Harrison Ford Returns to Advertising With an Homage to Great Movie Moments

Infrequent ad star Harrison Ford, whom we last saw codgering his way through a game of Uncharted 3, has made his commercial comeback in a new spot for British subscription service Sky Movies. 

The spot features a few subtle homages to modern classics, including an opening scene reminiscent of Ford's own appearance in Blade Runner. Posted in the final days of December, the clip also capped off a busy year for Ford, who appeared in Anchorman 2, Ender's Game and the Jackie Robinson biopic 42.


    

Coca-Cola Drops Gay Wedding From Irish Version of Heartwarming New Ad

Coca-Cola took a bold step when it included a gay marriage in the anthem spot for its new global campaign, but now gay-rights advocates say the brand is already backing down on its support by editing the scene out of an Irish version of the ad.

The "Reasons to Believe" anthem spot posted online and running in the Netherlands, Norway and Great Britain features an array of happy moments, including a same-sex male couple getting married. But as you can see in the comparison below, the version running in predominantly Catholic Ireland omits the scene.

A Coca-Cola spokesperson sent the following explanation to Ireland news site TheJournal.ie: "As you rightly say, the wedding images used in the ad for the UK and in other parts of Europe show two men getting married. The reason that this was changed for Ireland is that while civil partnership for gay people is legal, gay marriage currently is not."

But LGBT-focused EILE Magazine, which brought the issue to light, called the company's response disingenuous. The magazine noted that the wedding footage is actually from a civil union (not a state-sanctioned marriage) in Australia and that the uncut ad is also airing in Great Britain, where Scotland and Northern Ireland still do not allow same-sex marriage.

Obviously the brand will be under pretty intense scrutiny as it rolls out more versions customized to the countries where "Reasons to Believe" will be running.


    

Aspiring Audi Owners Are Insufferable Snobs in Obnoxious New Ad

Audi has earned a lot of different descriptions over the years, but "tacky" wasn't one of them. Until now.

The automaker's new promotional video, "Luxury Car Abstinence," is meant to be a jovial bit of double entendre that positions the new Audi A3 as the ultimate first-time luxury car for young professionals. But instead, what we get is a mean-spirited and overly long clip in which aspiring Audi owners stop just short of rubbing feces on their loved ones' high-end rides.

While the concept probably had potential, the execution is simply grating. We see young people describing a BMW as a "drive of shame," ditching a ride from mom in favor of a cab and quitting jobs because the free company car is a lowly Mercedes. It's not endearing. It's entitled prickery.

One Jalopnik contributor says the ad highlights Audi's "bigger balls," but based on most of the comments on YouTube and his own post, it's clear that, however large the automaker's gonads, most viewers just end up wanting to kick Audi in the crotch.


    

Dell Highlights the Dingy, Humble Beginnings of Today’s Popular Brands

Dell seeks to recapture its entrepreneurial spirit in new work from Y&R and VML, including this "Beginnings" spot that shows small apartments, basements and other venues where modern brands were born. 

Companies like TripAdvisor, Whole Foods and Skype, all of which use Dell products and services, serve as the stars of the spot. (Apparently, Dropbox was conceived on a bus. I did not know that.)

At the end, we see the University of Texas at Austin dorm room where Michael Dell sold PC upgrade kits in 1984, emphasizing the company's startup roots. The spot, directed by Tomas Jonsgården of Anonymous Content, comes as Dell, newly privatized and refocused on enterprise systems and cloud computing, prepares to write its next chapter.

Now, Dell's no startup, but a high-tech behemoth, so this strategy seems kind of risky, as it almost dares critics to call out the message as disingenuous. Still, the company is entering a new phase, so the approach works well enough, and the spot feels legitimately humble and less like a brag. Plus, the visuals are memorable, if only because you don't expect Dell to present 60 seconds of drab facades and spaces devoid of people and technology. Such muted imagery captures the lonely uncertainty of the startup experience and makes "Beginnings" seem more heartfelt than ads that cast their wares as shiny eye candy.


    

The Top 30 AdFreak Stories of 2013

Here are the 30 most read stories on AdFreak in 2013:

30. Intriguing Ads Tell Young Girls: 'You're Not a Princess' and 'Life's Not a Fairytale'
By Rebecca Cullers

A tiny, all-female Catholic college-prep academy in Kentucky has created a curious ad campaign, via agency Doe-Anderson, that tells young women, "You're not a princess" and "Life's not a fairytale," and advises them: "Don't wait for a prince." The tagline is: "Prepare for real life."
Read the full story.
 


