Hasta La Creative!

Netflix has begun offering U.S. subscribers the ability to peer into friends’ digital movie libraries in a long-awaited partnership with Facebook.

The software, updating features offered to non-U.S. customers since 2011, will become available starting today, Netflix said. Users who opt in will see two new rows on their Netflix home page that show friends’ activities, and have the option to post films or TV shows to Facebook and comment on them.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings lobbied Congress to change U.S. law and put his alliance with Facebook into full effect. With about $5 billion in long-term content obligations, he is counting on the social component to increase word-of-mouth about Netflix’s growing digital library and build loyalty to the $7.99-a-month subscription service.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

This week, Zoe Osmond, chief executive of Nabs, drums up support for the charity’s centennial year and plans the Big Bash 2013 (just don’t ask her who’s headlining)

PETA is planning to hand out anti-abuse pamphlets at the launch of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, urging gamers to respect the game's pixelated extraterrestrials known as The Zerg. The pamphlet, titled "Zerglings Have Feelings, Too," is a reminder to have compassion for all beings—real or fictional—and is emblazoned with an adorable rendering of the series' horrific arthropodal antagonists. In an impressive moment of sanity, the PETA blog acknowledges that "Terrans for the Ethical Treatment of Zerglings" is simply a parody. And the press release even mentions that it's a direct response to the impressive level of (bad) press they got for their Pokémon mod a few months back. Is it really a parody, though, if no one realizes it's a parody? Already, gamers are taking the bait and flaming PETA with a level of vitriol usually reserved for fellow gamers.

If Gatorade's latest commercial from TBWA\Chiat\Day seems vaguely familiar, that's because it treads some of the same ground as Element 79's mid-'00s work for the brand, recounting the drink's 1965 creation in a lab at the University of Florida. From there, the TBWA spot mixes stock footage and new clips of Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, Dwyane Wade and others as it assesses the brand's place in the history of modern sports. This heady concept works best in a pop-culture context. Gatorade is a beloved and ubiquitous game-day fixture, itself iconic, sloshing around in small plastic cups and giant buckets, ever ready to drench the winners in sparkling showers of limey-electrolyte glory. Sure, Gatorade might help gifted athletes—and by extension, you and me—win on the playing field. But more important, the brand is synonymous with triumph and superior achievement overall. That status gives Gatorade a shared meaning that transcends its sporty origins and helps ads like these appeal to anyone hoping to catch lightning in a bottle.

Ah, the 80s music video. Always open to parody. So moody and serious that the bands may have been secretly parodying themselves without telling anyone (Duran Duran), which is why it’s not even that strange when an anthromorphic unicorn finds its way into Fiat’s new spoof/commercial, “The Fatherhood,” directed by Matt Golding of Rubber Republic.

The spot may not go platinum, but its predecessor, a rap parody called “The Motherhood,” has close to 4 million views on YouTube. Apparently, people really eat up the parental-commiseration genre.

In “The Fatherhood,” a pale Gabriel Macht lookalike sings about his lack of sleep to a synth-pop beat. He spends his nights driving around in his comfortable Fiat 500L as his two babies cry in the backseat. I can’t tell you why a unicorn appears midway through the video, but I can tell you that it feels totally appropriate for the song. These Fiat spots can strike the corny nerve from time to time, but they’re salvaged by some risky humor and solid writing (“the one fun act that got me here/I don’t get that anymore.”) There’s even a subtle allusion to “The Motherhood,” which makes me think the creatives at krow communications actually had fun making this campaign.

And is it just me, or is the song catchy? I’d listen to it on the radio–it has better production value than half the songs the stations repeat anyway.

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