Board a Toronto Bus, Get Dragged (Kicking and Screaming) to Nearest H&M

H&M, the low-cost clothing brand for those who still want to feel high-end, isn't picky when it comes to selecting a figure to sport its duds.

Toronto has become the apparently unhappy host to a set of buses entirely H&M'ed-out, featuring transparently peppy messages like "Everyone on board is going to our new store!"

(We seriously doubt that, H&M. Seriously.)

AIDS Walk Reinvigorates the Proletariat

Is it just us, or does this AIDS Walk ad just scream worker's revolution? Everytime we see it, we feel an irresistible compulsion to mobilize.

Target Breezeway Sucks Distracted Onlookers into Light Display

Visitors to the "top of the Rock!" (er, the Rockefeller building) in NYC may have noticed a really interesting spaceship-type thing on their way back down.

This strange little room, dubbed the Target Breezeway, can apparently sense the number of people wandering mystified in its midst and associates each person with a color that then generates distracting, if not dazzling, reactions along the walls.

Most of us walked around like zombies trying to place our palms on the occasional Target symbol that appeared. Every few minutes, and with enough warm bodies, the Breezeway lights up in a display that would put Times Square at New Year's to shame.

We've always maintained that the best way to ensnare a small population would be to draw them into a secluded space with shiny objects. The Target Breezeway is an ingenious way of demonstrating that possibility.

We were definitely sucked in.

If Only the Commute Were Always This Cool

If only New York's trains were actually this cool all the time. Deutsch (yes, they still do stuff) tricked out Grand Central Shuttle trains for Westin Hotels making the train interiors look like the Caribbean, the rain forest and Iceland. Very cool stuff. Check it out here.

Facebook Rates, Alan Pottash Dies, Butts Covered, Heads Circumsized

- If you care, Facebook's heretofore "non-existent" ad rates have been leaked.

- Pepsi's Alan Pottash, the man behind many successful campiagns such as Pepsi Generation, Pepsi Challenge and all those celbu-commercials, died July 27 in LA at the age of 79.

- Toto's Times Square bare asses have been covered - quite creatively - following complaints from Reverend Neil Rhodes of the Times Square Church.

- This is what happens when an ad agency with just ten people and three accounts has too much time on their hands.

Apparently, Pepsi Can Make You a Clown

Here's an ad that's generating a bunch of icky reactions. Rekindling It phobias and sparking court jester jokes, apparently Pepsi will add a little (too much) color to lives that would otherwise fade into grayscale.

How in hell did this get past the pitch room? Maybe somebody thought lips in brand-colored trappings would be a natural nod to the distinctive Pepsi logo. And because we know somebody's going to step forward and go, "Hey, guys, obviously it worked because people are talking about it," we're going to roll our eyes in advance and STFU.

iPod+iTunes Eat More than Fill, Regurgitate Pop Culture

VLAN! drew our attention to this 3D billboard for the iPod (and iTunes), which is perched somewhere above the streets of New York. We can see a few album covers in our own collection, including Sinatra and Jack Johnson, which definitely gives the ad a double-take quality.

Is it just us, or does it look like the wee white device is vomming media? Guess that's apt.

Billboard Purism, Calgary Promotes Gwangyang, AOL Buys Tacoda

- Christiania Spirits is hosting a billboard competition. Finalists will be judged on the company's guiding principles known as Purism. OK then.

- A recent ad in the Economist promoting South Korea's Gwangyang as a business center used the Calgary skyline to do so.

- AOL has plans to acquire behavioral ad network Tacoda. The company will use Tacoda's targeting capabilities to improve its advertising offering.

- On the eve of Saatchi's new red pigtail guy commercial, Improv Everywhere is staging a faux protest claiming the ads unfairly represent red heads.

- AdFreak says Microsoft's new Live Derby 2007 game which promotes Live Search doesn't do much more than prove Microsoft is uncool and is still good at crashing.

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Girls With Mops. Only in Japan

Girls. Plaid pleated school girl skirts. Knee socks. Mops. Yes, that last one is correct. Only in Japan do you find these wonderfully odd combinations. Apparently, it's to promote a television drama called Life. All this courtesy of Flickr user antjeverena.

Red Bull Plasters Field Near Gatwick With London Air Race Banner

To promote the Red Bull-sponsored Air Race in London, a 120,000 square foot banner, designed by Ministry of Experience, was painted on the grass just 150 below where passing aircraft enter and leave Gatwick airport, the country's second largest. It took 1,230 liters of paint (biodegradable, of course), seven people and 210 man hours to create the message.