Watch 12 Famous Logos Evolve Before Your Eyes in These Mesmerizing GIFs


Unless you’re hiking the Appalachian Trail, or staring at your walls all day, or living under a rock, or running ad-blocking software for your eyeballs, you’re bombarded with brand logos all day long.

Here’s a fun and downright trippy project by the folks at Zing, who have taken some of those famous logos and GIF’ed their histories. The results are pretty neat, and you might just want to just sit and stare at them morph from old to new, over and over.

Then maybe go on a hike, but not after seeing them on white. Enjoy. 




Tiny Dolls Act Out Hilarious Soap Operas Over Single Pieces of French Toast Crunch

Consumers bowled over by the recent return of French Toast Crunch after a nine-year hiatus should enjoy “The Tiny & The Tasty,” a strange and silly soap-opera parody that casts dolls as actors to reintroduce the General Mills cereal. McCann, Picture Mill and Beacon Street collaborated on the campaign.

All the classic daytime-drama tropes—amnesia, family intrigue, murder mysteries, surprise pregnancies—are played out in overwrought fashion on finely detailed miniature sets by poseable Ken- and Barbie-style action figures whose mouths never move.

Bill Wright, global executive creative director at McCann, says the idea stemmed partly from “the 1990s origin of French Toast Crunch. That was the decade when daytime dramas were at their height of popularity. So when you take soap operas and cross them with tiny dolls, you get a strangely awesome mashup.”

Real soap opera actors do a fine job of hamming it up on the tongue-in-cheek, breakfast-themed scripts (which, by the way, were written by Lex Singer, the son of former Adweek critic Barbara Lippert). And director Matt Piedmont, a writer for Saturday Night Live, establishes just the right tone. The spots channel the vibe of early SNL films by Walter Williams or Tom Schiller, though they’re less manic and, of course, more on brand.

Served up in brief, tasty bites, this serial really satisfies.



Hotels.com Created a Facebook Autoplay Ad That's Infinitely Better Without Sound

For brands and content creators, Facebook’s autoplay videos have become a mystical chalice bearing bountiful views—as long as you don’t mind your clips airing in silence.

Instead of expecting users to turn on audio (because who would?), more and more video creators are starting to create clips that work just fine without sound, usually thanks to subtitles or informative animations.

Now Hotels.com and agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky have created a video ad campaign that has some fun with the silence of autoplay.

In the best of the two new spots, we see spokesofficer Captain Obvious playing piano, though activating audio highlights the fact that what he’s really creating is a cacaughony of randomly pounded keys.  

Check it out below (you can mute it yourself, if you’d like to recreate the news feed experience), along with another spot that uses a sign language interpreter to get across the brand’s message. 

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Put Your Finger on the Screen, and This Music Video Becomes Delightfully Fun

If you want to see all the clever things your fingertip can do, check out this cool new interactive music video from Japanese pop star Namie Amuro.

The video offers a pop-art cornucopia of wit and silliness based on one simple instruction—you’re asked to put your finger on the screen and leave it there as the video plays. It’s an apt concept for the song, which is called “Golden Touch,” and it’s reminiscent of the classic Canadian campaign from Skittles that played around with the same idea.

Keep your finger at the center of the video, and let the camera do the heavy lifting—scratch a vinyl record, light up a chill dachshund’s touch-sensitive LED jacket, trap a monster under its manhole cover, and much more. The clip rewards you for sticking it out to the end, with a range of unexpected applications—some abstract, some literal, some cheeky.

But maybe the credit should go to Ze Frank for pioneering the gag, even if his take wasn’t as refined.



Christopher Guest Returns With More Hilarious Best in Show Spoofs for PetSmart

During the Oscars, PetSmart and Christopher Guest launched a pretty excellent campaign themed around Best in Show. Now, they’re back with more.

The new material from GSD&M is particularly reminiscent of Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as Meg and Hamilton Swan, who, in the movie, love J. Crew (and other clothing catalogs). But the man and woman in this latest ad, “The Avant Guardians,” are more haute, if equally insane, describing themselves, and their dog, as “fashion forward.”

That’s to say, in keeping with the Best in Show tradition, they ridiculously project all kinds of human qualities on their coddled shih tzu, Ford (presumably a nod to Tom Ford). And because it’s Guest-directed, the delivery is awkward in a perfect kind of way, with the actors ping-ponging between nonchalant and over the top, making crazy eyes and stammering out too-enthusiastic punch lines.

