Coke's Happiness Factory Shakes the Sleepies Out

"Happiness Factory 3" continues Coke's Happiness Factory/Open Happiness campaign with a Monday-friendly beginning we can all identify with. Mid-yawn, a guy hits up a Coke vending machine, compelling all the Wonderland creatures inside to yawn too.

There's a bit of authoritative clapping, then some feel-good pop music kicks in. Everyone snaps open their Cokes, and both worlds bloom into quotidian activity.

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Eliza Dushku Busts Out For Hulu

In this new commercial for Hulu, Eliza Dushku, while strutting across the set, describes her new FOX show, Dollhouse, saying, "It's a potent blend of twisty plot lines and insane action that'll keep your eyes glued and your brain rotting."

And at the exact moment she says "eyes glued," she takes her jacket off to reveal a tidal wave of gyrating pulchritude that does, indeed, keep the eyes glued.

We tip our hat to the Crispin Porter + Bogusky creative team of Dj Pierce and Justin Ebert for ever so perfectly timing their copy to the action on screen. We do, however, wonder just how many times they chuckled at their little joke as the readied the spot for presentation. Nice work, guys.

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JWT's Anxiety Blog, Ogilvy's Recession Salve, Revisiting 'Like a Prayer'

- Flashback to Madonna's banned Like a Prayer ad for Pepsi.

- Wolff Olins brings minimalist flickr magic -- and a forum for inquiry -- to "scientific" cosmetic brand Living Proof.

- Tracking (corporate accounts on) Twitter.

- The Guardian makes good observations about Twitter (scroll down to the bulletpoints).

- Ogilvy-branded solutions to a recession. Take that hype with a few spoonfuls of salt. Hat tip to our favourite mad man.

- JWT launches a blog called Anxiety Index.

- ScapeNation: another tween-targeting web destination, brought to you by Red Tettemer.

Ad Babe Britney Spears Returns As New Candie's Girl

For years, we wrote about Britney Spears here on Adrants. It was almost obsessive. Then...she met Kevin Federline and, well, things changed. No longer was she the darling of global marketers but rather fodder for Perez Hilton, Jezebel and The Superficial. It hardly seemed appropriate to mention her antics here on Adrants so we didn't.

Apart from her ill-conceived appearance on the MTV Music Awards and her recent campiagn for her Hidden Fantasy fragrance, Spears has been all but absent from Adrants for three to four years.

While we're not going to label her return as the new face for Candie's Only at Kohl's triumphant, it's nice to see the girl back in the world of advertising. Yes, she never really left but you do have to admit she did take quite a hiatus.

The deal, which puts Spears in Kohl's 2009 print, TV, online and in-store efforts. ties Britney's sponsorship role to her concert tour which kicks off March 3. And there will be all kinds of Candie's pink along for the ride in the form of VIP pink carpets and lounges.

Tonight, Spears' "First Look" tour video will debut exclusively on the Candie's website.

There is No Nudity in This Christina Aguilera Perfume Campaign

When a campaign has the tagline, "Sometimes it's all you need to wear," some would assume the imagery accompanying the tagline would involved a degree of nudity. One would usually be right but not this time.

For a recent ambient campaign Tel-Aviv agency Mizbala did for Christina Aquilera's new perfume in Israel, the agency placed tens of thousands of clothes hangers with perfume samples attached around Tel-Aviv.

While we're sure someone cold have taken this down the more crass road of, say, nude models prancing around the street with vials of the pefume hung from their necks, we're guessing the hanger approach was a lot cheaper, much easier to manage and a bit less potentially offensive to some.

Here's a video highlighting the campaign.

Clean Coal is So Clean It's An Air Freshener

Hmm. So Crispin Porter + Bogusky asks the Coen Brothers to do a spot for their client, The Reality Coalition, to poke fun at the notion there's such a thing as clean coal. Aside from the irony of the word "coal" being in the cause group's name, the Coen Brothers do an OK job withe the cheesy spokesman approach.

In the commercial, the spokesman says, "clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word clean," as the wife half of the couple he's speaking to sprays black clouds out of an aerosol can. Complete with coughing kids, the spots also claims "clean goal is supported by the coal industry, the most trusted name in coal."

You see? Just like the word clean guarantees your clothes will be clean in laundry detergent ads, the word clean in clean coal ads assures the same, right?

Fast Girls, Fast Cars, Fast Hype-Hijack.

Didn't You Hear pointed us in the direction of "Fast girls, Fast cars, One wild ride" -- two sponsors' attempt to penetrate the hype wormhole opened by the Ken Block Gymkhana practice video (which is also sponsored, just less obviously).

Sports Illustrated poster girls Melissa Haro, Jessica Hart and Damaris Lewis ease into respective Nissan 370Zs and demonstrate the car's uber-fun-and-fastness by grabbing onto things, throwing their arms up and shrieking like they're on Medusa.

The 370Z is cool and all, but this whole setup feels terrifically desperate. Then again, we usually react poorly to anyone who prefaces a pitch with "They're in for the ride of their lives!"

For you intellectual sadists, there are laughs to be had in the YouTube comment stream.

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Hardee's Crowdsources Little Thickburger Campaign

Remember those Little Thickburger commercials from last year? Riffing off that, Hardee's launched an ad generator app so fans could create their own Thickburger comparisons.

The company expected maybe one or two to shine, but it turns out about 16 spots turned out to be broadcast-quality. (Though when you think about it, it's a pretty tough formula to screw up: [Big thing. Little thing.] Extra points for wordplay.) See them here.

"And we didn't even offer them a million dollars. Or anything for that matter," Hardee's added, puffing its chest out for extra effect.

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Mr. T And Snickers to Offend Again?

Uh Oh. The Wimpy Swimmers of America cause group is about to get their undies in a twist. As will, no doubt, Bob Garfield. Yes, after its Speedwalker ad offended gays (and Bob Garfield), which we never quite understood, Snickers is out with another Mr. T ad which takes on wimpy "toe dippers" who cower at the thought of swimming in water that isn't a perfect 85 degrees.

"You makin' me mad, sucka!"

"It's time to get in the pool, fool!"

"Take that, toe dipper!"

"I hate flying so this better be the last time I hear you crying!"

"Get some nuts!"

Yea, baby! Classic Mr. T.

Ashton Tweets, S/Urge, Libel Revisited and the ow.ly-Twitter Hustle

- zOMG: grainy shots of Ashton and Demi! This cinches it: following celebrities on Twitter is almost as rad as following them around in real life. (Diggin' how the NYT actually quotes Kutcher's tweets, as if to prove THIS IS ALL REAL.)

- Gmail went down early this morning, and it's like the universe exploded.

- We actually ate this.

- BrightKit, a management/metrics dashboard for multiple Twitter accounts, changed its name to HootSuite and went pro-bono. (That is, it's no longer trying to charge a fee for services.) To compensate, it's selling display ad space above webpages whose links are shortened via ow.ly (HootSuite's version of tinyURL) -- meaning you could, in theory, make money (or build brand awareness...?) by spreading Twittersphere link-love.

- Fake Steve Jobs makes "wah" noises over monetizing blogging.

- Coca-Cola's Urge looks suspiciously like Coca-Cola's Surge. Remember the aftertaste on that stuff?

- Wedding the Sex and the City model to kitschy "Cathy": just one more lovechild the universe didn't need. Especially in the name of Baked Lay's.

- "True statements can be libelous if published maliciously." Wait ... what?!