavor.

When it comes to reaching younger consumers, “They love things with strong flavor. That’s the word I hear a lot in my marketing meetings,” Banks says. Within the confines of their own authenticity, brands should strive to be big, vivid and strong on the palette. Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Liquid Death and RuPaul’s Drag Race would be brand neighbors with Cocaine Bear. 

Go big with nostalgia.

One of the funnest (not a word, we know) elements of Cocaine Bear is the faithful nods to peak ’80s. From Depeche Mode to Air Jordan 1s to a glorious baby blue Members Only jacket. Funny thing about nostalgia: it’s disarming, even for audiences born after the era. Look no further than Stranger Things and Ready Player One. How can your brand play into its own version of throwback sentimentality?

Humanity wins.

Yes the film is hyper-violent, but our hearts are in good hands. Keri Russell plays a fearless nurse out to find two lost children (all of them blessed with plot armor). We quickly learn that only the detestable characters are torn limb from limb—whereas Russell and the child actors form the heartbeat of the movie. What about your brand marketing connects on a human level? Even in the surreal context of Zilllow’s monsters or John Lewis’ alien love story, we see strong examples of how to make the audience care in a real way.

Future scholars will no doubt study the virality of Cocaine Bear. But you don’t need to wait. Line up some learnings from this breakout hit, inhale deeply, show your claws and take your brand work higher. 

And in the meantime, feel free to join the internet in speculating whether a record drug bust in New Zealand waters will fuel a sequel. Cocaine Shark anyone?

Gavin Lester is a seasoned creative with over 20 years of advertising experience that spanned two continents before landing at Zambezi as partner and chief creative officer in 2017. While there he has overseen work on brands like Beats by Dre, UKG, Traeger, TaylorMade, and just recently Under Armour.

Lester previously worked at agencies including 180, BBH London, Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Deutsch L.A. Throughout his career he’s led attention-grabbing campaigns such as Google’s “Year in Search” 2016, Levi Odyssey, and Beats by Dre Powerbeats Pro. His work spans an array of categories for clients like KFC, Audi, Google TV, Sony, Netflix, Nintendo, Sprint and Comcast.

In addition to his career in advertising, Lester is a fine artist. His art intends to celebrate and explain individuality in a trending world, and encourages others to find creativity in unexpected places.

We spent two minutes with Gavin to learn more about his background, his creative inspirations, and recent work he’s admired.

Gavin, tell us…

Where you grew up, and where you live now.

I grew up in North London, which is pronounced Norf London. Two great drummers grew up a mile from where I lived, Keith Moon from the Who, and the Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts, which inspired me to learn the French horn. I now live in Los Angeles via New York and San Francisco. I thought L.A. was always exotic. Turns out it’s Croydon with palm trees. (Croydon is a town in South London.)

How you first realized you were creative.

It was less something I discovered and more something that my parents discovered for me. I guess they were in fear of me wanting to become an accountant or lawyer, and thought a respectful creative career would uphold the family name and tradition. My mother is a painter, my late father was an actor, and my brother Elliott Lester is a feature director.

A person you idolized creatively early on.

Matt Johnson from the band The The. As a rebellious teenager I was hungry to find a voice to put all of these strong feelings that were surrounding me related to life, society, government and love. Lyrics like “I’m just a symptom of the moral decay that’s gnawing at the heart of the country” and “This is the 51st state of the USA” organized and amplified my state of mind and became a lighthouse for me even to this day.

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

Sitting in the ceramic studio at my high school and pushing my hands into a large freshly pugged pile of clay. Being able to augment something that was three dimensional and turn it into something physical sealed my love for sculpture.

A visual artist or band/musician you admire.

I love the work of Robert Gober. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors and legs, and has themes of nature, sexuality, religion and politics. The sculptures are meticulously handcrafted, even when they appear to just be a recreation of a common sink. While he is best known for his sculptures, he has also made photographs, prints, drawings and has curated exhibitions.

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

The Radiolabs episode on quicksand. Anyone who grew up in the ’80s knows it was something to be wary of. 

Your favorite fictional character.

Voltaire’s Candide. “All is for the best, in the best of all possible words.”

