The TAO Agency Weblog

Medal of Honor Experience 2 - "Gunfighters"

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:55:48 +0000

Yeah we know, two MOH videos back-to-back. We're really looking forward to this game so deal with it. The aspect we love the most is the radio chatter. The team behind MOH actually went to members of the military that fly/communicate with air vehicles like apache's, predators, etc. They did this to make sure that every statement mumbled across the in-game radio was as accurate to the real thing as possible. Keep that in mind while watching this trailer. We've never flown in an Apache warship like that, so we have no idea if it's the real thing or not. But it sounds legit and makes us feel like a total badass while rattling off a 30-mike-mike at enemy insurgents.

Medal of Honor - "Fallen Angel"

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:42:37 +0000

The beta is over for MOH and we couldn't be more sad. Even with the bugs it was a fantastic multiplayer experience. And it's videos like this that remind us how much fun we had playing it. October 12th kids. Mark your calendars! MOH is just one more reason we love working with EA!

Medal of Honor -- Fallen Angel Part 1 from GCHD on Vimeo.

Record Makers Promo - Sebastien Tellier

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:51:39 +0000

Undeniable style. We've watched this video 3 times in a row. We love, love, love it!

Record Makers Promo from CreativeApplications.Net on Vimeo.

Toro Y Moi - Low Shoulder

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:04:51 +0000

What does this post have to do with advertising? Nothing. What about video games? Nada. Nope, this is a post simply because we love Toro Y Moi. And the video is a most excellent nod towards horror films of yesteryear. Give it a peek, we think you'll approve.

Toro Y Moi - Low Shoulder from Chris Murdoch on Vimeo.

New Killzone 3 Multiplayer Footage!!!

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:35:00 +0000

A jet-propelled mech suit? Sweet Oden's beard.

New Dragon Age II Trailer

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:12:55 +0000

Yeah, it's all CG cutscenes...but we're still giddy as school girls over here. Give it a peek and start marking your calendars. You have a looooong wait ahead of you.

Is There a Zombie Uncanny Valley?

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:15:16 +0000

How many zombie games are too many? Trick question, there is no such thing as too many zombie games. But why do we, as gamers and as a culture, seem to love zombie movies/games? Is it some innate fear of after we die, there is a possibility that we will "live" on? Or the stigma associated with cannibalism? Or are we looking forward to zombie movies that have nudie undead girls, dancing in a graveyard to an eighties metal song? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. (We love you Linnea Quigley!!)
Either way, we love zombie related entertainment. And there is a lot of it out there. If you think about zombie movies in general, there seems to be maybe four or five "good" ones, several "decent" ones and the majority are really bad. But there's a curve in there. You know how there is an Uncanny Valley for robots? I propose something similar for zombie movies/games. The left side of the valley is zombie movies that have some realism, comedy and gore. The right side of the valley is hyper realistic plots and characters. Look at the original, 1968 cult-classic Night of the Living Dead. The first in Romero's Unholy Trinity. Now compare that to Return of the Living Dead 3. Now compare that to Shawn of the Dead. Three different movies, but the same premise; zombies take over, eat brains, characters run in fear and must defeat them. These three movies represent three different locations on the Uncanny Valley graph of zombie movies.
The original Night of the Living Dead felt like it could happen. It was shot almost like a documentary, which in 1968 was pretty revolutionary. This film would be on the right side of the valley. Familiar, strong premise, seems realistic and you can relate to the characters. It's easy to put yourself into that scenario. Now let's look at Return of the Living Dead 3. In this film a twenty-something female gets reanimated by her boyfriend into this zombie kitty chick. Sounds hotter than it really is. It was super lame. But the writers tried so hard to fill in the gaps with a real plot and several subplots on top of that. They tried too hard to make this film seem realistic which forced it over the edge, deep into the Uncanny Valley. Now look at Shawn of the Dead. A very realistic plot, very funny and every character in the film is unique and relatable. So here's our question:
Why aren't there zombie video games that live on this curve? Maybe they are... Resident Evil, Dead Rising, Left4Dead, House of the Dead and Plants Vs. Zombies. Five different zombie games, five different locations on the curve. Where do you think they fit? Where does Dead Nation fit?

