Mac is Thankful for PC. He's Just That Kinda Guy.

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Last year Apple charmed us with an unexpected Mac vs. PC holiday ad, produced in the style of season's classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

The animated Mac and PC characters return in "Tree Trimming" and "I Can Do Anything," two spots guaranteed to make your pupils dilate to at least twice their natural size.

With low-key cheer (and not-so-nice intentions), each reminds us how feeble (but adorably!) petty PC is, and how Mac just can't help being awesome, chill and warm-hearted.

Even the bunnies know it.

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by Angela Natividad    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Good, Television



Heinz's Tomato Plants Need a Little Pep Talk

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Based on the premise that plants grow faster and more lavishly when spoken to, Heinz launched Talk to the Plant.

Help make the world's best ketchup by typing encouraging words to a growing tomato sprout, then choosing an automated voice to relay your message.

It's an appealing idea, but beware: the voices are about as soothing as the singing bot tenors in Yahoo's latest emoticon campaign. If I were a wee green, I'd drop leaf and crawl back into the blissfully silent soil.

By Swedish agency Daddy. Via Catch Up Lady, who has lots of other fun factoids about the campaign.

by Angela Natividad    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Online



Shaun White and Target Join Forces for Snowboarding Game

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"First time playin'? First time...?" and "Oh, avalanches, yeah!" are the only two lines Shaun White has in this objectively weak ad for Target's Limited Edition Shaun White Snowboarding game.

If Ozzy Osbourne is ad land's favourite over-the-hill bad boy, Shaun White is its slacker of choice. Prior to this spot, the snowboarding pro starred in a couple of pointless HP ads that, like classic teen movies, are intended solely to make middle-aged men miss college.

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by Angela Natividad    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Celebrity, Commercials, Promotions, Television



BK Smells, 1984 Turns 25, Ad Age Makes Us Wait

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- Burger King has bottled the Whopper and is selling it as a fragrance. Seriously.

- Writing in Advertising Age, Marissa Miley has advice for college graduates considering a career in advertising. Out advice? Don't.

- Oh God. Really? Bob Garfield is out with his 11th annual Bobby Awards which recognize the best acting in commercials. Now if only the Ad Age site worked today, we'd link to it.

- And while we're on Ad Age, NBC plans to "reintroduce" shows such as Heroes and Medium. In other words, let's see if that mass media reach thing still works.

- Adscam reminds us today is the 25th anniversary of Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad. It's today, and not next year because 25 years ago today, the ad ran once at 1AM on Twin Falls Idaho station KMVT so it could qualify for the awards shows in 1984.

by Steve Hall    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Strange



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Irish Liqueur Drops Cream onto Parted Pink Lips

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Despite appearances, "Listen to Your Lips" is an ad for Bailey's, not a trailer for My First Naked Kneel-Fest.

By JWT and Psyop, which wanted to create a "sensual but not overtly sexual" interpretation of the "Bailey's taste experience."

Maybe the "not overtly" part was lost in the editing room. Seeing drops of cream splash onto rows of shiny, slack DSLs don't exactly bring Moo Moos to mind. (Nice touch with the closing lick!)

Can somebody please page Alex Leo? She needs to update Section Five in her list of five sexist trends the ad world just can't shake.

Ad is SFW, even if your cheek-flushing suggests otherwise.

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by Angela Natividad    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Online, Racy



Newsflash! Stickman Trapped Inside LG Phone!

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To hype the launch of the LG KP500 Cookie touch screen phone in Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil and the United Kingdom, some cruel soul thought they'd trap a stick man inside the phone. This video is the outcome of that creative genius. The poor guy manages to get out once only to be stuffed back inside for a lifetime of torture.

Anything to sell a phone.

by Steve Hall    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Video



For Every Air Hump You Vouch For, Someone Out There Gets Protection.

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We've all fantasized about making a living out of sex, drugs and poorly-tuned instruments. So it's likely we've all played air guitar -- the process of using your fingers to make sweet love to an instrument that isn't really there.

Thus inspired, McCann/Paris launched Safe Air Sex, a campaign that takes the concept of air guitar and applies it to (SAFE!) sex. Confused? Watch Rabbit Man molest valuable O2 after shimmying an invisible condom onto his imaginary three-foot jimmy. (We love how, to segue into condom application, he goes, "Stop. In the name of love.")

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by Angela Natividad    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Online, Racy, Strange



VW's 'Surrealism' Touts Absurdly Low Gas Consumption!

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Volkswagen looks to the Surrealists to promote its Polo BlueMotion's "absurdly low consumption." A Magritte-inspired print is at left; here's another in the style of Dali.

Fuel plays a big part in both pieces, and I like how neither ad outrightly says it's inspired by this or that artist. People that know will get a nice cuddly feeling in their tummies (or maybe rant and rave about the flagrant commercialism of art). And people that don't can still ravish the visuals with their eyes.

Work by DDB/Berlin.

by Angela Natividad    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Magazine, Poster



Minneapolis Brings Glad to Mad Men

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The use of the beloved Mad Men for agency-related promotions is in serious danger of jumping the shark. Hey, it's a great show and there have been some interesting homages but you all know how the ad industry works. If something becomes cool and is played up as cool, it loses it's cool faster than agencies will lose employees come January.

So, here's yet another Mad Men-themed agency holiday message, this time from Minneapolis-based Gabriel deGrood Bendt. It's not bad. Not at all. But there's only so much Mad Men one can take.

by Steve Hall    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Agencies



Dare Ice Coffee Lessens Blow of 'The Coffee Moment'

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So guys, when your girlfriend stops, gives you a serious look and asks, "Hey babe, can we grab a coffee?", does your mind race with fear over the horror you are about to experience? Because, inevitably, these "coffee moments" are never about discussing the weather.

In this commercial for Dare Ice Coffee, that question sets off a terrifying onslaught of imagined outcomes in the mind of a guy whose girlfriend just asked him that very question.

His solution? Have a Dare Ice Coffee instead. While it's not clear how a bottled ice coffee would change the "coffee moment," the metaphor expressed in the tagline, "The coffee moment without the moment," does relieve a bit of stress if only for a few seconds.

by Steve Hall    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Commercials, Good



Barbarian Group Named Digital Company of the Year

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It's no secret we've loved Barbarian Group from the start. From the first time we heard of them back in the days of Subservient Chicken to its more recent work for CNN and Dove, they have always impressed. And not just with their work but with who they are as people.

So we're super pleased they were just named Creativity magazine's Digital Company of the Year.

Co-Founders Rick Webb, Robert Hodgin, Keith Butler and Benjamin Palmer are amazingly talented. Boston office President Bruce Winterton is a great guy. Uber PR pro/Director of Communications Eva McCloskey does a stellar job telling the agency's story. They host amazing parties. What's not to love?

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by Steve Hall    Dec-16-08    
Topic: Agencies, Industry Events