Someone or something worth following on social media.

@chefreactions. His sarcastic, salty reviews of dishes being prepared are a must.

How COVID-19 changed your life, personally or professionally.

My dog Agnes and I sat alone in a 22,000-square-foot office every day for the entire two-plus years of Covid-19. It felt like I was on board a spaceship with a mission to the far side of our universe. Unfortunately, we were pulled out of our suspended animation due to a master computer malfunction that led us to walk the halls and eat nothing but Chex Mix. I have never had this much time to reflect and be productive since my art school days. 

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

Beats Powerbeats Pro. This is nothing more than a product demonstration, but the technique we used was so simple and fresh. Locking on the earphone and keeping it centered was complex, but the results seemed effortless. Thanks, Hiro Murai.

A recent project you’re proud of.

Making work that doesn’t feel like advertising for your home football team (L.A. Rams) that went on to win the Super Bowl, doesn’t suck.

Someone else’s work that inspired you years ago.

The work of creative team Walter Campbell and Tom Carty. Creatives from Abbott Mead Vickers. They created Guinness’ “Surfer” and “Swimblack” and Volvo’s “Tornado.” They’re big, epic, visual storytellers with a huge love of the craft. 

Someone else’s work you admired lately.

Intermarché, a French supermarket, had a genius concept to name their freshly squeezed orange.

Your main strength as a creative person.

My strength is the ability to have empathy. Not just with people, but with subject matter, time and place and even materials when making art.

Your biggest weakness.

Making expensive art works. Render for my next project below.

One thing that always makes you happy.

Independent thinking. May it be from my children, members of staff, or a stranger.

One thing that always makes you sad.

Watching Pixar movies on flights.

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

A full-time artist.

If the spot seems painstakingly assembled, it was. Sonnenfeld tells Muse that in all his projects, and particularly in ads, he likes to pre-plan everything down to the smallest details—and hates surprises on set.

“Probably because I’m an only child, I’m a control freak,” he says. “The worst place to ever make a decision is on the set. Between time and crew cost and all that, the more you can pre-plan everything, the better off you are.” 

Sonnenfeld worked with the production designer Michael Wylie on the UKG spot. The pair also worked on the Emmy-winning TV series Pushing Daisies together, which also had a storybook quality to it. The UKG ad brings back themes from Pushing Daisies, like the opening scene, where the wallpaper and the bedspread have the same pattern.

“There’s a scene in the pilot of Pushing Daisies, where Kristen Chenoweth—her wallpaper, her bedspread, and her bathroom are all exactly the same,” Sonnenfeld says. “And now, because of computers, just like with visual effects, Michael was able to take an image of wallpaper—it goes into a computer and the computer then can print that image on anything. Wallpaper, bathrobe, silk, the bedspread. So that’s what we did in this spot, too. I’m really glad you noticed that because it’s kind of a subtle thing we’re doing. But the more you pre-plan everything, the more you dig into details so that no one on the day of shoot goes, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if her bedspread match the wallpaper?’ ‘Yes, it would be great. And we’ve already planned for that.’ The more we can figure out ahead of time, the happier the shoot goes.”

There are other Pushing Daisies echoes in here, too. Jim Dooley composed the music. And the kitchen scene is reminiscent of Lee Pace’s character, Ned, a pie-maker.

“I love to move the camera,” Sonnenfeld says. “Some directors use the camera to record something. I use it as another character in the show. So as you can see, there’s a lot of camera movement. For that kitchen stuff, we really took advantage of moving the camera across all those very colorful tarts and all that. We used a techno crane for the kitchen scene. The idea was to visually tell a story from a child’s fantasy storybook point of view. It was two very easy days with very easy clients, both client and agency. It was fun and collaborative.”

The shot between :05 and :10, where the camera moves through the crane to reveal the crane operator, was also complicated, Sonnenfeld recalls.