29. Low Self-Esteem Is Not a Problem in Dove's Real Beauty Sketches … for Men
By Tim Nudd

Ogilvy Brazil's "Real Beauty Sketches" campaign for Dove took the Internet by storm this week with its clever use of a forensics artist to show women that they're really more beautiful than they think. What would happen if you tried the same experiment on men?
Read the full story.
 


28. Model From Famous Photoshop Video Gets More Drastic Makeover for the Holidays
By Tim Nudd

It's agency holiday-card season, and we're going to start posting some of the more interesting and amusing examples—beginning with this one from Victors & Spoils.
Read the full story.
 


27. H&M Winning Raves for Having a Normal-Looking Woman Model Its Beachwear
By David Griner

It would be nice if we didn't live in a world where this is considered news, but for better or worse, it is. H&M has selected a swimwear model who actually has a normal human body.
Read the full story.
 


26. It's 2013, and People Are Still Getting Worked Up About Interracial Couples in Ads
By Tim Nudd

It's another one of those things that shouldn't be a story but is—an ad from a major U.S. brand featuring an interracial couple and their daughter.
Read the full story.
 


25. Did Lego Already Win Christmas With This Fantastic Father-Son Ad?
By Tim Nudd

Christmas ads are just around the corner, and Lego storms out of the gate with this wonderful TV spot from Amsterdam agency We Are Pi and director Joanna Bailey.
Read the full story.
 


24. April Fools' Day 2013: Best of the Brand Hoaxes
By Rebecca Cullers

Ah, April Fools' Day. The Super Bowl of satire. The one day when brands are free to indulge in off-brand, often hilarious communications without catastrophic repercussions. Click below to see our list of this year's pranks.
Read the full story.
 


23. Check Out the Trailer That Was Just Named the Best of the Year
By David Kiefaber

This is it: the best trailer of the year. Or at least that's the opinion of the top awards show for advertising in the cinema, TV and video game industries.
Read the full story.
 


22. IAC's PR Chief Apparently Tweeted a Bizarrely Tasteless Joke About AIDS and Africa
By David Griner

If Justine Sacco is on a flight to Africa right now, I don't envy her the notifications that will be waiting for her when she lands.
Read the full story.
 


21. Company's Amazing Reply to a Raging Customer Has Fans and Orders Pouring In
By David Griner

Every once in a while, giving a foul-tempered customer a public skewering can be good for business. At least that seems to be the lesson of Liberty Bottleworks, whose polite but eviscerating reply to a Facebook complaint has gone viral and generated vocal support for the small business.
Read the full story.
 


20. How to Totally Freak People Out Simply With the Info They Share in Social Media
By David Griner

Every once in a while, it's good to be reminded just how much information we're giving to complete strangers every day, and I'm not talking about the NSA.
Read the full story.
 


19. The Corporate States of America: A Map That Shows Each State's Most Famous Brand
By David Gianatasio

Artist and writer Steve Lovelace is getting some buzz for his "Corporate States of America" map, showing the most famous brand (as of 2012) that originated in each of the 50 states.
Read the full story.
 


18. McDonald's Won't Be Lovin' This NYC Sidewalk Art Piece by Banksy
By Tim Nudd

Anti-Ronald McDonald art has a long, proud, often vomitous history. Banksy adds to that tradition today, unveiling a menacing Ronald having his giant shoes shined as part of his "Better Out Than In" artist residency on the streets of New York.
Read the full story.
 


17. Mock Commercial for Beans Is Better Than Almost Any Real Commercial for Anything
By Tim Nudd

Visual effects studio Cinesite produced this crazy-good mock commercial as a way to show off its creature animation skills.
Read the full story.
 


16. Chuck Norris Does His Own Epic Split in This Festively Insane Holiday Video
By David Griner

How do you one-up Jean-Claude Van Damme doing splits atop two Volvo trucks? With Chuck Norris doing splits on two airplane wings, of course.
Read the full story.
 


15. The Most Stunning Ad Ever Made for a Used Car With 128,000 Miles That's Been Puked In Twice
By Tim Nudd

"You're going to need an abacus to keep track of all the ass you'll be getting in this thing!" That's one of dozens of stellar lines in this homemade ad—a truly astonishing collage posted to Craigslist by one Nate Walsh.
Read the full story.
 


