Hasta La Creative!

It should be the quintessential YouTube video: Funny Baby Panda Kiss. But when you tried to watch it, all you got was an infinite pre-roll ad loop. Because Rhett and Link wanted to trick you for April Fools' Day. The gag ads take what should be a nightmare scenario of never-ending, low-budget marketing and turn it into a good comedy bit. South Carolina's tourism board, for example, wants you to come pan a river for loose change and teeth in "the underbelly of North Carolina." Or if you're a lonely widower in your golden years, forget finding a late-life companion. Get a roommate with benefits at the Silver Manor retirement home. Because fake commercials are usually more honest than real ones.

You remember Sully. He was the odd talking sheep in last year's brilliant "Stan" commercial for Corona Light, from director Mike Mills and ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Well, it appears Sully's brief taste of fame went to his woolly head—because now he's bleated his way into a starring role in this year's Corona Light campaign. Four new :15s directed by Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm) went live online Monday, and will reach broadcast on April 15. The theme is, "Ditch the herd," and in the first spot, Sully does just that—rising up from the pack, suddenly bipedal, and giving his buddies a quick "Adios!" as he scoots away. In three other spots, Sully learns the fine arts of sports watching, hunting and guitar playing, only one of which really goes well. The ads are amusingly absurd, more lowbrow than last year's artfully designed work but still fun. Sully, of course, is also on Twitter.

"After the sheep garnered considerable attention on YouTube, we thought it would be funny, to spin the sheep out, and follow him as he started to do things differently. Thus this symbol of sameness became the face of change," says Goodby creative director Adam Reeves. Adds Jim Sabia, CMO at Crown Imports: "We have found that Corona Light's target consumer—the 21- to 29-year-old college-educated beer drinker—is craving to switch things up with a light beer that's different from the same old same old. The sheep's ability to serve as a spokesperson for what Corona Light stands for really got us excited about this campaign."

Gorn … but not forgotten! To promote a Star Trek video game launching this month, William Shatner and a guy in a lumpy lizard suit winningly reprise Captain Kirk's hand-to-claw struggle with the alien Gorn commander from the classic Trek episode "Arena." The updated battle takes place in Shats' comfy living room, where he flips his wig over the gameplay tactics of his reptilian rival. The joke here is that 46 years after their initial encounter, the combatants are, as Shatner pants at one point, "both too old for this kind of thing." Indeed, time has taken its toll. In 1967, only the Gorn was wrinkled and leathery. Today, octogenarian Shatner fits the same description. Well, OK, Bill actually looks great, his schtick is ageless, and the clip scores by deftly employing elements of the original fight's campy choreography. As dramatic Trek-like music swells, the creature hurls a couch cushion that looks about as dangerous as the polystyrene "boulder" it heaved at Kirk the first time around. Once again, Mon Cap-i-tain discombobulates the alien by smacking his palms against its earholes. When the Gorn bellows in pain, Shatner, Hollywood's quintessential ham, accuses his foe of overacting. I haven't seen "Arena" in maybe 30 years, but damn if I didn't remember the boulder-toss and ear-slap like I'd watched it yesterday! This ability to tap into our collective memory should not be underestimated. I didn't just enjoy this spot, I relished every second, as many Shatner and Trek fans will. I couldn't hit replay fast enough. There's palpable feel-good power at play here, transporting viewers to pop-culture nirvana at warp speed.

Roaches, rats and other pests had the starring roles in Orkin's campaign from The Richards Group in recent years. And while those spots were amusing, in a creepy way, it's the Orkin man himself who takes center stage in the new campaign, which broke today. And a resourceful man he is. Each spot shows a different Orkin man in some kind of undesirable position—wedged into a crawlspace with rats scurrying around; hanging from a tree above a parade of ants; suspended halfway up a wall to see cockroaches inside an air vent. "To catch a pest, you've got to think like a pest," he says in each ad. And then, you pretty much have to act like a pest. As this campaign suggests, that's not something most people want to do, or would even be able to do. The tagline is: "Pest control down to a science," which makes it seem even less DIY—a sly way of getting people to call Orkin instead.