It almost makes it easy to forget that it’s a sales pitch. Then again, that’s pretty easy to do when you’re basically just copying a classic … even if by inbreeding.

CREDITS
Client: PetSmart
VP Marketing Communications: Shane McCall
Director, Traditional Creative: Valerie Lederer
Assoc. Creative Manager, Traditional Creative: Tara Niederhaus
Dir., Marketing Strategy and Nat’l Promotions: Debbie Beisswanger
Creative Manager- Store Environment: Chris Windsor
Project Manager, Salon Strategy: Megan Mouser
Titles: “The Avant Guardians” :15/:30; “Nooks and Crannies” 2:18
Agency: GSD&M
Group Creative Director/Art Director: Scott Brewer
Group Creative Director/Writer: Ryan Carroll
Assoc. Creative Director/Art Director: Ross Aboud
Assoc. Creative Director/Writer: Kevin Dunleavy
Art Director: Morgan McDonald
Writer: Scott Chalkley
Agency Producer: Abigail Hinojosa
Associate Agency Producer: Adriane Weist
Business Manager: Lindsay Wakabayashi
SVP/Managing Director: Scott Moore
Account Director: Sabia Sidiqi
Account Supervisor: Ben Creasey
Account Manager: Nadia Elias
Production Company: GO
Director: Christopher Guest
Managing Director: Gary Rose
Executive Producer: Adam Bloom
Executive Producer: Catherine Finkenstaedt
Line Producer: Mark Hyatt
DP: Kristian Kachikis
Editorial: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler



Google and The Mill Take Mobile Filmmaking to the Next Level With 360-Degree 'HELP'

Visual effects studio The Mill and Hollywood director Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious 3-6) have collaborated on the latest film in Google’s Spotlight Stories—a series of immersive movies made uniquely for mobile. This one is groundbreaking because it combines live action and computer graphics in a 360-environment—and it required a completely new kind of camera rig that The Mill invented to give Lin the 360-degree live-action shots he needed.

The film, titled HELP, features aliens in a cityscape. But the narrative unfolds differently for every user, as you watch it on your mobile device—and move the device around to see different parts of the scene around you. (In this way, it approximates virtual reality.) The film is available for free with the new Google Spotlight Stories app via Google Play (and will be soon be on iOS via the App Store).

You can see a linear version of part of the film here:

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As you can see in the behind-the-scenes video below, The Mill developed a proprietary software solution called Mill Stitch that takes images from multiple cameras and “stitches” the output into a continuous 360-degree view. This helped the director and cinematographer see the entire world they were filming as it happened. The Mill then combined the live action with the vast CG environments in postproduction.

Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) unit is behind the Spotlight Stories program. (Yes, the group’s tagline really is “We like epic shit.”) “Collaborating with Google’s ATAP team of experts and with such an acclaimed live-action director as Justin Lin allowed The Mill to flex its creative and technical muscles to solve new and complex challenges,” says The Mill CEO Robin Shenfield.

“It’s been, to say the least, a colossal learning experience and given us very valuable insight into the technical and creative challenges involved with new immersive and VR filmmaking. It’s a perfect fit for us to be at the epicenter of a new format and pioneering a new way of telling stories.”

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Ogilvy Gets Potholes to Tweet, Asking to Be Fixed, Every Time They're Run Over

People aren’t the only ones complaining about potholes in Panama City. The potholes are complaining!

With so many streets in Panama City damaged, local agency P4 Ogilvy & Mather placed special devices in potholes that automatically tweet nasty messages at the Twitter account of the Department of Public Works whenever cars drive over them.

A quick glance at the @Elhuecotwitero Twitter page shows the campaign in action—scores of tweets per day asking @MOPdePanama for answers.

The campaign was done on behalf of a Panama TV station, which said potholes are a major concern of its viewers. And it seems to be working—at least, it got the attention of the minister of public works, who appeared on the TV station Monday to address the issue, which he blamed on a mix of poor construction and the failure of talks at approve money to fix the roads.

