Miele Outdoor Board Looks Photoshopped

Every ad blog today is loving this Mile vacuum cleaner billboard that illustrates the powerful suckage of Miele vacuums with the image of the vacuum cleaner pulling a hot air balloon out of the sky. It's a great looking billboard and a nice concept except we're not sure it ever physically appeared on a billboard. Look closely. The whole thing looks very Photoshopped. Anyone care to comment?

Condoms Are For All Kinds in Portugal

McCann Portugal has created a racy and humorous commercial for The League Against AIDS. In the spot, the benefits of a three, pack, six pack and 12 pack are illustrated. The 12 pack for married couples is the funniest.

Neil French Creates Award Show, Works With A Woman!

With a bit of sleuthing, Ad Age has learned killed-by-blog, women-are-crap, families-are-for-sissies Neil French will launched a new - as if we need another - global award show for print advertising. Apparently, he seems to have softened his viewpoint on women because he's (gasp!) working with a woman, London International Awards Owner and President Barbara Levy, to develop the awards. Due to some URL and business registration information dug up by Ad Age, the name of the awards may be World Press Awards which, oddly, makes it sound like a public relations award show. And yes, as we read the Ad Age article, they're still doing that ad impression increasing, automatic page reload cheating thing. For shame.

Anyway, newspapers and magazine are likely very happy an entity has been created to celebrate their, shall we say, not so healthy industries. No date has been set for the show but Ad Age says a call for entries is expected around September.

'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.