Hasta La Creative!

It says something about banner ads that the best ones—with a few exceptions, like this and this—are the ones that are laughably, shareably bad. You've seen them. And now Old Spice is parodying them. Or rather, its new marketing chief, Mr. Wolfdog, is parodying them. He posted the five banners below to his Tumblr today, with the same note on each: "I have achieved another mountain of a business achievement. I have made effective banner ads." Wolfdog may be a shameless, talentless moron, but he's not wrong—and in that sense, he may be the most hilariously prototypical CMO ever. Since introducing himself to the world on Monday, Wolfdog—the marketing brains behind the Old Spice Wild Collection "smell products" (influenced maybe a little by Wieden + Kennedy)—has been busy all over the Internet. He's posted more YouTube videos; made a Pinterest page, Vine videos and an album of inspirational business music; hosted Google+ Hangouts with his Twitter followers; posted a toll-free number (866-695-2407) to help those who need to look busy at work; played Call of Duty: Black Ops II on Xbox Live; made animated GIFs; and whipped up websites like worldsbiggestchart.com. In short, he's done everything (and much more) that a marketing director should do in social media—while inherently poking fun at how hollow and rote and mindless it all is. Which of course is what makes it actually amusing and worthwhile. Such self-referential anti-advertising could feel overly cynical, but here it rises above—as usual for this agency and client—by the quality of the writing.

Doritos go boom on the big screen! Never mind what they do when they land in your belly. As part of an all-out commercial assault for its newest hybrid taco, Taco Bell has created the first 3-D fast-food ad for movie audiences. Launched last week by agency Draftfcb, the spot's three-dimensional wizardry shows a single Cool Ranch Dorito exploding and morphing into a Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. From your seat in the multiplex, you'll feel like you can reach out and grab one of those fatty shards of salt and maltodextrin. And when you leave, you'll be a short skip—somewhere within a five-mile radius—of a local Taco Bell, according to research from the ad seller, NCM Media Networks. It's little surprise that Taco Bell chose the 40-foot screen as a media buy: There are 700 million moviegoers a year at NCM venues like Regal Entertainment, Cinemark and AMC theaters, and one out of three already hit Taco Bell at least once a month. That's a whole lot of hungry 18-year-olds who are unconcerned about their cholesterol levels. Last year's debut of Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos was the most successful product launch in the chain's history. The sequel was inevitable—or as the ad calls it, the world's most obvious idea. Folks have already been miffed that they couldn't get their hands on a Cool Ranch taco quickly enough, taking to social media to bitch about it. To which Taco Bell says: Keep calm and "Live Más."

Samsung's Unicorn Apocalypse, the fictional game featured in half a dozen ads that aired on the Oscars, was always begging to be defictionalized—and now it has been. Samsung held a developer contest to bring the game to life. The winning app, from Liquid Gameworks, is now available in the Google Play store. Here's the description:

Play as the unicorn, the harbinger of the apocalypse. Race across urban rooftops avoiding the deadly unicorn traps and soldiers that the Anti Unicorn Force (AUF) has deployed. Beyond the foot soldiers exist enemies both cunning and strong, so use your magic dash and rainbow lasers to blast through your enemies, avoid your own death, and prolong the Unicorn Apocalypse!

Unfortunately, the game hasn't exactly been a smash hit with users. It's averaging 2.2 stars out of 5. Of the 517 reviews, 308 give it the dreaded 1 star. Sample review: "If you're going to make a series of commercials and then release the game they advertise, you have to know significant quality is expected. This game is nothing more than another poor ripoff of Robot Unicorn Attack." Oh well, there's always the Tim Burton film to look forward to.

Via PSFK.

So, you really love your girlfriend, and you want to ask her to marry you. But the old ring-in-the-champagne-flute has been done to death. What to do? Obviously, you try to scare the hell out of her by splicing her photo into a mashup of bloody-knife-fight-in-the-snow footage from thrillers like The Grey and The Bourne Ultimatum, then tack on some footage of yourself stalking her at the local movie theater, while getting said theater to run the whole package as a trailer before the movie she's out to see for girls' night. Then, you show up with a bouquet of flowers and microphone in hand, pop the question and waltz into a state of eternal happiness. No sweat. Of course, the weird wedding proposal is an already rich genre: You've got your banner ad proposals, your infographic proposals and your crowdsourced proposals, not to mention your fairly run-of-the-mill highway billboard proposals. This new one raises the bar for effort, and also for not being totally, nauseatingly saccharine in a really public way. It's really not a fair comparison, though. Every proposal would be better in tortured Liam Neeson voice. Via Mashable.

PETA is planning to hand out anti-abuse pamphlets at the launch of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, urging gamers to respect the game's pixelated extraterrestrials known as The Zerg. The pamphlet, titled "Zerglings Have Feelings, Too," is a reminder to have compassion for all beings—real or fictional—and is emblazoned with an adorable rendering of the series' horrific arthropodal antagonists. In an impressive moment of sanity, the PETA blog acknowledges that "Terrans for the Ethical Treatment of Zerglings" is simply a parody. And the press release even mentions that it's a direct response to the impressive level of (bad) press they got for their Pokémon mod a few months back. Is it really a parody, though, if no one realizes it's a parody? Already, gamers are taking the bait and flaming PETA with a level of vitriol usually reserved for fellow gamers.