Ads for indie film festivals are often quite brilliant. The movies are usually distinctive, so the advertising can be as well. Who can forget Geoffrey Rush as a potato peeler? Or John Malkovich getting all crabby at a cab driver's reaction to his latest film award. The Leo Burnett spot below for Portugal's IndieLisboa fits right into that great tradition. Screw Hollywood. Say yes to an indie movie instead.

CREDITS
Client: IndieLisboa
Product: 10th International Independent Film Festival
Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Lisbon
Executive Creative Director: Luciana Cani
Copywriter: Steve Colmar / Pedro Pinho
Art Director: Thiago Cruz / Leonardo Pinheiro
Illustration: Bruna Guerreiro / Silvia Rodrigues / Sara Louise Tucker / Mariana, a miserável / Fabio Santos / Douglas Cardoso
Account Director: Tiago Reis
Social Media: Vasco Mendonça / Joana Duarte
Production Director – Agency: Cristina Almeida
Production Company: Stopline
Executive Producer: Francisco Saalfeld
Financial Controller: Nuno Fonte
Line Producer: Inês Marques
Director: Pedro Varela
Creative Assistant Director: Nuno Noivo
Cinematography: Ricardo Prates
Post-production Supervisor: Ricardo Montez
Post-production Company: Illusion
Audio Post-production: Dizplay
Sound designer: João Rola
Voice Over: Marcantónio del Carlo
Original Soundtrack: Xavier Capellas
Additional Footage: VMI/Corbis

The medicinal benefits of tacos are explained in this parody of antidepressant medication ads, which is a pretty clever piece of work (although trust me, beef sweats are no laughing matter). I can't support the use of fake swear words like "friggin" or "frickin" by adults, though. What, was the writer's mom looking over his shoulder when he wrote this?

So, there's this British just-barely-science-fiction series called Black Mirror, created by a mad genius named Charlie Brooker (good interview with him here; he's also ripped into advertising fairly regularly), in which all of the worst and strangest things that are possible with contemporary or soon-to-come technology happen over the course of its (thus far) six episodes. It's gotten a lot of attention in the U.K., where it airs on Channel 4. One of the reasons people like it so much is that it's very well directed (which is not always the norm for British sci-fi, as anyone who watched the first couple of beautifully acted and largely well-written seasons of Doctor Who can attest).

Anyway, you can't watch it in the U.S.—like, at all, because no network airs it, it's not on streaming, and there's no Region 1 DVD release. But you can see the incredi-weird promos on YouTube. And let me tell you, they are worth watching. How good are they? Consider that I feel duty bound to say the following to our extremely savvy readership: If a pre-roll ad pops up, make sure it's actually a pre-roll ad. "A future you deserve," indeed.

Trailer for the current season:

Trailer for the first season:

Promo for a recent episode:

Automobile test drives have been getting a bit more interesting lately. On the heels of the hugely popular Jeff Gordon video for Pepsi MAX comes this new campaign from Britain for the Renault Clio, in which unsuspecting drivers (guys in one spot, girls in another) get a sudden, unexpected dose of France when, prompted by the salesman, they push a "Va Va Voom" button on the dash. The interlude starts off romantic—a wheeled-in backdrop of the Eiffel Tower, lovers smooching, violins playing, roses and baguettes all around—but soon gets more salacious, as the drivers are treated to scantily clad hotties of the opposite sex gyrating around the car. Surprising everyday people during their mundane lives is all the rage in ads lately. This one certainly attempts to check all the boxes for virality. Scorch London and Unruly produced it. More credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Renault
Media Agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD
Media Planners: Laura Quy, Lauren Fisher
Production Company: Scorch London
Video Distribution: Unruly

