Hasta La Creative!

Don’t you just love an epic dildo battle? Well, yeah, as long as it’s not your kid waving them around the front yard.

This new ad from McCann New York is all about dildos. But it’s not all about dildos. Check it out, and then read my take below (where there are obviously spoilers).

Watch the spot first. Spoilers below…

Why this PSA is genius: If we make a sweeping generalization about the sort of conservative people who generally defend their Second Amendment rights, we would suggest they may also be sexually conservative. Showing some boys playing with vibrators might not be all that shocking to a liberal. Heck, it was an Ikea campaign. But to people who don’t normally think kids playing with guns is a big deal (trust me, I know these people), seeing kids play with vibrators might be shocking and memorable.

Why this PSA is necessary: It’s National Safety Month. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, two children per week were killed in 2013 in unintentional shootings, and two-thirds of those tragedies were due to unsecured guns children found in a home. That means two-thirds of those tragedies were entirely preventable. Or as Evoleve—the advertiser in the PSA above—puts it, “It’s the right to bear arms. Not the right to be a dumbass.”

“Are there any unsecured guns in your home?” is a hard thing to ask another parent before you drop your kid off. But as this ad shows, it’s necessary. Since I live in Georgia, the state with the most school shootings since Newtown, where we just passed a sweeping new open carry law that allows more guns in more places, I know I’ll be asking it of any parent I leave my child with.

Those who are weirded out by epic dildo battles might also want to ask if there are unsecured sex toys.

“Simon the Ogre,” a two-minute mini-epic commercial from agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay, was popular in the U.K. earlier this year but went largely unnoticed in the U.S. before winning a silver Lion at Cannes last week.

We won’t spoil the plot of the effects-driven film, but Fredrik Bond’s direction is solid, as are the editing and performances. Some viewers apparently didn’t like what they saw, though, and the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority received at least 80 complaints soon after the ad’s debut “for causing offense to people with disfigurements and for trivializing disability.”

I have a different critique. I think it’s a memorable spot that makes its point in a novel way, but Simon behaves less like an ogre than a big mopey baby. Dude, suck it up! Slap a smile on that monstrous mug!

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The Panem propaganda machine is officially cranking up for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. Seven beautiful posters, each honoring a different district from the movie, and an ominous announcement from President Snow have been released to kick off the movie’s marketing blitz.

(Lots of spoilers below if you haven’t read or seen Catching Fire.) 

In the Capitol TV announcement, a brainwashed Peeta, held prisoner and tortured in the Capitol after Katniss’ rebellion failed to succeed, stands next to the President and looks off into the distance as Snow issues a warning to all rebels.

It’s a nice, simple spot designed as delightful fan service without giving too much away. But the posters are the real treasure here. Mad props to whoever art directed them with such an eye for detail and the writer who developed a backstory for each “District Hero.” (The bios are actually Yahoo sponsored content, in case you’re keeping tabs on this whole native advertising trend.) 

It’s no coincidence that the most soul-rending execution is the tiny, coal faced ragamuffin for District 12, the place where Katniss is currently residing after her own district was burned to the ground.

Speaking of that, it’s been a barren year for fans of fictional advertising. Fewer movies and TV shows are expanding their worlds with imaginary campaigns that give a wink to loyal fans. Luckily, it looks like Mockingjay is gearing up for even more fictional broadcasts from Panem over at TheCapitol.pn (a brilliant use of the .pn domain used by Pitcairn Islands, ironically settled by mutineers).

The campaign also has a hashtag, #OnePanem, should you desire to send them some rebellious tweets that, in a real-world dictatorship, would get you thrown in jail.

If you’ve ever wanted to see Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense get slapped around, well, this is your chance.

Yes, it’s three months later and we’re still seeing parodies of Wren’s “First Kiss,” the super-viral ad (and now Cannes gold Lion winner) that showed complete strangers kissing each other. For this one, Max Landis (son of Hollywood legend John Landis) gathered 40 friends and acquaintances and had them slap each other (allegedly for the first time).

The video already has over 2 million views. Check it out below, and take note of just how different the slaps are: Some are super hard, some are soft, but everyone seems excited about the violence they’re allowed to exact on someone else. Yikes!

We’ve reached peak hipster. And we’ve also reached peak anti-hipster. But South Africa’s Garagista Beer Co. is barging ahead anyway with a campaign that positions the brand as absolutely not the right choice for the coolest people on earth.

Watch below as a bunch of unkempt cool white people battle each other with records, typewriters and bicycles for a taste of the brewery’s limited-edition batch of suds. And also check out the onslaught of anti-hipster print ads the brand has put together.

Over at the brand’s Facebook page (because having an actual webpage is so January 2014), it’s clear that Garagista is pretty normcore about the whole thing. “In a world where some people care more about the craft beer image than the actual beer,” it says, “we care about one thing—damn good beer.” 

Cool. Now, can we make all the selfies go away?

Is there anything dogs love more than a good dog butt?

BarkBox, a monthly gift subscription service for dogs, has been experimenting with advertising directly to man’s best friend. And its latest attempt to get inside the canine cranium is nothing more than 30 seconds of staring directly at a dog’s butt. The company even went so far as to have an actual dog-butt casting call to find the perfect doggy derriere.

The view from behind should look familiar to dog owners who are used to having dog butts shoving into their face on a daily basis. And from the completely unscientific testing that I tried, dogs seem very happy to look at another dog’s butt on a screen.

Of course, it’s gotta be kind of a tease to look at that sweet, sweet dog butt and not get a single sniff.

