Ever wonder how many showgirls dressed up as ingredients it takes to form a Whopper? Or what makes family entertainment acceptable in one country, but not another?

Create was curious too, so we tapped the brightest minds in the hottest creative fields across the nation to find out what really goes on in a day in the life of a campaign. From Superbowl spots to online music videos, here’s a glimpse under the hood at some of the biggest print, television and packaging campaigns that have etched their way into our conscience.

Emerald Nuts “Druid” Superbowl spot makes sense out of a bizarre situation While brainstorming to find the most comically absurd situation for Emerald Nuts, Stacy Milrany and Will Elliott of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners started making huge lists of acronym after acronym. They finally decided on an “Eagle-eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize A Little Druid Networking Under The Stairs.”

Originally, the set was going to be covered with many plants the Machete Enthusiasts would be hacking through. But they simplified it to one small plant. This seemed funnier, easier and less harmful to the environment.

One challenge on the set was whether the druid should be addressed as Bob or not have a name at all. “I liked him being called Bob. And in the cut, he is called Bob. So I couldn’t have been the only one who liked the name Bob. Bob is a good name,” adds Biscuit Filmworks director Jim Hosking, formerly of Partizan.

For Spy Post partner/lead artist Darren Orr, another issue was the computer screen, which after transfer, was way too bright. “We ended up with a second pass for the color correction of the screen, which we comped in.”

“Druid” was scripted, but a lot of the dialogue was ad-libbed, so they had quite a range to choose from. Umlaut editor Jean Kawahara points out, “The challenge was making sense (somewhat) out of the bizarre situations.”

Burger King “Whopperettes” Superbowl spot stacks up Once Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s initial thought of dressing people up as ingredients took off, it quickly developed into the ingredients singing and telling a story through the original “Have it your way” song from the 1970s.

“The things that made this particular idea stand out were how we humanized, or emotionalized the individual stories for each particular ingredient,” explains art director Mark Taylor. “This represented the choices a consumer might make while ordering a Whopper.”

They wanted the costumes to look real. In theory, this sounded great, but they weren’t sure if people dressed as ingredients would resemble a Whopper.

So they ended up making many of the costumes at the agency to test them out. In the end, even with homemade costumes, the Whopper looked surprisingly real once stacked together.

The creative only changed significantly at one point: when the Whopperettes started flopping on top of each other. “It wasn’t too elegant. In fact, it was kind of funny,” comments Taylor.

Then the sarcastic VO: “Ladies, build that whopper” was added, and the decision was made to go with David Letterman’s announcer, as his voice is easily recognized as comedic and irreverent.

“I think if we would have taken ourselves too seriously, it would have backfired,” Taylor concludes. “After all, the whole idea is really pretty silly. Such an elaborate production, all for the sake of dancing hamburger ingredients.”

AVIA print ads expose raw attitude of runners Typical running shoe ads are usually so serious. 72andSunny noticed a trend in the ads; runners are often treated like cars — shot low-angle on slick, curvy roads — and the tone is overly reverent and squinty-eyed.

Bryan Rowles, Stephan Baik and Jason Norcross wanted to do something different for the category, something that embraced the fact that AVIA is an outsider, a challenger.

A raw, simple, Vice Magazine-style informed the work early on. They also spent time writing lines that had the right balance of fun, irreverence and a competitive edge.

Getting to a place that is relevant to runners in a new way was a challenge. The budget could’ve also been a challenge, but the low-fi, deconstructed, “punk-meets-running” approach worked in their favor.

During production, the team was led into some unusual places, “Pretty much every moment spent photographing animal heads in a taxidermy warehouse in Burbank was surprising. And disturbing.”

Photographer Tim Barber embraced the tone, bringing a powerful visual language that pushed the design. The team also let the work evolve naturally over time. They kept trying new things, while staying true to the spirit of the campaign.

Monterey Bay Aquarium 3-D approach unlocks undersea mysteries Everything today is about instant impact. No waiting. Everything made easy. And that’s what sparked Mike Lee and Chris Bull of BuderEngel and Friends to come up with the tagline “Instant Explorers, just add water.”

“Twice a year, we develop work toward new initiatives at the Aquarium,” executive creative director Vince Engel explains. “These may be aimed towards promoting new exhibits or just reminder ads as school holidays approach.”

A year ago, it was decided that 2006 would be a year of exploration, aimed at youth. Although this is the first year they didn’t have a new exhibit to work on, the aquarium wanted to promote their many existing exhibits and learning experiences.