See public works minister Ramón Arosemena address the issue here:

CREDITS
Client: MEDCOM
Agency: P4 Ogilvy & Mather, Panama City, Panama
Chief Creative Officer: Edwin Mon
Associate Creative Director: Alejandro Blanc
Creative Director: Osvaldo Restrepo
Digital Creative Director: Alberto Lam
Copywriter: Edmar Quiros
Head of Art: Roberto Perez
Art Director: Edmar Quiros
Designer: Franklin Lu
General Account Executive: Monica Urrutia
Digital Account Manager: Luis Gonzales
Executive Producer: Benjamin Liao, Belisario Alvarez, Monica Crespo
Production Company: VFX Panama, SAKE Argentina
Music: Salmon Osado
Sound editing: Manuel Trejos
Post Production: Marcos Ruiz

CREDITS
Client: MEDCOM
Agency: P4 Ogilvy & Mather, Panama City, Panama
Chief Creative Officer: Edwin Mon
Associate Creative Director: Alejandro Blanc
Creative Director: Osvaldo Restrepo
Digital Creative Director: Alberto Lam
Copywriter: Edmar Quiros
Head of Art: Roberto Perez
Art Director: Edmar Quiros
Designer: Franklin Lu
General Account Executive: Monica Urrutia
Digital Account Manager: Luis Gonzales
Executive Producer: Benjamin Liao, Belisario Alvarez, Monica Crespo
Production Company: VFX Panama, SAKE Argentina
Music: Salmon Osado
Sound editing: Manuel Trejos
Post Production: Marcos Ruiz
Additional credits: Francisco Hernandez MEDCOM Digital Media Director



A Costa Rican Brewer Just Inadvertently Made the Most Obscene Billboard Ever

Costa Rican drivers are getting an eyeful when they pass this billboard for Republica Parrillera Pilsner beer. Looking at the front of the billboard, nothing seems amiss. But when viewed from behind … well, yeah, that does look like a giant penis, doesn’t it?

As always with such placements, there’s debate over whether this was intentional or a mistake. Proponents of the former say it’s brilliant marketing, as drivers who approach the ad from the back are probably fairly likely to check out the front of the ad as they pass—behavior that precious few billboards provoke. Those who think it’s a mistake can’t fathom the kind of balls it would take to put a giant dick on a billboard.

Via AgencySpy.



Protein World, Expert Brand Troll, Brings Fat-Shaming 'Beach Body' Ads to NYC

Protein World continues to kick sand in the face of its critics.

After generating controversy and much attention for its brand in Britain this spring with its “Beach Body” campaign, the nutritional supplements company is exporting the incendiary advertising to New York.

A huge billboard with swimsuit-clad model Renee Somerfield has risen in Times Square, with its tagline, “Are you beach body ready?” casting a shadow across 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Digital ads are planned for “every New York subway entrance,” boasts marketing chief Richard Staveley, along with placements “on 50 percent of all of the New York subway’s rolling stock. It will be an unmissable blanket coverage of Renee and yellow.”

A few months back, the company reveled in the largely angry response the ads generated in England. Amid accusations of fat-shaming and perpetuating unrealistic body types, some of the street posters were defaced, and a Change.org petition collected 70,000 signatures demanding the company remove the campaign. Parodies popped up in cyberspace and the physical world, with Carlsberg’s “Beer Body” spoof—complete with one of its bottles rocking yellow swim trunks—among the cheeky best.

Ultimately, the Protein World initiative was banned by Britain’s independent Advertising Standards Authority, “due to our concerns about a range of health and weight loss claims.”

Through it all, the client maintained an unrepentant, in-your-face attitude. Its Twitter feed denounced England as “a nation of sympathizers for fatties,” and CEO Arjun Seth compared those who vandalized the bikini-beach posters to “terrorists.”

Of course, stirring up a shitstorm was—and is—the goal. And following its craptastic performance overseas, we should fully expect this calculated exercise in trolling to reek of success stateside.

“It’s a big middle finger to everybody who bothered to sign that stupid petition in the U.K.,” Staveley says of Protein World’s incursion into NYC. “You could say that the London protesters helped pay for the New York campaign.”



Burger King Unveils Its First TV Commercial With the King in More Than 4 Years

You can’t keep a good King down.

Burger King’s creepy, plastic-faced King character, who was sidelined from TV ads four years ago, will return Monday night in prime time in a 15-second commercial for a Chicken Nuggets deal—his first appearance in a BK spot since February 2011.

