Kiera Knightley Takes Beating In Women's Aid PSA

In this PSA for Women's Aid, Kiera Knightley gets together with her Atonement director Joe Wright to create this two minute video about domestic violence. Shot as if a scene within a movie, Knightley, who has just returned home from the set, turns to the camera and says, "Sorry, we didn't agree to that. That wasn't in the script," as she's hit by her boyfriend/husband.

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Black Battles White For Green Obama Girl

So where's Obama Girl when you need her smile to cheer you up? She's in yet another Barely Political video pimping a new environmental effort America's Greenest Campus, an efforts which urges schools to compete against one another to see who can reduce their carbon footprint the most.

We aren't even going to comment on the oh-so-tired hip-hop black dude trumping the lame-ass white guy stereotype. Oops, we just did. Sorry about that. But don't listen to us, green is color blind, right? Oh wait, that makes no sense at all.

Just watch Obama Girl. She's way more exciting that reading about her here on Adrants.

Human Trafficking Gets Shrink Wrapped

Well here's a happy one. OK, not really but it's an issue, like many cause-related issues, that needs to be addressed: human trafficking. It's a hidden issue. One that gets swept under the carpet, ignored like most things not in our own back yard.

Calling attention to sex, labor and organ trafficking, a woman, a laborer and an human organ are encased in packaging and labeled as if they were meat in the display case at a grocery store.

There are many campaigns like this out there using various version of shock value. This one, apparently, was a bit much for the client and was killed (yes, I'm pimping).

Amnesty International Takes Pulp Comic Tack

Vaguely Russian kitsch and vaudevillian melodrama infuse this new spot for Amnesty International/Portugal. It's the usual global atrocities, all in-your-face and extra-extra, but tempered by a comic-book feel. The tagline seals the deal: "EVERYBODY IS AGAINST EVERYBODY BUT SOMEBODY HAS TO BE FOR THEM."

It's a big message, delivered in a heightened reality, given appropriate weight without vibing like overbearing charity bullshit. We likes.

By Leo Burnett/Lisbon and Lobo, a Brazilian production co.

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KFC Mascot Gets Community Service-Savvy

When we first heard that KFC Colonels were circulating Louisville and filling in potholes, we had this horrible mental image of street cavities being retrofitted into giant buckets of fried chicken.

The reality behind KFC's road-refreshment project is more benign, if not as nice-smelling. To celebrate its dedication to freshness, KFC plans to re-tar potholes and refresh roads in five major cities across the nation.

Instead of luring stupid-hungry drivers out of their cars with chicken in dangerous places, the filled-in holes will feature a road-stenciled "Re-freshed by KFC." (Temporary chalk, natch.)

Oddly satisfying to see a corporate mascot don a yellow vest and do something for the community. What are the odds we could get Karl Lagerfeld to re-tar roadsides?

'It's Called Earth Hour. And it Promises to Be One of the Hugest Turn-Offs Imaginable.'

Janeane Garofalo, who's cool in a dicey sort of way, lends her spokeswoman clout to the World Wildlife Federation's Big Turn Off.

The sitch: this Saturday at 8:30 pm local time (wherever you live), people around the world are committing to switch their lights off for one hour.

As noted above, Garofalo vows this'll be one of the hugest turn-offs imaginable. More of a turn-off than watching her say all this while she paints watercolours with her armpit hair. (And speaking of, who decided lengthy underarm locks should be the awkward fist bump of 2009?)

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Classic Movies Call Attention to Dirty Water

Messing with old movie clips for use in advertising isn't a new thing so here's more of that from Good Magazine to hype World Water Day. The premise is there's a lot of dirty water in the world doing a lot of harm to a lot of people. And yea, nice job titling the videos "(dirty version)" on YouTube.

There's a Psycho version, a Cool Hand Luke version and a Crocodile Mile version.

Their downfall? Their all too long. The message drags. Except, of course for the Cool Hand Luke version featuring a woman washing a car Paris Hilton-style.

Stare at This Empty Bed And Tell Us What You See

Um..what the what, what? Are we missing something here? We're all for a good cause but we've looked at this Chi & Partners-created ad for the UK's Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation for quite some time and all we see is an empty bed.

OK, so yes, we get that the empty bed signifies a person who's no longer with us but, really, this add is so clinical it could be for a hospital bed manufacturer.

Could we have a headline? Tagline? Some heart string pulling copy?

Or are we just too stupid to grasp the simplicity of this message? Yea, it's probably that.

Smoking is Addictive. You Know, Like Gummy Bears.

The team at Truth is at it again with Infect 2009, flanked by a guerrilla team called the Infectors. In a set of five ads, two charismatic but prickly MTV hosts -- which join Truth in battle -- invade ordinary spaces with 100 Truth warriors at beck and call. Their objective is to illustrate some of the egregious claims tobacco industry executives have made over the years.

See "Gummy Bears." Uh, diggin' how they're still using quotes from the late '90s.

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...but Won't the Fibers Destroy that Fine Watery Flavour?

Designer Benjamin Edgar is responsible for the minimalist packaging behind Boxed Water is Better, which helps bottled-water elitists be more eco by using packaging made from renewable resources.

The, uh, box format that's become so popular with other fine beverages means empty containers can be shipped flat back to a water plant. More flattened boxes can fit in a truck than whole bottles, so emptied Boxed Water containers require fewer truckloads.

Nothing's sexier than a rapidly-shrinking carbon footprint. (Writing that out makes us think of Chinese foot-binding, which is sort of uncomfortable, and probably has more to do with our psychological states than this campaign.)