BuderEngel met the challenge with a 3-D “instant” explorer. Not only will these ads run in public transit stations, but they will also become actual-size exhibits. Participants will be able to climb inside the packaging at locations such as Santana Row in San Jose, CA or the aquarium, and have their photo taken.

Combine this with mini Jacques Cousteau-style Web-films, narrated in kids’ voices, and underwater sea life discovery comes alive in a real and tangible way.

Sprint generates buzz with ROCKSTAR four-pack As is often the case with brilliant ideas, this one came to Publicis Dialog San Francisco late at night.

“We were tapped out creatively from developing all the other components of the massive post-merger, re-assurance campaign for the combined SprintNextel company,” recalls associate creative director Alex Grossman, “when around midnight, someone looked down at the energy drink they were sucking down and said ‘Eureka’. Well, they probably said something a little less family-appropriate. But you get the idea.”

“For a conservative, Fortune 500 telecommunications company, sending a four-pack of high-octane energy drink as a premium to business customers required some serious chutzpah,” adds executive creative director Jonathan Butts. But the new Sprint was determined to boldly back their claim of continued empowerment to these customers.

ROCKSTAR was pretty psyched to get a call for an order of 120,000 cans. So psyched, that they even allowed Publicis Dialog to use their assembly line for production. Talk about a big buzz.

OnAbout’s packaging-design wine tasting adventure New-brand OnAbout came to Copia Creative with two bottles of wine and asked for a fun, approachable way to educate consumers and introduce their brand to the market. Copia Creative Director Michelle Adelson explains, “Our target knows what they like, but they’re not sure what they like about it.”

So Copia set about exploring elements that ignite the senses, and broke open a half case of wine to test their theories.

They initially produced scratch and sniff cards for understanding scents in wine, as well as teaching how to identify wine-growing regions that produce particular flavors. Copia then came up with the idea that the kit should also include a music CD, a blindfold, and a coaster-size wine book full of helpful tips. The book soon became a highlight and influenced the overall packaging construction.

The packaging also had to be sturdy enough for shipping from online retailers. That’s why they developed a solid internal structure, with contraptions inside that lock the bottles in place — a ready-to-go wine tasting party.

Verizon V CAST brings music video to online banners When Verizon Wireless approached Moxie Interactive to promote their new music service, Moxie knew they needed to position the product far away from the digital music players already on the market, and educate consumers about the ability to download music to their mobile phones.

Moxie had to adjust their concept to work with the same songs that were used in offline media, and complete the project within a tight deadline. Because of this, the video editing, Flash production, media optimization and third-party video serving negotiations were taking place simultaneously.

Trying to get perfect shots during peak hours in Times Square also proved to be challenging. Local authorities required that they not anchor any equipment to the ground or impede the flow of traffic.

“Besides the herds of ogling tourists,” comments Creative Director Chris Gomersall, “we also had to navigate our shot around the setup for the New Years’ Eve celebration happening two days later.” Their solution was to have a grip donning a battery powered floodlight and a 150-pound cameraman carting around a 90-pound steady-cam rig for eight hours. Doesn’t sound pretty, but the final product says it all.

Nike Rockstar Workout “Steps into the video” on nikewomen.com Remember trying to learn music video dance moves in your living room back in the day?

When Nike asked R/GA what they could do with the latest Nike Rockstar Workout that would feature iconic moves from music videos, that’s exactly what they had in mind.

They thought, what if you could pause the music video and have the choreographer show you exactly how it’s done? Then when you’ve mastered it, you click play again?

The concept was sold with just five lines of text. From there, they developed a direction for the video of “Dance meets Sport” and created a narrative around “Dance like no one’s watching” that would invite women of all shapes and sizes to express themselves through dance.

R/GA’s biggest challenge was that this type of production had never been done before, making an already complex process a learn-as-you-go experience. Their success with this project can be greatly attributed to the massive amount of planning upfront.

SpringByDannon.com brings water to life with animation “We felt the healthy benefits of water hydration and fluoride were pretty abstract concepts for kids, so we created a character that embodied the benefits,” explains JUXT Interactive Creative Director Todd Purgason in their rebranding initiative for spring water.

