Walmart goes car-crazy, Disneyland’s cute as duck; trolling gun nuts

Walmart goes car-crazy for Grocery Pickup campaign

Yes, we’re only days into 2019, but Walmart has introduced an early candidate for most fun/nostalgic ad of the year with “Grocery Pickup—Famous Cars.” Promoting its Grocery Pickup service, the ad’s 90-second version features 12 iconic cars from movies and TV—including the Batmobile (Chris Nolan version), Knight Rider’s KITT, Scooby Doo’s “Mystery Machine” and the DeLorean from Back to the Future. There is also a 30-second version, plus a 15-second version featuring the Batmobile. Developed by Publicis Group’s Department W, the campaign shows the cars headed to Walmart so their drivers can pick-up their grocery order, all soundtracked by Gary Numan’s iconic 1979 synth-rock hit “Cars.” There are also The national campaign, the first for the Grocery Pickup service, debuted during Sunday’s Golden Globes telecast. According to Walmart U.S. CMO Barbara Messing, the company worked with Hollywood studios to gain access to the cars, which are replicas of their big (and small) screen counterparts. The ad is already a huge hit, with more than 17 million views on Walmart’s official YouTube channel.

This is what it looks like, when baby ducks smile
BETC Paris took the Disney recipe for animated film success and cut it down into an almost impossibly cute 75-second ad for Disneyland Paris. The story of a baby duckling who hero worships Donald Duck contains hope, heartache, drama and, finally, unbridled joy, as the fuzzy little guy meets his hero and a smile spreads across his adorable little face. BETC worked with Unit Images to create the spot, and the cover of “The Impossible Dream” (made famous by another dreamer, Don Quixote, in Man of La Mancha) is by the singer Sean Christopher.

TBWA trolls 3D printed gun makers

Here’s a great example of a creative agency tackling a serious real world problem: 3D printed guns. TBWA/Paris worked with French 3D printer manufacturer Dagoma to feed flawed blueprints onto the web, spoiling the hopes of people seeking to obtain a mostly undetectable lethal weapon without a background check. Dagoma and TBWA say the fake blueprints have been downloaded 13,000 times. Will it stop gun enthusiasts from finding a way to make their own weapons? Probably not. But Dagoma is also developing a 3D gun files detector on its software so that guns can’t be made on its printers.

David Brown