“That shot seems fairly straightforward, but there’s a lot going on there,” he says. “Because I had all this time in preproduction to previs that shot, again, there were no surprises. We didn’t have to cut out of that shot for something else because the clients then realized we’re not seeing enough people or whatever. So for me, it’s all about preproduction. And it’s all about—in this case—how you tell a story that’s fantastical in terms of color, production design, color saturation. Also, UKG has a certain color palette. So we try to use as much green as we could, which is my favorite color anyway. Flesh tone looks great against green.”

Sonnenfeld says the final scene, in the clothing store, was the most challenging.

“We had to tell a lot of stories there, which is the woman’s clothing magically changing,” he says. “That segment had the most coverage. Everything else very much felt like a continuous single move, from the crane operator to the kitchen chef, all that. And by the way, we also designed a way-oversized chef’s hat on purpose because, again, that’s what a child would imagine a chef should be like. But again, because we had it all previs, there were very few decisions made on the set and that made it very smooth. I think the first day we may have wrapped at 3, and the second day we wrapped right after lunch. If we were having those discussions on the set, we’d still be there.”

Barry has done quite a few commercials through the years—including this hilarous one for Reebok with talking tennis balls, also a Clio winner—and finds them to be delightful little films to produce.

“I live in British Columbia. And I always joke that we always can tell when there’s a local Canadian commercial because, no offense, but they usually don’t look right. They tend to be overblown, over-lit like a bad ’70s comedy,” he says. “So I do love commercials because they are about visual storytelling or they’re about comedy. Both things I love. What’s really hard is visual storytelling and comedy. One of the things I’m really proud of is that a lot of what I’ve done in my career is both comedy and visual at the same time. I remember Judd Apatow seeing RV and asking me how I was able to make these visual comedies. And the truth is, one of the things I do that a lot of people don’t do in comedies is I shoot with single cameras. A lot of comedies are about improv and playing around on the set. I hate that. As we discussed, I don’t like ad libs. I always say, ‘Yeah, that’s great, but let’s do it coupled with the way it’s written.’ Because you work really hard on scripts to get them right. And then, you don’t really want to screw it up by making rash decisions on the set. I know I keep talking about this, but the more I can have everything predesigned in preproduction, the better off I am.”

In addition to its debut during the season opener of the World Series on Friday, the UKG spot will air on broadcast, social, digital video, and connected TV through 2023. The campaign will also feature digital, print, outdoor, audio and more, with a global reach in key international markets.

CREDITS

Client: UKG
Advertising Agency: Zambezi
CEO: Jean Freeman 
Founder: Chris Raih
President: Laura Stayt
Chief Creative Officer: Gavin Lester
Group Creative Director: Matt Sherman
Associate Creative Director: Laura Lapham 
Associate Creative Director: Julie Soluri 
Director of Integrated Production: Kara Pierce
Senior Producer: Faye Armstrong
Digital Producer: Matt Valdepena
Group Account Director: Alyssa Tigue
Account Supervisor: Rachel Lynn
Account Executive: Allie Messenger
Group Strategy Director: Matt Babazadeh
Director of Integrated Strategy: Natalie Gomez
Strategist: Cat Marsh 
Senior Project Manager: Allie Michie

Production: 
Pony Show Entertainment
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld 
Managing Partner/EP: Susan Kirson 
Partner/EP: Jeffrey Frankel
Head of Production: Gareth Wood
Line Producer: Fern Martin
Associate Producer: Taylor Steadman
Production Designer: Michael Wylie
Director of Photography: Trent Opaloch

The Capital Media Company Inc./Production Services Vancouver
Executive Producer/Managing Partner: Christian Allen
Head of Production/Partner: Keely Stothers
Executive Producer: Krista Thompson

Post Production: 

Editorial: Cut & Run
Executive Producer: Amburr Farls
Producer: Ellie Ware
Editor: Jay Nelson
Assistant Editor: Kelsey Harmon

Colorist: Mark Gethin / Traffik
Mixer: Rohan Young/ Lime Studios

Post EFX: UPP

VFX Supervisor: Mario Dubec
Producer: Tereza Trnkova
Producer: Vaclav Machuta

Music
Composer: James Dooley

The label 4AD had some of the greatest indie bands and equally great album art of its time. All 14 tracks on the Pixies second studio album, Doolittle, released in 1989, threw large machinery that you shouldn’t operate under the influence of certain prescription medication at my ears while the sleeve art stained my eyes till I cried blood with jealousy. The designer was the late Vaughn Oliver, who is probably sitting happily next to this monkey in heaven.