Deus Ex Trailer - Reveals More Goodies

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:25:02 +0000

This is one of the first trailers for Deus Ex that actually shows gameplay footage. Well, there was a little in past trailers, but this shows far more of the killing machine we all remember from the past. There's apparently a trend in this whole "mirage camo" stuff. You can see it in the new Ghost Recon game and now in Deus Ex. Of course, we all know who invented/started this whole movement. Harry Potter.

Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 - Yoda Trailer

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:10:36 +0000

Did you play the first Force Unleashed? No? Do yourself a favor and go buy it at Gamestop for $17. Sure it has some minor flaws, but it's still a solid game worthy of the Star Wars name. It's a no-brainer that LucasArts is making another one, the original sold a little over 2MM copies. Their selling point? Two lightsabers and a Yoda (phone). What? Cameo's in a Star Wars game? No way! Yezzur. So sit back and watch this total spoiler video of Starkiller featuring Yoda dropping some serious knowledge on him. Dago-bahdass!

Bioshock Infinite - Way Up in the AtmosFEAR!

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:46:33 +0000

Yeah, yeah. Super corny headline. But this is exciting news from 2K and Irrational Games. Innovative? Probably not really, but still exciting. It feels more like the publisher is trying to milk as much out of this franchise as they can. I guess we can't blame them, the first one was probably one of the greatest period piece/shooters/horror games we've ever played. And is in our top ten of ALL time games. The second, while good, didn't quite reach the bar we had come to expect. So while the trailer and screenshots look pretty..we'll hold off on passing too much judgement. Go check out their mysterious website (not really a mystery at all) and find a synopsis, screenshots and other fancy things. Here's the trailer and cool screenshot or two:

Call of Duty: Black Ops RC-XD

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:11:08 +0000

Here's the video showcasing the new RC car dubbed "RC-XD" found in the up-coming Call of Duty installment: Black Ops. Enjoy.

PS3 - Kung Fu LIVE

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:32:59 +0000

Kung Fu Live is yet another title in the "motion game" genre that is getting press. Mostly because of the buzz around Kinect. But Kung Fu Live is for the PS3 and uses the Playstation Eye to actually place users IN the game. (Ohh, the files are IN the computer!) What's that you say? The Eye-Toy has been around for years! Correct. So what's the deal? Well this is the Playstation Eye...not the Eye-Toy. Makes sense right?Anyway, the titles for Eye look better than their past efforts via the Eye-Toy. Better because you can actually move around and the interaction seems more accurate than before. But we're curious...why not integrate this game with the new PS3 "Move" technology? We feel like it would be extremely accurate and allow for cooler weapons and combos. But we feel the attempt here was to compete with Microsoft Kinect. "Controller-less Gaming" is the the buzz word of the moment and i'm sure Sony wants to claim they "invented" it first. If you think about it that way, I guess they did.

The Cool Kids - "Gold Links"

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:02:09 +0000

It goes without saying how much we're in love with the Cool Kids. We've crushed on them since they were stunt'n on "Black Mags". But it's Two-Ought-Ten now, and the boys are still killin it! Check out their latest video directed by Michael Sterling Eaton off their latest album "Gone Fishin", it's "Gold Links". Treat it!

Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer Footage

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:57:30 +0000

Apparently some footage of the upcoming installment to the Call of Duty Francise, Black Ops, just surfaced on the interwebs. And we have to admit, it looks stupid awesome. Reeeediculously awesome. We had really low expectations for this title because the Infinity Ward team was not the developer. Treyarch, the developer that created World at War took over the reigns for Black Ops. If you played World at War you can appreciate our apprehensiveness. However after watching this footage of the multiplayer action. Yezzur! We'll pre-order today. We're also going to call Activision immediately about getting our grubby paws on that beta. Treat it.

