Hasta La Creative!

All this talk about the TV commercials on the Super Bowl, but who could forget about the radio commercials? Well, almost everyone. But not WestwoodOne, which aired the game on Sunday and just released a list of the five best radio ads of the night.

The big winner was Motel 6, which placed the top spot—an amusing ad from The Richards Group called "Autocorrect," narrated by Tom Bodett, the chain's spokesman for going on 30 years. The ads that placed second, third and fourth—for Tilted Kilt restaurants, Subway and Exergen—are honestly pretty wretched. Coming in at No. 5 is Taco Bell, whose ad will elicit some chuckles as well.

Check out the Motel 6 and Taco Bell ads below.

I never thought I'd hear Tegan and Sara in an Oreo commercial, but I also never thought Tegan and Sara would make bouncy dance pop, so everything's up in the air at this point.

The Canadian duo provided a pretty awesome version of the "Wonderfilled" jingle for this "Dare to Wonder" ad from The Martin Agency (it first aired during the Grammys) promoting a series of limited-release Oreo flavors including berry, peanut butter, lemon and mint. Honestly, all those sound really gross, but the jingle is right in line with Tegan and Sara's lyrical sensibilities, and of course they didn't even write them—the ad agency did.

Living in a world where Tegan and Sara play a song they didn't write for the purpose of selling junk food feels a bit strange, but they've said they don't make albums to keep their old fans, so perhaps that same principle has been applied here.

Attention men: Want hair-care products that turn your hair into a sentient toupee capable of the most charming antics?

No? Really, it's better that it sounds. It's great for when you're in a business meeting and some dial tone is droning on about whatever who cares, and the hot woman across the table is eyeing you hard … it will mack on your behalf without anyone noticing.

So says one of two new oddball spots from Wieden + Kennedy for Old Spice hair products, vaguely reminiscent of Axe's walking-hair-loves-headless-boobs commercial from 2012. (The director, Tom Kuntz, also has experience working with hair that has a mind of its own—going back to Skittles' "Beard.")

Another new Old Spice ad tells you that your creepy-furry head pet will also serve you exceptionally well when you're on a date at the boardwalk. Just look at the magical surprise it can pull, hands-free, out of the arcade claw.

It really is the perfect marriage of the campaign's tagline, "Hair that gets results," and the brand's classic marketing ethos—"If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."

Credits plus a print ad below.

CREDITS  
Client: Old Spice
Spots: "Meeting" and "Boardwalk"

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Craig Allen, Jason Bagley
Copywriter: Jason Kreher
Art Director: Max Stinson
Producers: Hayley Goggin, Katie Reardon
Account Team: Georgina Gooley, Liam Doherty, Nick Pirtle, Jessica Monsey, Michael Dalton
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman, Joe Staples
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Tom Kuntz
Executive Producer: Scott Howard
Line Producer: Emily Skinner
Director of Photography: Andre Chemetoff

Editorial Company: McKenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Assistant Editor: Ryan Steele
Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld

Visual Effects Company: Framestore
Visual Effects Supervisor: Alex Thomas
Compositing Supervisor: Russell Dodgson
Producers: Tram Le, Claudia Lecaros
Flame: Stefan Smith, Trent Shumway
Nuke Leads: Vanessa DuQuesnay, Jonni Isaacs, J.D. Yepes
Nuke: Geoff Duquette, Jason Phua, Carl Schroter, Jack Fisher, Anthony Lyons, Katerina Arroyo, Nick Sorenson, Kenneth Quinn Brown

Music Company: Rumblefish
Producer: Mikey Ecker

Final Mix Studio: Lime Studios
Post Engineer: Loren Silber
Assistant Engineer: Patrick Navarre
Producer: Jessica Locke

Color Transfer: CO3
Artist: Stefan Sonnenfeld

Esurance is doing a fun little stunt tonight that should get some attention.

The online insurance company has bought the first commercial slot after the the final whistle of the Super Bowl. The company says that cost $1.5 million less than running an in-game execution—and it's using the ad to announce a Twitter sweepstakes in which it will give that money away to a lucky viewer who tweets the hashtag #EsuranceSave30.

To keep as many viewers' attention from drifting as possible, Esurance has gotten The Office star John Krasinski, its voiceover talent since 2012, to appear on camera for the first time in this spot, created by Leo Burnett.

After the ad airs, you will have 36 hours to tweet #EsuranceSave30 for a chance to win. Krasinski will unveil the winner on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday.

Newcastle Brown Ale, which didn't buy airtime in Sunday's Super Bowl but is doing a wonderfully silly campaign about how it almost did, rolled out more content from Droga5 this week—including the hilarious endorsement below by Anna Kendrick.

Just like last week's Newcastle trailer was the year's best Super Bowl teaser, Kendrick's performance will surely be the funniest among this year's celebs.

Newcastle has done a lot of great stuff around this faux Super Bowl campaign, including a brilliantly self-mocking native ad on Gawker as well as bogus focus-group videos and another endorsement video starring Keyshawn Johnson.

"It seemed like the obvious thing we had to do, and unfair to the world if we didn't," Newcastle brand director Quinn Kilbury said of the Super Bowl ambush. "The Super Bowl is great. The game is amazing, everyone loves the game. But it's become much more about marketing in some ways, and the over-the-top ridiculousness that surrounds it. I saw a lot of that when I was doing the real Super Bowl marketing stuff over at Pepsi, so it's close to my heart, and it is a little ridiculous sometimes. For a brand that likes to poke fun at marketing, we had to poke fun at Super Bowl marketing at some point."

