Hasta La Creative!

In every sense, testicular care is a delicate matter. So while it can be a bit weird and uncomfortable to feel yourself up every so often, nonprofit Testicular Cancer Canada makes the point that it's each guy's job—and no one else's—to check his balls for lumps.

In addition to reminding us that this is no role for police and mechanics to play, the ad also makes a really good case for why we should be glad it isn't. Gentlemen, we've all had this moment, but very rarely with officers of the law (that said, I'm not here to judge). Watching this alternate reality, I find myself wondering, what do they feel as they do this? Emotionally, I mean.

Anyway, the two commercials in the series make a great pair. They're ballsy and a little bit nuts. The campaign rocks, is what I'm trying to say, and even though Canadian agency Grip Limited produced it pro bono, it's worth the family jewels. Testicles.

After seven years overlooking Baltimore's Penn Station, the Smyth Jewelers billboard showing National Bohemian beer mascot Mr. Boh proposing to the Utz girl has to move.

Turns out the dorks who own the billboard itself want to switch it over to a digital video display in May, so Smyth is trying to find a new home for its now-classic ad, which was put together by Owings Mills, Md., agency MGH.

"Natty Boh and the Little Utz girl are Baltimore's version of the royal couple," Smyth president Tom Smyth tells the Baltimore Sun, "which is why it's imperative that their next home pay homage to the sense of pride they instill in our city."

I don't know that I'd go that far. Clearly John Waters and Divine are as close as we here in Baltimore are ever getting to royalty, but he's right that the city has a fondness for that image that won't extend to a video board. That kind of gaudy, touristy crap should be restricted to the Inner Harbor.

Luckily, the smaller version of the Boh-Utz ad in North Baltimore doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

When Kevin Spacey appears on screen these days, you expect him to speak to camera in a South Carolina drawl, assess his chances at screwing over a rival, and perhaps even (spoiler alert) kill a person or two.

He does none of those things in E*Trade's new campaign from Ogilvy & Mather, but does aim for an air of mystery in his role as a "talent scout" who can tell by looking at someone whether he or she is "Type E*"—the company's term for sophisticated, savvy, self-directed investors.

This Spacey spot is the first in what will be a series, Ogilvy tells us.

An earlier spot that launched the campaign was titled "Epic Musical" and featured everyday people singing and dancing because they are Type E*. The new campaign follows the demise of the E*Trade baby, the star of Grey's longtime campaign, who was put out to pasture after six years of never growing up.

"If you think about it, our target has grown to become more sophisticated, so the baby needed to grow up as well," said Russell Messner, global managing director at Ogilvy. "That being said, we did not want to alienate the smart wit and irreverence that are inextricably linked to the E*Trade brand. We believe Kevin Spacey, our 'Type E* Talent Scout,' is a great embodiment of this new phase in the brand's history."

CREDITS
Client: E*Trade
Spot: "Talent Scout"
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, New York
Executive Creative Director: Steve Howard
Group Creative Director: Chris Van Oosterhout
Chief Creative Officer: Alfonso Marian
Copywriters: Gage Clegg, Ian Going, Chad Johnson, Allison Lackey
Art Directors: Lauren Van Aswegen, Kevin Riley, Becca Morton
Executive Producer: Maureen Phillips
Global Managing Director: Russ Messner
Executive Group Director: Adam Puchalsky
Account Director: Melissa Bartolini Kearney
Head Planner: Margaret Rimsky
Senior Planner: Ned Sonnenschein
Director: Stacy Wall
Senior Content Producer: Karen Rossiter
Production Company: Imperial Woodpecker
Editing: Chris Franklin, BigSky Edit
Music: Tonal Sound
Color Correction: Chris Ryan, Nice Shoes
Mix: Tom Jucarone, Sound Lounge

Mocking hipsters was cool until H&R Block started doing it. (Actually, it's probably been passé for a while now. Really, it was so 2012.) Nonetheless, in an effort to reach millennials, the tax prep brand has been running a social media campaign titled "Hipster Tax Crisis."

The effort hinges mostly on the idea that anyone who fits one of many stereotypes that's been lobbed at the ill-defined group in recent years—e.g., horn-rimmed glasses—is probably bad at doing their taxes. As the Guardian points out, that's really not true—young people just seem to favor TurboTax.

In fairness, the campaign does include some decent zingers. "Growing organic arugula on a fire escape does not enable to you take a farm tax credit," reads one print ad (labeled as a "Hipster Tax Fact"). But a truly painful "Hipster Tax Rap" video more than compensates for the better moments.

