Asthma Attack Powerfully Delivered

Along the lines of Meth and workplace safety ads, this commercial for the American Asthma Foundation dramatically illustrates what it's like to experience an asthma attack. It's not pleasant and the commercial does a perfect job making the point.

Oh Look! It's Another Ass Selling Things!

OK, then. After having crapped all over sexism in the office place, why not jump right back into reality: the use of sex, namely ass in this case, to garner attention for the purposes of selling stuff. This is a consumer-created ad for French railway Voyages-sncf.com. See? Even "regular people" know sex sells.

Tables Turned on Advertising Industry Sexism

On the way out from her AgencySpy gig, SuperSpy minces no words lashing out at guys and sexism in the workplace reversing things a bit so men can endure the rampant objectivity apparently experienced by women in the ad business. For some, her point of view may be seen as harshly bitter but I'd say it's not very far off base in some instances.

She writes, "I'm going to find the first junior employee that I can and comment on how nice his jeans fit or better yet, tell him my own sexual fantasies and see if he bites. Yes, he probably will, but the power I exert in doing it, in making him feel uncomfortable for a brief moment, small, at jeopardy for his job (that brief sweet vengeful second), will be some sort of justice for all the ad guys who have come onto me and the chicks I know or don't even know in the work environment."

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Missing Soldiers Put Internet at Standstill

This campaign won a Gold Clio in the Content & Contact category.

To commemorate Ehud Goldwasser, Gilad Shalit and Eldad Regev, Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah on July 12 of '06, Y&R/Tel Aviv asked major sites to shut down for five minutes on July 12, '07. For that short period of time, each page aired this message.

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And the Awards Show Pinata Explodes Again!

If after a panoply of awards shows you are still not sure which ads were best, below are the agencies, clients and campaigns that received a Gold or above in Clio's Television/Cinema/Digital, Interactive, Technique and Radio categories.

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Because Rappers, Like the French, Never Pronounce the Last Few Letters in a Word

The MySpace homepage has Taco Bell's "Why Pay Mo'" campaign site heavy on the spin.

If you're feeling particularly masochistic, give yourself a shout-out in the campaign rap song while the dead presidents gyrate in their new bodies (likely lifted from New Kids on the Block). Oh, and play with the rap name generator. (Mine is "Allota Beanz.")

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Ad Claims Blogging is 3,000 Years Old

My pal Ariel Waldman over at Shake Well Before Use found this ad for Travel Alberta in San Francisco's MUNI (subway) stations which ask the question, "Who knew blogging was so popular 3,000 years ago?" to which Ariel posits, "Apparently, Canadians believe blogging stands for stone-logging." Hmm.

Support Barbarian Group's Eva McCloskey With Your Vote

Occasionally, important events present themselves which call for the entire advertising industry to band together as one unstoppable force with the sole mission of advancing a worthy cause and doing good for all human kind. One such event has presented itself today requires our complete attention and participation.

What is this important cause? Why the voting for Barbarian Group's own Eva McCloskey as Boston Magazine's Most Wanted Single, of course! What? Did you think we as an industry were going to participate in that Cannes Humanitarian Lion thing and solve all the world's ills? Of course not. That's way too much work. A simple hottie contest is much more our style so please, do your part. Vote for Eva and represent!

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For A Good Time, Visit PickupPal

Back in the day, if you wanted a ride home from college for the holidays, you'd slap up your request up on a bulletin board somewhere around campus or check that same billboard for those already heading in your direction. That's "so yesterday" as one Disney pop starlet used to sing. Now, we have Web2.0-friendly PickupPal.

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'What's This? Oh. It's a Body, Bloated in the Sun'

Somewhere in the bowels of my memory is a man with a 'fro, a soothing voice and a paintbrush. As a kid I watched him on TV, mesmerized as he effortlessly whispered magic onto his canvas.

Right about now, though, I'm wondering whether those gripping pastures and endless telephone lines were not actually thinly-veiled and mildly traumatic messages about ethnic cleansing.

I like how at the end he gets all sinister and hisses, "We're almost done here, aren't we? No. It's never done."

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