One of Our Favorite New Videos: LBCK's "Start"

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:57:20 +0000

We're currently smitten with this song and more importantly the style of the video (not to mention the cutie in the video). LBCK is new to us, but this song has spawned our interest to dig to find more gems in hopes they are similar to "Start". We could be wrong but we think most of the outfits she's wearing in that video are from our favorite client American Apparel. You be the judge:

Stoli, Hugh Hefner and Julia Stiles Make a Cocktail to Forget.

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:48:09 +0000

We have to admit, when we saw the first TV spot for Stoli with The Hef, we weren't that impressed. I mean, we "got it" but the brand of Hef, falls a little flat on us. We know the impact he had on pop culture, and sure, everyone likes boobies. But we didn't really like Stoli's choice of Hef for the spot. That is until we saw the one with Julia Stiles. It's funny how sometimes a slogan doesn't resonate with the intended audience. It's even worse when the audience doesn't even connect the brand nor remember the slogan. That happened to us when we saw the first Stoli spot. But after watching the one with Julia, it made all the sense in the world.

"Would you have a drink with you" was totally lost on us. Perhaps it was because we had our marketing caps on and were thinking "why is an 80 year old man pitching us vodka?" We knew it was THE man Hugh, but still, we missed the connection. The spot with Miss Stiles made us think "What, now an underrated actress is pitching us vodka?" And that's when we realized the point they were trying to make; your life probably isn't that exciting, so you might want to get you and those around you drunk. Right? Wasn't that the point? Anyway, here's the two spots. Enjoy. (the Julia one is our fav)

Brand Messaging: A look at the 2011 Jeep.

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:38:29 +0000

Weiden+Kennedy is one of our favorite big shops. Their creativity is on par with CP+B, and they have the lions to prove it. But everyone keeps talking bout the Old Spice spot. Don't get us wrong, it was one of the best tv spots we've seen in very long time. But their work on Jeep has been in the shadows of Old Spice for long enough. Have you seen their tv spots yet? We are totally smitten with them. We've been talking a lot about the somewhat underground movement of Americana. It's popping up everywhere, TV, print and the blogosphere. Don't believe us? Turn on the History Channel or Discovery Channel. There's a WHOLE lot of history out there, yet it's always about the US and it's "never give up" attitude. There was a series called "America The Story of US" that had us captivated for weeks. The point we're trying to make is, America is in love with its own past. It's almost as if we're addicted to looking backwards at more "simpler" or "wholesome" eras. It was only a matter of time that a brand noticed the trend, and adapted accordingly. And it totally works for Jeep Let's start by peeping their recent tv commercial:

Tying Jeep to America and the Industrial Revolution is fantastic brand messaging. Mostly because Jeep can trace its roots back the fertile grounds of that time period. WWII gave us the Jeep Willy's and to most, the rough, no-frills facade of the Jeep personified the American Spirit and captured an entire generation. A fever that Jeep owners still enjoy today. But Chrysler has been plagued with low customer perception, as have most US car manufacturers. So it is unknown if taking the scenic route of yesteryear will boost sales or not. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion when coupled with the love affair American's have with "the car". Powerful enough to suck us in! But you have to admit that the tv spot and website do have a lot of style. We took a couple screen grabs below. Assuming their print will be similar in typography and content:

Take a moment and hit their website. While we wish they had done the site in HTML 5, the flash version is still pretty swank. We dig the minimalism to the site. It's svelte yet bold. Big pictures, giant font, strong message. A tip of the hat to W+K. But will this trend spill over into other brands? Perhaps. We're not sure how much it will catch on, but we really hope it replaces the "CEO/President Chat" that automobile and mobile carrier companies seem to have adopted. It will probably never replace the formula of "Dancing/Talking Baby + Pop Culture Reference" that seems to never die.