It's good for brands to take risks, and to rib their consumers. But it's not exactly risky to keep beating a dead horse. Macklemore is mainstream. Hipsters, whoever they are, have won. And if a marketer is going to take aim at them, there's a high bar to beat in jeans brand Denham's delightful remake of American Psycho.

Also, treating a portion of your target demographic like a cheap piñata might not be the best way to grow your business in the cohort. But who cares. Hipsters don't have any money, and with ESPN personality Kenny Mayne as a spokesman, the sports junkies must be a lock.

Plus, H&R Block is going for the normcore set, which is much more fashionable these days.

It's just like your mom always said: When life gives you a plague of rabbits, make a rabbit-pelt billboard. 

Hell Pizza in New Zealand has been grabbing international attention in recent days with a new billboard advertising its rabbit pizza. The outdoor board is made from hundreds of rabbit skins, which it makes clear by noting: "Made from real rabbit. Like this billboard."

Like several parts of the world, New Zealand suffers from an overabundance of rabbits, which can devastate crops and native ecosystems. 

"As well as being a delicious meat, and even quite cute, rabbits are unfortunately also a noted pest that is damaging to the New Zealand environment, particularly in the South Island," the pizzeria noted on its Facebook page.

"For those who are concerned, we sourced these rabbit skins via a professional animal tanning company, who in turn sourced them from local meat processing companies where the skins are a regular by-product."

The pizza is made with smoked wild New Zealand rabbit, toasted pine nuts, beetroot and horopito relish, cream cheese, rosemary and fresh spring onions. 

Via Reddit.

Diesel's promoting its new Jogg jeans collection via a fun and informative A-to-Z of Dance video featuring all manner of talented dancers sporting the flexible jersey-denim hybrid line.

Each letter represents a different dance, and they range from grand jetés to Indian Bhangra to yes—of course—twerking. The video, while perhaps a bit too reminiscent of Puma's similar "Dance Dictionary," is amazing, and I guarantee you'll be entertained for the entire three-and-a-half minutes.

My only complaint is that the Harlem shake featured isn't the real Harlem shake. Other YouTube commenters had the same critique, and my only guess is that all of us were likely born prior to 1988.

The video might be NSFW if your work frowns on twerking and pole dancing, but it's all quite PG.

Via Fast Company.

"A short time ago, in a county far, far away in the U.K. …"

Chewbacca shows off his mad Wookiee drumming skills in this great self-promo ad—a parody of Cadbury's "Gorilla"—for a real band made up of Star Wars characters (in which Chewie is indeed the drummer).

It's pretty great that Chewie has found another creative outlet. I don't speak Wookiee, but I'm pretty sure he'd say "RWGWGWARAHHHHWWRGGWRWRW" about his new gig. Actually, though, it seems he's been playing drums for years.

At the bottom of this post, you'll find some rare videos from his rise to rock 'n' roll royalty—even some other "Gorilla" parodies.

Meanwhile, the self-described "Earth's Greatest Sci-Fi Band," aptly named "Sci-Fi Band," might be my new favorite band in the universe. May the Force be with them.

The Wookiee has won again.

 
As promised, here is Chewie's rise to musical fame (and a haircut):

 
P.S.: Chewie also once thought he was Axl Rose …

 
… and sold cars.

Donald Trump, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg get reincarnated as an owl, a llama and a sheep, respectively, in AlmapBBDO's unusual campaign for Top Magazine, a luxury fashion and lifestyle title in Brazil.

"In his next life, even Donald Trump could come back as an owl," we're told. "The time to enjoy your money is now."

The visuals are most amusing. Gates keeps his trademark glasses, while Zuck's wooly locks and dental work survive the transformation. And of course, Trump's hair is still atrociously—wait for it, because it's worth the wait, here it comes—feathered. (OK, it wasn't worth the wait.)

Belgium's TMF channel tried a similar theme in 2008, showing Amy Winehouse as a sad sheep in a most unsavory barnyard scenario. And a South African employment site once suggested that lawyers, tobacco execs and paparazzi would return as ticks, maggots and dung-heap flies. By comparison, Top's beastly trio really don't fare so badly at all. C'mon, Zuck, why the long face?

Credits below. Via Ads of the World.

CREDITS
Client: Top Magazine
Agency: AlmapBBDO, Brazil
General Creative Director: Luiz Sanches
Creative Directors: André Kassu, Marcos Medeiros, Bruno Prosperi
Art Director: André Sallowicz
Copywriters: Dudu Barcelos, Filipe Medici
Illustrators: Surachai Puthikulangkura, Supachai U-Rairat
Photographer: Surachai Puthikulangkura
Graphic Producers: José Roberto Bezerra, Alberto Lago
Account Executives: Gustavo Burnier, Filipe Bartholomeu, Johana Quintana, Matheus Trigo

You probably remember popsicle stick jokes as a fun, charming, innocent part of your childhood. Jason Kreher and Matt Moore are here to wreck those memories.

