Hasta La Creative!

In Thailand, 80 percent of people killed in road accidents are riding motorcycles. Now, one agency hopes its new invention could literally mean the difference between life and death. 

The “Helpmet” was designed by BBDO Bangkok for the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (the same partnership that recently came up with the fat-reducing AbsorbPlate) to help address Thailand’s staggeringly high rate of motorcycle fatalities—the second highest in the world. 

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Imagine if there were an easy way for people who can’t read and write to share their life experiences with the world. HP and agency AlmapBBDO took a crack at coming up with one, focusing on some of the 13 million illiterate individuals in Brazil, as part of a touching new campaign called “Magic Words.”

First, AlmapBBDO sourced 30 such people from around the country, including rural areas and big cities like São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. Then, it used Google Speech’s voice-recognition software to transcribe their stories, and publish them in a paperback book, created using an HP printer. A documentary followed the effort, and retold it in documentary format.

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Zappos wants you to think outside the box. Beginning with the box itself.

On June 1, the online retailer will begin shipping some shoes in a very cool new box (made with creative collective Variable) that features a collection of template designs printed on the inside—encouraging the recipients to fold, cut and otherwise reuse the box into item like a smartphone holder, a children’s shoe sizer, a geometric planter and a 3-D llama.

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You know how exasperating it feels to call a company and get stuck in an automated voice program instead of being connected to a human being? Soon, you’ll be able to experience that same level of irritation at malls across this great land, when Pepper the humanoid robot glides up beside you for a little digital customer service.

Kidding, of course. Hopefully.

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It was advertised like an ordinary real-estate open house, at a residence that looked fine on the outside. But when visitors came for a look inside, they got an eerie surprise—a glimpse at how people can be living in poverty even when they have a roof over their heads.

The Salvation Army and Grey Canada were behind the “Open House” stunt, which has a robust online presence, where you can tour the house yourself. The home is representative of a family living in poverty, and contains plaques and visual displays highlighting the struggles of the more than 300,000 Canadians who live under the poverty line.

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The restaurant business in Brussels has been suffering tremendously since the terrorist attacks of March 22. The bankruptcy rate of eateries in the city has increased by 1500 percent since then, according to ad agency Famous—with a nation of gourmands frequently staying home instead of enjoying dinner out.

Famous decided to do something about this. So it teamed up with De Tijd and L’Echo, the leading national business newspapers in Belgium, for a social campaign called #DiningforBrussels.

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Real Fact #6001: This is one loopy campaign. 

Deutsch pours on the silly for Snapple in new ads that breathe life into those numbered bits of (dubious) information printed inside the brand’s bottle caps.

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Here’s a weird secret: I’m pretty sure the orgasm sounds I make with partners have been influenced by porn.

Now you know more about me than my doctor does.

Why I’m feeding you creepy personal facts: Based on the conviction that 70 percent of Spanish people believe the heaving, animal, almost painful cries depicted in pornography are what an actual woman’s orgasm sounds like, premium sex toy brand Bijoux Indiscrets has created an orgasm library, with help from agency Proximity Madrid. 

It’s a library! Of orgasms!

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“Borders. Has anything good ever come of them?” asks a voiceover in the spot below, as gray-scale images of walls, fences and “No Trespassing” signs speed past.

“Separation? Limits? I’ve seen as many as mankind has been able to create. Invisible borders. Human ones. Between men and women. Between the thin and the fat. Between those who make decisions and those who abide by them.”

At first, it feels like a social-issues PSA, with moody footage of traffic jams, military parades, riots and even a grade-school bathroom “swirly” tossed in for good measure. Actually, it’s a commercial for a leading brand in Mexico, whose identity isn’t revealed until the final seconds of the riveting minute-long ad:

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For this year’s Cannes Film Festival, BBDO created four limited-edition beer-can designs for Stella Artois. But instead of promoting the brand’s values in a traditional way—flashier takes on the logo and the like—the series of cans tell a comic book-style story that takes place on the legendary Croisette. 

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