Lux Shines with Vegas-Style Animation

Post-Evolution, soap ads strike us as a bit lacking in the imagination department. But Lux Provocateur goes above and beyond the call of duty.

We were dazzled by their charming and innovative stop-motion stint, and they win us over twofold with Neon Girl by Santo, Buenos Aires, the same heartstring bandits responsible for the previous ad, and Danny Kleinman of production company Rattling Stick.

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Nintendo Plays With Sony's Balls

Oh look, Sony's got another Bravia Balls ad. Oops, sorry. Pardon our confusion. We're easily suckered by such similarities. When ever we see colored balls flying though the air we can't help but think of Sony's...uh...balls. But no. This isn't a Bravia Balls ad. It's a Nintendo commercial breaking Monday, April 16 introducing the Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl games.

Leo Burnett created the spot entitled Pokeballs which features children in a variety of different locations watching Pokeballs fall from the sky in anticipatory amazement. After Sony Paint, we were in the mood for another ball spot but, alas, this isn't it. Nintendo's got Sony by the balls now.

Proper Dress Increases, CBS Goes Online, Holiday Squeaks

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Dressing properly pays off. USAToday.com's recent face lift has increased registrations by 380 percent.

- CBS has created an online distribution network for its programming. Outlets include AOL, Joost, Bebo, MSN Video, TV.com, Comcast, Brightcove, SlingMedia, Netvibes, Veoh. Programming will include with a 90/10 revenue split to CBS.

- BudTV ain't cookin'. Traffic has dropped 40 percent since its launch in February.

- Elana Centor sat down with Fallon copywriter Paula Maki Biondich to discuss her work on the latest Holiday Inn commercial in which bloggers and WiFi are celebrated. That squeak at the end? No idea.

- Verizon has jumped on the Adwalker train and is using the "human TVs" to promote its FiOS service.

KFC Targets Kids With Mosquito Tone Commercial

Using mosquito tone technology which produces a high pitched frequency that, in most cases, only those under 21 can hear, KFC, with help from DraftFCB, has launched a commercial which offers the chance to win a $10 coupon to the first 1,000 who know when the tone starts in the commercial. Blatantly casting aside issues surrounding childhood obesity (not that it's marketer's fault, mind you) and human physiology, KFC spokeswoman Laurie Schalow said, "It's really not meant to target 20-year-olds and under. We actually found there were quite a few people in their 30s who can hear it just fine." Uh, right. Gotta love public relations.

Oh wait, strike that. We can hear the tone just fine and we're, uh, well over 20. Guess we have great ears. Or the sound has been enhanced in the YouTube version of the commercial. Yup, it's been enhanced. Can't hear it in the commercial hosted on the KFC site. So it's back to lovin' PR. But there's no need to guess yourselves. The 1,000 coupons have already been claimed.

Gatorade Gets Into Sidney Crosby, Lets Us Come Too

Gatorade presents us with the What's Inside campaign starring the NHL's Sidney Crosby. The Canada-based run includes video game stylistics and surreal Hollywood visual effects. The object is to go on pushing their longtime "Is it in you?" position which always brought Alien, and not sports drinks, to mind.

We're a little surprised by what the inside of somebody's mind actually looks like. Under the impression it would be murky and labyrinthine, Crosby's head is a lot more like, well, a spaceship.

With decision-making opportunities and the occasional dreamy childhood flashback, the site is trippy and occasionally eerie, but then again we're easily shaken after a Goatse attack. We only wish we had a bit more back-end control over the hockey star, who makes for rather nice eye candy. Credit goes out to Canada's Tribal DDB.

Talking Socks, Mike and Mike Take on Athlete's Foot

MS&L Digital helped launch this weird new site called Get Your Game Feet On, a perhaps dead-on attempt at making Novartis' Lamisil AT Gel more jock friendly.

We weren't deeply moved by hosts Mike and Mike's feel-good product pushing (it's really hard to take feet seriously) but we kind of liked the hoop shot game and thought the talking socks were sort of funny. That is, until we remembered Lamb Chop and got really bummed out. It's not every day that your favourite talking sock dies.

Macy's Deploys 'Brand Ambassadors' on College Conversion Mission

Macy's just launched a campaign designed to harness the power of WOM on eight campuses nationwide. The pilot brand is American Rag, and students are the vehicle.

American Rag enthusiasts were chosen as brand ambassadors to promote a contest at their respective schools. As they walk around all ragged-out, they encourage peers to design a print for the brand. The goal is to create foot traffic at Macy's stores located nearby.

If American Rag wants to succeed it would do well to change its name. There's already an American Eagle and an American Apparel, both of which pretty much own the niche Macy's is shooting for.

Plus, something about it makes us think along the lines of Jordache, Mossimo and other hopeful big-brands now confined to big boxes.

But hey, in the end the co-eds will decide.

Miller Looks, Youth Conferences, Asbestos Does WTC

- Miller is looking at five agencies after exiting Crispin: Saatchi, Y&R, Mother and two unnamed agencies.

- On July 16-17, youth-focused YPulse will host a conference called The 2007 Mashup which will cover all aspects of youth marketing.

- Hadji Williams gets a nice review for his book, Knock the Hustle: How to Save Your Job and Your Life From Corporate America.

- Copyranter dug up an old pro-asbestos ad that touts the material's fire-retardant qualities and features an image of The World Trade center. Particularly prescient is the ad's headline which reads, Whenthe fire alarm went off, it took two hours to evacuate New York's Trade Center."

- Mr. Clean has launched a consumer-generated effort and is offering $10,000 to th person who creates the best 60-second ad. Nothing like getting what would normally cost about $100K for a tenth of the cost.

- In Belgium, you can Rent A Wife. Actually, you can rent a lot of stuff.

Reebok Runs Easy With Route Sharing Site

Molecular and Carat Fusion have put together a site called Run Easy for Reebok. The site allows runners to enter and share their favorite running routes as well as discuss routes in a forum, view run route images and listen to play lists people have created for those routes. The site is smarlt designed and allows for the traditional use of the back button unlike most overly designed Flash sites. They get points alone just for that. Check it out. We like.

Maytag Gets Repairman, CG Horrified, Google Optimizes

- Maytag gets new repairman.

- Spin Thicket points out some "truly horrific" CGI in this Sleep Center of the Southwest commercial. Quite horrid, indeed.

- kirshenbaum bond + partners announced today that Creative Director Joseph Mazzaferro has been named Partner.

- Cynopsis reports, "Showtime's premiere of The Tudors drew a 869,000 total viewers on Sunday night at 10p, and another 404,000 for its 11pm airing, marking the pay-TV network's biggest premiere night in the past three years. Showtime currently has 14.5 million subscribed nationwide."

- Google has launched Website Optimizer, a tool website publishers can use to determine which combination of page elements perform best. As will all Google products, it's free.

- On the heels of Google launching its TV buy bid system, DoubleClick - which may end up being bought by Google - announce it will develop a digital marketing exchange for buying and selling online inventory.