Isaac Hayes
Black Moses (1971)

Not so much a great album sleeve but a gatefold of Biblical proportions. 

Frank Zappa
Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch (1982)

I have so many words that I would love to use to explain the genius and simplicity of this sleeve art. But I won’t.

Sonic Youth
Goo (1990)

Possibly one of my all-time favorite Californian artists, Raymond Pettibon, created this album sleeve for the mighty Sonic Youth’s album Goo. His lefthanded, counterculture art style gives the bird to the hand-on-hip art establishment.

Tyler, the Creator
Wolf (2013)

A hip-hop album seems the last place you would expect to see the artist Mark Ryden’s gothic style. However, Tyler, the Creator’s give-a-shit attitude to music category norms makes this so right wrong.

The Cramps
Off the Bone (1983)

Did you know the late Lux Interior, lead singer of the Cramps, was paid thousands of dollars to puke on stage? Thankfully, none of it hit this album sleeve. Off the Bone was from another dimension, so why not make the cover 3-D? I still have my copy and the glasses that came with it.

Beck
Odelay (1996)

Come on, who doesn’t love a dreadlocked dog jumping over a hurdle in a field? 
Please note, this is not a reggae album.

The The
Soul Mining (1983)

Andy Dog, the brother of The The’s Matt Johnson, created a lot of the album art for this band. Andy Dog really epitomizes ’80s style and its appropriation of the Memphis movement. The joint-smoking lady is instructional on how best to listen to this album. 

Björk
Homogenic (1997)

Björk approached the fashion designer Alexander McQueen to create this outfit for the Homogenic sleeve cover. I didn’t think there was a room large enough to house these two creative geniuses. And WOW, how they squeezed all of their creativity together on a 12-inch-square album sleeve is beyond me.

Grace Jones
Nightclubbing (1981)

Not only does Grace Jones look like a badass on this album sleeve, but I want to pay my respect to geometry and all the tools that it birthed. Rulers, you rule!

Some golfers feel driven to improve their skills. Others are “Beyond Driven,” spending extra time on the links and odd hours at home perfecting their form through practice, practice, practice.

TaylorMade puts such zeal on display in fresh ads from Zambezi and Bullitt director Anderson Wright.

As you’d expect, Tour stars Dustin Johnson, Marisa Fassi, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, among others, put in some special effort to hone their games, as we learn in the spot below:

That’s not a golf ball, Dustin! Ah well, keep chipping away, you’ll get the hang of it.

“We all have little anecdotes about doing things that may seem strange to non-golfers. If you’re a golfer, you totally get it,” Zambezi associate creative director Cody Witt tells Muse. “We wanted to make a spot that was human and approachable, that would strike a chord with golfers of every level. We wanted golfers to see the spot and relate to some of the scenes from their own personal experiences with the sport.”

This next commercial spotlights TaylorMade’s SIM2 clubs. It shows a dude ironing out kinks and slicing up tired clichés in the process:

Hey, windbreaker guy: If you wanna gab all day, hit the broadcast booth!

During that particular shoot, owing to Covid protocols, “no one could touch the grips of any of the clubs but the actors who were using them, and we had gloved PAs handling the golf balls,” says Zambezi creative director Jeff Siegel. “It was all very strange, but it worked. Probably because if you have to conduct a socially distanced production, you’d be hard pressed to find a better location than a golf course.”

As for viewers’ big take-away, “they should think this is a brand that truly understands them, that supports them—a brand that cares about their improvement as much as they do,” says Witt. “Also, it’s a nice reminder to golf fans that we have the best Tour roster in the sport.”

The work makes an interesting contrast with Callaway’s over-the-top Big Bertha ads from last fall, which featured a support group for slicers led by cut-up Kevin Nealon.

