Ad of the Day: This US mall commercial will take you on a bad trip
The campaign is from art collective Meow Wolf and also includes a fake wellness brand called Laërnu (hint: spell it backward).
For the fourth installment of its ‘The Real Unreal’ series, the creative company is taking its weird yet wonderful approach to a very ordinary location, a shopping mall.
Located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, the Grapevine Mall will serve as an unexpected canvas for the latest exhibition. To promote the show, the collective enlisted Austin-based ad agency Preacher to work on an integrated campaign titled ‘Come Find Yourselfs At The Mall’.
In the promotional video, viewers see various shoppers in matching neon tracksuits progress through the mall. It adopts the tone of a cheesy 90s infomercial, cutting through the tack with trippy and unsettling scenes.
One shot sees a gold necklace talking to the camera, another features a very meta video-game-within-a-game with the final clip showing a group walking toward an immersive black hole. Eagle-eyed fans will spot some familiar faces from the Meow Wolf universe including cameos by Plotzo the Rat and Meow Wolf founder and mascot Benji Geary.
The campaign will go live across local broadcast TV, social and digital, out-of-home (OOH), mobile and experiential activations. Once inside the mall, there will be an interactive kiosk featuring the “intra-wellness” brand Laërnu that offers consumers a way to find “A Whole Nü You.”
Credits
Client: Meow Wolf
Chief marketing officer: Kelly Schoeffel
Director of brand content: Allyson Lupovich
Director of sales and marketing, Grapevine: Karie Slagle
Creative director: Kat Lam
Creative director: Dave Jamson
Vice-president of marketing operations: Megan Ambrose
Marketing project manager: Jena Braziel
Artwork by: Joe Cappa
Agency: Preacher
Chief creative officer: Rob Baird
Chief executive officer: Krystle Loyland
Chief strategy officer: Seth Gaffney
Creative director: Marcus Brown
Creative director: Zach Watkins
Group brand director: Kristen Meade
Associate creative director: Tyler Booker
Associate creative director: Mel Lin
Head of production: Stacey Higgins
Producer: Victoria Boldt
Business affairs: Miiko Martin
Production company: Easy Petes / Deafdog Productions
Director: Zach Tavel
Line producer: Drew Toresco
DP: Josh Kuzo
Casting: Brian Beegle Casting
Edit house: Cartel
Executive producer: Viet-An Nguyen
Producer: Sarah Schachte
Editor: Kevin Zimmerman
Assistant editor: Jill Sarao
Music: Cody Ackors, Quality Tracks
Mix: Dusty Albertz, Howdy Sound
Finish house: The Mill
Online producer: Sarah Brennan-Athas
Colorist: Logan Highlen
Interested in creative campaigns? Check out our Ad of the Day and the Best Ads of the Week sections.