Have you heard of Hatsune Miku? Perhaps not, but Domino's sure has. Here's a hint: She's one of Japan's biggest stars. More precisely, she is a holographic avatar created for a "singing synthesizer application" from Crypton Future Media. So, what better way for Domino's Pizza to introduce a new iPhone app to the Japanese than by teaming up with its most beloved digital sensation?

Domino's did just that last week, as the chain's president and CEO, Scott Oelkers, introduced the new app in the corny, somewhat comical video below. Oelkers's enthusiasm, which comes off as more than a little forced and awkward, makes the video either awful or awesome, depending on how you look at it. The app, though, seems legitimately cool, as it allows you to "create vocaloid songs," among other snazzy features. "From the menu to the order, it looks very cute. Just like Miku," says Oelkers.

Sure, Oelkers may need some acting lessons. But it's not all bad. Now, when you order a pizza in Japan, you can get a mini-avatar augmented reality performance right on you pizza box. That's gotta be worth it, no?

Happy drivers wanted. Volkswagen's free Smileage app for Android, developed with Deutsch LA and Grow Interactive as part of Google's Art, Copy & Code initiative, is set for an early summer release, just in time for road trips. It syncs with systems in most cars (not just VWs) and facilitates all manner of information sharing, including routes, photos and comments. Digital bumper stickers and a variation of the Punch Buggy game (drivers receive virtual punches when they pass VWs) are included. Trip highlights are shared via Google+. The application of technology is impressively innovative, but the broader concept seems kind of forced and creepy. It's like keeping yourself under surveillance as you travel, blithely uploading data to Google as you go—but you're supposed to be happy about it, because this is social media and nothing beats sharing everything all the time. Are most long drives so freaking happy? A weekend trapped in a car with broken air conditioning, three bladder-challenged kids and a irritated spouse sounds more like Frownage. Maybe Bing and Chrysler can jump on that one.

Surprise! Cartier doesn't like hats that spoof the brand's scripted logo by repurposing it as an insult derived from a slang word for female genitalia. According to the Daily Beast, a Parsons grad student originally made two "Cuntier" beanies as a personal gag because some people at a Cartier store were being mean to his friend. But then he started to produce a handful more because people seemed to think the caps were funny enough to buy. Cartier, ever in touch with reality, responded by sending the student a letter demanding he stop, and thereby proving the original point that Cartier is, of course, not in the least bit stuffy and does not take itself too seriously at all. The baffled student reportedly acquiesced, making him less litigious than the fashion satirists behind other renegade brands like The South Butt and Chewy Vuiton.

"Sometimes you gotta eat people, America. That's how business works." Old Spice has a charmingly roguish new executive director of marketing, who brings a uniquely authentic vision for selling Old Spice Wild Collection "smell products." That's because he's a wild animal. But luckily, he has a futuristic wolf-to-human translator voice box contraption strapped to his neck, so he can explain himself to you, and why he's so awesome at what he does. His advice? "Follow my twitters" and "Readings my blog" to learn more about Old Spice. Failing to do so could result in your being swiftly devoured. Bring in the meat sacks! The campaign, by Wieden + Kennedy, follows the recent snarling-wolf- and screeching-eagle-heavy ads for the client's Wolfthorn and Hawkridge scents.

Mr. Wolfdog saying hi. I'm proud to be Old Spice’s first nonhuman Director of Marketing and look forward to being even prouder. End tweet.

— Director Wolf Dog (@DirectorWolfDog) March 11, 2013

You're just the average Heineken drinker. A 35-year-old hedge-fund manager who hit it big betting against the market in 2007. You're doing your jet-setting around the world thing, party hopping the most exclusive clubs in Vietnam and Nigeria. Because Thursday night is the new Friday night, and you work hard but you play hard, too. Anyways, of course the hottest ladies in the room are always gonna beeline it for you. Because come on, look at you, and because those private dance lessons you've been taking are really paying off. But see, it's just your luck that your would-be local flings always have jealous local boyfriends, who are also wealthy and thuggishly possessive. They don't take kindly to your grinding all up on their dates. It's cool, though, man, because, whatever, you're not looking for any trouble, everybody's just here to have a good time. You'll go sit at the bar and cool off with a Heineken, which by the way comes in this sexy new bottle, with a longer neck, instead of that old, stubby, chubby design you'd have never been seen holding in public.

When your global party circuit takes you back to New York—that is to say, to civilized society—where you're confident that stealing some mustachioed doofus's woman won't result in parts of your body turning up in seven different roadside ditches outside Ho Chi Minh City or Lagos, you're totally fearless, because what would 007 do? A little bad luck—or is it something more nefarious?—impedes and humiliates your rival. You meet your new dance partner at the bar. There, you'll each have a Heineken, bartender, because a $2 bottle of beer is definitely what the bombshell in the $10,000 dress at the cocktail party always finds most charming, cause she's just really cool and down to earth like that.

The spot is Heineken's latest from Wieden + Kennedy—and the first in its dazzling "Open Your World" campaign to come out of the agency's New York office (prior installments were created by W+K Amsterdam and by TBWA\Neboko). The ad was directed by Rupert Sanders, also director of Snow White and the Huntsman and, to the dismay of Twilight zealots everywhere, snogger of Kristen Stewart. The new bottle is already available in 170 markets, and is now coming to shelves across the U.S.

Yacht and pheromones not included.