The pair of creatives at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., have made a fake product called Schadenfreezers—popsicles with the most depressing jokes you can imagine. (For now, at least, they're just animated GIFs.) The tagline is: "The strawberry, blueberry and lemon-flavored joy derived from the suffering of others." When you read them, your sense of happiness drips away much like the sad melting treats themselves.

Kreher and Moore made the first GIFs last year. (Sample jokes: "How many lives does a cat have?" "Only one." "Why did the lifeguard wear pants?" "Because he was ashamed of his body." "Why did the clown go to jail?" "For his collection of child pornography.")

Now they're back with a whole new set. You can check some of them out below, and the rest over at schadenfreezers.com. There are 11 new ones, and more will roll out gradually.

We caught up with Kreher and Moore over email to ask them just what their problem is.

This is Round 2, but take us back a bit. Where did this twisted idea come from? Did neither of you have a happy childhood?
We honestly can't remember how these came about; it was probably just us wanting to visualize the awful things we think are funny. It's kind of like wagging your penis around in public when you're a little kid … it's the wrong kind of attention, but it's attention nonetheless.

Popsicle-stick jokes are generally corny. Why make them existentially bleak?
I don't think either one of us is particularly cynical, but it's fun to take something innocent and make it profane. There's nothing wrong with pondering life's greatest tragedies while enjoying a nice snack.

What's your joke writing process like? How do you know when you have a winner? And how do you know when you've gone too far?
We probably wrote around 200 of these to get to our final ones. I think they work best when the setup feels like it could be an actual popsicle stick joke, but then stabs you in the gut with the punch line. And with these, there's no such thing as too far. If we suspect one has gone too far that means it's probably going to make the cut.

What are your favorite jokes from the new batch, and why?
Jason: The janitor one is my favorite. It's probably the most dehumanizing and bleak thing that's ever occurred to me, which was kind of my bar for these.
Matt: That plane one feels like it's going to be some awful pun and then it ends up as an awful truth. Kids love that.

There was some outcry about the original round of jokes. Do you think people don't want to see innocent popsicle-joke humor messed with?
The only people who got really riled up were the few who thought this was an actual product, and that we'd somehow bribed the press to feature them. I like thinking of us as a corrupt, fat-cat popsicle corporation greasing the palms of the Huffington Post Arts & Culture editors.

The animations seem more sophisticated this time. Was that just a general improvement you wanted to make?
What a nice thing to say! Matt has been wanting to experiment with stop motion for a while now, and this new round was a great opportunity to make these stand out. We host the site on Tumblr for a couple reasons, but a big one is that Tumblr features a lot of funny stuff and a lot of artful stuff, but rarely do the two meet. These feel different because they're something you want to look at and also something you might laugh at.

Have you ever actually produced Schadenfreezers as a product? If not, would you be interested in that?
Sure. If any of your readers are popsicle manufacturers who secretly kind of hate themselves, please have them contact us at your earliest convenience.

Humans are so empathetic and caring. No, wait, they're selfish and horrible!

Advertising stunts can't seem to decide. Six weeks ago, we were impressed by several humans who helped a smaller human get warm at a bus stop in Norway as part of a charity stunt. Now, though, we get a grimmer glimpse of human nature through another charity video, this one from Russia.

This charity, which helps orphans, left a baby carriage seemingly abandoned in a public place, and rigged it up to play sounds of a baby crying. Did people come running to assist? Not exactly.

The ambivalence is pretty surprising and awful, and makes for a downer of a video. (You'd think this would depress its shareability and effectiveness as an awareness tool, although the case study claims the campaign drove results. But of course, it's a case study video, so take it with a grain of salt.)

As for why people didn't help the poor fake baby, a few possible theories: Maybe they saw the NYC "Devil Baby" video and didn't want to get screamed at and barfed on. Maybe it's easier to help a freezing child who's right in front on you than a disembodied voice in a stroller. Maybe Russians, unlike Norwegians, just don't give a damn if you're freezing.

Or maybe humans just aren't that nice after all?

Via Osocio.

CREDITS
Client: Charity Garage Sale
Agency: Red Pepper
Creative Directors: Danil Golovanov, Nikita Harisov
Art Director: Julia Uzkih
Copywriter: Ivan Sosnin
Production: Evgeniy Kharchenko
Producer: Ekaterina Golovkina
Music: "Lost Kitten" by Metric