The ad, created by Pitch Inc., isn’t much to look at creatively. But it affirms BK’s commitment to the character even after his long absence from TV.

“The King has been breaking status quo for decades and has earned his space in pop culture. He conveys the confident and bold spirit of the Burger King brand, which you can see comes to life in everything we do,” BK CMO Eric Hirschhorn tells AdFreak.

The King hasn’t been totally AWOL. He did, oddly enough, walk in with Floyd Mayweather and his entourage at last month’s big boxing match against Manny Pacquiao. That appearance cost BK a cool $1 million, Fortune reported, though it didn’t go over well with domestic violence advocates who oppose any deals with Mayweather, given his history with women.

CREDITS
Client: Burger King
Agency: Pitch, Inc.
Chief Creative Officer: Xanthe Wells
Exec Design Director/Creative Director: Helena Skonieczny
ACD/Copywriter: Heather Parke
ACD/Art Director:  Kimberly Linn
Account Director: Audrey Jersin
Account Executive: Christina Gocoglu
Director of Broadcast: Julie Salik
Production Coordinator:  Ivana Banh
CFO/COO: Pej Sabat
Chief Strategy Officer: Sara Bamossy
Jr. Strategist: Lexi Whalen
President: Rachel Spiegelman
Editorial Company: Bicep Productions
Editor: Nate Connella
Asst. Editor: Gary Burns
Editorial Producer: Esther Gonzalez
Animation & VFX:  Terry Politis
Color:  Bob Festa, Company 3
Audio Post Company: Bicep Productions
Engineer: Luis Rosario
Production Company: Woodshop
Director: Trevor Shepard
Executive Producer:  Sam Swisher
Producer: Ursula Camack
Director of Photography:  Tom Lazaravich
Music:  Motive Music Sound
Composer:  Jeremy Adelman
Producer:  Samanta Balassa



RPA's ECD Is Releasing His New Book on Instagram, a Page a Day for 160 Days

Jason Sperling’s new book, Look At Me When I’m Talking To You, gives brands new rules for fostering loyalty with consumers in an attention-scarce world. And the RPA executive creative director leads by example with a unique media plan for its release.

Beginning June 25, Sperling will publish the book on Instagram—one illustrated page a day for 160 days at @lookatmebook. As a sneak peek, there are already some excepts posted. The idea is to reach people where they already consume media, rather than force them into a different pattern of behavior—a key point of the book as well.
 

 

– “Look at Me When I’m Talking to You” examines the obstacles that collectively threaten our industry’s future and offers up new rules for getting attention in an attention scarce world, inspiring care amidst consumer apathy, and fostering loyalty from an increasingly discerning and departing audience. It offers proven strategies for connecting with today’s fickle, fleeing, over-stimulated audience. It has 20% more humor than most marketing books, and 100% more pictures. ———- It’s getting harder for books to break through, as well. So in the spirit of disrupting prescribed models and in the hopes of being my best example, Look At Me When I’m Talking to You is going to be the first-ever book released on Instagram. Yes, INSTAGRAM. The home of selfiers and humblebraggarts will now become a home of authors, too. It will unspool page-by-page for the next several months, with a bite-sized portion every day. And because it’s being released on social media, it will be a “collaborative” book, combining my thoughts, your comments and consumer perspectives. ———- Look At Me When I’m Talking to You will launch on June 25th. Read it daily by following @lookatmebook.

A video posted by by Jason Sperling (@lookatmebook) on May 25, 2015 at 10:54pm PDT

 
Sperling joined RPA in 2010 from Media Arts Lab, where he creatively led Apple’s worldwide “Get a Mac” campaign. He has also worked on brands including Honda, Pixar, ESPN and Suzuki. We spoke with him about the book, the Instagram idea and more.

What inspired you to write a book in the first place, and how long have you been working on it?
I hate that I’m in a career where most people avoid and detest the bulk of what we create. I want to be proud of what I do and what I make, and of my industry as a whole. So I guess this book is manifestation of that frustration, with some practical tools to help people make things that transcend the usual, expected fare.

