Lifesavers Brings Sweet Back in Style

This spot's nearly a year old, but it isn't in the Almighty Database so we're covering it anyway.

Lifesavers guides us down the sometimes precarious road of good intentions with this ad for "It's Good to Be Sweet." The bright colors, friendly deeds and sweet cover of "What's So Funny (About Peace, Love and Understanding)" gave us an unexpected feel-good feeling.

We LOLed at least twice. And that North Korea scene? Priceless.

Vantage Point Teaser's a Tease, All Right

Check out this :50 teaser for Vantage Point by th1ng. Vantage Point is a stock action film (premise: presidential assassination, ooooh) with a respectable cast (Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker).

The teaser was positioned as an "amber-drenched" perspective piece, which is a gorgeous way of saying you'll get nothing but a crisp, clear shot of the movie title. It will, however, leave you with a distinct "That's IT?!!" feeling.

What's the phrase -- no emotional reaction is a bad emotional reaction? No wait, that's not right...

The Ruin of a Fine Casino? YOU Decide.

Ogilvy once said that advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

And having just watched this Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners-directed spot for the Mohegan Sun casino, where the wannabe cast of Grease 3 molests the tune to Superfreak, we don't just believe it -- we live and breathe it. The lead CD was Izzy DeBellis, the chap responsible for the new Wendy's ads.

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Chinese Wool Ad Feels Something Like Water Torture

This ad for Heng Yuan Xiang, a wool company, pisses China off. We thought it was just the mob overreacting again, but -- having watched about half of it -- we're suddenly jam-packed with repressed rage. A great way to destroy someone's soul would be to pin their eyelids open and force them to sit through this for a little over six minutes.

The spot starts about :09 into the video, so don't be fooled by all that happy baby stuff at the beginning. Here's a positive: after one sitting, you'll feel uncomfortably familiar with all the animals in the Chinese zodiac. AND you'll have three new syllables burned forever into your brain.

Scrimpers, Working Class Heroes Valorized in Fifth Third Ad Campaign

Here's an ad about a middle-aged paperboy working to get braces for his daughter. And here's one about a white collar cog who drives his college beater so he and his pregnant wife can save for their baby.

These spots are part of an ad campaign for Fifth Third Bank called "The Things We Do for Dreams," produced by Anonymous Content for agency OLSON.

We like it. Swimming upstream against a dismal economy, it's nice to see a bank put an optimistic spin on the everyday struggle -- illuminating the decisions we've had to make, and watch our parents make -- rather than distracting us with gimmicky comic relief.

It lends the sense that Fifth Third understands what it's like to do things that aren't fun out of a sense of hope. That's nice. And strangely rare.

Toyota Highlights, ACDelco Moves, Airborne Pays, Facebook Poked

- This Canadian spot for Toyota's Matrix has fun envisioning a day full of potential as highlighted by the vehicle's headlights.

- While this happened back in late January, we thought we'd share the news that as part of an agency consolidation, GM has opted to move its ACDelco account, with Campbell-Ewald since 1917, to Publicis Groupe on May 1.

- Facebook gets poked! Right. Facebook backlash YouTube-style.

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Questions Raised Over Whether Hillary Darkened Obama's Pigment

For all her noxious crying and whatnot, Hillary Clinton is a well-honed jungle predator. "Winning. Winning, winning, that's my measure of success -- winning," she barked recently.

Having demonstrated yesterday that she's still a viable contender for the presidency, the question arises: what does it take to win, win, win like Hillary?

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As Predicted, Firebrand Flames Out

Less than five months after its launch, Firebrand, the all-ads-all-the-time cable channel and online site is, as we predicted from the start, closing operations. Investor's from NBC Universal to Microsoft to GE have pulled the plug and will no longer fund Firebrand and its ill-conceived belief people actually want to seek out and watch advertising as a form of content on equal footing with network programming or movies.

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Ford F-150 Comes to Life on Gritty Streets of New England

Watch closely as a Ford F-150 is harnessed into living form by the mercurial fluid of the cold, hard streets. Kind of like Alex Mack.

We like the introductory bad-ass voice that growls, "It caaaame ... from the streets of New England." We're trying to think of other bad-ass things that caaaame from New England. So far all we've got are self-entitled Ivy League cowboys, and maybe Queen Noor.

Oh yeah, and wooly mammoths.

The ad was produced by Arf for TeamDetroit-JWT. Looking for your own breed of truck love? Check out TruckMatch.

Chevy Malibu SS Commercial an Avalanche of Immodest Homage

You know how some people are fond of pointing out creatives often imprint themselves on the work they produce as if they were the only demographic in the world? Well, that notion is clearly evident in this Leo Burnett Dubai-created commercial for Chevrolet Lumina SS.

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