Hasta La Creative!

Soiling their skivvies is not an option for slackliners Antoine Moineville and Tancrède Melet as they perform mind-bogglingly dangerous stunts 2,500 meters above the ground in the French Alps for a video promoting Paul Smith underwear's autumn/winter collection. (For all you Americans, 2,500 meters works out in feet to, roughly … lemme see … carry the one, OK … super freaking high.) Clad in Paul Smith fashions throughout, Moineville and Melet wind up in nothing but boxers as they bounce around spiky, snow-capped cliffs, tightrope-walk above lofty gorges and do handstands on mountaintops.

The three-minute clip was created to "celebrate the vibrancy" of the brand, and it ranks as a finely crafted, compelling piece of content that in some ways transcends its marketing mission. Since this is, ultimately, a commercial posted online, there's really no tension in the central concept. We know the daredevils won't take any tragic headers into the valley below; everything will turn out just fine. And yet, the clip is so well done, it still manages to evoke an edge-of-your-seat aura. (I got so caught up in the action, I forgot they wouldn't die. And I mean that as a sincere compliment.)

Of course, the performers deserve most of the credit, but props also to producer/director Sébastien Montaz-Rosset for his crisp, documentary-style photography. This is achieved, in part, by using a very cool James Bond-ian drone camera copter, which we see hovering around Moineville and Melet in "Behind the Scenes" footage that's just as riveting as the main video.

It's worth contrasting Paul Smith's approach with another recent high-altitude brand-content "thriller" that I found far less effective. This summer, the first installment of Range Rover's "The Driven Challenges" series starred stunt racer Paul Dallenbach setting a speed record on Pikes Peak. Though well made, that effort fell flat by overloading on Hollywood-style editing, narration and music cues to build suspense. In the Paul Smith video, the cinematography is awesome but simple, allowing the action to unfold naturally with few distractions. The music by British duo Snakehips isn't ever intrusive. Sometimes we just hear the wind. And overt branding is kept to an absolute minimum.

Moreover, watching this clip makes me realize that I have never been truly alive … not for one single second of my sedentary, risk-averse earthbound existence.

I salute you, nearly naked Alpine acrobats! Writing the post in my tighty whities, sitting cross-legged on my comfy couch, I salute you!

Dogfish Head observed the fall equinox with a beer that is out of this world. Literally. The small-batch beer, called Celest-jewel-ale, has crushed lunar meteorites steeped into it, making it the space nerd's version of Goldschlager, or maybe Homer Simpson's Skittlebrau. Great idea, not sure about the name. Why shame themselves and their families with questionable wordplay/puns (like I did in my opening sentence) when they could have just called it Space Beer? That's what everyone I know is calling it anyway.

Two very different kinds of out-of-home advertising stunts have been gaining traction lately—first, the sudden appearance of a spectacular, oversized prop designed to delight passersby; and second, an intricately choreographed sequence of fake pandemonium designed to terrify them. Examples of the former: UKTV's giant Mr. Darcy emerging from the British pond, and the giant Games of Thrones dragon skull washed up on the British beach. (The British love this stuff.) Examples of the latter: TNT's dramatic stunt on a quiet town square, as well as its sequel.

Now, M&C Saatchi has combined the two approaches with a larger-than-life stunt in Milan, Italy. As part of a campaign for an insurance company, the agency built a giant prop of a submarine and made it look like it was emerging from the ground. A Smart car nearby appeared to have been damaged by the sub—a potent reminder that it's good to have insurance in case all-but-impossible events occur. Many agencies would have stopped here. But M&C Saatchi then staged an elaborate early-morning event at the scene—having actors dressed as sailors and scuba divers emerge from the submarine in a daze, and the driver of the car exit his car angry and confused. Fake hospital workers and emergency personnel even descended on the scene to treat the wounded.

Check out footage from the event below. Your move, TNT.

Via Design Boom.

Sinead O'Connor is a woman who knows controversy, and in one of the best-written open letters in recent memory, she wants Miley Cyrus to know that twerking your way into the headlines isn't a form of protest; it's just a way to "let the music business make a prostitute of you." O'Connor's letter was a reaction to Cyrus citing 1990's "Nothing Compares 2 U" as an inspiration for her "Wrecking Ball" video, along with Cyrus saying her hairstyle was an homage to O'Connor. Instead of being flattered, O'Connor fired back with a blistering (but clearly well-intentioned) missive on how Cyrus is being fooled and exploited by the music industry:

The music business doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.

UPDATE: Cyrus has responded on Twitter, mocking O'Connor for not exactly being a role model herself and pointing out the fact she's hosting SNL this week:

Sinead. I don't have time to write you an open letter cause Im hosting & performing on SNL this week.

— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) October 3, 2013

So if youd like to meet up and talk lemme know in your next letter. 🙂

— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) October 3, 2013

Also, Amanda Palmer has written a rebuttal to O'Connor, saying that Cyrus isn't a record label puppet. "She's writing the plot and signing the checks."

If you haven't read O'Connor's letter in its entirety, be sure to check it out below:

Dear Miley,

I wasn’t going to write this letter, but today i’ve been dodging phone calls from various newspapers who wished me to remark upon your having said in Rolling Stone your Wrecking Ball video was designed to be similar to the one for Nothing Compares… So this is what I need to say… And it is said in the spirit of motherliness and with love.

I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.

Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited, and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent.

I am happy to hear I am somewhat of a role model for you and I hope that because of that you will pay close attention to what I am telling you.

The music business doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.

None of the men oggling you give a shit about you either, do not be fooled. Many’s the woman mistook lust for love. If they want you sexually that doesn’t mean they give a fuck about you. All the more true when you unwittingly give the impression you don’t give much of a fuck about yourself. And when you employ people who give the impression they don’t give much of a fuck about you either. No one who cares about you could support your being pimped.. and that includes you yourself.

Yes, I’m suggesting you don’t care for yourself. That has to change. You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you. This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them pray [sic] for animals and less than animals (a distressing majority of whom work in the music industry and the associated media).

You are worth more than your body or your sexual appeal. The world of showbiz doesn’t see things that way, they like things to be seen the other way, whether they are magazines who want you on their cover, or whatever.. Don’t be under any illusions.. ALL of them want you because they’re making money off your youth and your beauty.. which they could not do except for the fact your youth makes you blind to the evils of show business. If you have an innocent heart you can’t recognise those who do not.

I repeat, you have enough talent that you don’t need to let the music business make a prostitute of you. You shouldn’t let them make a fool of you either. Don’t think for a moment that any of them give a flying fuck about you. They’re there for the money.. we’re there for the music. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. The sooner a young lady gets to know that, the sooner she can be REALLY in control.

You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine. The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.

Real empowerment of yourself as a woman would be to in future refuse to exploit your body or your sexuality in order for men to make money from you. I needn’t even ask the question.. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that men are making more money than you are from you getting naked. Its really not at all cool. And its sending dangerous signals to other young women. Please in future say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself. Your body is for you and your boyfriend. It isn’t for every spunk-spewing dirtbag on the net, or every greedy record company executive to buy his mistresses diamonds with.

As for the shedding of the Hannah Montana image.. whoever is telling you getting naked is the way to do that does absolutely NOT respect your talent, or you as a young lady. Your records are good enough for you not to need any shedding of Hannah Montana. She’s waaaaaaay gone by now.. Not because you got naked but because you make great records.

Whether we like it or not, us females in the industry are role models and as such we have to be extremely careful what messages we send to other women. The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. we aren’t merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career. Kindly fire any motherfucker who hasn’t expressed alarm, because they don’t care about you.

Via OurStage.

Surprise. That video about a guy living inside the giant metal cube at Astor Place was a marketing stunt all along. And by surprise, we mean, of course, duh. No New Yorker could live in that thing—it's way too big.

Still, a couple of bloggers got suckered into writing about the documentary-style spot as though it might be true. Maybe if they'd been real journalists they would have viewed it with more skepticism. Just kidding. Real journalists are super gullible, too.

Other, rational people, meanwhile, instantly recognized the clip—which features a writer supposedly crammed into a DIY hipster's version of a collapsible Ikea home—as an ad. For what? Nothing you've ever heard of: Whil, which is a free, anti-technology meditation technique created by the founders of Lululemon Athletica. Now you've heard of it, so we guess the spot, created by the viral ad pranksters at Thinkmodo, worked.

The video itself is kind of charming. The 60-second meditation technique, meant to be quick and easy for anyone to practice, also sounds nice. But really … who has the time for that?

GoPro's new promotional video for its HERO3+ Black Edition camera is a lovely pastiche of epic things white people dream of doing: whale diving, falconry, desert rock climbing, impressing native peoples with technology, and lion cuddling, just to name a few. Aside from the climbing sequences triggering my vertigo, it's a real treat to watch, and while not as emotional as that firefighter with a kitten, definitely shows off the clarity and wide-angle capabilities of this camera. How you'd film yourself doing any of that stuff without breaking something or dying is another issue entirely, though.

Concerned that technology is keeping us all apart, Milka chocolate created a unique vending experience this summer that made Argentine strangers work together to score free sweets. Local agency David placed a cow statue across from a vending machine and challenged people to connect the two by holding hands in order to get free chocolate bars. Each time they cashed in, the cow moved farther away, requiring more people to hold hands until they spanned across the public square. The resulting video, with more than 1 million views, is another example of how one smart idea on a small scale can quickly go global. Considered alongside Milka's current "Dare to be tender" campaign in France, where missing squares of the chocolate can be paid forward to loved ones, it’s not all that shocking that a comfort food would latch onto the comforting notion of bringing people together. Of course, it's togetherness fueled by a good old-fashioned bribe. 

