Hasta La Creative!

Woodstock Bourbon's ad showing its hometown's enthusiasm for the brand is pretty funny (well, besides that "Barrellel Parking" sign—groan). But it's right on the brink of being one of those fake homespun liquor ads that Henry Rollins used to laugh at, what with the fiddle music and rural aesthetics. It's like O Brother Where Art Thou? but less subtle.

Perhaps this is because it was made by Australian agency CumminsRoss for the Australian market, and so it needs to show a somewhat cartoony version of Kentucky.

Still, you can't deny the funny visuals. Perhaps Mila Kunis can take a day trip from the Beam distillery in Clermont and learn how to barrel roll like this.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Asahi Premium Beverages
General Manager, Marketing: Kate Dowd
Woodstock Brand Manager: Kelly Jones

Creative: CumminsRoss
Chief Executive Officer: Sean Cummins
Executive Creative Director: Jason Ross
Copywriter: Chris Ellis
Art Director: Aaron Lipson
Managing Director: Chris Jeffares
Group Account Director: Hayden Isaacs
Account Director: Damiano Dipietro
Account Manager: Jessica Chamberlain
Agency Producer: Susannah George

Media: CumminsRoss
Chief Media, Innovation Officer: Kirsty Muddle
Media Manager: Tom Johnson

Production Company: Guilty
Producer: Jason Byrne
Director: Tony Rogers
Director of Photography: Shelley Farthing-Dawe
Postproduction: The Butchery, The Refinery
Offline Editor: Tim Parrington
Online Editor: Eugene Richards
Grade: Vincent Taylor
Sound Design: Flagstaff Studios
Sound: Paul Le Couteur
Stills Photographer: Christopher Tovo

Here's a pretty good example of a brand dealing well with a troll on Twitter—mostly by sticking to the script, with a few flourishes along the way.

On Monday, Domino's Pizza in the U.K. had to deal with a customer who claimed to have burned his penis while "making love" to one of its pizzas.

You can see the whole exchange below.

Even as @ITK_AGENT_VIGO's tweets get increasingly irate and obscene, @Dominos_UK remains calm—amusingly nonchalant, in fact. At the end, though, the brand allows itself a little freedom, taking an even more absurd claim from the man at face value and admitting "that is not what is expected of our pizzas. We raised them better than that!" (Hopefully that doesn't count as legal admission of sexual misconduct by the pizza.)

Would have been fun to see how Tesco Mobile would have dealt with this guy.

Daily Star via Complex. Photo via Flickr.

.@Dominos_UK HELLO I'VE JUST MADE LOVE TO ONE OF YOUR PIZZAS AND BURNT MY PENIS SEVERELY. PLEASE ADVISE ON YOUR TERMS FOR A REFUND. THANKS.

— LAD_VIGO (@ITK_AGENT_VIGO) February 24, 2014

@NotArsedLike @ITK_AGENT_VIGO Please contact our head office – comments@dominos.co.uk regarding this matter.

— Domino's Pizza UK (@Dominos_UK) February 24, 2014

.@Dominos_UK DISGUSTING FOB OFF,YOUR STAFF SHOULD INFORM CUSTOMERS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF MAKING LOVE TO YOUR PIZZA. WHY IS THIS NOT IN PLACE?

— LAD_VIGO (@ITK_AGENT_VIGO) February 24, 2014

@ITK_AGENT_VIGO Our apologies, we will look for a way to notify customers of this in future. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

— Domino's Pizza UK (@Dominos_UK) February 24, 2014

.@Dominos_UK I'M NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS, NOT HAPPY AT ALL, I HAVE A MULTITUDE OF PEPPERONI PIECES STUCK TO MY BALLS AND MY PENIS IS SCORCHED.

— LAD_VIGO (@ITK_AGENT_VIGO) February 24, 2014

@ITK_AGENT_VIGO As you have previously been advised, please email our head office about this

— Domino's Pizza UK (@Dominos_UK) February 24, 2014

.@Dominos_UK LOOK, I'VE TRIED EMAILING YOUR HEAD OFFICE WITH NO SUCCESS BUT NOW THE PIZZA WANTS TO GIVE ME A BLOW JOB, PLEASE ADVISE.

— LAD_VIGO (@ITK_AGENT_VIGO) February 24, 2014

@indiantank @ITK_AGENT_VIGO It is definitely recommended, as that is not what is expected of our pizzas. We raised them better than that!

