US Cellular Wants Your Inside Jokes.

Hoping you'll contribute to its waning pool of inspiration, US Cellular (via Riney) put together YourInsideJoke.com, where users can exploit that kind of between-friends humor that doesn't really scale to the world at large.

See Mustache and Finger Puppet.

Adidas Takes Up 'Real Women' Torch

Failing to observe this approach has already been mined dry by Nike and Dove -- among others -- Adidas launched "Me, Myself," a girl power campaign that rings like a modern-day sports riff off celebrated femme manifesto Our Bodies, Ourselves. The campaign release, for example, is heavy-laden with buzz words like distinctive, inspirational, individuality, confidence and -- our favourite -- intimate portraits.

WNBA MVP Candace Parker lent her face to the in-store/online program. Members of the fairer sex can submit "real" stories about their training struggles and successes on the website (where incidentally, you can also "mix and match outfits"!); three entrants will become the face of "Me, Myself" alongside Parker.

Parker synopsized the effort thus: "[Me, Myself] celebrates women of all ages and athletic abilities and shows that despite our struggles we can achieve our impossible."

Guess that's somewhat more productive than eating your feelings.

Because the Truth Is, All Non-Native English Speakers Sound Like Fez.*

To promote DoYouWantaSprite.com, factorii is disseminating the following web video.

In short: A whitebread couple places an order at a drive-through, then the voice through the intercom offers them a Sprite, and they can't understand because he's got this high-pitched accent.

Then there is dancing, singing, arbitrary ass-smacking, and other things you don't want to be confronted with in the world outside Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (With the possible exception of ass-smacking.)

At the end, the couple finally realizes the voice in the monitor was asking, "Do you want a Sprite?", and they politely decline.

"it was actually more funny in hte beginning when i THOUGHT something funny was going to happen," said one uniquely profound YouTuber. Other responses were expectedly schizophrenic (with some fairly heated discussion about whether George Lopez's attorneys will be in touch), but hey, that's the crowd for ya.

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Sky Arts, ENO Court Opera-Goers of Tomorrow

Hoping to win new ears for high culture, the English National Opera and Sky Arts enlisted three well-known directors to jazz up some arias.

See all three clips. Kinda sucks that Baz Lurmann wasn't invited, given that he's tried interpreting La Boheme before, but everybody's probably still pissed at him over Australia.

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Shiny Happy Relay Puts Olympic Torch in Canadian Hands

"Carry the Torch" is an animated cause spot meant to encourage Canadians to "Create a better Canada." The song is called Shiny Happy Relay; lyrics appear below. (It is such RetroJunk fodder.)

A TotalWork effort developed by BBDO/Toronto and Proximity/Canada, the spot depicts RBC's "Arbie" character kicking off the Torch Relay in the top half of the North American continent.

Canadians that feel the fire can register at rbc.com/carrythetorch, enabling them to take hold of the actual Olympic torch as it crosses their borders.

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Mammoth Mountain Embraces the White Space

Keeping to its preference for minimalism, David&Goliath demonstrate Mammoth Mountain's ... mammoth nature under two-word tagline "Play Big."

The creative is as brusque -- a lot like DDB's "Think Small" ad for VW, but not as wordy, and the concept's reversed: it's not the microscopic object Mammoth's selling you; it's the empty space around it.

See snowplow, see house (at left). All that open space? That's supposed to be the mountain. Same idea with the billboard Steve reviewed here.

Coke Super Bowl Spot, Surveillance Beetles, Ingestible Syke

- Creatives Chris Yi and Jesse Epstein spent a month and $2000 producing three spots for that Doritos Super Bowl ad contest. Obviously they didn't make the cut, but hey, can you ever have too much material to compare your own to?

- AOL to cut 10% and forgo merit pay increases in '09. Join the club, guys.

- Coca-Cola's contribution to the Super Bowl: Heist. 'Tis cute.

- Print and TV ad tropes invade the online contextual ad space, and this is the kind of crap we get.

- Hey ambitious marketers, here's a radio controlled live beetle. Use it for something magical ... like whispering jingles into the ears of impressionable window-shoppers, Jiminy-Cricket style.

- One reason to spend $9, plus the popcorn fees.

- New energy drink! Syke. No, seriously though.

Here's Something You've Never Seen Before.

Escalator advertising! How novel.

For Norwegian airline Avinor by Medialoop/Norway.

Like a Well-Bred Debutante, Bud Saves Punchlines for the Big Day

The press folk representing Anheuser-Busch sent us a passel of teasers for this year's Super Bowl. Slapstick takes a backseat to dramatic setup; all punchlines have been saved for Sunday.

Here's three:

"Clydesdales: Generations," an American immigration story starring last year's heavy-hoofed underdog. (They're milkin' this bad-boy for all its worth. The Clydesdale appears in at least two more spots: one circus-themed, another featuring his old Dalmation buddy.) By Waylon Advertising/St. Louis.

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Never Hide: Out of Hiding.

Cutwater continues the more-or-less successful "Never Hide" effort for client Ray Ban. Here's four new online vids to kick off 2009.

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