Indians Let Cleveland Graffiti All Up on Public Transport

Heh. The Cleveland Indians invite local natives to "join the tribe" with a series of Brokaw-brokered bus wraps that people can autograph. Neat idea; don't know if it'll generate more loyalty to the Indians, but maybe it'll hike up sales for Sharpie.

Beyonce to Front Nintendo Rhythm Heaven Campaign

A lover of Super Mario, Beyonce has offered up her fan girlishness to Nintendo and will become the spokesperson for the company's new game, Rhythm Heaven, due to release April 5. Beyonce will appear in television commercial (making of here) as well as print ads and online.

The singer follows Nicole Kidman, America Ferrera, Carrie Underwood, Lisa Kudrow and Liv Tyler as spokesmodels for the brand.

KFC Mascot Gets Community Service-Savvy

When we first heard that KFC Colonels were circulating Louisville and filling in potholes, we had this horrible mental image of street cavities being retrofitted into giant buckets of fried chicken.

The reality behind KFC's road-refreshment project is more benign, if not as nice-smelling. To celebrate its dedication to freshness, KFC plans to re-tar potholes and refresh roads in five major cities across the nation.

Instead of luring stupid-hungry drivers out of their cars with chicken in dangerous places, the filled-in holes will feature a road-stenciled "Re-freshed by KFC." (Temporary chalk, natch.)

Oddly satisfying to see a corporate mascot don a yellow vest and do something for the community. What are the odds we could get Karl Lagerfeld to re-tar roadsides?

Hey, Look. Condom Ads with Sex in Them.

Gratuitous raunch, black humour, etc. all appear in these ads for LifeStyles' SKYN line, which trips all over itself in an anxious commitment to "change safe sex forever."

All we got out of this was lag and choppiness, with the occasional softporn moment for good measure. There are punchlines at the end that we didn't entirely understand, due to said lag and choppiness and general being-distracted-by-shinier-shit.

Don't blame our connection; the site just has a lot going on. (Really though, do the TV spots have to rotate? Being merched shouldn't feel like Duck Hunt.)

Work by AMP Agency/Boston. Pressie reads, "New Campaign Adds Sensuality to Condom Advertising." As if that's innovative. Or something.

Heh-Heh, British Stuff for Shoe Brand.

With help from digital agency Holler, footwear brand Kickers is launching an online comedy sketch series called "Random Bandits," which features characters from TV show Modern Toss and guest voice-overs from the UK's The Office.

The effort'll run for three months, beginning in the first week of April, and will "send up everything from entertainment, popular culture and even social networks." Hope you're equipped with that slapstick Brit wit. You'll definitely need it for this dive back into MySpace.

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'He Lives Vicariously ... Through Himself.'

He once had an awkward moment -- just to see how it feels. He can also speak French. In Russian.

Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World spreads wee bits of his magic in five ultra-short spots. Just imagine if James Bond were cross-bred with Hugh Hefner and being constantly shadowed by an ironic narrator; you might get a whiff of what this effort's all about.

Point is, the seasoned hunk of cultured man drinks Dos Equis, and he encourages others to "Stay thirsty, my friends," a suave, winky-winky way of saying Stay fast and loose, keep learning ... and drink a helluva lot.

Labors of love by Euro RSCG, which sought to target "men who live or aspire to live 'interesting' lives."

The quotations around "interesting" are from them, not us. Smirk.

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Havaianas Blooms, Kevin Spacey for AA, ATL Goes Intramural

- Ex-Ofsted chief proposes that kids learn social media skills -- Wikipedia, blogging, podcasting, Twitter -- in primary school, alongside other communication skills like handwriting and keyboarding.

- How far would you go for some glacier-fresh Kokanee? As far as the dudes in this spec ad? (Gotta say: the premise is cheesy, but production is clean.)

- Pretty spiffy ATL ad.

- Havaianas footwear in full bloom around Paris. Almost too pretty to stand.

- Fallon Skimmer.

- Take it straight: we fucking hate this execution.

- Kevin Spacey to do Michel Gondry-directed ad for American Airlines.

- Killed Idea alert: "the following ad for Krystal Hamburgers created by the Johnson Group in Chattanooga was killed for fear of 'clown retribution.'" Ever read Jpod? This sorta reminds us of that.

Playboy TV (Somewhat Feebly) Aims to Improve on Reality

It's hard! times! for Hugh Hefner, the world's most recognizable epicure of biped bunnies. With that in mind, Playboy TV's tapped zig/Chicago to help launch its first-ever programming promo campaign.

Under the tagline "A better reality awaits," each ad depicts a formulaic reality TV trope that could do with a little bit of Hef-style debauchery. For some reason though, they feel less party-at-the-mansion and more like Wild On.

I know Playboy needs to walk that line between cutting-edge and soft porn, but it's doing more brand-tarnishing than brand-polishing here. Random party shots of the Mansion in Entourage and Sex and the City probably do more for the company image than these knee-jerk knockoffs of network TV.

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Under Armour Brings Drug-Free Drama Back to Baseball

New York Mets base-grabber Jose Reyes makes an appearance in "Instinct Fast," a new spot for sports label Under Armour.

Put together direct-to-client by Shilo, the piece is sober, slow-moving and taut. Its objective is to promote the Heater lightweight cleat to aficionados of baseball, a word we never hear independently of "steroids" anymore.

Under Armour's carved a niche for itself as the athletic label with a flair for the theatrical, but bon mots from Shilo creative Noah Conopask suggest the vibe's infectious: "We wanted it to feel like a battle, where Jose and the pitcher both had their fingers on the trigger. We wanted you to see it in their eyes, in their body language, and we wanted to subtract everything out of the world they were in, no bleachers, no fans, no scoreboard, only the moment..."

Heavy.

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Flight of the Conchords Rides High Tide of Unhip Lip-Syncers

Since you're probably a postmodern hipster, it's highly likely you love yourself some Flight of the Conchords.

Well, that's cool, we do too.

To promote Season 2 of the show, HBO partnered with Deep Focus to launch the Flight of the Conchords Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece. It's about as grand as it sounds, and one-time creators of fan fiction will probably relish the opportunity to reinterpret FotC's "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" with their own wincey music videos.

And they are admirably wincey. (Okay, maybe not as much as that one time Jemaine dressed up like Labyrinth Bowie and appeared to Bret in his dreams.) Fan or not, feel free to relish in this most awkward pool of self-conscious exhibitionism.

According to Deep Focus, Facebook outreach generated about 470 comments and about 5400 "likes." The two top videos were edited into a single mumbo-jumbo one and incorporated into a Flight of the Conchords ep -- and yeah, that's on cable TV, man.

See Final Fansterpiece below.

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