Castro's Unpopularity Attributed to Expulsion of Rum

From what I can gather out of these spots, the only reason people swim out of Cuba is to pursue Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 Year Old Rum, which Fidel Castro expelled in 1959.

But the high seas can be treacherous. A shark comes and eats the rum, then eats the people, and Fidel is pleased. Meanwhile, the people inside the shark party with their liquor of choice.

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Starbucks Smoothies Up, Border Passes Make Ad Space, Draft FCB Dies Slowly, JWT Joins Border Patrol

- Watch as Starbucks, flailing wildly, stumbles into smoothies.

- A company called Sojern has partnered with Delta, United, Continental, Northwest and US Airways to sell ad space on boarding passes printed off the 'net.

- It's another review site. The difference is, Culture Clique aspires to be the only review site you'll ever need or want. Think of it: review the iPhone, The Dark Knight, Twitter and Ana Karenina all from one place.

- Draft FCB is imploding, and its biggest antagonist is covering it with unrestrained gleeee. (Yeah, with four Es.) Well, what did you expect with nonsense like this?

- JWT keeps its hand in with a warm, fuzzy border patrol ad. Oh look, a little bunny girl on a bike.

Men Get Mad in New York Subway

Yea! Mad Men is returning but if you simply can't wait to wallow in the 1960's ad world, you get do so virtually in a New York city subway car, some of which have been designed on the interior to look like the television show. Too bad you'll never get the full effect what with the hundreds of people filling the cars obscuring the view...which could lead to another problem.

Budweiser Beer Babes Become Belgian Beer Babes

Right up there with Chevrolet and apple pie, Budweiser has always been quintessentially American. While it's unlikely too much will change, the brewer on Sunday accepted a $52 billion bid from Belgian brewer InBev SA. Upon approval, the deal makes InBev the world's largest brewer and the fourth largest CPG company in the world.

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John McCain Keeps Adrants in Business

Poor John McCain. The dude just continues to be trashed online. In a new video from the Service Employees International Union, McCain is trashed for supporting tax loopholes which make it financially attractive to buy and sell companies which often leads to lower wages and job cuts. The Union calls out McCain's support of the loopholes by comparing him to monsters from old Japanese movies.

Writing on AdFreak, David Giantasio points out some of the monsters come from the movie Gappa, the Triphibian Monster in which monsters weren't actually evil but simply became destructive after being misunderstood by people. And in a seemingly Republican-leaning comment, Giantasio closes with, "Just like John McCain."

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Guitar Hero Goes on Tour.

And they're bringing jetpacks.

Meh. I'm not sure what definitively killed this ad for me: the retro lightning effects, the radioactive squirrel ("Go forth and ROCK!"), or the sabre tooth tiger that doubled as a magic carpet.

Put together by Bent Image Labs for DDB, LA.

Vampires Unite, Fight for Suffrage -- Oh, and Your Viewership

If you knew a vampire didn't need to feed on human blood to survive, would you let him sit next to you on the bus? That's the question behind this cheesy (but compelling) online campaign for True Blood, a new HBO series from Six Feet Under's Alan Ball.

Put together by Campfire -- the same zany folks that convinced you a sadistic witch lived in Maryland -- the effort tries drumming up controversy for a synthetic blood beverage called Tru Blood, which will liberate vampires from their need to feed on people and finally enable them to demand equal treatment among the living.

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Google -- Yes, Google -- Premiers Radiohead's 'House of Cards'

Aside from being the first-ever music video to debut courtesy of your friendly neighborhood search and ad giant, it is also the first video ever to be shot without cameras. Only lasers and scanners were used, which is why Thom Yorke looks kind of like a sonogram.

Watch House of Cards -- better yet, "interact" with it on Google. There's also a making-of video that talks about Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR, the technology used to capture all the imagery in 3D.

Directed by James Frost of Zoo Films.

Bad Enough to Be Made of Yarn; Without Bones, You're at a Serious Disadvantage in Combat

Having watched an orange puppet space-jump through hipster internet companies via magic Rolodex, I figured my quota for toys-appropriated-by-inane-advertising had been hit for the night.

Then I saw "Crochette Doll vs. Little Rubber Thumb," which continues a really random milk campaign that I thought was mildly hilarious until tonight. (It might just be my current state of repressed rage. I bet when I wake up tomorrow I'll watch this crochette doll/rubber thumb crap and exclaim, "a rip-rollicking riot! TWO THUMBS UP! HAR!" But I doubt it.)

Put together by Bent Image Labs for Tribal DDB, Canada.

Where Sharp TVs Lack Sex Appeal, They Compensate in Enchanted Cardboard

So you've got a line of HDTVs. Yeah, well, so do all your rivals, and LG stole the promotional bacon with its campy-as-shit Scarlet campaign. How do you compete with the TV that compared itself to a red dress?

If you're Sharp, you'll promote the box.

Check out the Life Changing Box by Lowe Worldwide. Give each icon a poke to get something new out of the square brown wonder. The site loads slow as hell, but the results are, I don't know, educational. (Click on the beaker for a cartoon about the birth of LCD. Niftaaay.)

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