JetBlue Reminds Us Just How Much Flying Sucks

Here's the problem with JetBlue's new Mullen-created commercial for JetBlue. No matter how you sugarcoat it (bags fly free, most legroom in coach, unlimited snacks, free TV, friendly flight attendants), flying still sucks. Know why? Because people refuse to pay a lot to fly so the airlines have no choice but to pack as many people into a plane as possible and give them as few "perks" as they can.

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FedEx Thinks NFL Players Would Skip Games Just to Receive Packages

For the past ten years, FedEx has been an official sponsor of the NFL. Previous ads focused on the brand's sponsorship of the FedEx NFL Air & Ground Players of the Week. This year, FedEx, with help from BBDO New York, is shifting the focus of its football-themed spots to its new FedEx Delivery Manager product which allows customers more control over their package deliveries.

Two new spots, which debuted Sunday during NFL Football broadcasts, target NFL fans with silly but witty humor that squarely falls into the "you're an idiot until you're not" category.

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Bouncing Boobs Burn Fewer Calories Than Sports Bra-Encased Boobs

It's funny the things you learn when watching ads. Who knew bouncing boobs, while a whole lot more fun to watch in action, cause a woman to burn fewer calories when working out than if she were to wear a bounce-inhibiting sports bra? That's really the only conclusion we can come to after viewing this Tony Petrossian-directed spot for Sportsmaster, a top european sports retailer.

Perhaps Hitomi Tanaka (semi-NSFW) should shop at Sportsmaster.

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Volkswagen Channels the 80's With 'Take On Me'

To tout its Carefree Maintenance program, Volkswagen is out with a new Deutsch New York-created ad which features A-Ha's 1980's hit "Take On Me." In the ad, which combines animation, stills and live action like the original, a man evades a menacing mechanic and gets the girl after he crosses the finish line.

It's all innocent and fun until you realize the whole thing was conjured in the mind of a man sitting in a conference room who suddenly hears the song and asks, "Is that me? Was I singing?"

The spot was created using the same rotoscoping method as the original video--they filmed the actors and the cars and then animated the results.

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8 Ways Video Will Turn Your Jaded Online Audience into Healthy, Happy Customers

Every time your audience goes online, they get hit with a tidal wave of digital noise. As a marketer, how do you get your message noticed? How do you persuade a jaded online audience to ditch the noise-cancelling earplugs and listen to your story? The answer: Video.

Video works, and the stats prove it. Online video can help you to:

• Increase web visitations by 560% when you expose your audience to a banner that contains video
• Boost viewer engagement by 400% using online video as compared to static content such as text and graphics
• Attract 200% - 300% more visitors by regularly posting video on your site, with time on the page rising from 1.5 minutes without video to 3 minutes with video
• Skyrocket brand recall by an 900% when using video on multiple screens, such as online, mobile, and connected TV

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Swiss Agency Studio Total Places Belarus 'Teddy Bear Drop' Plane For Sale on eBay

If you haven't heard the story, back in July, two Swedish ad executives from Studio Total piloted a plane to the capital of neighboring Belarus and dropped 879 teddy bears attached to parachutes and wearing signs which called for free speech. The stunt was aimed to rile the feathers of Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko who is said to be quite erratic and authoritarian.

Apparently the stunt worked as Lukashenko fired his chiefs of the air force and border service for allowing the plane to enter the country's airspace undetected. Lukashenko even expelled the Swedish ambassador, withdrew his country's envoy from Stockholm, closed his embassy in Sweden, arrested a journalism student who posted pictures of the airdrop as well as a real estate agency who rented a flat to one of the Swedes involved in the stunt.

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