Hasta La Creative!

Proud of your dozens LinkedIn endorsements? You’re going to look like a right tosser next to Matt Roach and David Lawrie.

The creative team at M&C Saatchi in London have secured testimonials from a whole slew of celebrity A-listers—from Cameron Diaz to Gwyneth Paltrow to George Clooney—or so it would appear from the amusing video below.

“We’ve been endorsed on LinkedIn before by people who have never actually worked with us,” Matt and Dave tell AdFreak in an email. “The whole ‘endorsement’ thing has lost its value. So we thought we’d get recommendations from celebrities people actually care about. We’ve never worked with them either.”

Follow Matt and Dave on Twitter at @akacreatives.

Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners placed some faux personal ads in the New York, Philadelphia and Chicago sections of Craigslist’s popular “Missed Connections” department on behalf of crystal jeweler Swarovski.

One ad reads: “Love that you’re the kind of girl that scrolls through the Missed Connections and knows your smile gets attention. You’re definitely our kind of girl. We think confidence like that deserves something sparkly. Something maybe like a Swarovski Stardust Bracelet? Maybe we have one for you. Send us a message and maybe we can make this sparkle yours.”

Check out six of the listings here:

• Cute Dress Girl at Franklin Mortgage – m4w
• Black tshirt ordering latte at La Colombe – m4w (Center City)
• East Village Milk Bar Blonde with Bday Truffles – m4w (East Village)
• Blonde bartender LES, great smile – m4w (Lower East Side)
• Last friday in Old City, white sweater – m4w (Old City)
• Bright red lips w/wrist tattoo at big star – m4w

This approach is restrained compared to TiVo’s lusty romp through Missed Connections last year. And it’s probably more sincere than much of the section’s typical fare, as a few respondents will actually receive Swarovski bracelets as part of the promotion.

“We hope we’ll pleasantly surprise some curiously intrigued women on Missed Connections,” says agency chief creative officer Steve Red, “and that they’ll sparkle a little bit more the next time they catch someone’s eye.”

This much is crystal clear: In a world where everything’s an ad, sometimes even ads come disguised as other ads.

The White House’s new PSA is a call to action for men who see sexual assault about to happen, and asks them to do something to stop it.

As part of the ongoing “It’s On Us” campaign, which President Obama has said is about “condemning sexual assault as loudly as we should,” the new spot is focused on a party bystander who sees a young man stop a woman from leaving the party when she’d like to.

The ad comes as colleges and universities across the country enter into a “National Week of Action,” from Nov. 17-21, geared to motivate students to get involved in the “It’s On Us” campaign. According to White House research, bystander intervention programs help to change social norms and teach people to speak out.

“Bystander involvement can be very important, and oftentimes men underestimate other men’s attitudes toward violence,” Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the President, tells BuzzFeed. “They don’t understand that other men are opposed to violence, too. So if they get the sense that it’s OK [to intervene] because everyone else around the room feels the same way you do, the first person who gets up will inspire the next person to get up, and the next person and the next person.”

The self-aware PSA isn’t too wordy, though it does employ Jon Hamm’s velvety pipes. 

CREDITS
Agency: Mekanism
CEO/President: Jason Harris
CD: David Horowitz
Head of Strategy: Eric Zuncic
Design Director: Albert Ignacio
Associate Director, Brand Manager: Caroline Moncure
Senior Producer: Kati Haberstock
Creative Technology Director: Sean Cosier
Senior Producer: Amber Cope
Production: PARK PICTURES_BYSTANDER TV
Director: Vincent Haycock
EP: Mary Ann Marino
Producer: Alex Fisch

Sears Canada is struggling mightily, but it has a secret weapon in a celebrity connection.

Peter Myers has worked at Sears Canada for 32 years. And it turns out his brother is Mike Myers, who agreed to do this amusing ad playing up their connection. The spot—directed by Hungry Man’s Bryan Buckley—is nicely self-aware, too, as it comically refers to the retailer’s problems. And Mike and Peter’s banter is funny, natural and well written.

“Do you know anything about the retail business?” Peter asks Mike. “Not a lot,” Mike replies. “Just that Sears Canada has to demographically and psychographically alter the trajectory of its business model. But that would just be a wild guess.”

Stick around for Mike’s jingle singing at the end.

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CREDITS
Client: Sears
Production Company: Hungry Man
Director: Bryan Buckley
EP: Mino Jarjoura
Producer: Matt Lefebrve
Line Producer: Tony DiMarco
DP: Adam Beckman
Production Designer: Paul Austerberry
Editor: Jay Nelson @ cut and run LA

“Let It Go” is so played out at this point, some might consider it a lump of coal in their stockings. But that hasn’t stopped Vodafone U.K. and RKCR/Y&R from thawing out the Frozen anthem for this minute-long holiday ad.