The inspiration for the book’s idea comes from being immersed in this “mess of opportunity” every day, as well as from watching the way the industry change so drastically since I first got into advertising. It comes from the day-to-day trials and frustrations of trying to create content and social objects that people will willingly engage with. And it comes from the constant strategizing of how to stand out, stand apart and increase our chances of success.

In 2014, I was scheduled to do a presentation at the Creative Conference in Mexico City. It was canceled, but I was left with a presentation I didn’t want to see go to waste. So I stole moments over the next year writing it, sometimes in the passenger seat on a family road trip or in the bleachers during a kid’s baseball game (don’t judge me). And as you might expect, I would read through it every so often, think it was complete shit, put it down and then pick it back up a few weeks later and keep going.

So many marketing books are dismal. Why is this one different?
I feel the same way! They’re usually so “Well, duh, of course” and filled with lots of catchphrases that are basically the same thing we’ve heard a dozen times before. Or they’re filled with philosophy or generalizations that make for a great read but there’s nothing to glean.

I hope what makes this book better is the awareness of what makes most marketing books so bad. I wanted this to be fun to read, and be more conversational, but still be insightful. And why can’t there be a marketing book with pictures?!

It was also important to me that this be written with a creative bent, but for the subject matter to be broader than just a creative person’s perspective of the business. I wanted to take into account all sides of the industry—media and technology included—to fully explain the forces re-shaping our industry.

Lastly, I wanted this to be a marketing book that practices what it preaches. It’s easy to launch philosophy salvos on blogs and in regular books, talking about what works and what doesn’t. But when has a book actually demonstrated the things it was suggesting?
 

 

– Some things about me: ———- I’m an habitual over-sharer. ———- I wet my bed until the age of 11. ———- My go-to karaoke song is “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. ———- I love brilliant ideas, brave work and being the underdog. ———- When I was a student at UCLA, I called about a job listing for marketing and selling condoms. It turns out it was for a different employer and they happened to be looking for a creative intern. The rest is history. ———- I was fortunate to spend years working on a brand like Apple, and then doubly fortunate to help bring Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” television and digital campaign to life (FYI, there are 230 more Mac vs PC ads that never made it to air.) It was declared Campaign of the Decade by Adweek and Top 10 of the Century by AdAge. ———- Currently, I serve as Executive Creative Director at RPA Advertising, working primarily on Honda North America. In the few years I’ve been here I’ve recreated my favorite movie, Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, for the Super Bowl, developed a massive digital campaign to help save the American drive-in movie theater, and worked on too many social media campaigns to mention. Fortunately, Forbes took notice of them in December 2014 and said, “Honda has become one of the most prolific and effective social media practitioners in the auto industry.” ———– I call Los Angeles home. I have a beautiful wife, three amazing kids and two mutts. ———- Thank you RPA Advertising for supporting the launch, and Bill Westbrook and Marsha Rybin for the necessary kick in the pants. And of course thanks to Nik Piscitello for the brilliant illustrations. ———- Twitter: jasonsperling_

A video posted by by Jason Sperling (@lookatmebook) on May 25, 2015 at 10:49pm PDT

 
What are the big themes of the book?

It talks about how consumer disenchantment has turned into disengagement, and suggests ways to build brand attraction in an age of brand aversion. It factors in the democratization of creativity, the proliferation of media channels, social media and mobile technology, and suggests ways for creating attention in an attention-scarce world and care in the midst of consumer apathy. And I share a story about selling my dad’s dirty magazines door-to-door. That’s not so much a theme of the book as it is a theme of my life.

You talk about new rules for attraction in the world of advertising and branding. What are some of those rules, and who’s doing it well?
One of the rules is to “Serpentine, serpentine” (borrowing from a scene in the comedy film The In-Laws). I think we’re in a world now where people expect marketing to be predictable, pushy and manipulative. They’re looking to shoot it down the moment they’re exposed to it. They want to hate it. They want to avoid it. To get around this gauntlet of cynicism and the reflexive need to turn us off, we need to always be moving in unexpected ways—through the content we create, the canvases we use in unintended ways, or with the context in which our work is seen.

I think the Honda Type R experience was a great example of serpentining consumer expectations: an unexpected twist on a familiar consumer experience, and simple yet impactful interactivity that allowed people to toggle between two really engaging, overlapping story lines.