Appearing in “A Different Kind of Drive”
Dustin Johnson
Maria Fassi
Rory McIlroy
Tommy Fleetwood
Matt Wolff
Colin Morikawa
Tiger Woods

CREDITS

Client: TaylorMade
Agency: Zambezi
CEO: Jean Freeman 
Chief Creative Officer: Gavin Lester
Creative Director: Jeff Siegel
Associate Creative Director: Cody Witt
Associate Creative Director: Jamie Kiersted
Head of Content: Alex Cohn
Director of Integrated Production: Andrew Gage
Senior Producer: Sabrina Hoverkamp
Producer: Michael Harding
Group Account Director: Gordon Gray
Account Director: Matthew Wells
Account Supervisor: Carly Ayres
Senior Project Manager: Lauren Northcott
Chief Strategy Officer: Jill Burgeson 
Strategy Director: Eric Tepe
Brand Strategist: Allison Newell

Production Creds:
Production: Bullitt
Director: Anderson Wright
Director of Photography: Matthew Ballard
Executive Producer: Jennifer Sprunger
Line Producer: Alejandro De Leon

Post Production: FIN Studios    
Editor: Ian Gibson
Associate Editor: Adam Bonsib
Assistant Editor: Kayleb Lee
Colorist: Ian Gibson
Mixer: Kevin Feller
VFX Artist: Tom Hall 
Executive Producer Post Production: Katrina Nahikian
Post Producer: Camille Orgel
Music: Mophonics Music
Creative Director: Stephan Altman
Composer: Casey Gibson
Head of Production: Shelley Altman
Executive Producer :  Colette Huemer

“Expect More Better” Credits 
Client: TaylorMade
Agency: Zambezi
CEO: Jean Freeman 
Chief Creative Officer: Gavin Lester
Creative Director: Jeff Siegel
Senior Copywriter: David Satterfield
Senior Art Director: Tracey Chan
Design Director: Norman Brown
Designer: Shelby Norman
Head of Content: Alex Cohn
Director of Integrated Production: Andrew Gage
Senior Producer: Sabrina Hoverkamp
Producer: Michael Harding
Digital Producer: Matt Valdepena
Group Account Director: Gordon Gray
Account Director: Matthew Wells
Account Supervisor: Carly Ayres
Senior Project Manager: Lauren Northcott
Chief Strategy Officer: Jill Burgeson 
Strategy Director: Eric Tepe
Brand Strategist: Allison Newell

Production Creds:
Production: Alpen Pictures
Director: Brendan Malloy
Director of Photography: Sean Stiegemeier
Executive Producer: Christian Heuer
Line Producer: Sally Hanson
 
Post Production: FIN Studios    
Sr Editor: Ling Ly
Assistant Editor: Kayleb Lee
Colorist: Brandon Chavez
Mixer: Kevin Feller
Post Production: Brian Grigsby
VFX Artist: Tom Hall 
Executive Producer Post Production: Katrina Nahikian
Music: Asche & Spencer
Creative Director: Thad Spencer
Composer: Richard Werbowenko
Head of Production: Matt Locher

“Diversity has always been a point of emphasis at Zambezi, but we realize that is not enough,” Raih says. “While creating messaging to support racial and social change is important, it’s incumbent on agencies to do more—and that starts with taking a hard look at our own makeup, hiring and recruitment practices, and truly solving diversity shortcomings and challenges.”

At present, Zambezi’s staff is 7 percent Black, slightly below the industry average of 8.1 percent, “a clear signal that we need to do better,” Raih says. He pledges “to do a better job in recruiting Black talent in particular, as well as building a more diverse set of agency partners and vendors. We hope that our transparency and actions will inspire other agencies to do the same.” (The company’s diversity initiative, Open Waters, strives to provide educational opportunities and conversations around issues of inclusion and representation.)

“This is a critical moment in our history,” says Raih. “As leaders in advertising, we are in a unique position to influence culture and move the conversation forward. I think we’re already starting to see positive change happen, and I’m hopeful this will continue within our industry and society at large.”

Creative collective Three’s a Crowd recently challenged agencies to boost Black leadership to 13 percent in three years, a figure matching Black representation in America as a whole. By some estimates, Black professionals currently occupy less than 2 percent of senior roles in the ad business.