14. Star Wars Imperial Forces Invade Thomas Kinkade Paintings
By David Griner

Artist Jeff Bennett has invaded the cloying world of Thomas Kinkade with the full might of the Galactic Empire.
Read the full story.
 


13. Jesus, Gandhi and Mother Teresa Stump for Unicef in Extremely Virtuous Holiday Ads
By David Gianatasio

Forget about those famous Internet felines in Friskies' Christmas spot. The real holiday supergroup is in this campaign from Forsman & Bodenfors for Unicef Sweden.
Read the full story.
 


12. The 25 Biggest Brand Fails of 2013
By Tim Nudd

The 25 Biggest Brand Fails of 2013

Arrogant, intolerant, sexist, disgusting, cheesy, tasteless, just plain stupid. Brand fails come in all kinds of off-putting shapes and sizes, though one thing remains constant—the guilty adrenaline rush of ad-enfreude that onlookers feel while watching brands implode for everyone to see.
Read the full story.
 


11. 3 Girls Smash Gender Roles to Smithereens in Toy Company's Glorious Debut Ad
By David Griner

One of the most anti-feminist songs of the 1980s, "Girls" by the Beastie Boys, is recast as an empowering theme for young women in a new toy ad looking to break gender stereotypes.
Read the full story.
 


10. Famous Photos Reimagined as Selfies in Newspaper's Wonderful Print Ads
By David Kiefaber

Lowe South Africa developed a campaign for the Cape Times newspaper last spring in which famous photographs—the wartime kiss, Beyers Naude and Desmond Tutu, Winston Churchill smoking, etc.—were reimagined as selfies.
Read the full story.
 


9. Ron Burgundy's Hilariously Stupid Dodge Durango Campaign Is Destined for Greatness
By Tim Nudd

The only thing better than Will Ferrell doing brilliantly stupid ads as Will Ferrell? Will Ferrell doing brilliantly stupid ads as Ron Burgundy.
Read the full story.
 


8. Burger King's Name Change to Fries King Is Making People Hungry and Confused
By Tim Nudd

Between the French Fry Burger and the new Satisfries, Burger King has been really into fries lately. Now, the chain is taking this obsession a step further by pretending to change its name to Fries King—and posting a load of photos to Facebook showing the unveiling of a new corporate identity.
Read the full story.
 


7. Watch the Thai Commercial That Has Half the World Sobbing Uncontrollably
By Rebecca Cullers

Looking for a tear-jerker today? Thai mobile company TrueMove has got you covered with this story of a noodle seller whose generous act toward a young boy with a sick mother brings unexpected rewards 30 years later.
Read the full story.
 


6. Amazing Pantene Ad Defiantly Tackles How Women in the Workplace Are Labeled
By Roo Ciambriello

Pantene Philippines has launched a powerful campaign pointing out how identical behavior often earns men and women different labels in the workplace.
Read the full story.
 


5. Bertolli Makes the Most of Barilla Chairman's Anti-Gay Comments
By Tim Nudd

Barilla is struggling enough this week without its competitors piling on. But Bertolli doesn't care.
Read the full story.
 


4. Watch the Most Bafflingly Awesome New-Product Demo of 2013 So Far
By David Kiefaber

Everyone is raving about NeverWet, a spray-on waterproof coating that Rust-Oleum is manufacturing and distributing in North America in return for royalty payments. I didn't get what all the fuss was about, but then I saw this product demonstration video.
Read the full story.
 


3. Dove Hires Criminal Sketch Artist to Draw Women as They See Themselves and as Others See Them
By Rebecca Cullers

Gil Zamora is an FBI-trained forensics artist with over 3,000 criminal sketches under his belt. Dove (through Unilever's U.K. office) and Ogilvy Brazil hired him to interview and draw seven different women—two sketches of each.
Read the full story.
 


2. Powerful Ads Use Real Google Searches to Show the Scope of Sexism Worldwide
By David Griner

Here's a simple and powerful campaign idea from UN Women using real suggested search terms from Google's autocomplete feature.
Read the full story.
 


1. Kmart Hunks Play 'Jingle Bells' With Their Junk in Crazy Christmas Ad
By Tim Nudd

Check out the Kmart studs in the retailer's crazy Christmas cross-promotion with Joe Boxer via Draftfcb in Chicago—swaying their sacks to chime out their own impressive version of the holiday standard.
Read the full story.