Directed by Pete Riski through Rattling Stick, the spot shows various “local heroes”—folks who have to work on Dec. 25, including medical personnel, airport staffers and restaurant employees—belting out the lyrics as they watch the Disney film, a Sky Movies selection for Christmas, on their handsets. (That’s one festive emergency room! In fact, #PowerToTheFestive is the hashtag.)

“We wanted to bring to life the joy of being able to watch Sky films and TV shows wherever you are this Christmas on Vodafone 4G,” says Rupert Williams, RKCR/Y&R’s managing director. Vodafone marketing exec Daryl Fielding adds that singing along to this particular number “inspires” folks and helps “lifts their spirits.”

The ad feels sincere because it tacitly acknowledges the strong modern connection between holidays and media. Sure, we should probably let the screens go dark and focus on family and friends at this time of year. Still, for many, It’s a Wonderful Life, Rankin-Bass marathons and personal favorites of all kinds are essential seasonal viewing.

As for “Let It Go” lifting spirits, I guess it beats another cerebral-cortex freezing chorus of “Jingle Bells.” Barely. No it doesn’t.

Newcastle has tapped Wil Wheaton as its latest anti-advertising star, enlisting the actor and Internet folk hero for a couple of amusing online videos introducing a new Scotch Ale.

Wheaton does an amusing job of delivering the pitch under duress, as the Droga5 production is self-consciously faux-low-budget. He’s also a well-known home-brew geek, and mixes some knowledge in with the humor.

“Newcastle Scotch Ale is a well-balanced, malt-forward brew with a delightful velvety finish,” he says in the press release. “Basically, Newcastle and Caledonian made a kick-ass beer that does not suck.”

The Scotch Ale is the first in a series of what Newcastle is calling “collaboration edition” beers made in partnership with some of Europe’s finest and oldest breweries. This first partnership is with its Edinburgh-based sister brewery Caledonian.

“One of our dreams is to get rid of the ‘intimidation’ factor that prevents so many people from foregoing boring ‘yellow beer’ and enjoying more interesting brews,” says Brett Steen, brand manager for Newcastle Brown Ale. “Wil is an inviting and knowledgeable guy, and we’re stoked that he’s taking this herculean effort of humor and wisdom onto himself so we don’t have to.”

If you have an animal, you can surely identify with having their dander all over your living space. It can be tricky to clean up after them and make the space presentable for guests. 

Well, what if your apartment was your pants, and your pet hair was—uh, your very own locks of love? I mean, you love yourself and it shouldn’t matter, right? Not so fast there, Sasquatch. Having guests over might be a problem. 

Hirsutes, rejoice! Schick and JWT New York have given us a catchy little jingle in this ad for the Schick Hydro, aimed at getting you to clean up the “Crib in Your Pants” so guests might be able to easily find your tree in the forest. 

Take a look below, and consider trimming Harry and the Hendersons.

Kittens are notorious advertising stars, and as it turns out, they’re miniature therapists too.

At least, that’s one takeaway from this stunt in Los Angeles, where Purina Tidy Cats invited stressed-out people into a glass room—fully visible to people on the street—and had them listen to guided mediation.

And then … the kittens are unleashed. And adorable overload ensues.

The video, from Rainn Wilson’s media company Soul Pancake, might seem better suited to cat adoption than cat litter. But it’s fun to watch, and will surely get a bajillion views.

It really is the best way to see an agency: the dog’s-eye view.

Toronto animation, design and VFX studio Crush did it last year, attaching a GoPro camera to their dog Sadie and live-streaming her travels around the building. Crush has since merged with Notch, AXYZ and Lollipop to create a new agency called Smith—and what better way to introduce the new place than bringing Sadie back for an encore?

Follow the live stream below until 2 p.m. to see every nook and cranny of Smith’s offices, particularly the ones where delicious unclaimed food may lie.

How do you market round-the-clock customer customer service? If you’re Norwegian bank DNB, you buy all of the ad space on one channel in a 24-hour window, and fill it with advice from your country’s citizens.

The marketer crowdsourced some 3,000 clips from the public. And on Sept. 19 it aired 1,000 of them once each—totaling about two and half hours of content. That included pretty solid gems of wisdom, like it’s a bad idea to stay up all night watching Netflix, and the classic winner, “Always look on the bright side of life” (alas, whistling not included).

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In the case study, agency Try/Apt (also onetime matchmaker to George Clooney and shepherd to a singing goat) claims some pretty impressive results, like doubling awareness of the service to more than 70 percent overnight. And if the usual rotation of late night commercials in Norway gets anywhere near as hairy as in the U.S., DNB scored a major victory just by knocking them off the slate for a day.

Then again, anyone who stayed up until 6 a.m. watching Netflix wouldn’t have to worry about that.