50 Reasons to Watch Coraline ... and Worship W+K.

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Coraline Mystery Boxes. Awesome way to personalize the Coraline experience and get bloggers gushing without doing anything super-extravagant.

From what we can tell, the boxes are filled with odds and ends, unique film memorabilia and the occasional skeletal hand -- but presentation makes them completely magical!

Watch with intestine-eating envy while the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive opens #37 out of #50 (lotsa pictures too). And Creativity Online has shots of the 50th.

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by Angela Natividad    Feb- 9-09    
Topic: Best, Guerilla



Virgin Atlantic: Still Red-Hot After All These Years

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To celebrate Virgin Atlantic's 25th anni, "Still Red Hot" brings us back to June 22nd, 1984, when London's Gatwick Airport changed forever.

On a day that would otherwise be forever defined by a miner's strike, Virgin Atlantic's premier crew of red-clad flight attendants broke the mundanity with their bitch-watch-me walks and winning smiles. A revolving ticker overhead ties fiction to fact: Virgin's first-ever flight route, VS001 to Newark, is ON TIME.

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Because Can You Honestly Say You Don't Want a Copy of 'Hey There, Sugar Britches'?

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No ad industry holiday is complete without a lovable mood-setting douchebag. This year Tom Fellow is ours.

The guy had us from "felice navidado" and now we can't stop listening to his Christmas standards and watching him open presents while growling.

Lavish in the Fellow aesthetic or watch with glee while Twitter catches on. Big THANKEE to @pjbfcp.

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by Angela Natividad    Dec-23-08    
Topic: Best, Online, Spoofs, Strange



Ugly Reality of Child Abuse Rears Its Head in PSA

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It seems public service advertising is the only kind which contains any sort of meaningful drama or that's allowed to depict reality without being glossed over by meaningless creative pontification. All other forms of advertising pale in comparison. Mostly because PSAs depict real life. And real life is a far cry from the kind of fairy tale life painted inside the cozy confines of an ad campaign.

British children's charity Barnardo's is out with a powerful commercial in which a girl is repeatedly subjected to the after effects of child abuse. As the commercial progresses, the girl's troubled life is repeated with increasing intensity until it culminates with the rapid fire reality of child abuse, a cycle that, if unchecked, is doomed to repeat tself over and over again until dramatic steps are taken to prevent it.

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by Steve Hall    Dec- 2-08    
Topic: Best, Cause, Commercials, Creative Commentary, Opinion



Gay Marriage Should Not Be Such A Big Deal

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Is it really that difficult to let two people who love each other live their lives they way they choose? After all, what business do people have sticking their noses into the business of others? Is it really so hard to just live one's life and allow others to live theirs without judgment? If two people love each other, who are we to judge?

While a marriage between two male priest performed by a female priest may not yet be as innocuous as the next, Swedish fashion designer Bjorn Borg asks us to envision such a world.

Must we be so judgmental of others? Can't we just appreciate the happiness and love shared between two people? Is it really that difficult?

by Steve Hall    Nov-25-08    
Topic: Best, Brands, Commercials



A Crowd-Pleaser that's Fun to Sing. Nice Thinking, TAG!

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I don't think I could properly describe "Lips" even if I wanted to. It's an ad for Xbox game Lips, which is pretty much karaoke for the Guitar Hero generation. (The microphone's motion sensitive, and you can select songs from your own collection.)

Agency TAG enlisted Tom Kuntz to conceive a strolling pair of lips, singing Take on Me and going about his business. Then he walks into a house party and traipses creepily up the sleeve of a guy who, right on cue, belts out the chorus to A-HA's greatest hit.

I don't know if it's the lips' cheer that got to me, or the natural seratonin-explosion resulting from Take on Me, but this is an insanely infectious spot. We loves it.

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by Angela Natividad    Nov-24-08    
Topic: Best, Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Games, Television



Girl Meets Boy, Visual Orgasm Ensues

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Part Matrix, part classic Maxell ad, this DDB Mexico-created commercial for Gran Centenario Tequila unleashes all the visual stops and assaults your senses with a spectacle far unlike any liquor ad seen in recent memory. It's like a visual orgasm. In slow motion.

It's not entirely clear what it all means (ok, fine, it's all about vampires...oh wait...no...winged angels...it's, like, biblical? whatever) but it sure is fun to watch. If this came on TV during, say, well, any show, it's pretty clear it'd cause one to rewind it and watch it a few more times. If only to analyze all the effects and shots assaulting the senses.

by Steve Hall    Nov-12-08    
Topic: Best, Commercials



Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes Pull Heart Strings

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You had to go and do it didn't you, Lowe Roche Toronto? Bring us down. Make us feel all emotionally overwrought. Make us feel like we're a loser because we live our happy life without much regard for those who don't have it as fortunate. Force us to watch the lives of others decay in front of our eyes - all within 60 seconds.

To that, we say brilliant. Yes, brilliant. This commercial for the ALS Society of Canada hits hard and dramatically illustrates the life-altering effects of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. In the spot, we see the increasingly debilitating effect of ALS and his family. It's not pretty. But then again, neither is the disease. And that's the whole point.

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by Steve Hall    Nov-10-08    
Topic: Best, Cause, Commercials



Woot Places 'Cleverest Adsense Ad Ever'

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blogads Founder Henry Copeland points to what he dubs the "cleverest Adsense ad ever." Without hesitation, we'd have to agree completely. Riffing on Google's stock market woes, Woot placed an ad that reads, "We saw what's over there. Figured you'd look away. So we put our ad here. woot.com." Is that not brilliant placement (and copy) or what?

by Steve Hall    Nov-10-08    
Topic: Best, Online



Renamed WiFi Networks Guilt Freeloaders Into Buying Coffee

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This is truly brilliant. With free WiFi popping up at cafes the world over, the number of people impolitely "stealing" it without so much as buying a simple coffee has increased as well. To both reprimand and capitalize on this trend, Holland-based CoffeeCompany, with help from THEY, has started promoting menu items through people's WiFi menus.

By continuously changing the names of their store networks to such things as OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready, BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate, TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro and BuyaLargeLatterGetBrownieForFree, the chain is able to both promote items as well as guilt patrons into realizing free WiFi really isn't totally free.

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by Steve Hall    Nov- 2-08    
Topic: Best, Point of Purchase, Promotions