Stuff We Love

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:54:26 +0000

In an attempt to start an internal trend here at TAO, we hope you enjoy a weekly (hopefully) post dubbed "Stuff We Love". Posts will include things we find on the internets and IRL that we are totally smitten with or at least have a mild crush on.
To kick things off we found this watercolor artist who specializes in painting "Great Showdowns" from past movies. The majority seem to come from the 80's and early 90's. We spent waaaay to much time on this site today. But it's too good to pass up. For reals. Take a moment and hang out on this site and check out his work. The fun part is trying to figure out what the movie is. It's art AND pop culture trivia. That's why it makes the list of "Stuff We Love".

Here's some of our faves from Great Showdowns by Scott C.

Are TV Spots Good For Indie Bands?

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:46:09 +0000

In a word; yes. Small bands get a huge boost from being the background music in a TV commercial. The average American consumer probably hasn't heard of bands like "The Dirty Projectors" or "Francis and the Lights". And that's OK. How could they? They don't spend their free time searching for music they haven't heard yet. While we hate what that mindset does to the music industry, it's still OK to not be "into music". But some people like to discover things.

Perhaps you have a favorite restaurant, or better yet a dive bar that you like to hang out at. We have ours and a few of the reasons we like it is because it's never crowded and the ambience is "cool". We feel like we found this little gem of a spot. A bar that "gets us" and never tries to be something its not. Maybe your a film buff. You love to watch movies that are categorized as "indie", "art" or "foreign". Did you see The Wrestler? Let's say you did, and you really liked it. And you want to tell your friends about it so they can share their thoughts during a future discussion. But your friend says "No, I probably won't see that, I don't like wrestling." To your friend, the title of the movie meant he/she would have to sit through a couple hours of watching someone wrestle. They made a quick association based on the facts at hand. This is going to make a point very soon, we swear!

Pepsi has a new campaign called "Refresh Everything". They are about to rollout new TV spots for the campaign that include a song by Rai Knight called "New New". Who's Rai Knight you ask? A young artist and songwriter out of the Detroit area that dubs her style as "Trip Pop with Soul". To us, she's like a sugary Fiest. And her single, "New New" is pretty good. It's catchy, she can definitely sing and its poppy enough that there could be mass appeal. But in a few weeks it'll be downgraded to "That song from the Pepsi commercial".

Is that good or bad? Well, there's no question that Pepsi will carve the soul out of the track. Knight says "shit" a lot in the song. That's actually one of the reasons we like it. The song is so sugary sweet that when the word "shit" comes out in the chorus it's so unexpected that you perk up when you hear it. Almost like when you eat a bunch of chocolate and then eat something salty. It's a shock to the system, but totally welcomed. Taking "shit" out of this track will take a lot of the bite out of this track. We also fear that it will rob Mrs. Knight of her sassy, "I'm cute but kinda dangerous" style. We fear she will be reduced down to a basic catchy track that reminds consumers they are thirsty...For Pepsi.

So in the long run, will this help or hinder young Rai? We're not sure, hard to say. But we know for a fact that "cool" indie artists like Rai will continue to be used in TV spots. Mostly because the cost to license their music is a fraction of the cost when compared to "mainstream" music. And the people that make the music decisions for these spots are... tragically cool hipsters that spend the majority of their paychecks on skinny jeans, thrift store t-shirts, retro gold casio watches and old cameras. They take up-close, slightly out-of-focus pictures of paint flaking off lamp poles and they photoshop ironic phrases like "Forever and Ever" on the image in a Helvetica derivative font. And they carry composition notebooks everywhere they go that are full of ironies, doodles and slogans that they think are clever. They DO spend their time finding new music. They take pride it in. Just look at our blog.

Rai Knight • New New from Rai Knight on Vimeo.

FrontStreet Records 2010 LLC
Produced by The Skouts
Directed by The Work & The Silent Giants

Management- marc@boyandhorses.com

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Say No To Love

admin@taoagency.com (TAO) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:04:12 +0000

Yesterday was the first day of summer! But sadly it reminds us that starting today, the days are getting shorter. Bumstown. However, we were shaken from our sadness when we watched the new video for "Say No To Love" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. This band is on our summer playlist alongside the preppy cools boys of The Drums with a few others. If your interested, ping us and we'll send you a mixtape. But for now, enjoy the video.