    

Students Design a Better Box, and Millions Watch the Results on YouTube

Henry Wang and Chris Curro, students at Cooper Union's Albert Nerken School of Engineering, deliver a Boxing Week viral smash in support of their Rapid Packing Container, a cardboard box that's easy to assemble, open and recycle.

It uses about 15% less paper than traditional boxes, takes no tape to seal, can be opened by pressing its lid and is even reversible for label-free reuse. The inventors are seeking a patent and manufacturing partners.

Some commenters say the new design would come undone in real-world warehouse conditions. Even so, I give major points to the young innovators for trying to find a new way to deliver the goods—and for posting a clip that's packed enough of a wallop to generate 2.5 million YouTube views in less than week.


    

Terrell Owens Revisits His Days Being Despised by Philly Fans in Carl’s Jr. Ad

Terrell Owens may carry a lifelong albatross from his two ill-fated seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, but at least he can laugh about it.

In a new Carl's Jr. ad for the Philly Cheesesteak Burger, Owens reenacts the local loathing he experienced after becoming known as an egotistical excuse-maker in the turbulent 2005 season. Cops, kids and everyone in between are down on T.O. in the burger spot, which contrasts his dismal days in Philly with his opulent life today as a poolside retiree.

It's not an ad likely to wearm the hearts of any haters, but they'll at least enjoy seeing T.O. getting a smackdown from a little kid.


    

University of Alberta’s Version of Barney Will Devour Your Tender Mammal Flesh

Jurassic George, a rubbery T-Rex who terrorizes his hapless human sidekicks on a Barney and Friends-type show promoting the University of Alberta's free online paleobiology classes, is a prehistoric hoot.

Crafted by Evolution Bureau, the series of spots boasts daffy dances, silly (and unsettling) songs and plenty of facts about dinosaurs. George's posse of pals—clearly adults dressed as kids, which is part of the joke—steadily diminishes as the salivating saurian gobbles them down.

The four segments run at least 90 seconds, and though each could have been tighter, the series is still great fun. In the first clip, which dispels the misconception that dinosaurs and humans lived on Earth at the same time, George sings, "We were never meant to be friends/Even though it's fun to pretend/If we'd been in the same places/I would've eaten all your faces." Creepy music cues and George's psychotic dino-stare precede his feeding frenzies (which thankfully take place off camera). The final fearful survivor, by sporting a backwards baseball cap, purple suspenders and a Rush T-shirt, is just begging for extinction.


    

Agency’s Christmas Present to Friends and Fans: Custom Slogans in Two Hours or Less

This holiday, McCann Helsinki is seeking to make copywriters and creatives everywhere hate them with the fire of a thousand slightly burnt gingerbread men. They're offering free, tailor-made slogans in a two-hour turnaround time with their Lean Mean Slogan Machine, backed by a photo of a shirtless guy in a cowboy hat (Liquid Plumr, your ideas are leaking—PUN!). Visit the site, type in your business name, and within two hours you'll have your own slogan.

Some taglines from their gallery:
• Mayer/McCann Erickson: "But ma! Mayer came in last! Why can he always sit in the front?"
• Google: "Don't just doodle."
• Anitotes: "For anyone without a bag."
• FP7/CAI: "Kind of like AC/DC, only advertising."
• Leo Burnett: "Porn to be wild."
• Starbucks: "Covering up mermaid boobs does not make us a sellout."

OK, so maybe the slogans aren't billboard worthy, but it's a fun idea nonetheless. Jyrki Poutanen, one of the creative directors at McCann Helsinki, spoke with AdFreak about the campaign:

What's the story behind the Lean Mean Slogan Machine?
We wanted to give our clients, affiliates and fans something for Christmas. Something that we think we're good at and that they'd hopefully enjoy. Something that would show excessive commitment to plain silliness. And it does, you know—we've been responding to the requests almost 24/7. Especially when the requests started pouring in from your continent; your day is our night. During the first 48 hours we had written about 300 slogans. And there's only three of us writing.

