First Flavor Makes Marketing a Matter of Taste

Inspired by the enduring Willy Wonka, First Flavor builds on film strip technology to create little taste samplers for food and beverage products for use in media kits, promos and soda machines.

The description of apple cinnamon oatmeal strips didn't bring the Wonka wallpaper scene to mind, which is what founder Adnan (himself somewhat Wonka-esque, though we can't quite say how or why) credits as his inspiration. Instead we recalled the three-course-meal gum, where Violet describes the flavors in vivid detail and then expands into a blueberry.

We don't think First Flavor does that but it's still pretty neat. The newscaster in the ABC video got to try some and not only was she impressed; she couldn't stop talking about the dieting possibilities of a zero-calorie taste explosion.

Bond Girl, X-Woman Says Be Nice to Dogs

Oh we just can't pass on featuring one of our favorite, over-the-top Bond girls Zena Onatop aka Famke Jansen who is appearing in a "Be An Angel For Animals" PETA ad. Famke and PETA want us to be nice to dogs this holiday season. The ad, shot by Andrew Southam, was unveiled at an event yesterday in LA at Runyon Canyon Park. So don't crate your dog when you go to the inlaws for Christmas this year. Call Famke and I'm sure she'd be happy to come over and watch your dog.

Holiday Cards See Nostalgic Twist

Sparked by a handwritten note marked "How do you ask a Ninja for a free hug?", Twist Image disseminates its take on the holiday card, which is less holiday card and more video collage of happy 2006 moments. Some inclusions: the "free hugs" guy, the live-action Simpsons intro, Animator v. Animation and the viral OKGo treadmill video.

Lee Hopkins claims this is the best Christmas card he's ever seen. While we think those are strong words, we're inclined to agree, and not merely because they remembered to include Ask a Ninja (which automatically grants all-star status). We wish the cats at Twist an equally happy holidays.

Y! SNOW Cards Mildly Madden with Mellifluous Mockery

In its continuing attempts to be savvy, Yahoo! Search Marketing jumps on the holiday e-card merry-go-round and sends all affiliates a Simulated Niceness of Winter (SNOW) card. The one they shot out struck us as a mere mockery of the quiet pain and suffering they imposed as they sat around re-tooling to "innovate" a la AdWords.

We'd like to trash them more along this vein but the SNOW card creation function is actually pretty nifty. The gadgets, slightly psychotic-looking characters and voice recording function recall a time when Yahoo! was cool and truly ahead of its days, a time when we enjoyed playing with them. So here's to hoping they do better this '07.

Smirnoff Gives Lost Stars Fresh Play, Children Point and Laugh

Smirnoff Ice's Save the Mistletoe is an amusingly long-way-around attempt to say Smirnoff brings people together (just like mistletoe - so stop ravaging innocent bushes).

While we remain unmoved by the plight of the sprig, the execution wins us over. By some curious witch magic the campaign features celebrity supporters that we thought were long dead or had found joy in covert day jobs. Natalie from The Facts of Life, Lisa Turtle from Saved by the Bell, Tiffany who crooned "I Think We're Alone Now" and even the Soup Nazi band together to protect the kissing plant from further appropriation by brute force.

That's not all. Kevin at PR Blog divulges having seen a swamp-like creature that was actually supposed to be mistletoe, getting heckled by children at a nearby ice rink for love of the campaign. We wonder which sponsoring celebrity burn-out he happened to be. We put our money on The Incredible Hulk.

Nasher Baits for Museum Attendance with Tantalizing Clue Game

Here's an eye-catching campaign. Agency Republik creates Illuminator, a series of time-released puzzles and clues whose answers lie in the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

The campaign will run twice in six months through newspapers, on the Illuminator site, on signs in the museum, and in a flip book at the museum store. Each clue corresponds to one piece of art; for example, this Missing poster speaks to Memories by Sheng Qi. And the image at left points to this guy.

The person who nails all 20 gets ... a free shirt. Okay, that kind of sucks. But the game is intriguing and possibly, yes, illuminating. If there's anything we learned about America post Da Vinci Code it's that you can only get people's asses into a museum if they have a ball of yarn to untangle - and possibly a cryptic murder case involving an albino, but you can't ask for everything.

Amalgamated Liberates True Color of Bodily Fluid ... in Space

We've all seen sterile ads for feminine products in which piss or menstrual fluid comes out blue. We all know that piss and menstrual fluid are not actually blue. Those crazy cats at Amalgamated, the very guys who brought us Ben & Jerry claymation, decide to stomp on the polite institution of blue bodily fluid for their client Clearblue Easy and its new digital pregnancy test.

We would have respected them for that. But they took things one step further and put the pregnancy test in space, a la Dark Star, and then let fall a stream of disembodied space piss! And then our brains exploded.

Check it out here. But be careful. It's a little crazy.

Unleash Your Creativity With Holiday Sweater Horror

We think we've found one of the more amusing agency holiday cards with Sullivan Higdon & Sink's We Love Holiday Sweaters. But come on guys. Leave the political correctness at home. It is a Christmas sweater after all and not a "holiday" sweater. You don't want to encourage the horror of people wearing these fashion faux pauxs every holiday do you? Once a year is enough! Anyway. On the site, not only do you get to wallow in the absurdity of the Christmas sweater, you get to create your own! Yes, advertising people. Leave that boring client work behind for a moment and test your true, unapproval process-hindered creativity in the knitting section of the site. Let's see who can create the best (or is it worst?) sweater. Email your creation to sweater@adrants.com and we'll feature them here. Or, just leave the link in comments.

absurdity of the Christmas sweater

Agency Holiday Card Meets Second Life

Pop quiz. What do you get when you combine an advertising agency Christmas card with the Second Life fad? An agency Christmas card video set in Second Life, of course. Leo Burnett Detroit, one of the early agency entries into the virtual world has forgone the typical, boring, so yesterday, "real world" holiday card and, instead, given us an avatar-filled, winter-themed, Second Life hip hop jam. Hmm. Different. Nicely produced (by Millions of Us). Though it doesn't look like the Second Life we know. No lag. No half-built sims. No clunky interface. Just a lot of happy, dancing agency avatars. What's not to like?

Lingerie Model Gets Digitally Humped

We just have to wonder what sort of guy could be so hard up for sex, he'd have to resort to manipulation by billboard to achieve pleasurable release. Oh wait. He's part of the ad and we're talking about digital manipulation here. Funny. Ha ha. Oh wait. Digital manipulation? That's still funny.