Durex XXL a Little Too Big for Comfort

It's our strong feeling that this ad (via Ichlache) is probably not real, but it vibes like the type of thing Durex would do (particularly outside these fine United States) and it gets the point across in a way that makes our own mouths hurt. The copy reading "Really Big..." at bottom left? Totally unnecessary.

Ow.

Dakota Does Marc Jacobs, China Doesn't Do Pigs

- Copyranter saw Dakota Fanning in Vogue ad for Marc Jacobs and marvels at the intriguing coincidence between her recent movie in which she gets raped and the ad in which she, according to Copyranter, looks like she's about to be raped.

- In preparation for its Year of the Pig, China has banned from the country's state-run CCTV all ads that show pigs.

- Even while mocking conversational marketing, Amanda Chapel offers up five reasons why the public relations industry has no place in the space.

- Despite not winning over critics with its Super Bowl ad, GoDaddy reports a 70 percent revenue increase and 37 percent new customer growth on Monday, the day after the Super Bowl as compared to the same Monday last year. Dismissing critics, Bob Parsons said, "This is not about winning an Oscar - it's about growing business." He's right.

- Penn of Penn & Teller is appearing in a Chinese Viagra ad.

- DTACK tape is lifting faces and saggy breasts in a unique campaign for a boring, commodity product.

- The World Association of Newspapers says the newspaper business is doing just fine and reports circulation of newspapers worldwide has increased 1o percent between 2001 and 2005 to 479 million copies.

Beauty Queen Quotables Make Good Ad Copy

This series of ads by JWT, Bogota promotes CityTV at the expense of beauty queens. The text reads "A beauty contest is about beauty, but you've got to draw the line somewhere."

Well, a pretty girl is a dime a dozen, and pageant girls know that to win a beauty contest they have to seem spotless on the inside too. So they come up with the most robotic, naive responses imaginable, which happen to be really awesome fodder for ads. The quote at left is a response to the question, "Where would you like to travel and why?" And one ad about the pope and Mother Theresa just killed us. Adverbox has more.

Women's Aid Paints Domestic Violence on Famous Faces

We've seen plenty of domestic violence ads, but this campaign actually makes us cringe. For Women's Aid, agency Grey London paints bruises onto celebrity faces and plasters them far and wide, hoping people would look, recognize, gasp in horror and decide to get comfortable with talking about their own secret bruises.

Granted there are some conversations that started out taboo and are now part of the public tell-all, like routine plastic surgery. But domestic violence is a deeply personal, humiliating affair, almost always entangled in feelings of love, loyalty and fear of stigma. We doubt any one series of visually traumatizing campaigns will help start a casual discourse about it in a public space. And in the States, you actually do need to have a bruise before you can even report anything. Kind of defeats the purpose, right?

AdPunch has more images if you want to take a look.

Nissan Ad Pays Homage to Super Bowl Logo

While those in the NFL might take issue with this Nissan Super Bowl good luck ad which uses a roman numeral style that looks very similar to this year's Super Bowl logo design, we really like the approach. We're not sure this ad actually appeared anywhere but we're told it was created by Curt Detweiler and his team at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY LA. Here's a second version of the ad.

Nude Models 'Painted' With Brazilian Bed Designs

We are told these are bed ads from a Brazilian bedmaker. The images carry no logo and our source does not know who the brand is. But, they are too good to share and done in a way only Brazilians can do. Enjoy them all here.

Match.com Says Love's for Everybody, Even You

Match.com's Make Love Happen campaign pushes the notion that there's a match for everybody, no matter how quirky or off-colour. The lively prints come courtesy of Serge Seidlitz. Well, we said we were all for the unsexy in a primarily sex-driven industry so this is what we get: sexless Lego pieces in an Erect-a-Set city.

Check out a pink variation of the ad here. It merits a close look as there are a lot of details. Whether it will draw attention to said details is a story only time will tell.

Fergie Joins Celeb-Filled Candie's Campaign

Candies's love celebrities. From Hilary Duff to Jenny McCarthy to Kelly Clarkson to Ashlee Simpson Destiny's Child to the Dixie Chicks, it's all celeb, all the time. Now the fashion brand is hooking up with musical artist Fergie (Stacy Ann Ferguson) for its spring 2007 campaign which kicks off with a spot during the February ll broadcast of the Grammy's. Print ads will appear in Teen Vogue among others.

Dove Puts Women Back on Judgment Block in Debate Campaign

We're under the impression that the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was meant to change existing standards about beauty by bringing real women to contrast. We're just not sure whether the debate portion of the campaign, in which we're asked to tick off whether a given woman is "wrinkled" or "wonderful," really continues down that vein. Isn't it just putting women back on the platform they strove oh-so-hard to part with?

Oh, well. Maybe consumer-generated ads will save the day. It usually does.

Bics So Permanent they Reincarnate with You

Adpunch points us to this clever campaign by Bic, who's attempting to break into Sharpie territory by pushing its own permanent marker.

Premise: that Bic sticks so well the ink will follow you into your next life. Copy: "Permanent. Even in your next life." We can only imagine what kind of guy the frog was. There's a snake variation too.

This reincarnating ink thing is something we've never considered before, and it might actually yield the answers to questions we've had for a long time. Like, perhaps the inked "MONKEEEEY WAS HERE!!!!" scrawled all over our ass is not from a drunken night we don't remember. Perhaps it's from a previous life as a less responsible person. That takes a big weight off our minds.