Like a cross between tag and musical chairs, DDB Barcelona and Agosto Productions have created a new commercial for the Audi A3 which pits drivers against would be drivers in the city of Buenos Aires. The goal of the game is to remain the driver of the A3. To do that, the driver must keep moving and away from those who are chasing the vehicle. If the chaser catches the driver, they become the driver and the game continues. During the commercial, chasers use increasingly inventive ways to get the driver to stop including corralling a bunch of kids to cross the street in front of the car. Surely and sadly, in America, some humorless cause group would take issue with that tactic.
No matter, it's a good spot. It shows the car. It has fun. There are no curvy, winding mountain roads. That alone gets it points.
Lest we forget that showers are also battlefields for drawing brand allegiances, Lowe, Athens and Kings & Queens -- makers of shower gel, body oil and 21st Century royalty -- come leaping out of left field to reignite our senses.
This campaign never makes you feel the same sensation twice. See the everyday technocrat turned King Caspar. Watch a retro Nefertiti claim a honey-slathered victim. Catch the demure Chinese Princess experimenting in her lab.
And finally -- the crowning glory -- observe a trailer-made brand of Sheba and Solomon. (The paper crown at rest beside the rollerblades: priceless.)
The logic follows: "It's all about being part of an urban culture that makes you feel like an everyday royalty." Ahh.
Incredibly, this ad for Highmark by Mullen serves to remind us of two childhood nightmares: the one where we're alone, friendless and talked-about; and the one about the sinister carnival where clowns eat you. (It's the punching bag thing that does it.)
The spot talks about the impact bullying can have on a child's life. The bottom line is to keep communication open with kids so they have somewhere to run when they're hurting.
That new monster "cyber bullying" is also highlighted. Good to know the child safety gurus are keeping up. It only took them 10 years and the advent of Web 2.0 to realize that rumors fly via text message, too.
For its "safest accidents" effort by Team One and a52, Lexus illustrates a series of hypothetical accidents with a life-sized pop-up book and quirky music.
Collisions and street scruples take on a quaint sort of charm when a paper tab slides that slick RX350 to its unfortunate fate. The company's last set of ads for this same message shared this soothing effect, clearing away the result of an accident as if it were only a matter of rearranging the props on a set.
Naturally, the moral of this story is, "The safest accidents are the ones that never happen."
No, you don't have to move to Nevada. Durex is conducting a cattle call for condom testers, ostensibly -- MBP wryly adds -- to find out how its products are performing.
"Sexual intercourse enthusiasts" who volunteer at the Condom Tester site get a handy-dandy toolkit with vibrating rings, condoms and lubricants. One volunteer gets $1,000.
Try explaining that one to mom and dad.
Anyway, we of course have registered because we're always good sports where a noble cause is concerned. Post-registration, the brave are invited to The Pants Whisperer -- which we've seen -- and Propose the Ring -- which we wish we'd caught earlier, because damned if a vibrating ring isn't a better take on the De Beers manifesto.
So Universal Studios Hollywood is scaring the crap out of people to help build awareness of the park and its Halloween attractions. Staffers dressed as monsters surprise unsuspecting guests and place the video of the encounter online for all to see. And...just like all those dweebs who stand and wave like idiots outside the Today Show window, everyone wants in on the action and some guests are seeking out the monsters in the park.
And not that we're complaining but why, why, why is there always a pair of big boobs captured perfectly in a still of a video which manages to find itself in a prominent position on the website? Oh wait, we get it. Boobs attract eyeballs. We're such an idiot sometimes.
Here's the next round of Sunsilk's Hairapy Lovebites series in which women discuss important issues such as how to plan for a puppy shower, whether or not it's appropriate to show your boobs off at work, the social status of a pedicurist, how a great haircut can cure all of life's problems and how the perfect guy is, without doubt, always a figment of one's imagination.
We watched all five episodes all the way through. That, my friends, is a better endorsement than any paragraph full of pointlessly fawning rhetoric. It felt like a TV show, not advertising. Yet, we clearly knew it was from Sunsilk. OK, OK. So we already knew that because the vids were sent to us by Jun Group Productions. But still.
Unlike Oldsmobile which tried to distance itself from its aging audience with the "It's Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" campaign, Beam Global Spirits is embracing the older generation for its Canadian Club whiskey by exclaiming, "Damn Right YOur Dad Drank It." Created by Energy BBDO, the campaign will launch in November with radio, out-of-home, POS and print. Ads will appear in Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and Sporting News, with additional placements in Playboy, Men's Journal, Esquire, Outside and Men's Fitness in December and into 2008.
Hauling out imagery 60's and 70's imagery from actual Beam Global employees and positioning Dad as a once cool manly man, ads state "Your Mom Wasn't Your Dad's First," "Your Dad Was Not a Metrosexual" and "Your Dad Never Got a Pedicure."
Are we seeing a full-on return to the glory days of the hard liquor cocktail when beer was for factory workers and wine was for sissies? Can we now go back to the three martini lunch, pinch asses in the afternoon and have three more martinis at night while watching Mad Men? We might not get any work done but it sure sounds like fun.
To endear a "rising star" to the hearts of jaded Warriors fans, 72andSunny, LA gives us "Who is Monta Ellis?" for And 1.
Picture a grip of :30 and :15 second home videos of people unpacking your every childhood accomplishment. That's what this campaign is for Ellis, the point and shooting guard of our home basketball team. Filmed during a family reunion in Mississippi, the effort shines brightest when Ellis himself ruminates over his childhood tennis trophy and calls himself cold vicious.
Watch Quickness here. It's loaded with speculation among family and friends about where the kid got his slick from. You can almost feel that Mississippi heat. And while we still don't know too much about Ellis, we have a broader understanding of David Banner's state spirit.
If you're wondering what the image is at left, it involves two guys pouring milk onto a pair of car seats. Later, these seats are going to be locked in airtight capsules and left alone for awhile, and then we're going to look at mold!
This is part of YES Essential's new Seeing is Believing demo, which shows you the effects of odors, stain and static on items that are protected by YES Essentials, and items that aren't.
(The latter is not cute.)
YES Essentials last indulged our ick factor with Splat the Mat, where we got to pour stuff on a really clean woman.
Props to Erwin-Penland for knowing we like watching things get gross. So many products focus on ridding our lives of this compulsion. EP obviously knows better.
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