Chevy has its Angels and Ford has...well...Ford has Doug. Doug is a puppet. And a puppet with an attitude and an attraction to blond reporters and, well, any female of any kind. He's also a wise ass who carefully walks the line between making the brand message interesting and turning the entire thing into a comedy routine. He's witty and stupid all at the same time. And it kind of works. And in any event, it's far more interesting that a typical :30 or :60. Far, far more interesting.
Doug's best lines include, "may I smell your fingers?" and "are you all business or it is just that suit?"
Directed by Paul Feig and written by a host of comedy writers, the collection of videos touts the Ford Focus and its many features. The unveiling of Doug as the new spokesperson for Ford was preceded by several unbranded videos in which the puppet stops a convenience store robbery, saves a choking victim and performs CPR.
We like this advertainment. We actually watched all of it. Of course, that's out job but that's besides the point. We actually liked it and found it entertaining. Which is a very, very good thing.
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Yea, we all do this, right? We grab our Kindle and decided to read a book while running around the city and hanging out with our friends. AdFreak's David Gianatasio aptly describes the people in this ad ad, "refugees from a sitcom so vapid, even Fox wouldn't put it on the air."
And he's right. The over-the-top silliness distracts from the positive attributes of the product. Yea, it's glare-free. Yea, it's light. Yea, it's battery lasts forever. But does anyone want to run out and buy one of these so they can look like the annoying primadonnas in this ad?
We'll stick with our iPad and a glare-reducing screen protector thank you very much. And we simply must disagree with David one point. While the characters in this ad don't hold a candle to the hotness of the bikini-clad woman in the poolside Kindle ad, you've got to admit the woman sitting at the coffee table in this ad is exponentially cute.
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Oh look. It's parkour in yet another ad campaign. Leave it to the ad industry to latch onto a trend and beat it to death. Beer babes? Done. Matrix-style camera swing? Done. The Verizon Dumb Dad? Done. Use of popular pop song? Done. Cavemen? Done. Chimpanzees? Done.
Now we can add parkour to the latest overused tactics in advertising. This time around it's Epson, courtesy of Albion, which is promoting its new EB-170 Series ultra-light portable projectors.
The commercial features "free-running" (the new buzzword affixed to parkour) talent Sam Parham and Chase Armitage, one carrying the Epson EB-1775W and the other carrying a competing product. Their mission is to deliver the projectors, stowed in backbacks, to a rooftop presentation several blocks away. Epson, of course, wins.
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One really has to wonder what goes the mind of a creative when the result is a poster like this one for Sephora. And let's not forget the minds of the people who approve the work as well. Either they are oblivious to the "other" meaning of imagery such as this or they can't help but celebrate the dirty little thoughts which float about their mind and wallow in the sadistic pleasure of watching this work make its way through the approval process.
Six years ago, Vodafone ran an ad that, to some, carries the very same connotation as this Sephora poster. As we wrote back then, the the visual in the Vodafone ad was "an expression of joy following receipt of a certain climatically delivered thrust of Christmas excitement."
How would we describe this Sephora poster? We're not sure but it's clear to us this is definitely not a representation of how most women would apply lotion to their face. Especially a quart's worth of gooey white stuff while their mouth is wide open. That is unless they are in a certain line of work which lauds this sort of behavior with praise, fame and money.
LEGO is out with a video called The Brick Thief which, as the title indicates, is about the thief who steals LEGO bricks from unsuspecting children through magical doorways. As the thief's imagination conjurs LEGO creations, he "borrows" the bricks needed to bring his machinations to fruition.
While the message of stealing from a child to fulfill one's imagination is questionable, the overall tone of the video is quite pleasant and does a nice job sharing one of the best features of LEGO: the use of one's imagination to create one masterpiece of the mind after another.
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We predict over the next year the proportional number of MINI's involved in car accidents will far outweigh that of any other vehicle. Why? Because MINI has deemed it worthy to provide access to popular social networks directly from the dashboard. We all know people can't text and drive so why would anyone think doing a very similar thing interacting with the dashboard would be any different? Yes, interacting with the dashboard is probably easier than interacting with a phone but it's still a diversion.
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Like a Stepford wife crossed with a daydreaming porn star, Megan Fox peers longingly into the camera...in slow motion, of course...in an attempt to get us to buy Giorgia Armani Beauty products. This work follows a commercial called The tip Fox previously did during which she tantalized a waiter by getting dressed in front of him. It was far hotter than this current work which insist upon going in an over-stylized direction that doesn't so much sell cosmetics as it does hit us over the head with a stick once again issuing the painful reminder most of us are not and never will be as hot as Megan Fox.
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We love the tagline of this new David&Goliath-created Kia commercial, "No one ever dreamt of driving a mid-sized sedan. Until now." This tagline follows the mystical adventure of a boy whose bed turns into a moving vehicle that takes him on a magical tour into the night towards a very dreamy looking San Francisco.
As he crosses the Golden Gate, he's accompanied by a white horse, a couple of knights and a very Hogwarts Express looking train...filed with animals and a very cute looking little girl.
The boy and his bed then zoom through a tunnel and reappear as Kia Optima and grown man.
Hey, it's just a car commercial but it's far more engaging than most of the other automotive crap out there today. Thanks, David&Goliath...who had wondrous production assistance from Beacon Street Studios and director Lance Accord.
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Almost reminiscent of the epic Carlton Draught Big Ad (which you absolutely must watch again), Clemenger BBDO is out with another epic Australian beer commercial. The ad begins with epic music accompanying an epic journey through epically beautiful Brewtopia to an epic Parthenon atop the epic Mount Utopia which offers up even more epicness like a white flying horse and epic looking pure blonde beer babes dressed in flowing white robes who serve up Pure Blonde beer.
It's all...well...epically epic. That is until one guy is epically rude and destroys every last bit of epicness with a tiny burp which turns epic as it echoes through the mountaintops until it causes the epic destruction of the previously epic Mount Utopia.
All that's left standing are the two guys, their two beers and the dress one guy ripped off the epically beautiful pure Blonde beer babe.
Epic.
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We'd like to personally thank DDB Mudra for crafting a car commercial that isn't shot on a winding mountain road, doesn't portray the vehicle as if it were an extension of one's personality and doesn't contain the disclaimer, "Professional driver. Do not attempt on your own."
DDB Mudra came up with a concept that actually says something about the car and about the people who built it. Yes, it's goofy but it's makes a powerful point: the people who build the Volkswagen Vento are very proud of their work, love the fruits of their labor and hope the final product will be well cared for by its owner.
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