Viera: For Working Off that Caffeine High

Apparently Viera plasma and LCD TVs are so awesome that you'll leap tall buildings and whatnot just to sit your ass down in front of it. Okay, maybe not tall buildings but motorists at least.

By IBD Brands/Mumbai for Panasonic.

IKEA Web Series, or Portent of Things to Come?

IKEA's first webisode stars Illeana Douglas, who arrives on-set as a spokesperson but is mistaken for an employee. The ensuing adventure involves Jeff Goldblum, Tom Arnold, Justine Bateman, Jane Lynch, Craig Bierko, and Kevin Pollack.

You could play the video without the sound on and probably lose none of the impact. I felt only a blandly receptive response to the cheery color palette.

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Please, Housewives, No Diving in the Fountain of Youth

For Johnson & Johnson's Aveeno label, Ogilvy commissioned a street artist to create a three-dimensional "fountain of youth" with chalk on pavement.

See a sped-up video of how the drawing was made. It's sorta like watching a Bob Ross segment, except too fast for you to follow and there aren't any "happy trees."

Of late, Ogilvy's totally stuck on this street art thing. See what it did for IBM and Tom of Finland. If it keeps this up, subversive street punks might actually go back to using Sharpies and aerosol paint.

It'll be like the '80s again.

'No Stank You' Reminds You: Smoking is So. Not. Trendy.

WONGDOODY brings retro effects and electonica beats to No Stank You, a fervently trendy effort to keep teens in Washington from smoking.

A dance-off sets the stage for the first spot. Each team consists of a person and a disembodied set of lungs. One set's healthy; the other looks like the tattered black pieces of a deflated life vest.

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Because Politics Can Get Dirty, So Can Las Vegas

OK. Having recently been in Las Vegas, this new VEGAS.com campaign caught my eye and made me laugh knowingly at its wit and complete lack of attempting to make the city appear to be anything other than what it truly is: Disney for grownups.

Latching on to the Presidential election, the press release asks, "Tired of all the 2008 presidential election hype? The nastiness and innuendo? The half-truths and naked lies?" And answers, "We're not either. We're good with naked. And in Las Vegas, our 'polls' tend to have half-dressed women hanging from them." Not sugar coated at all and that's to be appreciated.

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Flight Theme Adds Relatability to 'Human Network Effect'

You've probably seen ads for Cisco's "The Human Network" campaign, which tries making the possibilities of Web 2.0 seem accessible to ordinary business people. (What, there are still execs out there that don't video-conference?)

Phase two of the effort uses the banality of airline travel to demonstrate how the so-called "human network" makes it unnecessary to leap time zones for work. In "The Save More Travel Less Effect," an array of business people perform the airline safety procedure you hear every time you get on a plane. They do a nice job of seeming alternately bored, frustrated or severe.

In this spot, a deserted baggage belt rotates slowly as the frustrations of travel flash across the screen: jetlag, wake-up calls, expense reports, lost luggage, etc. As the words go by faster, the music picks up: this is a life you can leave behind!, the ad seems to shout. Three cheers for the human network!

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IBM Battles Carbon with Removable Street Art

Of late, IBM's been trying to loosen its tie and go a little green. Its efforts so far have been earnest but self-conscious: potentially exciting work dampened by risk-aversion.

For its "Fight Carbon" campaign, IBM gets down with the street artists -- "vandalizing" public areas, then removing its work and leaving those spaces cleaner than when they left them.

In its younger years, IBM was clearly not the rebel in the 'hood.

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Bed Head and Bullsh*t Do Not a Cewebrity Make

JC Penney's Crue Boarding is giving away rebates for the full purchasing price when you send them an e-receipt and a shot of you wearing their gear.

To infiltrate its target market -- "full time slackers" into "surfing beer music classy girls" -- Penney's invented Samthebrodude, a fake video blogger who does jack besides post vlogs about this promotion.

Sam's videos are short and the lighting terrible, harking back to a time (pre-dating Lonelygirl15) when those characteristics might have suggested authenticity. Beyond that, he's too much like a character invented out of intensive MySpace research.

Plus, he joined YouTube three weeks ago and has uploaded seven videos -- five of which are all about Crue Boarding's promotion.

See him clutch a guitar, just for show, and flash his rebate check. As if you care.

White Collar Rapper Relieves Tide of Creative Expenses

Encouraged -- but apparently not inspired -- by the success of its talking stain Super Bowl spot, Tide to Go solicited users for their own talking stain ads earlier this year.

YouTube's emceemiko won that contest. His spot -- where a rapping stain mocks an interview candidate -- appeared during the Desperate Housewives premier. The low-budget feel made it instantly recognizable as CGM, but the rap was surprisingly good -- even relatable! -- so I guess sometimes it pays to ask Main Street to do Mad Ave's job.

Pop Culture Plugs Macy's in Nostalgia Montage

Part of doing Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years "properly" is reflecting on how they've been done before, a cultural habit that primes everybody for Memory Lane. That's why the holidays are a perfect time to bang out some pop culture nostalgia, wrap a tagline around it and call it an ad.

Under year-old slogan "The Magic of Macy's" (JWT/NY), Macy's cashes in on these sentiments by leveraging its long brand history. Check out this patchwork quilt of "Macy's" mentions in movies and shows like Charlie Brown, Family Guy, Seinfeld, I Love Lucy and Miracle on 34th Street (which I watched every Christmas as a kid!), among others.

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