Hot Wheels Come to Life at Secret Test Facility

In conjunction with the upcoming Hot Wheels Indy 500 promotion, here's the first of several global brand commercials from Mistress Creative and the Bandito Brothers which will tell the story of a secret Hot Wheels test facility where supposedly life sized representations of the childhood toy will be built.

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ConocoPhillips Tagline A Good Fart Joke

Like a fart joke told at a church dinner, ConocoPhillips 66's decision to go with the new tagline, "Experts in gas since 1927," is questionable at best. It's like a fifth grade boy asking a classmate to pull his finger. Which is probably why the brand's agency, Venables Bell & Partners, decided to cast Pee Wee football players in one of the campaign's ads.

Awkward connotations aside, the brand would like us to understand the new approach is supposed to celebrate the company's "unique heritage and long standing history of striving to bring consumers the best in performance gasoline." Way to bring eloquence to gas.

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Amstel Light Campaign Shifts Focus to Taste

Amstel Light has launched a new campaign today which refocuses the brand's messaging from that of the beer's Amsterdam heritage to that of the beer's actual benefits; that it doesn't taste like a light beer. The campaign, shot by Dutch photographer Maarten de Groot, will include national print and online as well as radio and OOH in Boston.

Jennifer Anniston Still Hot After All These Years

Jennifer Aniston is lending her beauty once again to SmartWater for a new print campaign the brand just launched. One ad shows Aniston lounging in her undies. Another shows her stepping out of a car wearing a black dress.

Aniston's previous work includes a hilarious video in which she explains how a make something "go viral."

Branded Toast Urges Moms to Feed Kids Danone Dairy Drink

To convince mothers in Brazil that feeding their children Actimel from Danone for breakfast was a healthy choice, the brand created a line of toasters that would cook personalized messages into toast and gave these toasters to influential moms around the country along with a package of Actimel.

To encourage those moms to spread the words on social networks, the brand promised to send additional packages of the product if the moms posted pictures of their specially messaged pieces of toast on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Did the effort work? Danone claims the messaging reached 1.2 million mothers. Here's a video overview of the campaign:

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SportsNet New York is Like Steroids For Men

What is it with sports, sex and testosterone? Oh wait. Silly question. A new campaign for SportsNew New York from Ogilvy & Mather, More Sports, More Testosterone, launches this week with "Muscles," which shows how watching SNY builds muscles as a skinny guy transforms into a muscle-bound dude, and "Libido," an ad that shows the impact watching sports has on a just married couple - 95 year-old Leopold and his much younger trophy wife. As the older man watches SNY, he quickly tires out his new bride and the ad closes with a shot of her gasping on his oxygen tank.

They we get a kick out of testosterone-fueled jungle boy bench pressing a couple of hot female cops over his head, we much prefer the ogle-the-big-boobed-hottie approach to elevating interest in New York sports teams made possible by Tehmeena Afzal's love for the Mets, Giants and Knicks.

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Famous Footwear Helps People Imagine Their Awesomeness

While Reebok is all about helping women tone their ass into stunningly tight, bootylicious deliciousness, Famous Footwear, which, of course, sells Reeboks, is all bout helping it customers daydream about situations they'd never find themselves in...just because they are pondering the purchase of a new pair of kicks.

Three new commercials from Campbell Mithun for the brand help a woman imagine besting a group of female Kenyan runners, help another envision herself kicking but in a martial arts battle and pump up a guy's ego by helping him imagine himself as a cop chasing after a criminal on a rooftop Parkour-style.

It's all very silly. But so are most of the things we all imagine so we guess that makes this campaign dead on target.

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Local Brewer Pokes Fun at Big Beer Brand Ad Claims

Cultivator Advertising & Design is out with a new TV campaign, Truth in Beervertising, for regional specialty brewer Breckenridge Brewery of Colorado. Four 15-second spots poke fun at some of the bigger beer brands' ad claims.

Each spot features the voiceover of Breckenridge brewmaster and general manager Todd Usry, and, on camera, head brewer Bob Harrington. One spot describes Breckenridge's seasonal Summerbright Ale as "the perfect summer beer," and discloses the brewer's "proprietary" cold test.

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Newcastle Targets Criminals and Loan Defaulters

In a new campaign from Vitro for Newcastle Brown ale, difficult situations are somewhat alleviated with a sip of Newscastle which brings about the lighter side of dark. Which, of course, is a very good thing because no one wants to lose two ankles when they can lose just one or have to pay a lawyer a lot of money to get you out of jail.

As with all beer commercials, we're not quite sure how this sells beer. Unless, of course, the brand is trying to target loan defaulters and criminals. Which, come to think of it, may not be a bad approach. After all, people in such situations are under a lot of stress and alcohol is well known to, at least temporarily, alleviate stress. Right. Makes perfect sense now.

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Stationary Brand Delivers Interesting Fun Facts

Nothing like being unexpectedly slapped upside the head with a commercial message just as you are settling into the joyful rhythm of a cute little video about "did you know?" facts. But that's exactly what happens at the end of this Ogilvy Vietnam-created commercial for stationary brand Thien Long.

Of course the creative beauty of the work is the (fun) fact the video was animated using boxes of stationary items including pens, pencils, staplers, folders and more.

Now, don't get us wrong. This Cirkus-animated video is quite well done and full of fun facts and figures such as the fact an elephant weighs less than the tongue of a blue whale and the longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds. Or our favorite, the earth gets 100 tons heavier every day because of falling space dust.