— Domino's Pizza UK (@Dominos_UK) February 24, 2014

How many times can a two-minute recap of Don Draper's six-season-long journey on Mad Men capture the off-the-rails boozer puking into a potted plant? Zero. But the rest of his repertoire is nicely represented in this short promo video ahead of the Season 7 premiere.

There are the suave drags on cigarettes, highball in hand, the prolific womanizing, the creative genius. AMC, as usual, has been stingy in releasing new material for the upcoming, final season. Hence the look back at Draper's world-by-the-tail early days on Madison Avenue through his infidelities, betrayals, failed marriages and, where fans last saw him, forced sabbatical from his namesake ad agency.

It's not much, since the Season 7 premiere is still six weeks away. But it's a decent, stylized refresher. What would make the April 13 series return not seem so distant? Two-minute Joan, two-minute Peggy, two-minute Bob. Definitely two-minute Bob.

Also, for a deeper dive, check out our archive of Mad Men Minute video recaps of every episode.

This wonderfully warped three-minute music-video commercial for Germany's Edeka supermarket chain certainly lives up to its title, "Supergeil," which can mean both "super cool" and "super sexy" (or "horny") in German.

Paunchy middle-aged crooner Friedrich Liechtenstein bathes in milk and cereal, boogies in the aisles, fondles sausages, cavorts with a dude dressed like a battery and reels off naughty double entendres to a techno beat. At one point, he rhymes "muschi" (German for "cat," or "pussy") with "sushi," while a woman slurps raw fish nearby. ("Supergeil" does not translate to "super classy," after all.)

His subdued yet insane performance transcends language barriers, though it's a hoot that one line translates to "Organic is also very, very cool/Very cool organic products, excellent," while a suave chorus exhorts viewers to "Check it out, very, very cool fries, super/Very cool cod, by the way, very cool/Oh look here, toilet paper, ooh, now that's soft/Very, very cool, super." You don't learn to write copy like that in portfolio schools.

Some liken the clip, from ad agency Jung von Matt, to a German "Gangnam Style," citing its funky take on local pop culture. Others compare the bearded Liechtenstein to Dos Equis's Most Interesting Man in the World. Frankly, he reminds me of a different ad character: It's easy to imagine Liechtenstein strutting down a sun-soaked European beach, well-fed gut straining against his Speedo. Easy to imagine, though not particularly pleasant.

How does the world's oldest tequila maker introduce a brand-spanking-new website? By keeping one foot firmly in the past.

McCann New York has launched a new site for Jose Cuervo that's actually five sites in one. In addition to its new site for 2014, the brand also imagines what the brand website would have looked like in 1795, 1880, 1945 and 1974.

"Fully actualizing the concept in an authentic way required researching the language and design tropes of each chosen year, and then presenting what we needed to say about Cuervo through those stylistic realities," the agency says.

It's a fun idea, and 1945 and 1974 are both particularly groovy. The only downside, in fact, is that the 2014 version feels visually staid by comparison.

Screen shots and credits below.

1795 website:

1880 website:

1945 website:

1974 website:

2014 website:

CREDITS
Client: Cuervo, Proximo Spirits
Client: Elwyn Gladstone
Agency: McCann, New York

Chief Creative Officers: Tom Murphy, Sean Bryan
Group Creative Director: Mat Bisher
Design Director: Brad Blondes
Senior Art Director: Elinor Beltrone
Copywriter: Sarah Lloyd
Designer: Ledi Lalaj

Production
Chief Production Officer: Nathy Aviram
Executive Integrated Producer: Catherine Eve Patterson
Senior Integrated Producers: Geoff Guinta, Jill Toloza
Associate Producer: Lauren Bauder

Production Company: Transistor Studios
Executive Creative Director: Aaron Baumle
Executive Producer: Damon Meena
Head of Production: Jesse Kurnit
Creative Director: Jamie Rockaway
Art Director: Geoff Keough
Developer: Brian Hersey
Designers: Ryan Weibust, Diana Park, Mauricio Leon, Edgardo Moreno, Tesia Jurkiewicz, Chris Murray and Carolyn Frisch

Philly-based ad agency Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners is back to carving likeness of its new employees, but it's graduated from crayons to wooden totem poles.

The details of the faces are pretty rough in both mediums, but the new material is clearly more forgiving—if less endearingly weird. Still, particularly lucky hires get adorable paper-doll versions of themselves. It could be an apt bit of foreshadowing, as a career in the industry might leave them feeling flattened, or square anyways. Either approach, however, makes for a more fun welcome-to-the-office present than the usual nothing, and a far more entertaining gift to the world than a run-of-the-mill press release.

