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Mother is anadvertising agency with offices in London, New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Singapore, and Berlin.
Founded around a London kitchen table in 1996[1] by Mark Waites, Stef Calcraft, Libby Brockhoff, and Robert Saville,[2][3][4][5] Mother today has over 500 employees around the world and a dedicated design arm (Mother Design), and works with clients: GM, IKEA, KFC, and Uber.
The agency's work includes the early Levi’s Odyssey spoof forLilt,[6] its celebrity-fronted "Goldspot" cinema adverts forOrange,[7] "Here Come The Girls" for Boots,[8] and thePG Tips campaign featuring Al andMonkey.[9] Recent campaigns include the story of 'Rang-Tan', first with Greenpeace, then Iceland, waking the world up to the devastation caused by dirtypalm oil, KFC's 2018 'FCK' apology or its much in demand 'Gravy Candle', and IKEA's 'The Wonderful Everyday' campaign.
Mother moved to its current offices in London's Shoreditch in 2004, designed byClive Wilkinson architects.[10]
Mother New York was first founded in Hudson Yards, Manhattan and has since relocated to Gowanus, Brooklyn on a 10-year lease between the Lowe's Parking Lot and Gowanus Canal.
Mother has additional independently operating offices in LA, Berlin, and Shanghai.
Mother were the lead agency and co-executive producers[11] forThe Secret Policeman’s Ball for the fiftieth anniversary ofAmnesty International. The show took place in the United States for the first time on March 4, 2012, atRadio City Music Hall in New York City, and featured a mix of prominent comedians from both Britain and the United States. After a taped introduction byArchbishop Desmond Tutu, the live comedy lineup includedJon Stewart,Russell Brand,Eddie Izzard,Ben Stiller,Fred Armisen,Kristen Wiig,David Walliams,Jimmy Carr,Noel Fielding,Matt Berry,Micky Flanagan,Jack Whitehall,Tim Roth,Bill Hader (asJulian Assange),Rex Lee (asKim Jong-Un), and a cameo appearance byRichard Branson.Liam Neeson also introduced a set from formerly imprisoned Burmese comedian and political activistZarganar. In between the comedic performances, the music lineup consisted ofMumford & Sons,Reggie Watts, and a concluding set byColdplay. Additionally,Beavis and Butthead appeared in an animated sequence and formerMonty Python membersMichael Palin,Eric Idle, andTerry Jones appeared in pre-recorded video segments explaining comedically why they were not there. At several moments in the show,Statler and Waldorf fromthe Muppets commented on the event and spoke to the performers from one of the balconies. The event was streamed live onEpix, and broadcast onChannel 4 in the UK.
In 2001 Mother created Al andMonkey to promote ITV Digital, a campaign that was named Campaign of the Year by Campaign Magazine.[12] After ITV Digital entered bankruptcy, Mother brought the characters back as the face of PG Tips.
In Christmas 2007, Mother created ‘Here Come The Girls’ for Boots. The award-winning campaign[13] has continued and evolved into the current campaign of comedy vignettes.
Mother were the creative agency that createdCoca-Cola’s global campaign ‘Move to the Beat’ for the2012 Olympic Games.[14] FeaturingMark Ronson and singerKaty B, the campaign features the newCoca-Cola anthem for the Olympic Games ‘Anywhere in the World’ which uses the sounds of music, sport, and Coca-Cola to create a unique rhythmic beat. Ronson used innovative recording techniques as he traveled the world to capture the sounds of the Coca-Cola Move to the Beat athletes– five Olympic hopefuls chosen for their sporting prowess and inspirational stories: GB table tennis player Darius Knight; US hurdlerDavid Oliver; Russian sprinterKseniya Vdovina; Singapore archerDayyan Jaffar, and Mexican taekwondo martial artistMaría del Rosario Espinoza. A documentary showing Ronson traveling around the world capturing the sound of sport was aired onChannel 4 in the UK.
Missing Sounds of New York is an album made byThe New York Public Library, released on 1 May 2020 through advertising agency Mother New York. The album was recorded during the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine period in New York City. It includes original and archived audio to replicate the sounds of New York City prior to lockdown.
The album was launched onSpotify andSoundCloud. To date the album has garnered more than 350,000 streams online.
Mother worked with the COI's drugs awareness brief resulting in Mother re-branding the National Drugs Helpline as "FRANK". The FRANK campaign also included the creation ofPablo the Drug Mule Dog voiced byDavid Mitchell of ‘Mitchell and Webb’. The campaign won theBest of Show award at the IPA Best of Health Awards 2009.[15]
Mother created the "Pimm’s O’Clock" series of adverts featuring Harry Fitzgibbon Simms, ambassador forPimm's. Harry’s character is played byAlexander Armstrong from the popular comedy duoArmstrong and Miller.[16]
Mother London worked on the Orange Gold spot campaign from 2003 to 2009. Amongst many notable film stars, the campaign featuredSnoop Dogg,Patrick Swayze,Verne Troyer,Rob Lowe,Rob Schneider, andAnjelica Huston.
Mother has been the creative agency forStella Artois since 2008, working on the main line as well as Stella Artois 4%, Stella Artois Black, and Stella Artois Cidre. The work for the brand, set in the 1960s French Riviera, has won numerous awards both creatively[17] and strategically.[18] In 2011, Stella Artois was chosen as Advertiser of the Year by Campaign magazine.[19]
In 2010, the 1980s new-wave groupDEVO andWarner Bros. Records hired Mother to help rebrand and develop content for the band for their first new album in 20 years,Something For Everybody. The campaign revolved around a series of videos and microsites touting the band's desire to create the most commercially viable product through focus group testing, online voting, and even opening a fictional new office called Mother LA in Los Angeles.[20] The campaign culminated in a live streamed listening party, during which the record was played for a room full of cats.[21]
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