Do you have hate mail coming in? As a copywriter, I'm working on my draft to you now.
Not yet. You'll be the first then. Sure, mail it in, we'll stamp it with a fitting slogan, and you'll have your hate mail back in two hours. 🙂

Shouldn't you guys look for new jobs if it only takes you two hours to write a slogan?
We've always been good, or at least enjoying, verbal acrobatics. So yes, there may be a better future for us in professional athletics—gymnastics, that is. And if you're referring to the slogan machine mocking the copy profession, luckily there's so much more to our work nowadays than just taglines. And naturally the really, really great ones, the ones to live with us for decades, take a bit more than two hours to create. But I'm also a big believer in spontaneous stupidness that just might become some greater universal stupidness just because it wasn't so analyzed, chopped to pieces through and through.

What's your favorite slogan ever?
Hmmm. Tough one. I remember really liking Honda's "The Power of Dreams" when it first came out. Having said that, it really doesn't portray my typical favorite slogan. I usually like them 40 percent rebellious, 40 percent stupid and 30 percent clever. Yeah, I know, the math's not right, but I may have proven a point there? But I can't think of any of that sort right at the moment. So maybe my favorites really aren't that good, then. Oh, there was this slogan once for PeakPerformance (I think) … "Boredom Comes to Those Who Wait," which really stuck to my mind.

Santa needs a new slogan. Any ideas?
A rebel with a claus.


    

Man Proposes to Woman Through Chivalrous Video Game He Built Himself

In recent years, we've seen guys propose marriage through infographics, banner ads and crowdsourcing. But Oregon 3-D artist Robert Fink outscores them all with this impressive multi-level video game he created to ask his girlfriend, Angel White, to tie the knot.

Fink worked with two techie friends over five months to create Knight Man: A Quest for Love, which involves a knight's efforts to rescue a princess. White, also an avid gamer, had tested games for Fink before, so she wasn't too suspicious when he invited her to swing by his studio and give Knight Man a try. At the end of the quest, this message appeared: "Princess, I have searched far and wide and braved many dangers searching for my one and only. I believe with all my heart that I have found you … Angel White, would you do me the honor of sharing your life with me?" (I guess hiding a ring in a tub of hot wings during a Call of Duty marathon wouldn't have been as magical.)

White accepted, and with any luck, they'll live happily ever after.

Via Laughing Squid.


    

Short Film Tells a Teenager’s Story Through His Computer Screen Shots

What we've got in Noah, a 17-minute film that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall, is a riveting take on our failure to communicate despite Facebook, Skype and all manner of digital engagement.

Suspecting that his girlfriend Amy plans to break up with him and start dating a swim-team friend named Dylan, the short film's eponymous high-school-age anti-hero sifts through her private Facebook messages for clues to what's really going on. Alas, the displays of data that dazzle his retinas do him no favors, and his deftly dancing fingers, so skilled and swift at making pixels pop, fail to find the key. Adrift like his Biblical namesake, Noah can't make the right connections. He misinterprets the information, and his hasty decision to dump Amy has sad consequences.

Made by Ryerson University film students Walter Woodman and Patrick Cederberg, the mildly NSFW story takes place mostly on computer and smartphone screens. But this technique, while visually dynamic in and of itself, is no mere gimmick. It provides an intense, insightful window into the dense, multimedia world that teens—and all of us, truth be told—increasingly choose to inhabit.

Like Noah, we create multilayered online identities through photos, videos, playlists, friend directories and address books. Our cyber-lives are formed from selected bits and pieces of ourselves. We pick and choose what to show and share, hide the darker parts, and often invent details, obfuscate and lie to suit our purposes. We create sophisticated noise—music, memes, IMs, Google and Wikipedia searches—to add "meaning" (and the film weaves in such activity to dizzying, devastating effect).

These shadow worlds, rich in imagery, sound and interactivity, provide the illusion of connection and control. Yet many of us are simply lost. That's a lesson Noah learns the hard way. He winds up on Chatroulette, the Web's last refuge for sorry souls, where a random gal tells him, "The only place you can really have a conversation with anyone—like, an honest conversation with anyone—is just with a stranger in the middle of the night."

It's a line that plumbs the depths to which our psyches can plunge, online or off. What's most disturbing to consider about Noah, perhaps, is the extent to which technology can help us deceive ourselves and perpetuate misunderstandings. Digital media extends Noah's immaturity, walling him off from nurturing contact in a realm of sensory overload.

By spending so much time creating online identities and spheres to inhabit, do we begin to lose sight of who we really are? Perhaps Noah's biggest problem is his failure to communicate with himself. His online excursions lead nowhere because the honest conversation he needs to have is with the stranger reflected in the dark screen, in the middle of the night, after he's finally powered down.

