Check out the sexy new Kohl’s “Rock and Republic” spot out of DeVito/Verdi, featuring the song “Desperate Guys” by Nebraska’s electro-punk-pop band The Faint (off their Wet From Birth album), music supervised by duotone.

Hot off the griddle, Cracker Barrel serves up a new national multimedia brand campaign called “Handcrafted by Cracker Barrel”. Woven together with custom music by duotone and a fresh creative vision from the team at Euro RSCG Chicago, the first two spots, “Home” and “By Hand”, create a seamless audio-visual representation for this homey restaurant chain.

These two featured spots, composed by duotone’s Jack Livesey, have distinct musical directions, both with a nod to Americana. “They really resonate and capture the Cracker Barrel zeitgeist thanks to the careful attention paid to the country-tinged musical underscoring (fiddles and whistling and other fun stuff)… (they) devised hugely catchy, hummable mini-tunes that ideally complement each spot.” –reelchicago.com

Boasting their own artist record releases and an online radio station, music has always been an integral part of the Cracker Barrel experience. “Home” and “By Hand” are the first two spots in a series for the campaign, which includes television, radio, online, and music promotion components.

duotone’s latest music supervision project featured a diverse crew of conspirators: the Red Headed Stranger, an award-winning Irish animator, an ethically-focused restaurant chain, the biggest band to come out of the last decade, and world-renowned agency CAA.

Watch the just-launched short here, and check below for the backstory:

Chipotle produced a short film based on their motto, “Food With Integrity”. The brand has long shunned traditional advertising techniques in favor of unexpected, often guerrilla, methods, and recently launched a campaign poking fun at ad agencies. At the same time, much of their publicity has focused on issues of social responsibility, such as giving away free burritos to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, sponsoring screenings of Food, Inc., and partnering with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution for a fundraiser called “Boorito 2010: The Horrors of Processed Food.”

For the brand’s latest unconventional yet awesome endeavor, they tapped über-talented animator/director Johnny Kelly of Nexus Productions to create a stop-motion animation that tells the story of a misguided farmer who slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the error of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. The beautifully executed animation is all contained in one long panning “shot” and has no voiceover, leaving the music to tell the story.

And for that, CAA Marketing turned to duotone for the perfect musical accompaniment. After a lengthy search, duotone came up with a tailored edit of Coldplay’s “The Scientist” that not only matched the ethos and mood of the film but also scored to picture naturally and powerfully. Sync licensing was handled by duotone EP David Leinheardt.

Willie Nelson was an ideal choice to perform the song: his co-founding of Farm Aid, which assists and increases awareness of family farms, made him a natural fit; and his long track record of activism and socially responsible projects also includes forming the Willie Nelson Biodiesel company, campaigning for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, and fighting for better living conditions for dairy animals. Combine all that with his legendary talent and his penchant for genre-bending, and all the elements were in place for a moving, unique take on a modern classic.

The film just launched this week, and you can also download the full-length cover from iTunes, with proceeds going to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation, which benefits the small and sustainable farms movement.