Beer Bottles Bring Christmas Spirit to Union Station

Who needs chimes or bells to create Christmas carols when you have beer bottles instead? Yes, Amstel has come up with an inventive promotion that fits perfectly with the holiday season. In New York's Union Square today, a group of carolers delivered holiday tunes by blowing on beer bottles filled to various levels to make the right sounds. Giving something back while selling. Nice.

Starbucks Brainwashes Boston Cabbies

Catch Up Lady takes paranoid note of Starbucks' infiltration of Boston cab drivers, who seem to be in cahoots with It's Red Again, the pay-it-forward campaign that's got people doing all kinds of weird shit like buying baked goods for each other. And smiling! What's with the smiling?!

Catch Up Lady vows to bar herself indoors but to be honest we'd like to get in the way of the people giving out movie tickets and orgasmic pastries. Clearly another demonstration of how Starbucks intends to take over the world, to no positive end. - 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.

Illuminated Reindeer Draws Energy from Enslaved Pedalers

In what's got to be among the suckiest jobs ever, BC Hydro commissioned Vancouver-based DDB Canada to create an illuminated billboard that ran 24/7 on the pedaling power of over 120 volunteers.

The campaign in toto featured 1500 LED lights, an enviro-savvy choice at least, and for every hour the reindeer was lit Hydro made a donation to the Canadian Association of Food Banks. Well, that's sweet. We hope the donation makes for some serious holiday dinner considering a lot of literal blood, sweat and (possibly) tears went into keeping that magical deer afire. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Drunk Driving Scare Tactics Are a Universal Language

This Colombian campaign for El Trago Mas Caro or "the most expensive drink" stages a gory accident along a busy roadside to promote the "drink+drive=DIE!" message for teens. Read the news story here, though it might prove challenging if you're not proficient in Colombian Spanish. It's a nice set-up but since this in-your-face approach is standard fare in many high schools we wonder whether it does the job for the young and jaded.

In any case, let's ponder over this whole fake dead people thing. Yeah. Getting kind of old. Cry wolf, anyone? - Contributed by Angela Natividad

360 Mobile Video Billboard Brings Times Square to a 'burb Near You

Here's something we don't get to report every day. Massachusetts company Alt Terrain LLC unleashes an actual new media platform. We were like, is that possible?

The patent-pending 360 Degree Mobile Video Billboard delivers ad content (even 30-second moving spots) to thousands of eyeballs in a given hit. Right now it's in New York, LA, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. You attach it to your car, truck or SUV.

Wait. Four-sided, mobile, audio/visual advertising? We'll say for the record that if we were the inventor of the dated but endearing ice cream truck, we'd be pretty pissed that somebody was trying to take our idea, attach a bunch of bells and whistles to it and pass it off as their invention. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Timberland Offers Self-Expression With Leather Billboards

It's rare we receive a press release that isn't rife with orgasmic marketing blather and seems more concerned with "appearing" intelligent than actually being intelligent so we were pleased to received this straight forward release from Arnold touting their new leather billboard work for Timberland. We're so happy we don't have to sift through this release like so many others simply to find, among the thousands of words, the hundred or so that actually say anything that we're just going to reprint the thing here:

"Today, Timberland started posting billboards made of its iconic (Ed: OK, "iconic" might be a bit over the top) boot leather in three New York City boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx. Over a two-day period, local artists representing each borough will adorn the billboards with original artwork reflecting what the borough means to them. (Ed: a little squishy but we'll let it pass) The goal of the project, created by Arnold, is to create a platform for artists to express themselves and their passion for community, using the Timberland boot as canvas. (Ed: Easy now. It's just a billboard.)

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Billboards Power Local Appliances

Following yesterday's wind-blown dress for Pretty Polly lingerie, the outdoor medium continues to impress with a recent Saatchi Saatchi Switzerland campaign for Swiss electric utility Groupe E. Most people know everything runs on electricity which, for an electric utility, can be a problem. After all, when was the last time you gave a thought to the name of the company that delivers your electricity? This campaign works towards highlighting Groupe E and to remind people electricity, though ubiquitous, should never be taken for granted. See all the creative here.

California Bus Stops Stink...Like Cookies

Yesterday, bus shelters in California started smelling like chocolate chip cookies as part of a Got Milk campaign. The smell comes not from actual, fresh-baked cookies but from New York-based Arcade Marketing's Magniscent adhesive stickers. Great. As if there weren't already enough drooling kooks at bus stops already. Now everyone's tongue will be hanging out, dripping saliva and jonesing for cookies.

UPDATE: A bunch of cause group idiots with nothing better to so than make life miserable for the rest of us complained and got the campaign pulled because of the so called damage the scent could do to "chemically sensitive" people.

Funeral Ad Invites Customers a Little Closer to Demise

In moralizing reverie, Stop Geek points out this funeral ad posted alongside some metro rails. We have to admit it gave us the shakes considering we did get a little closer to a similarly positioned ad that probably merited it less. And we have to admit it's a wittier campaign than the calendar girls on coffins, though its tastefulness may come into as much question.

In our experience professionals in the funeral industry have a cadaverously dry but present sense of humour. (Really, how can you not?) Some people take life too seriously. Some people take death too seriously. They're two sides of the same coin; if indeed you feel the compulsion to come closer, then ... well ... we don't know what to tell you. - Contributed by Angela Natividad