One downside (or perhaps it's an upside): One of the new hires can lay claim to literally being the low man on the totem pole.

As far as offbeat staff announcements go, though, RTO+P has some pretty stiff competition in Barton F. Graf 9000's airplane-banner method.

Procter & Gamble's "Tough Love" ad, which celebrates the pride and determination of athletes and their moms ahead of next month's Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, manages to play on the heartstrings without hitting a saccharin note.

Not long ago, images of kids without limbs struggling to excel in sports would have been viewed as appropriate for fund-raising PSAs but too downbeat for other types of advertising. It's a mark of how far we've come that such visuals are now seen as inspiring and triumphant. And the found footage in this minute-long clip from Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore., showing determined youngsters swimming, racing and skating (with their supportive moms nearby), is especially soul stirring.

Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy narrates: "You could have protected me. You could have taken every hit. You could have turned the world upside down so that I would never feel pain. But you didn't. You gave me my freedom because you were strong. And now, so am I."

The ad, running both online and on TV, debuted on Feb. 19 and has racked up 2.2 million YouTube views so far. Part of P&G's "Thank you, Mom" campaign, the spot serves as a companion piece to W+K's similarly themed viral hit "Pick Them Back Up," which follows four athletes from their baby steps to Olympic glory.

Taken together, the two spots make the point that all athletes, regardless of ability or skill level, similarly strive toward their goals. They fight to overcome long odds, personal travails and self-doubt—often relying on the dedication and perseverance of their moms to help them succeed. Such equality communicates a simple, universal truth: You have to let them fall a few times before they can soar.

Coca-Cola is really having a go at social media this week. Earlier, we had the Coke video that offered a fashionably questionable solution to social-media addiction. And now we have this ultra-peppy new global Coca-Cola Light commercial from ad agency Johannes Leonardo.

Its point is that "liking" things just isn't enough. You have to love them. And you have to love them enough to roll around in them, swing on them, set fire to them, dance with them, kiss them (with gold teeth, preferably) and float away to heaven with them.

Ambivalence toward the "like" is hardly a new stance for marketers, but here it's aggressively communicated with broad, boundless energy as well as other, smaller details—you'll notice there are no computers or smartphones anywhere, and someone is even (gasp) seen reading a book. (The song is "Love Me Again" by English artist John Newman.)

It's a fine message for Coke, really, although it makes the 79,691,932 people who like the brand on Facebook maybe look a little foolish.

It must be nice to be Three.

The British mobile network has the most fun-loving advertising slogan around: "We all need silly stuff." And Wieden + Kennedy in London makes the most of that promisingly vague positioning. Last year, we had the dancing Shetland pony. Now, it's time for the singing cat.

The new ad is brilliantly shot by Traktor, and features remarkable performances—not just by the preternaturally talented kitty but by the girl, too, who apparently was born to lip-sync old Starship songs. (W+K London has lots of relevant feline experience, too, of course, having also done the much-loved "Cats With Thumbs" work for Cravendale.)

The only downside: The related website, where you can upload your photo and "star in your own kitten-rocking, face-morphing music video," doesn't load outside the U.K.

Credits below. Via Unruly Media.

CREDITS
Client: Three
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, London
Creative Directors: Dan Norris, Ray Shaughnessy
Creatives: Chris Lapham, Aaron McGurk, Luke Tipping
Production Company: Partizan
Directors: Traktor
Postproduction: MPC

To raise awareness of the millions of children going without clean water each day, Unicef is challenging you to see how long you could deny yourself something as simple as checking your phone.

Mobile visitors to UnicefTapProject.org can join the challenge (and help raise money for the cause) by following a few simple instructions and putting their smartphone down. For every 10 minutes you leave your phone alone, the project's sponsors will fund a day of clean water for needy kids worldwide.

The mobile Web app is currently in beta and scheduled for official launch March 1. Droga5 helped to conceive the campaign, part of an annual program now in its eighth year, and MediaVest serves as a media partner. While your phone is parked, the site fills your screen with stats and information about the need for clean water. It also encourages you to keep going and contrasts your elapsed time with the number of frivolous tweets, texts and Instagrams that have been posted while you've been participating.

Surely, even hardcore mobile addicts set down their phones for 10 minutes each day—perhaps while taking a nice hot shower, which millions of less-fortunate folks around the world would view as a luxury.