Via Co.Create.

Below, we chat with Woodman and Cederberg about some of the themes in Noah and how they made the movie.

Can you tell me about the genesis of the project? Was it inspired by anything from real life?
We were film students at Ryerson University and graduated this April. Noah was our thesis film. … Noah was a combination of different habits we had on the Internet as teens. We were talking about growing up with MSN messenger, ICQ and MySpace, and how our psyches were affected by living with and without all of those things. The film was a genesis of those talks, and an interest in using the computer as a new kind of body language.

How long did it take you to make the film, how much did it cost and what was the toughest part about making it?
The film took us about five or six months from first draft to final cut. A lot of that was building the world of fake Facebook profiles for our characters to inhabit. We had to send messages back and forth as Noah and Amy to fill up the world and make it seem authentic. From there, it was just capturing the video for the Skype and Chatroulette sequences with our actors (and friends), and finally sitting down and choreographing the whole screen capture sequence. It only took us about six takes, but we managed to get the first half of the film done in one continuous take. Altogether, our expenses for the film sat at around $300. Mainly on beer and pizza.

What's the reaction been?
The reaction has really been absurd. Over 2 million people now have seen it on YouTube, which we know is insane for a short film that's 17 minutes long.

There's a bit of "fudging." Noah powers down the Mac midway for dramatic effect, he highlights text for emphasis as he reads, there are zooms. Some commenters call that cheating …
The highlighting of text is actually something we do all the time. Something we do as we read stuff online to keep track of where we are on the page. Noah's navigation patterns are an amalgamation of all of our patterns. As for the zooms, they were the final touch to not only add some character and focus, but as a narrative tool. Originally, we envisioned the film as just a straight full-screen capture. To really just be as "found-footage-y" as possible. That ended up being boring as all hell, so we added the screen movements in order to give personality to the static screen.

I love your use of sounds and silences. The music choices were really effective and add to what's happening on screen. But … Paul McCartney's "Ram On"? Really?
Well, we thought we'd pick Metallica for the intense moment (of a big on-screen revelation), as we know they are usually pretty cool with copyright. As for "Ram On" and the other song choices, we spent a night going through our iTunes playlists and just kept going till we found something that worked. As soon as we put "Ram On" in the film, it just clicked … ha ha.

What were you trying to say, if anything, about our tech-saturated society?
We don’t really have an opinion on tech-addiction. We feel this is more about how the issues we face as young people are the same, only it happens in a different dimension. You are always going to be paranoid that your girlfriend is cheating on you. Facebook is just a tool we use; it's not the problem.

They say computers make us cold, that cyberspace is impersonal, but there's a lot of heart(break) in Noah. He winds up just as hurt as any teen in 2000, 1985 or 1965.
People think that technology makes us different, and it does, but ultimately we are really the same. We all wanna fall in love and be with somebody. Noah being distracted isn't the technologies' fault. Realistically, it is his own immaturity.

In a way, this is a new spin on classic themes. Twenty years ago, two strangers would have had an "honest conversation" in a bar. Today, they do it on Chatroulette. Maybe very little has changed.
We think the first time you meet a girl at a bar, you can really be anyone you want. You can say you're an astronaut, right? The biggest difference from your bar analogy is that on Chatroulette, once you "NEXT" someone they are gone forever. If you tell someone you are an astronaut and want to see that girl again, you are going to have to justify it. You can't just call someone fat or ugly and walk away like you can on Chatroulette. With that platform, it offers you the ability to be extremely honest because there is a 99 percent chance that you will never see that person ever again. So there is this dilemma: Who do I become on Chatroulette? Should I be the person I am … for real with no pretense? Or should I be the person I want to be? Chatroulette allows you to be as honest as you like. It's the ultimate mask.

Some folks have bristled at the offhand negative comment Amy makes about Asians and the discovery about Dylan at the end of the film.
If we believed in the things Amy said, then we would be really awful people. We obviously don't think what she said is appropriate. The whole film was made to feel realistic. The girls at our high school said way worse things than Amy's comment. If it made you cringe, then good—you're a good person. However, it has to be included because like everything in this movie it is supposed to show things almost like a documentary. We can't really talk about problems in our society if we don't do it with some humor. How are we going to analyze these problems if we don't? So when people were saying we were racist … we know we aren't. We are just pointing something out that happens. Same thing kind of goes for Dylan being gay. It's really frustrating that just by saying the word "gay," people immediately think it's insulting. We can't fathom how simply stating that someone is gay is offensive.