There are also rules for what not to do in the book. One rule is, “No quickies.” The possibility of hitting the content lottery and creating something that goes viral is a powerful aphrodisiac. But in today’s fragmented media world, where every little bit of brand equity counts, we need to build deeper connections, establish brand loyalty and maintain continuity of message across everything we create. It’s not an anti-awesome-work idea, it’s just saying the work needs to be smarter and more strategic than ever. In the case of Kmart’s “Ship My Pants” commercial, it made for a funny spot, but it did nothing to position Kmart away from its competitors or engender brand loyalty with consumers. Sales were going down before it came out, and continued to go down after.

You’re releasing the book page by page on Instagram. Where did that fanciful idea come from, and do you realize you won’t make a lot of money that way?
I never assumed a niche marketing book would earn me a Scrooge McDuck money pool. It was more of an itch I needed to scratch. And it was more important to me that people read it than it was to write it and have it sit on sub-page 17 of an e-book store.

The Instagram idea was a reactionary thing. I gave the book to several people to read, and after several weeks, no one, not one person, had started to read it. Could be I have crappy friends, but I actually think it was the big, imposing stack of papers filled with heady thoughts that impeded them. That led to the “a-ha” insight/connection that these days people are ingesting content in small, mobile-sized chunks. So, why can’t a book be built that way? And since a good portion of the book is dedicated to breaking through and connecting with people in unexpected ways, it would be great for the book itself to exemplify the thinking.

How has your particular career path informed the way you see the challenges facing brands today?
Not sure my particular career path informed my viewpoints. Everyone in advertising faces the same thing, no matter where they’ve been. It’s diabolically tough today with technology and consumer mind-sets being what they are, and the media and content explosion is making it harder for brands to get seen and break through. And then knowing that the increasing rate of innovation will cause even more flux … it makes the head spin. But it makes the wheels spin, too. And it demands smarter, more unexpected solutions. If you happen to marry a smart agency with an extremely savvy client (I like to think I found that match), then you’re in good shape.

Will your next book be published on Snapchat?
Tinder.

CREDITS
Book: Look at Me When I’m Talking to You
Author: Jason Sperling
Illustrator: Nik Piscitello
Animation: Cameron Sperling
Sr. Editor: Wendy Sandoval
Pre-launch: begins 6/1/2014
Book launch: 6/25/2015



Hendrick's Gin Is Flying a Giant Cucumber-Shaped Dirigible Around the Country

In response to the mundane ease of modern travel, Hendrick’s Gin has developed the world’s only flying cucumber—a 130-foot dirigible that clips along at the civilized speed of 35 mph, just slow enough not to blow off your steampunk hat.

They are whipping out their big cucumber in 13 cities across the nation and giving a very small number of lucky gin lovers a brief yet glorious ride on the airship. They will be in New York on June 14, just in time to coincide with England’s National Cucumber Day.

If you are wondering why a cucumber, Hendrick’s Gin is flavored with both cucumber and rose—you know, a phallic symbol and a yonic symbol infused into one gin (it would be a lot harder to make a rose-shaped airship). And if you’re wondering why anyone in their right mind would build a blimp, you simply have to look to the history of gin itself.

Though the brand was created in 1999, Hendrick’s is sold in an old-fashioned apothecary bottle, and the visual essence of the brand seems quite nostalgic for the time when gin was the most popular drink in England, consumed at a rate of two pints per Londoner per week—you know, right before it was blamed as one of the main causes of crime and became strictly regulated with the Gin Act of 1751. But oh, to go back to the gay times of the gin craze! Back to 1785 and the first crossing of the English Channel by hand-propelled balloon.

So, sign up for this very limited engagement and what will probably be your only chance to sip “dirigible-inspired” cocktails in an actual dirigible.



How to Make Your TV Commercials Look Epic, Even on Zero Budget

How can marketers with modest budgets—local home renovators and heating-system installers, for example—create “epic” advertising without going broke? Brazilian agency AlmapBBDO suggests tapping into the royalty-free video and image library of iStock by Getty Images. And it offers three amusing and effective spots to illustrate its point.

Almost everything about the mock ads below—for faux clients Lewis & Sons Heating Installations, Miracle Mike Contractors and Cosmo Cable and Satellite Services—is loathsome, from the cheesy, throbbing music cues to cheap-jack logos and annoyingly pulsating phone numbers.