Here's a fun toy for obsessive baseball geeks: the new "Mission Control" installation at MLB's "Fan Cave" space in downtown New York. There, each year, a selection of the sport's most die-hard fans are paid to watch every game and crank out social-media content about the experience, part of a Lord-of-the-Flies-esque competition to get to the World Series. This year, the space also features a custom multi-screen computer rig, built by Breakfast, that's designed to pull in and display a wide range of data about the upcoming baseball season. The smaller screens on the left and right include video feeds of stadiums from American League and National League teams (even when the games aren't in progress). The toggles on the bottom calls up information like weather conditions and wind speeds at each location, as well as relevantly tagged Instagram and Twitter posts about the ballparks and their home teams. The dashboard meters measure stats like total games played and total number of hits for the season. The central monitor connects to a camera that can be used to record and broadcast video clips of the sports stars and other celebrities who stop by for concerts and other events, and of the "Fan Cave" marketing program's less famous participants. Why? Because all you've ever wanted since you were a little kid was to be a professional baseball commentator and astronaut at the same time. If that doesn't ring true, you're probably not invited.

If you haven't seen it, see it. It's the jaw-dropping homemade ad—one of the craziest and funniest you'll ever see—that Nate Walsh posted to Craigslist in an attempt to sell his 1999 Toyota Camry. Words cannot describe the ad's awesomeness, but they can describe the process of its creation. In the Q&A below, Walsh—who it turns out is indeed an advertising copywriter—tells us all about his masterpiece, why he went with a collage, whether he's sold the car, and why he is now essentially fearing for his life.

How long did it take you to make this? Did you have help?
This was all a solo labor of love. It took an hour or so to write, and probably around 20 to put together, painstakingly cutting and pasting things by hand. Sometimes it takes way more work to make things look charmingly amateurish.

If I were to take the time I spent on this ad and apply my freelance rate, I'm pretty sure I'd make around $300 on the deal, so, you know, another well-planned financial decision.

You're funnier than 90 percent of copywriters. Do you work in advertising?
I do work in advertising, as a writer. I'll be using the weird virality of this piece the next time a client tries to disagree with my recommendations. "Did you SEE how many repins I got with my shit?"

Actually, the main reason I have to tear myself away from such a sweet ride is that I'm about to leave St. Louis, where I've been working for the past five years, and move out to San Francisco. Right now I'm mostly going to be doing freelance for startups and working on some of my own dumb projects, but … hmm … what is a classy way to say "SO TELL YA FRIENDS" to any agencies that might be looking for a writer? Help me out here, Emily Post.

As far as that other part, well, obviously most funny people use humor to mask deep-seated neuroses and self-esteem problems, so of course I read that question as, "How could you let 10 percent of ad writers be funnier than you?" Then I cried a bit.

What's your favorite part of the ad?
Well, despite the fact that I'm a writer, I'm actually kind of a fan of the look of the thing. I know just enough Photoshop to be dangerous, but when I started laying out content digitally, it just didn't have the right vibe for the tone I was going for. So I asked myself, "What would a drunken, profane second grader do?" And the answer came to me in a flash: COLLAGES.

I think they make every joke a little funnier than it actually is, because you have to imagine some lunatic with a glue stick cackling to himself at 2 in the morning as he pieces his weird little ransom note together.

Have you sold the car yet?
Not yet, but I do have a fair amount of offers. The problem is, despite all the amazing feedback and compliments I've received (Someone sent me a topless photo?), most of the actual offers have come from humorless people with names like "Randy." I'm trying to find the Tanry a loving owner who will appreciate its oddities like I did, but I'm also comically poor, so we'll see how long my scruples hold out.

Are you bummed it's been flagged for removal on Craigslist?
I was at the time, but it's taken on such a weird life of its own at this point—I've seen it on Pinterest, Jezebel, Jalopnik and Reddit, among other places—that I'm not really fussed at this point. I'm just glad people are enjoying it. The Internet can be a pretty snarky place (to put it lightly), but everyone has been amazingly positive and complimentary, which is a miracle in itself.

I am slightly worried, though, that the person who flagged the ad may have been one of the exes from the chart included in the ad, in which case she has to be blowing a gasket about the amount of attention it's managed to get since. So, you know, no darkened alleys for me for a while.