All these viewer comments and discussions, pro and con, become part of the film experience. No need to rely on Ebert's reviews like the last generation did. Today's fans can gather online and share the experience. What does this mean for film moving forward?
It was sincerely the best part about putting our film online. A bunch of festivals DQ'd us, but we got to show our film to millions of people. We got to directly engage with people in discussions about something we made. In all honesty, the biggest triumph for us was making it to the front page of Reddit. There were so many people who made video reviews and interpretive dances and that's crazy to think this thing we made for $300 in our apartment has people talking. Asking questions, debating—that's all you can really ask for.

As for critics, we think every YouTuber has an equal opinion to Roger Ebert. We think being a critic is the silliest job somebody could ever have. They've never built any statues for critics, you know? Even though a bunch of people on YouTube with comments like, "Can I have my 17 minutes back?" we think they are all valid. The best part about seeing films is talking about them and hopefully inspiring something new. We think the role of the film critic is withering away and that's a really good thing. If Hook is a 31 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, then we really don't have much faith in what critics think.


    

Justine Sacco Fired by IAC for ‘Hope I Don’t Get AIDS’ Tweet

UPDATE: Justine Sacco has issued the following written apology to South African newspaper The Star, according to ABC News:

"Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet. There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand.

"For being insensitive to this crisiswhich does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformlyand to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed.

"This is my father's country, and I was born here. I cherish my ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here; my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for the pain I caused."

Original item below:

Website parent company IAC, owner of Match.com, Vimeo and many other popular services, announced today it has fired PR chief Justine Sacco for her instantly infamous tweet about AIDS in Africa.

"The offensive comment does not reflect the views and values of IAC.  We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question," the company said in a statement emailed to journalists.

"There is no excuse for the hateful statements that have been made and we condemn them unequivocally. We hope, however, that time and action, and the forgiving human spirit, will not result in the wholesale condemnation of an individual who we have otherwise known to be a decent person at core."

The whirlwind story of a successful PR pro's downfall on a global social media stage unfolded in little more than 24 hours. Sacco's tweet—"Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"—was posted shortly before she boarded a flight, leaving her likely unaware of the worldwide consternation and mockery she had instigated.


    

IAC’s PR Chief Apparently Tweeted a Bizarrely Tasteless Joke About AIDS and Africa

UPDATE 4: (3:56 p.m., Dec. 22): Justine Sacco has written a public apology, noting, "Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet." 

UPDATE 3 (5:35 p.m., Dec. 21): IAC says it has fired Justine Sacco.

UPDATE 2 (12:24 a.m., Dec. 21): Justine Sacco's Twitter account appears to have been deleted. Meanwhile, her tweet had become a trending topic of global discussion, with brands and Web celebrities alike joining in the fray.

UPDATE: A rep for IAC tells Valleywag: "This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight, but this is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action."

Original item below:

If Justine Sacco is on a flight to Africa right now, I don't envy her the notifications that will be waiting for her when she lands. 

Sacco, senior director of corporate communications at the massive digital holding company IAC, apparently tweeted the following earlier today: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"

The tweet has since attracted scorn and disbelief from Silicon Valley and far beyond. IAC is no small player in the digital realm. The company owns many popular websites, including About.com, Match.com, Vimeo, CollegeHumor, OkCupid and Urbanspoon.

Of course, this is the Internet, where things aren't always what they seem. The @JustineSacco Twitter account appears to be legitimate, though anyone could theoretically have gotten ahold of her phone and posted the message.

That said, many have been digging through her earlier tweets and pointing out messages like this one from January of this year: 

We've reached out to Sacco for comment and will update this item if we hear back.


    

Did Xbox Really Ask Its Own Support Account for Hardware Help on Twitter?

If true, this is rather embarrassing. Several Twitter users last night reportedly caught @Xbox tweeting an Xbox One support question to Microsoft's own @XboxSupport team. The assumption, of course, is that the question (now deleted) was meant to be posted elsewhere, with some theorizing it was intended for a fake user account to make Xbox Support look responsive.

"Hi @XboxSupport. I just got an Xbox One and connected my Kinect," the tweet says, "but it (sic) showing me that its (sic) not connected up in the rt hand corner. help!"

