Cracked Skull Imagery Delivers Helmet PSA Message

We love PSAs. We especially love PSAs from countries outside the U.S. where creating an ad that dramatically delivers the message isn't hampered by left, right, middle-winged cause groups that feel anything beyond a shot of a smiling baby will be offensive to...well...some small minority no one's ever heard of. So we gleefully share this Berlin-based public serviced announcement encouraging bicyclers to wear helmets.

Hill | Holliday Ditches Website, Goes All Blog

Boston agency Hill Holliday has tossed its traditional site and launched a weblog. No, they didn't just add a blog to their already existing site, they ditched it entirely. Well, almost. They've done a wonderful job incorporating some of the usual capabilities and portfolio items into the header of the blog using Flash. The beauty of this approach, what many agencies still need to discover, will catapult Hill Holliday into the "conversation" about advertising. The site will get natural Google love, Technorati love and proliferation throughout the blogoshere's link-fest, something a static agency site can never achieve. And, most importantly, potential clients will get to know how HH thinks rather than how well they write website copy.

Other agencies such as W+K have great weblogs but we're not aware of any other major (yes, smaller ones have) agencies that have gone the all-blog format. We think this is great and we welcome HH to the conversation.

Lincoln Mercury Returns to Webisodes

Lincoln Mercury, which previously launched a serial Internet-based movie called Meet The Lucky Ones, is launching two new webisodes featuring the Mercury Milan mid-size sedan and the new Zephyr, Lincoln's first entry-luxury sedan. The first installments of the five-week Web series debut today at LovelyBySurprise.com and TheNeverything.com, bringing together stars from Oscar-winning movies and hit television series, including "Grey's Anatomy," "A Beautiful Mind," "Amistad" and "Walk the Line." Written and directed by Kirt Gunn, they tell the story of an author whose fiction overtakes her real life. The two sides of the story are presented on two separate Web sites - one by Lincoln, the other by Mercury.

Our brief review of the work interests us. This isn't your standard web video stuff. This is stuff you'd expect to see on TV or in the movie theater. If this is truly where advertising is going, we're all for it.

Decapitation Ad Sells...Something

This is just one of those ads that would cause so many complaints in America that, well, it's not running in America. It's running in China. To say this ad attracts attention is an understatement. See more "executions" here.

Outdoor Razor Ad Shaves Grass

Here's an interesting ad for BIC found by Creative Criminal. You don't see outdoor ads like this very often but you should. It's definitely attention-getting.

E! News Takes Over Page Six

What may once have been a one off is now a bonafide ad unit. Late last year, the New York Post emblazoned its Page Size with a Sex and the City watermark. Today, E! News is all over Page Six. We liked the ad unit back then and we still like it. Bucky Turco spotted this one for us.

There's Nothing Sexual About This Ad

Here's one of those ads you can lay on the table in front of the client with complete confidence you've done nothing too scurrilous. When the client's facial expressions turns to one of shock and embarrassment, you can feign innocence and ask, "What? It's just a mouse on a piece of paper." And with a wicked glimmer, add, "Why? What do you see?"

Abracadabra, It's Bra Ad

Ideas for bra ad concepts are as endless as Peter North's "product." There's no end to the way you can manipulate society's obsession with breasts into an ad campaign. While these concepts aren't rocket science, most good concepts aren't. They work because they are simple. And these ads for Wonderbra are very simple. One is playful. The other pokes fun at the relationship between breasts and shirt buttons. What more can really be said about a bra that hasn't a;ready been said?

HBO's 'Big Love' Campaign Hits Newspaper Wedding Pages

CitySpecific points out an ad for HBO's polygamy-themed Big Love placed in the New York Times wedding announcement section. The ad shows Big Love star Bill Paxton in three separate wedding announcements with his three brides played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin. CitySpecific questions the Times acceptance of this ad but we think it's just another inevitable sign of things to come.

Screw the Mustache, Asian Women Sell Milk Albums

We're just gonna say it. Asian women are hot! Asian women in ads are really hot. Asian women in ads for milk, well, we'll leave that little fantasy to your own private machinations. We're not gonna share our every dirty little thought with you now. We know you have plenty of your own. So who would you buy milk from? This girl or some Hollywood star with a milk mustache? See a bigger image here and a second image here.

UPDATE: We're totally wrong. Well, sort of., It is an ad but not for milk. It's for a new album from Kodi Kumi, a popular Japanese singer. Asian women are still hot though.