Volvo C30 Campaign Wants Hate And Love

We don't know whether to love or hate this new Fuel London-created campaign for Volvo's C30 but that's the whole point. You'll see what we mean after you view the first spot. Well? Love it? Hate it? Do tell. The second spot is just plain weird. Each spot points to a Euro RSCG 4D Amsterdam-created Freewill website filled with all sorts of interactive games, widgets and more commercials

Dwarfs, Pigs, Dancing Indian Sell Awesome Canned Ham Phone

If the general public ever thought those of us in the advertising business were just a bunch of wanna-be-cool hipsters who drink too much Starbucks, play too much foosball and have strange tastes in music, these two new commercials created by Mother NY and directed by The Perlorian Brothers would confirm that line of thinking. In this spot for the Virgin Mobile Slice, a phone packaged to look like a can of sliced ham, nothing is normal. Nothing at all. And, perhaps, that's a very good thing.

Media Mixes, Future Integrates, Wii Wins

- Tonight from 6P - 9P at Flute in New York City, interactive advertising publication adotas will host its monthly media mixer where you can hobnob with others like yourselves.

- The next Future Marketing Summit will be held March 5, 2007 at the ADC Gallery in New York. Founded by Strawberry Frog, the summit will focus on integration and how it relates to the design, entertainment, technology and delivery aspects of marketing.

- The Silly Girl takes a look at the recent PS3 and Wii launches, provides and analysis and tells us why Wii came out on top.

LA Weekly Lets People Add to Campaign

The ongoing LA Weekly campaign is dipping its toes into the consumer-generated space with Blank Blankly, a section of their site that allows people to upload an image, add some text and, poof, create an ad similar to the newspaper's campaign that's been running for quite some time. Trouble is, once you've upload your image and make a mistake like we did, it doesn't appear you can edit it after the fact. And adding the copy? Well we gave up in frustration. Of course, it could be that we're just not that smart around here and the promotion is a great one. You decide.

PETA Cozies Up with Kids ... and Kid Killers?!

PETA recently launched PETA Kids in an attempt to make the volatile group more kid-friendly. The site is loaded with fun little ways to propagandize the usual message, like stencils to decorate the nearest public loo with images of animals begging "love me" - yes, like a psychotic ex.

PETA is also promoting Fast Food Nation and Happy Feet, which happens to be in bed with Tamiflu, which, by the way, is now linked to sometimes fatal but generally psychotic behavior among kids.

Clearly PETA has not done its homework about children the way it has with pigs, puppies and penguins. Want to cozy up to kids? Liaise with companies that aren't already liaising with companies that happen to be compelling your target demographic to fling themselves off condo balconies. Isn't that, like, common knowledge? - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Fake Tahitians, Useful Yiddish, Faux-Euro Virals, Caveman Therapy, and a Canadian Delicacy

Because nothing goes like sailors, rum and ass-shaking, 42 Below intro's Tahiti Dark Rum to Auckland Harbor with the Tahiti Dark Maidens. And if you ever had a doubt, yes, the Pussy Galore indeed exists.

In one fell strip Tom Fishburne of Brand Camp fame depicts 8 types of bad creative critics. The Blender gave us the biggest stomachache.

HP makes its first viral, a random pseudo-European situational with classical music featuring the stodgy Berthold and Max, and we love it more than we should.

Geico gives its angry cavemen therapy. The caveman commercials are heralded as America's favourite advertising and the perfect depiction of the "strong yet vulnerable male." We don't know about all that but we dig the cavemen too.

Sony Vaio launches a campaign in Brazil with this paper airplane thing.

Gaebler Ventures hides money in plain site to snag fledgling entrepreneurs - or at least some people hungry for Yemen's gelt (a handy pre-Hannukah Yiddish phrase for hunting other people's money).

Germany's Haagen-Dazs hawks vanilla caramel brownie ice cream as Canada's delicacy, which made us laugh because anything involving Canada makes us laugh including the notion that the linguistically-divided "Aye!"-chirping side of America has a national delicacy that happens to be purveyed by an ice cream company. And all this time we thought the US made brand-oriented individualism king. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Lindsay Lohan Puts Clothes on For Fashion Label

Blah blah, blah Lindsay Lohan blah, blah, blah Miu Miu blah blah blah Prada blah, blah, blah new ad campaign blah, blah, blah celebrity spokes-ho blah blah blah, recent GQ spread blah, blah, blah former Louis Vuitton spokesmodel blah, blah, blah gossip queen blah, blah, blah panty-challenged blah, blah, blah 2007 campaign launch blah, blah, blah...

Yahoo Mail Launches E-mail Championship

Because there isn't enough geeky stuff in the world with its own championship games, Yahoo! Mail in conjunction with Poke London have decided to launch an E-mail Championship to determine the world's best e-mailers. The object is to position Yahoo! as the choice of e-mail champions.

We're sure a pocket of people are going to eat this up. So if you type mighty fast and can communicate in hieroglyphics just as well as English, consider joining. It would be an awesome thing to tell your grandkids about when they're midway through joking about the reality TV phenomenon. We're sure it will really impress them. Really. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Kleenex Catches Logo Ovulation Syndrome

Apparently tissue is experiencing a comeback and Kleenex wants in on hipsters: Our New Oval is a promo for their new oval-shaped tissue dispenser.

Kleenex has been long wedded to the ho-hum quadrilateral silhouette so here's a half-hearted kudos for thinking out of the box. Though their decision to go oval made us recall the logo ovulation critique Hurty Elbow posed about brands who somehow fall under the misguided impression that oval saves sinking ships.

Check out other promo ads here. And since no hipster campaign is complete without one, take the personality test too. If you're curious about Adrants' personality, we are into yoga and wise beyond our years. We don't know about all that om business but that last goes without saying, yeah? - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Virgin Plays With Itself, Mannequins Play With Themselves

-Virgin Atlantic goes overboard playing with its own nine inches of pleasure in a new campaign from Eight Partnership.

- imulus wonders why advertisers haven't figured out podcast advertising and offers up a few suggestions.

- If you like hot looking mannequins in hot looking lingerie in hot looking poses, you'll like this print campaign for blush lingerie.

- That Silly Girl weighs in on the stereotypical idiocy of the STA Travel Body Shots thing and why Leo Burnett might want to take its weather-dependent Max Factor billboard to earthquake laden San Francisco.

- Cynopisis reports, "Nielsen has just completed its first Product Placement Valuation Study, which is part of its Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative. Of interest in the study, 57.5% of viewers recognized a brand when seeing a product placement in combination with a commercial. That's in comparison to 46.6% who only saw the commercial for that brand. The results suggests product placement adds to the value of traditional advertising."

- Michael Crichton does the fake company, fake video thing to promote his new genetic engineering-focused novel.