Proving the legitimacy of a deleted tweet is, of course, rather difficult. But more than one user snagged a screenshot at different times with different amounts of retweets and favorites, meaning that if it was faked, it was faked by multiple people in multiple screenshots. The screenshot above was posted to Reddit, where it became one of this morning's top posts. Another was posted to Neogaf, and a third is shown below.

We've reached out to Microsoft for clarification. 


    

Brands, Web Celebrities and Anonymous Join Global Mockery of PR Pro’s AIDS Tweet

UPDATE: Despite an overwhelmingly positive response from Twitter users, Gogo has apologized for its tweet making fun of Justine Sacco:

Original item below:

By the time her tweet mocking AIDS in Africa had been deleted tonight (followed shortly by her entire Twitter account), corporate PR director Justine Sacco had already become more than a target of public loathing. She had become a hashtag. 

#HasJustineLandedYet was popping up across Twitter as word spread faster than an intercontinental jet about the IAC spokeswoman's tweet, "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"

And in a marketing coup de grace so pointed it's almost painful, Gogo in-flight Internet used Sacco's lengthy silence as an example of why you really need to use Gogo in-flight Internet: "Next time you plan to tweet something stupid before you take off, make sure you are getting on a @Gogo flight! CC: @JustineSacco."

Here's the original tweet:

And here's a sample of a few other tweets of note arising from Sacco's situation:


    

Wait, There’s Still Time for One More Christmas Ad You’re Going to Love

It's getting down to the wire, but we're still finding little gems of Christmas cheer in holiday ads on YouTube. This one's for Meijer, the superstore chain, and it should bring a smile to even the most Grinch-like viewer. Sadly, it's only gotten 6,000 views in over a month. Let's help lift that number a bit. Agency: The Distillery Project in Chicago.


    

Here Are the New American Stereotypes, According to French Ads for McDonald’s

This series of French McDonald's ads for three new sandwiches proves that, for better or worse, European stereotypes of Americans have changed a bit over the years. Instead of being fat tourists or dumb rednecks, we're now hockey players, cops and sexy lifeguards demanding that total strangers hand over their Double Shiny Bacon burgers.

Slate and Consumerist think the whole thing is out of left field, but I disagree. Sure, the hockey player is more of a Canadian icon (unless you live in Detroit), but the other two make sense enough. And unfortunately, we probably have earned a reputation as loud ostentatious bullies who always want what other people have.


    

See Everything That’s Beautiful About Advertising in Two Simple Print Ads for a Bookstore

These are a couple of years old, but new to us—some amazing, beautifully simple print ads for a bookstore in Brazil. Delightful idea, gorgeous execution. It's stuff like this that makes people fall in love with advertising and want to work in the industry. Agency: Lápisraro Comunicação. Full credits below. Via @Brilliant_Ads, which is doing a Twitter countdown of 100 great ads through the end of the year.

CREDITS
Client: Corre Cutia Bookstore
Agency: Lápisraro Comunicação, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Creative Directors: Carla Madeira, Cristina Cortez
Art Director: Francisco Valle
Copywriter: Gustavo Costa
Illustrator: Francisco Valle


    

Nelson Mandela Memorial Billboard in India Accidentally Features Morgan Freeman

While you hate to laugh at someone who clearly meant well, it's hard not to chuckle a bit at this memorial sign for Nelson Mandela in the southern Indian city of Coimbatore. A cloth merchant wanted to celebrate the accomplishments of South African leader Nelson Mandela while also marking the legacy of peaceful advocates for change like Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.

Unfortunately, the resulting sign, written in the Tamil language, featured a large picture of actor Morgan Freeman instead of Mandela. The confusion likely stemmed from Google results that included Freeman's appearance as Mandela in 2009's Invictus. 

The merchant has told reporters he is already working to change the image. One bright spot, though, is that it led to some awesome wordplay in the tweet below from HyperVocal's editor:


    

Danica Patrick Gets Mega-Buff for GoDaddy’s Super Bowl Ad

GoDaddy may say it has "matured" as a Super Bowl advertiser, but for now it appears to be spokeswoman Danica Patrick who has actually grown. 

Sporting a rather lifelike muscle suit, Patrick was spotted by photographers filming her upcoming game day commercial for GoDaddy, which has featured the high-profile driver in its Super Bowl ads since 2007. 

You can check out the sneak peek video below (apologies for the mandatory pre-roll), along with a photo gallery on the Daily Mail's site.