In each case, however, the iStock visuals—of a tornado destroying a house, a snow-capped mountain range and a satellite orbiting the earth—are, well, epic.

“Creativity and visual accomplishment doesn’t have to come with a heavy price tag,” notes Andy Saunders, svp of content at Getty. Saunders says the campaign is designed to communicate the “quality, diversity and strength” of imagery available to advertisers at affordable prices through iStock.

Indeed, the images are so compelling, it may take a few beats before the commercials’ less-impressive aspects—and the fact that they are parodies—even register. (Though the absence of breathless testimonials from client CEOs is a dead giveaway.)

Getty’s stock has risen with AlmapBBDO before, notably in “85 Seconds” (which used 105 archived clips to tell a decades-spanning love story) and “From Love to Bingo” (conveying the saga of a single life using disparate 873 stills). Also, for Getty’s 20th birthday, agency and client showed famous faces aging through the years to demonstrate that great visuals are timeless.



Carl's Jr. Makes the Most Absurdly American Ad for Its Hot-Dog-and-Chips Cheeseburger

Putting a hot dog and potato chips on your cheeseburger is the ultimate expression of American-ness, according to Carl’s Jr. So, this 72andSunny ad for that monstrosity—an official menu item called the Most American Thickburger—celebrates that patriotism to a ridiculous degree. And Samantha Hoopes in a stars-and-stripes bikini is just the beginning.

People are making fun of this particular cheeseburger, of course. Check out Jimmy Kimmel’s takedown below, in which he imagines the craziest item on the Carl’s Jr. menu—and introduces a memorable new tagline for the place.



The 13 Strangest Vodka Flavors (and the Drinks You Could Actually Make With Them)

Vodka has long been well known and well loved for being flavorless. For the last few years, producers have worked to expand the market by introducing exotic flavors that get stranger with every passing year. But unless you closely examine the vodka aisle on the reg, you might not be aware of how weird it’s gotten.

That’s why AdFreak asked me, a bartender by night and cocktail science blogger by day, to track down the weirdest vodkas currently available. For those brave souls who are truly curious about flavored liquors, I even came up with some recommendations on ways to mix them. Check it all out below.

—Clair McLafferty is a bartender, freelance writer and Mental Floss cocktail science blogger based in Birmingham, Ala. Follow her on Twitter at @see_clair_write.



3M Makes Retargeted Banner Ads Less Annoying by Turning Them Into Post-it Notes

Retargeted banner ads are the sledgehammer of the web, bashing you again and again with the same random product you looked at once, whether you like it or not.

But 3M figured it could use the retargeted banner’s weakness as a strength. If the same banner comes up again and again, the company figured, why not make it a Post-it note where you could jot down info that might be useful later—when the ad pops up again?

Proximity Russia did just that in a recent campaign. Check out the case study below. It seems like ad-blocking software, but it’s not. 3M simply used retargeting technology and gave it an interactive spin.

The agency collaborated with several banner networks to get the Post-its on top websites in Russia. Clicking on the banners led you to a Post-it page, where you could create more stickers, edit or delete them all.

CREDITS
Client: 3M
Marketing Supervisor: Sergey Smolentsev
Marketing Coordinator: Yulia Smirnova
Agency: Proximity Russia
Creative Director: Andrew Kontra
Senior Copywriters: Polina Zabrodskaya, Anna Migaleva
Senior Art Director: Fernando Muto
Business Development Director: Mikhail Vdovin
Digital Director: Alexander Makarovsky
Senior Account Manager: Polina Zvereva
Digital Production House: INDEE Interactive
Producer: Alexey Zinchenko
UI designer: Egor Bernikov
Coders: Arina Vernidub, Andrey Zakurdaev, Oleg Nikanorov



If You Like Cute Pigs and Happy Endings, Vodafone Has an Ad for You

Vodafone New Zealand is out with a heartwarming ad that tells the story of a mailman who finds and befriends a lost pig, then goes on a mission to reunite it with its owner.

It’s a path fraught with people who don’t know anything, except that pigs taste pretty good (truth). Eventually, thanks to Vodafone’s mobile network, the pig’s knight gallant is able to track down its home—though the story doesn’t end there.

The mailman’s escape might not be very smart, because doesn’t the woman already have his name and number, and all the necessary info to brand him a pig thief?