Holy smoke, check out these disturbing masks from British online clinic HealthExpress! Inspired by actual images of ravaged humans from cigarette-pack health warnings, they're designed to show the effects smoking can have on people's faces, hair and throats. Actors wearing the masks will roam streets this month as part of the U.K. National Health Service's "Stoptober" anti-smoking campaign.

A pair of masks show smoking's impact on 40-year-old men. One has a gaping tracheostomy hole in its neck, as well as pronounced cataracts and lots of wrinkles. (Whoa, it's like looking into a mirror, and I don't even smoke! Blogging exacts a heavy toll.) The other men's mask features a gnarly throat-cancer tumor—it looks like an alien parasite!—and prematurely graying hair. A third mask shows the impact of smoking on a 30-year-old woman, with sallow, saggy skin, lip trauma caused by mouth cancer and unsightly damage to the teeth and gums (though in England, everyone's teeth look that way).

At first, I was tempted to say these masks go too far and seem to display the ravages of crystal meth more than smoking. In fact, that's not the case. Smoking can do hella harm to one's personal appearance, which often holds the key to identity and self-esteem. Playing on vanity might prove jarring enough to get smokers to at least consider quitting. Imagine looking into a mirror someday and seeing an image that resembles one of these masks. That's a possibility no one wants to face.

You may know what you're putting in your body, but do you know what you're putting on it? A new app called Think Dirty is here to help.

Available for free in the App Store, Think Dirty lets you scan barcodes of personal care items in the store and analyze the ingredients. The Dirty Meter then rates the product using third-party data from nonprofit science, environmental and government organizations—to determine whether it's dirty or clean and recommending alternatives. If a product isn't in the database, you can submit it by entering the product name and taking a picture of the back label.

For the launch, Think Dirty is teaming up with the Breast Cancer Fund and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics for an initiative called 30 Days of Dirty—in which Think Dirty will donate $1 per product scanned in October, up to $20,000, to the Breast Cancer Fund.

Hear more about the app in the video below.

Perhaps you've seen RPA's new TV spots for the Honda Odyssey, which has the world's first in-car vacuum cleaner. The ads, voiced by Neil Patrick Harris and Rainn Wilson, feature junk on the minivan's floor—crayons, candy, lint balls, tiny toys—chatting obliviously before getting sucked up by the vacuum.

On Tuesday, RPA launched a social element, in which @Honda is tweeting at snack and toy brands, warning them about what's in store if they fall on the floor of an Odyssey. The idea is fun, and the tweets are generally decent—but the added bonus is that many of the brands are responding or retweeting, extending the reach of the communications beyond Honda's 176,000 followers. Well, OK, there have been snarky replies, too.

Check out some of the tweets below, along with the TV spots.
 

Little dropped snacks everywhere, your days are numbered. The Odyssey with available vacuum is here. Whoooooooosh.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

I will #HaveAbreak. To devour your crumbs on the floor @KITKAT. – The Honda Odyssey Touring Elite with Built-in HondaVAC.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Hey @BurgerKing, we'll be #Satisfried when we've vacuumed every one of you off our floors. – Odyssey with available HondaVAC

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Now showing in the Honda Odyssey Touring Elite Theater: Attack of the Popcorn-Devouring HondaVAC. Watch out @OrvillePopcorn & @PopSecret.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Powerful crunch vs powerful suction. Hmm, I think I win. See you soon @doritos. – Odyssey w/ available HondaVAC. pic.twitter.com/cYYBTuVAwx

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Kids love snacking on you, @RedVines. Unless you end up on the floor. Then I do. Sincerely, the Odyssey with an available HondaVAC

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Mmmmmmmm. The rainbow is tasty @Skittles. Sincerely, The Honda Odyssey Touring Elite with built-in HondaVAC. pic.twitter.com/wGnkRrrsfI

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Dear @mmsgreen, you may melt in mouths, but you get sucked up on Odyssey Touring Elite floors. Sincerely, Built-in HondaVAC.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Dear @LEGO_Group, Friendly reminder: bricks on the floor are mine. Your fan, The Odyssey w/ an available HondaVAC pic.twitter.com/V36BrAgFBW

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

We love how juicy you are, @Starburst. Just not when you're on the floor. Sincerely, The Honda Odyssey with and available Built-in HondaVAC.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

You know what’s wonderful, @GetCrackin? A clean van. I plan to keep it that way. Sincerely, The Odyssey Touring Elite with Built-in HondaVAC

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Dear @Oreo, nothing personal, we just don’t like your crumbs on our seats – Odyssey w available Built-in HondaVAC pic.twitter.com/fG5vN7SZvK

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013