CREDITS
Client: BarkBox, Inc
Agency: Graham Douglas & Kenny Kim
Creative Director: Henrik Werdelin
Art Director/Copywriter: Rob Schutz

It’s a lot harder for a father to have fun, whatever he’s doing, while his three young kids are clinging to his body at the same time.

This parenting-humor ad, aptly titled “Daddy,” won a silver Lion in the Film category at Cannes last week for French automaker Citroën and Havas agency Les Gaulois.

Photographing birds, taking tango lessons and playing soccer are just a few of the hobbies that lose some of their charm for a man encumbered by his offspring. Because it’s a car commercial, driving is the one thing he stills find enjoyable, with his brats somehow docile in the backseat—or at least physically off his person for a moment. (In reality, everyone knows those kids are still kicking and screaming for the whole ride.)

The ad—one of the most pro-father spots we’ve seen in a while—presents the same sight gag over and over again, but it stays funny because it’s more or less true in spirit, a nice visual metaphor for the exhaustion that comes with hauling kids through their early years.

In fact, the character here must be the same guy as the dad from this Coca-Cola Life ad from Argentina (which won gold in Cannes) … just a few more years down the line.

Here’s a spot-on, if disturbing, visual for how kids stumble across disturbing images and video while browsing online.

The online and print campaign, for child-safety nonprofit Innocence in Danger, features images of kids, each with three mouths open in horror—one mouth in the normal spot, and one where each eye should be.

Created by Publicis Frankfurt, the effort is aimed at jolting parents into recognizing and addressing the potential dangers of letting their kids surf the Web too freely.

According to Innocence in Danger—creator of the equally disturbing real-life emoji campaign—many children search for terms like “sex” and “porn,” while others accidentally stumble upon graphic scenes, but few discuss what they’ve seen.

While it’s a good use of the visual, this definitely isn’t the first time we’ve seen mouths for eyes. One of our favorites was 2012’s Irish eyes ad for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Atlanta, but you can find the “mouth eyes” meme all over, even ruining the lovely Stop Girl. 

Via ABCNews.com.

This literally out-of-control 60-second road-safety ad from Northern Ireland is causing an international stir for some intense imagery that begins around the 40-second mark.

As these types of ads go, it’s not particularly graphic. There’s no blood and guts. No flying body parts. No mutilation. Even so, some observers have criticized the country’s Department of the Environment, which produced the spot, for going too far, and some news outlets have posted “trigger warnings” about the strong content. It airs on TV only after 9 p.m., when kids, in theory, aren’t watching. And that’s a bit ironic, because the controversy centers around the horrifying fate of a group of children.

The PSA, by Belfast agency LyleBailie International, opens ominously, with a slowed-down, dirge-y version of Guns ‘n Roses “Sweet Child ‘O Mine”—more or less tipping us off that the primary-schoolers seen laughing, playing and preparing for a class outing are in for trouble. Even so, it’s hard not to jump when the moment of tragedy arrives.

“Since 2000, speeding has killed a classroom of our children,” a voiceover says. “You can never control the consequences if you speed.”

Criticism has run the gamut. On UTV’s coverage of the ad flap, “Unsure in Belfast” questions the strategy: “I’m surprised if these adverts work. People I know won’t watch … Those boy racers who drive fast are never going to be impacted.” Over at Philly Barstool Sports, “Smitty” suggests the approach trivializes the issue: “It’s not even something out of a Michael Bay film but rather a Michael Bay spoof.” Meanwhile, Twitter user @Curljets sums up the anti-PSA sentiment thusly: “I’m thinking of starting a support group for Irish people called ‘DOE Road Safety Advert induced trauma.’ “

The DOE says it used such brutal imagery because it believes the fear of killing kids will influence at least some folks to stop speeding. “The aim of this campaign is to challenge and dispel, once and for all, through this emotional and uncomfortable message, the false perceptions that many road users have as to the truly horrifying consequences of speeding,” says road safety minister Mark Durkan. “People are losing their lives long before they have the chance to fulfill their potential. Families are being destroyed forever.”

While I wasn’t exactly horrified by this spot, I would rate it among the most audacious, unsettling and memorable PSAs I’ve seen. And I’m not the only one taking notice. The YouTube posting is approaching 1.7 million views in a week, and the controversy is driving the anti-speeding message into the public conversation far beyond Ireland.

Here’s an unusual two-for-one deal from Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi for Beldent gum. The Mondelez brand, known as Trident in the U.S., staged “Almost Identical,” a social experiment/marketing installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires, ostensibly to disprove the myth that gum chewing gives a bad impression.

Patrons were asked questions about five sets of identical twins. Each pair of twins was identically attired and quaffed—but one twin was chewing gum, while the other wasn’t. Queries ranged from “Which one seems like he has more friends?” to “Which one has a better sex life?” and “Which one is the bad cop?” (Two of the twins were dressed like police officers.)

Nearly 500 people took the test, and 73 percent of the responses positively favored the twin who chewed gum. (Given the experiment’s far-reaching implications for greater social understanding of gum chewers the world over, I’m surprised leading scientific journals haven’t put it on their covers.)

Watching the video, which is nearing 3 million views on YouTube since its posting last November, several observations spring to mind. First, the gum chewers, with their mouths in motion, seem to be smiling at times. They look more relaxed and happy than their tight-lipped twins, who make pouty expressions, as if thinking: “Damn, I wish I had a piece of gum!” Also, putting identical twins on public display is kind of creepy.

Plus, I’ve got the strangest craving for Wrigley’s Doublemint … oh, snap!

The campaign won eight Lions in Cannes last week: two golds in Direct, a gold in Outdoor, a silver in Promo and bronzes in Film Craft, Film, PR and Media.