But ethics aside, the subtitled and punctuated oinks are pretty great, and Piggy Sue the Vodafone pig is definitely way less annoying than her American cousin Maxwell the Geico pig, even if she doesn’t actually have a Buddy Holly soundtrack.

CREDITS
Client: Vodafone
Creative Agency: FCB New Zealand
Executive Creative Director: Regan Grafton
Group Account Director: Karla Fisher
Head of Content Production: Pip Mayne
Planning Director: Simon Bird
Account Director: Dave Munn
PR: Angela Spain
PR Director: Joanna James
Producer: Amanda Langkilde
Regional Creative Director: James Mok
Senior Art Director: Freddie Coltart
Senior Copywriter: Matt Williams
Senior Planner: Hilary Dobson
Recording: Hammond Peak
Producer: Pen Cooper & Sarah Yetton
Music Production: Liquid Studios
Composer: Peter van der Fluit
Sound Production: The Coopers
Sound Engineer: Jon Cooper
Online Editor: Nigel Mortimer
Editor: Bernard Garry
Post Production House: Blockhead
Colourist: Ben Eagleton
Production Company
Production Designer: Margot Wilson
Production Company: Revolver
Managing Director: Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer: Michael Ritchie & Pip Smart
DOP: Nicolas Karakatsanis
Director: Steve Rogers



Kyra & Constantin's Hilarious Round Animals Roll Their Way Into British Bread Ads

The young Swiss-German directing duo of Kyra Buschor and Constantin Paeplow are famous for their hilarious “Rollin’ Wild” videos—showing how tough life would be for animals if they were completely round. “If all animals became round overnight, would their daily life still run that smoothly?” the directors asked.

The original “Rollin’ Wild” video (comprising four short clips) got the loudest applause at the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase in Cannes last summer, and the directors have vowed to continue the series. And now, they’re doing so for brands.

Three new short films show spherical ducks, robins and a hedgehog navigating the world poorly in ads by adam&eveDDB for Genius Foods in the U.K., whose bread apparently won’t make you feel bloated. They’re pretty funny—and part of an integrated campaign that brings the visual style to all platforms.

The concept could work for plenty of brands. Hopefully the Imodium people are watching.

Via The Inspiration Room.

And here’s the original “Rollin’ Wild” video:



Vine's Amanda Cerny Does a Historically Accurate Striptease for Breathless Resorts

Riding the viral success of numerous other evolution videos, a genre that started with “The Evolution of Dance,” Breathless Resorts has scored a hit with “The Evolution of the Bikini”—an obvious crowd pleaser starring model and Vine star Amanda Cerny.

Vine stars are the new it thing in branded tie-ins, but there’s nothing new about scoring hits for your brand via hot girls in bikinis. The almost two-minute clip, by digital creative agency Forge Apollo, covers the bathing suit’s evolution from the 1890s to 2015 while it slowly uncovers Cerny in a through-the-decades striptease.

Her rack has already racked up 3 million views on YouTube and half a million more on Facebook. And as an extra bonus, you almost get to see Cerny topless. But the piece is more than pandering—it actually hits on the unique selling proposition of Breathless Resorts.

You see, Breathless Resorts occupies an interesting space in the resort market. It is an all-adults escape that is intended to save your vacation from the tyranny of other people’s children, while also saving those in monogamous relationships from the sort of talk they’d have to have before heading off to other adults-only places like Hedonism Resorts—designed for swingers.

But that doesn’t mean they still can’t imagine the sort of naughty adult fun that might happen at a resort called Breathless whose the advertising involves a woman almost going topless. The vacation possibilities, like the ad, will be too titillating for many to ignore.



Colonel Sanders Just Took Over KFC's Twitter, and He's Amusingly Terrible at It

Harland Sanders needs a little help with the Twitter.

The KFC colonel, who was recently revived as the chain’s advertising star, took over its feed Wednesday afternoon, saying he was excited to offer some “clear and concise communication” directly to the brand’s fans. Some 18 tweets later, it’s clear he needs to work on the concise part.

Along the way, though, he did manage to quote his own business philosophy, called “The Hard Way,” in its entirety. And indeed, this is the hard way to do Twitter—but maybe it will pay off in the long run.

See the tweets below.