Hasta La Creative!

Virgin Mobile has been retraining your brain for a while. Now, it wants to borrow your eyes.

In a fun stunt called BlinkWashing from Mother New York and rehabstudio, the mobile carrier makes its sales pitch in 25 separate but linked YouTube videos—which you control simply by blinking. (The site uses your webcam to find your eyes, and then accurately detect your blinks.) The best part is, all the videos are time-coded and "smart cached," so that when you blink, the next video's dialogue picks up where the previous one left off. In other words, blink and you won't miss it.

The videos themselves offer an impressive assortment of oddball characters and scenes. There are even Mother employees featured in the spots: Gabriel Blido, sporting his astounding mustache, and Debra Dean, who shows off her hip-hop dancing skills.

Give it a spin over at Virgin Mobile's YouTube page.

It’s been a while since we’ve witnessed a contextual advertising screw up. While we’re sure they still happen all the time and people have, for the most part, just become immune to them, it’s still intriguing to see them pop up from time to time.

Adrants reader Micah Donahue sent us this mobile screenshot of a Progressive ad banner above a CNN story about today’s shooting inside a D.C naval facility. In the banner, Progressive’s Flo can be seen aiming a gun at the viewer. Of course it’s not an actual gun but the placement of the ad above a story about a shooting is, at best, disconcerting.

To be fair, it’s not even clear whether or not this is a contextually served ad. It’s appearance could be completely random. Even so, an ad that has an image which appears to look at though someone is aiming a gun at you is probably not the best creative execution (no pun intended) to have in your rotation.

The new show, which is expected to begin in 2015, will be developed by Robert Kirkman, whose comic book inspired “The Walking Dead.”

Oh the internet. It gives us so many wonderful things. So many things we’d would never have experience before like, well, like the Prancercise® Lady. If you haven’t heard of her, her name is Joanna Rohrback and she does this exercise thing which aims to “create the most satisfying, holistic and successful fitness program one could hope to experience.” And it has nothing to do with riding a horse.

Anyway, Rohrback, along with Dennis Rodman, an elephant, King Kong and, yes, Norman Bates, can be seen in the upcoming Wonderful Pistachios Get Crackin’ campaign which debuts today.

The campaign, which began in 2007, has featured such cultural oddities as Honey Badger, Snooki, Snoop Lion, Keyboard Cat, The Village People and, yes, the Secret Service.

On Friday, Microsoft posted a video on YouTube — apparently part of a series of pro-Windows Phone, anti-iPhone parodies — titled “A fly on the wall in Cupertino.” If you try to view it now, though, you’ll see an error message: “This video is private. Sorry about that.” Why? Basically, negative social-media feedback, with plenty of folks complaining that the video, which suggests that innovation is dead at Apple, is in bad taste — or at least insufficiently funny.

Microsoft has since issued a statement saying, “The video was intended to be a light-hearted poke at our friends from Cupertino. But it was off the mark, and we’ve decided to pull it down.” The internet being the internet, though, copies of the parody clip are still floating around — indeed, proliferating. And wouldn’t you know it? We have one right here:

Simon Dumenco is the “Media Guy” media columnist for Advertising Age. Follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Wait, New Zealand has an army? OK, kidding. Of course they do. Even tiny islands in the Southwestern Pacific need defensive forces. And to make sure everyone knows that, Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand is out with a campaign for the New Zealand Defense Force entitled “Purpose Built.”

The creative, which aims to inform the public the armed forces are much more than combat, centers on the notion that joining the army is less about obligation and more about caring and purpose.

Santander has brought back the members of the public its brand ambassadors Jessica Ennis-Hill, Jenson Button and Rory McIlroy surprised earlier this year in a bid to continue its discussion on the highlights of banking with the bank.

(TrendHunter.com) David Marx, food scientist and found of The Science Kitchen in Berlin, has elevated ice pops into an art form with a new molecular design. The new KYL21 ice pop line is more than just visually…

Si le travail du peintre mexicain Omar Ortiz est souvent qualifié d’hyperréaliste, c’est parce qu’en regardant ses toiles, on a parfois du mal à croire que ce ne sont pas des photographies. Ses tableaux présente le corps, notamment des femmes, avec une finesse incroyable. Des oeuvres bluffantes à découvrir en images.

WPP has overhauled its remuneration committee with the appointment of three new non-executive directors, including a new chairman of the committee in Dr John Hood.