'Cars' Superstars Get Together With State Farm

State Farm Insurance and Pixar have teamed for a new DDB Chicago-created TV spot called Big Stars which features Lightning McQueen and Mater, two of the stars in the upcoming Pixar movie CARS to be released June 9. The ad involves a red carpet snafu in front of a State Farm office. The spot debuted last night during American Idol.

Poorly Marked Netflix Insert A Promotion For VH1

When the latest Netflix envelope arrived in the mailbox, it contained an ad on the inside sleeve promoting some sort of concert broadcast honoring Kiss, Queen, Def Leppard and Judas Priest. We saw that the broadcast was set to air Wednesday, May 31 at 9PM. Maybe we're just dumb, but we had to stare at the ad for several minutes before we figured out the broadcast was occurring on VH1. The logo was tiny and buried in a way that was very hard to see.

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GM Honors Veterans With Memorial Day Donation

GM, in honor of Memorial Day and the veterans the holiday was created for, GM is supporting the the families at the VFW National Home by donating $100 for every Pontiac, Buick and GMC sold between May 22 and May 31. The spot says "If your at all serious about getting a new car, this would be a good time to do it." Indeed. You can view the spot here.

'Visit London' Debuts Theatrical Ads

Last night before the performance of "Stomp" at the Orpheum Theater in New York, the New York Times reports a live commercial, performed by actors, took place for tourist organization Visit London. Visit London, which claims to be first to do a live theatrical commercial, has done the ad in Dublin and Hamburg and will do it in Pittsburgh on Friday night. In the ad, a cell phone rang in the middle of the audience and a conversation took place between the "mother" who answered the phone and the "daughter" who placed the call from the stage. The daughter recommended London attractions to her mother. There was also a "scene" with a couple on stage talking about a visit to London's West End. Please. Stop. Now.

Bikinied Cleavage Sells Ice Cream

It's almost cute to watch Asia's newfound obsession with big breasts and this commercial for ice cream illustrates it very well. Apparently, cleavage is a very powerful thing. And for all of you think that breasts are all you see on Adrants, welcome to advertising. We don't shoot the commercials, we just share them with you.

Scion Moves Inspiration, Realization, Personalization to TV

As a follow up to their recent set of Scion commercials, ATTIK, along with Director Shilo, Curious Pictures, One Union Recording, Morphonics and Face the Music, have created three new :15 second spots that are based on a previous print campaign.

The agency's public relations representative Roger Darnell explains the approach to the print campaign which was then conveyed in the commercials, saying, "The first stage of each print ad is 'Inspiration,' and shows something that might inspire members of Scion's 'urban trendleader' target audience to personalize their vehicle (like, a bulldog). Next comes 'Realization,' where a Scion model has been customized in a style matching the inspiration. The third stage is 'Personalization,' where a stock version of the Scion model is shown with available accessories for customization." They're definitely animatronically fied up. See the spots here, here and here.

Nutrition Label Delivers Homeless Message

With the health conscious continually checking the Nutrion Facts label of food packaging, the label seemed to BBDO Atlanta a likely place to put a message for helpthehomeless.com. We'd agree. AdArena, whose "sex sells" tagline sums up the entire industry, found this one.

Wal-Mart Protesters Promote Wal-Mart

AdFreak points to a Gothamist story that details a Wal-Mart protest that was actually a Wal-Mart promotion. A group of people at Grand Central Terminal today were protesting the retail giant but the fliers they were handing out were pro-Wal-Mart. File this under strange. And wrong. If, in fact, it actually is some sort of guerrilla marketing stunt.