This character would allow them to tie various types of content together and create a fun, memorable online experience. So JUXT designed and then modelled the animated 3-D character to make him an integral part of the site experience.     For the online video spots, Purgason felt that the juxtaposition of the cartoon-nature with the feeling of a hand-held DV camera would make them fun and a bit surreal. He adds, “We also replaced one of the actors’ heads with Samuel’s head which adds a bit of freakiness to it.”

They originally thought the 3-D character would be in the new video alpha-format. Unfortunately, they found this was a big drain on performance and was difficult to sync with other Flash motion events.

So they redid much of the character animation old-school by using a series of bitmap images. But they had great success with new Flash 8 capabilities, which made their waterface experience possible.

In fact, during testing, the kids were so captivated by this application, they discovered new tricks with the distort tool they didn’t even know were possible.

2006 Dodge Challenger flexes muscle: from sketch to driveable model The new Dodge Challenger concept car stole the show when it was revealed in Detroit, and is one of the hottest concepts on the auto-show circuit today.

"Challenger draws upon the initial 1970 model as the icon of the series," explains Tom Tremont, vice president-advanced vehicle design. “The 1970 model is the most sought after by collectors.”

“…As with all pleasurable memories,” continues Tremont, “you remember the good and screen out the bad. We wanted the concept car to evoke all those sweet memories — everything you thought the Challenger was, and more."

With the original Challenger providing inspiration, there were a series of colors from the era that came to mind: GoManGo, purples, yellows and lime greens. These wild colors were used in sketches until they settled upon the perfect color — HEMI orange. The idea of muscle and HEMI merging into one became the theme for the vehicle.

Further inspiration was not only to re-create the classic, but also to bring it to modern day. Today's technology allowed them to minimize quality issues of the past, and stay true through the final concept.

U2 “Yahweh” on-stage backdrop illuminates Vertigo Tour Animations from live-action director Juan Delcán of Nola Pictures caught the attention of artist Catherine Owen — who has collaborated with U2 in the design of their concerts for many years. She asked him if he’d be interested in doing something for their Vertigo Tour.

“Of course, I was very enthusiastic and started working on it that same weekend,” Delcán explains. “By Monday, I had the first 20-seconds.”

“When Bono and the band saw it, they really liked it and gave me the go-ahead. There was really no specific feedback — they asked that I just keep going with it. It was great to have such total creative freedom.”

The main challenge for Delcán was the timeline. He had only two weeks to put together four minutes of animation. Suddenly, he realized the magnitude of this opportunity, and began putting together storyboards and animatics.

However, this was not how he did the original test, and he started losing the spontaneity and rawness. He basically trashed it, and started all over again. There was no plan — just diving in and going for it.

“That's how I ended up doing the whole thing,” concludes Delcán. “And because of that, I was able to finish it in time.”

Yahoo! Mail relaunch liberates e-mail with humor Yahoo! is about to redefine e-mail as we know it, according to OgilvyOne San Francisco. The release of this new interface will be the most significant event in the history of Yahoo! Mail since they acquired Rocket Mail in 1997.

“Our task was not only to announce the launch of this brilliant new product,” explains associate creative director David Shearer, “but to also do it in such a way as to explain new and rich technology to a potentially non-technical audience.”

In late 2005, 3-D-character Liam was created. He quickly became an integral part of the campaign, acting as a guide throughout the new features.

“We drew a witty parallel with how liberating it would be if the freedoms that the new Yahoo! Mail allows were made possible in our everyday lives,” continues Shearer. “All those things you’ve always wanted to be able to do, well, with Yahoo! Mail, “now you can” — which became the campaign’s strap line.     The team had to develop an idea that bridged continents, cultures, age groups and the technical specifics of different markets. And do it all online as the budget didn’t allow for press, poster or TV support.

They also had fun keeping the balance with Yahoo!’s style of humor and thresholds for acceptable family entertainment between different countries. As Shearer points out, “What works in one country, definitely doesn’t work in another!”

Reality is only what we perceive it to be. For one, an animal head up on a tavern wall is reason to protest. For another, it holds a fresh, new perspective.

Why take life so seriously? Good creatives don’t.

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About the contributor: Emily Johnson is an advertising copywriter in San Francisco, working with a variety of clients, including WebEx, Sprint, HP and Bermuda Department of Tourism. She began her career in the creative world with Carlson Marketing Group, after a period writing about wine in Northern California. Raised on a twisted grapevine in the Napa Valley, Johnson has a passion for old-vine Zinfandel, woodblock prints and Flamenco dancing. See more at .www.emilyj.net.