Going Out is For Losers

In an attempt to capture an unlikely audience, London's Time Out has launched two spots directed by Julian Pugsley and edited by Owen Plotkin that take us inside the very weird world of social losers illustrating to us how we'd never, ever want to lead such a life and how Time Out can cure all. Well, at least it can provide places to go. We're not too sure if it can cure the idiosyncratic behavior of the two guys in these commercials.

Squirrels Can't Answer Life's Big Questions. WonderCafe Can

United Church of Canada's WonderCafe, "home of open-minded discussion and exploration of spiritual topics, moral issues and life's big questions," has, with help from Smith Roberts and UNTITLED, launched a viral-intended video called E-Z Squirrel. In the video, a squirrel is asked simple yes or no questions until he's asked, "which one of the gospels do you think resonates most in relation to the modern world in which we live?" The squirrel answers "yes" leaving the questioner a bit stumped - which is the entire point of the video. When you have want to explore life's big questions a bit deeper, don't ask a squirrel. Go to WonderCafe instead. It's clear. It's simple. It's funny. It works.

Motorola Wants to Improve Your Karma

Motorola has wrapped itself in the (RED) campaign and is promoting its Moto RAZR V3M phoe with a very odd site called Improve Your Karma on which a dude named Sven Goodsson gts all excited about karma. He'll even analyze your karma using youur MySpace profile as a yardstick. You might want to remove all those porn star...uh...friend profile from your site before you take the test. Tough, apparently, our lame profile registers as "awesome." Have fun.

Youtube Paves Way for Video Ripping, Cut/Paste Beatboxing

It's always interesting to watch people do strange shit with their bodies but this video is especially interesting because it brings a nouveau twist to the time-honored art of vinyl ripping, a method that's slowly vanishing with digital deejays and MP3 blending.

Is there a creative future in video ripping for the egocasting generation? Maybe. Credit goes to Advertising for Peanuts for bringing it to our attention. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Rumpus Room, Young Guns Join to Make Trade Fair

Lots of liaisons happen around holiday time. The Rumpus Room, Young Guns and some other noob-oriented groups get together for Make a Big Noise, a competition to promote fair trade worldwide. Anyone under 30 can enter.

Here is the requisite MySpace. We like Rumpus Room, we like Young Guns and we like their concept but the MySpace sucks. We're sure they know that though. Considering fair trade and all that good stuff are causes now embraced by the tech-savvy, super-trendy, organic smoothie-sipping post-Google crowd, we look forward to seeing what kind of entries slip out of the woodwork. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Hospital Campaign Gets Artistic

We don't usually expect to see famous impressionist artwork in hospital ads which is why this ad campaign for New Hampshire's Exeter Hospital by Boston-based Winsper jumped off the pages of the press release and slapped us pleasingly in the face. With the tagline The Art of Wellness," the campaign aims to, well, be different and, thankfully leave behind the overused, meaningless white coat and cutesy family imagery of which most hospital ad campaigns, sadly, consist. The creative will see representation in print, on radio and on billboards. See all the creative here.

Bizarre Nissan Ad Shows Promise for Agency Newbie

Ads involving carriages in a desperate race against crocodiles, tigers, spherical killer rocks and Satan always make for promising fare, which is why Oregon Trail was so popular, and which is also why this Nissan ad by Curt Detweiler via TBWA\Chiat\Day is so awesome.

Curt's new to LA having just come from TBWA Paris and this work suggests he merits some watching - for slapstick entertainment value if nothing else. And by the way, that image at left has little to do with the video but lots to do with QuickTime being douchey. It is, however, part of the TBWA Nissan campaign. Try not to get confused. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Santa Liberation Says Fight Global Warming for Santa

Thanks to the enigmatic Comandante Hermey of the Santa Liberation Front we got to check out this neat stop-animation message about global warming. We enjoy stop animation in general because it reminds us of the shitty cartoons we watched as children but this one has a uniquely poignant message: if you won't do your part against global warming for earth's sake, or even for Al Gore, do it for Santa and the children.

That "do it for the children" stance never gets tired. It's the non-profit version of the more common "if you loved me, you'd..." And hell, we'll bet at least 35 people a day are suckered in by that one. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Dentsu Demonstrates Fine Line Between Fandom and Activism

The fine people at Dentsu Canada created this magazine ad that won Finalist caliber at this year's IAA Young Creative Competition in London. Peel the pro-Justin message off a love-starved fan's sign and turn her into a passionate anti-war activist.

If only it were that easy in real life. Though we're less jarred by the girl's transformation than the contextual change of the goofy-looking man with the open-chested shirt and necklace behind her.

Copy reads "Support a better cause" and is for the United Nations Youth Group. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Beer Promotion Strangely Linked to Whale Killings

Apparently, the Japanese have a substantial interest in several Australian beer brands and that's tightened the underwear of the conservation group Sea Shepard Society and Australia's Bluetongue Brewery who want the public to know which Australian beers are "whale safe." Apparently, the Japanese kill a lot of whales under the pretext of research. In a video found on YouTube and on the Whales Safe Beer website, a fat Japanese business man, in response to ordering the "full whale experience" at a restaurant, is served just that but we're sure it's not at all what he was expecting.

Listed on the Whales Safe Beer site are the beers Bluetoungue and the Sea Shepard Society say are not whale safe. These include Castlemaine, Emu, Hahn, James Squire, Southwark, Swan, Tooheys, West End and XXXX.