Window Blinds Save Suburban Cocktail Party

Who said suburban cocktail parties had to be boring? Or kids always jump on their parents' beds in the morning? Or your candlelit bath isn't as relaxing as it could be. Not Levelor who with four new spots created by Woodbine says their shades can make any situation simply by closing or raising their blinds. Check out one of the spots here.

Coke's 'Happiness Factory' Does Second Life Press Play

Brentter has the full story on Coke's Weiden + Kennedy-created Happiness Factory film which made its "global premiere" in Second Life yesterday. The three and a half minute film (oops, sorry. we're drinking the Kool-Aid here)...um...commercial follows the travails of a Coke factory worker who travels across Happiness Land in a quest to get the factory working again.

We passed on the story yesterday since anything remotely related to Second Life makes us laugh...uh...sorry. We should have said "take less seriously." After dumping millions into Second Life six to 12 months ago, didn't marketers conclude it was a waste of money? Call us callous but YouTube has greater reach than SL by far. Oh but, oops. The vid is on YouTube also...with a whopping 434 views. Hmm.

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Keira Knightley Gets Nude (Sort of) For Chanel

Finally! It's been, like, forever since we've been able to slather over a celebu-campaign. It's like they all decided to heed that research that claims celebu-tising doesn't work. Or, we're so immune to it all, we've missed any recent campaign that might have barfed itself up from the bowels of desperate marketers and their agencies who can't find anything meaningful to say so they grab a celeb and slap on a logo.

Anyway, the latest celebu-campaign comes courtesy of Chanel which has photographed Keira Knightley wearing nothing but a top hat over her breasts and a shirt draped across her lap. Stunningly beautiful as she is, we can't help but wonder, as we do with all her appearances, how much photoshopping the girl received this time around. After all, the marketers behind her not so recent appearance on a King Aurthur movie poster didn't think she had enough curves up top and manufactured some for her.

We're not saying anything's manufactured in this poster nor are we going to taunt the agency which created the ad. We're just going to sit back and drink in the beauty that is Keira Kightley and appreciate her - and Chanel - for sharing it with us.

Windorphins Prove that Outdoor Still Works

We were stalking the streets of NYC one night when we saw this compromised poster that said "Windorphins are like a ticker tape parade for your soul." A ticker tape parade is too exciting to turn down so we dashed drunkenly home and plugged windorphins.com into our browser.

After 10 or 11 tries we arrived at the site and discovered that Windorphins are a "natural byproduct of eBay" and are the hormonal result of a victory. The site features studies, celebrity comparisons ("Who's got more Windorphins?"), an opportunity to make your own "Windorphs" (like Weemees, except in your bloodstream!) -- and of course a place to conduct searches on eBay.

The campaign wasn't super-imaginative but we're fairly sure it's more successful than a lot of online efforts out there, mainly because eBay advertises outdoor. Which brings up a good point: just because you're running an online campaign doesn't mean you should only advertise over the internet.

Newsflash! Jeep Secretly Landed on Moon With Astronauts

Brent Terrazas has provided us with an analysis of the new Cutwater-created campaign for Jeep, part of which includes a :60 spot called Heritage that shows us the 66 year history of by digitally manipulating images of past Jeep models with historical images from the time of the model. You'll see Jane Goodall, Elvis, Godzilla, lunar landings, Woodstock, the Road Runner, Devo, Lost, and more. The effects, courtesy of PLANK and The Mill, are just as eye tricking as Cutwater's recent Rayban work. We like.

Gorbachev Lets Loose (or Not) for Louis

When politics and pop culture meet, it's always a little fun to watch the synergy. Adverlab points us to this spot for Louis Vuitton, which slid from the Lolita-esque Scarlett Johanssen series to a celebrity survey that includes Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's first (and last) president.

The New York Times observes that Gorbachev "appears the last comfortable [...] holding on to a door handle, as if the bag contained polonium 210."

Upon examining Gorbachev's expression, and then the bag, we've concluded there's definitely not a bowling ball in it. (Although it may well be perestroika.)

Perry Ellis Goes Back to Beach, Confuzzles Our Fashion Sense

Fashion advertising, more so than any other form, is in the eye of the beholder. Just ask D&G. While we don't fawn over fashion mags as much as, say, Anna Wintour fawns over next season's collections but we're quite sure Perry Ellis, whose Fall 2007 press release gushes, "the legendary American fashion brand known for pushing the envelope in its seasonal advertising campaigns, is taking yet another unexpected turn..." is doing no such thing with this new print campaign.

We could be wrong. And since we don't claim to get it right all the time like Bob Garfield does, that's always a possibility but we don't think so in this case. That comic book thing from the last campaign? We never got it. Way too hipsteresque for our jaded sense of the world.

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Even Rugby Players Love Each Other in Paris

Leveraging for the billionth time Paris' position atop the cities of love list, the Regional Tourism Committee of Paris in London has launched a campaign for the Rugby World cup that proves even rugby players feel the love. Of course any game that requires fully grown men to forcefully embrace and thrust themselves into each other must certainly have something to do with love. The only thing missing from this campaign is a Snickers bar.

American Apparel Out of Racy Ad Ideas

According to Copyranter, American Apparel has run out of ideas. No longer toying with masturbation, foot fetishes or witty word play, the retailer is left with nothing but women bending over while wearing tights. Comparatively, this recent ad is so tame it could almost be mistaken for and American Airlines ad.

Australian Virgin Mobile Campaign With Flickr Photos Stirs Debate

There's a storm brewing over Virgin Mobile's use of a Creative Commons-covered photographs from Flickr users in a recent Australian print campaign. While Virgin Mobile clearly notes in the ads, created by Glue Society, where the photographs came from, some are concerned the people in the ads should have been given the chance to sign a model release and the Flickr users and photographers should have at least been asked permission to use the photographs.

With everything just a right click away, the issue of fair use, attribution, copyright or whatever name you want to apply, is a slippery slope indeed. Three days ago, one Flickr user who, apparently, has legal connections says he's sent a cease and desist letter to Virgin Mobile but has not yet received any acknowledgment regarding the letter. Flickr users, including the older brother of one of the girls who appears in one of the photos, are debating the issue here.

We've contacted Glue Society for comment and will report any response we receive as soon as we receive it.

UPDATE: Following an avalanche of complaints, Virgin Mobile has canceled this campaign.