He added: "The brief to Droga5 was, essentially, hijack the conversation around Super Bowl marketing. We had a couple of ideas, but essentially that was it. At first I think we saw doing something around the game itself, but then we thought if you're going to do the Super Bowl, or the Super [Bleep], as we're calling it, you have to be true to the whole marketing show. You have to treat the commercial like it's a $100 million blockbuster."

See the rest of the content below.

Let's take a break from the pre-Super Bowl ad madness to take a look at a spot for that ­other big February sporting event—that's right, we're talking about the Sochi Winter Olympics—that might be just as good as any of the best ads we'll see this Sunday.

Over the next few weeks, JCPenney will be encouraging customers to round up purchases to the nearest dollar to support the U.S. Olympic Committee. To promote the campaign, Penney came up with an extremely random but also sort-of-genius concept: an Olympics-themed remake (by EVB and Victors & Spoils) of Blackstreet's 1996 hip-hop classic "No Diggity" featuring alpine skier (and 2006 gold medal winner) Ted Ligety. And if that's not bizarre-slash-wonderful enough for you, the retailer got Blackstreet's own C. Black to perform it and star in the video.

"Go Ligety" loosely parodies Blackstreet's original "No Diggity" video, but with JCPenney being a family brand and all, there are some pretty major changes: Rather than having scantily clad video girls emerge from a limo, the "Go Ligety" backup dancers are a group of minivan-driving suburban moms. Instead of lyrics like "Strictly bitch, you don't play around/Cover much ground, got game by the pound," we get, "There is no better way/To say hooray for Team USA." And this time, the puppet version of C. Black has a friend: a Lil' Ligety marionette!

A word of advice before watching this spot: Be prepared to have "Go Ligety" stuck in your head for the next 24 hours. That is, if you haven't started humming it already.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: JCPenney
Spot: "Go Ligety"
Agency: EVB, Victors & Spoils
Group Creative Directors: Steve Babcock, Noah Clark
Creative Directors: Rich Ford, David Gonsalves
Art Director: Zack Roif
Executive Integrated Producer: Lisa Effress
Account Director: Lynn Harris
Account Manager: Mike Dusman
Production Company: World War Seven
Director: Shillick
Executive Producer (Production Company): Josh Ferrazzano
Producer (Production Company): Mike Begovich
Director of Photography: Max Gutierrez
Postproduction: Coyote Post
Editor: Jared Varava
Assistant Editor: David Monoco
Music Company: Beacon Street Studios
Music Producer: Caitlin Rocklen
Musician, Singer: Chauncey Black
Licensed Track: No Diggity
Arrangers: Mike Franklin, Dewey Thomas
Sound Designer: Mike Franklin
Visual Effects Company: Coyote Post
Visual Effects Producer: Heidi Spencer
Colorist: Paul Byrne
Business Affairs: Platinum Rye
Planners: Carlisle Hensley, Sara Smith
Choreographer: Michael Franklin
Puppeteer: Michelle Zamora

This new ad in Subaru and Carmichael Lynch's "Love" campaign opens on a scene we all dread—a car with a flat tire, and of course it's raining. We see a girl in a raincoat crouched down next to her car, getting drenched while she faces the challenge of changing it. Odessa's beautiful "I Will Be There" plays throughout ("If you ever need someone to hold you/I will be there/Standing by your side"), and I can't help but inwardly cheer her on. I won't give this one away; you need to watch it for yourself. It's good. Really good. Another winner from a company that tells these kinds of stories particularly well.

Colangelo's new TV ads for Trojan are refreshingly quiet and subtle, with adults and a male teenager alluding to sex without snickering or blushing. That said, the subject behind the dialogue-driven ads, which break today and were directed by Gavin O'Connor in his commercial debut, is never in doubt.

In "Big Date," the teen, in an interesting role reversal, plants a condom in the shirt pocket of his middle-aged dad who's leaving for a date. "Miss You" shows a boy longing for his traveling dad as much as his mom misses her man, only to smile when she finds a Trojan present from him in a dresser. "Happy Birthday" is the only ad set in bed, with a thirtysomething couple celebrating some early morning action. But hey, they're relaxed about it, so you don't feel creepy watching them.

Indeed, this campaign is more mellow than naughty, so much so that TV networks will air the ads earlier in the evening than they have in the past, according to Dave Clemans, Colangelo's executive creative director.

The tagline, underscored by three simple piano notes, is "Real. Good. Sex."

CREDITS
Client: Church & Dwight
Brand: Trojan
Agency: Colangelo
Executive Creative Director: Dave Clemans
Creative Directors: Chris Stevenson, John Wagner
Art Director: Wendy Shapiro
Agency Executive Producer: Ilene Richardson
Managing Director: Jim O’Neill
Group Account Directors: Elizabeth Geary, Dan Liu
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Production Company: Saville Productions
Executive Producer: Rupert Maconick
Head of Production: Michelle Traviniski
Producer: Jay Spangler
Director of Photography: Mandy Walker
Editorial: The Cutting Room Films
Editor: Brian Sanford
Editorial Executive Producer: Melissa Lubin
Editorial Senior Producer: Eytan Gutman
Color: Light of Day
Colorist, Online Editor: Joe Wenkoff
Flame, Visual Effects: Colin Stackpole
Sound Mixer: Walter Bianco

God bless Newcastle Brown Ale. As much as we all enjoy advertising when it's good, so much of it—as Newcastle would say—is bollocks. The British brewer (with help from Droga5) has always excelled at skewering irritatingly transparent marketing tactics, and now it sets its sights on the Big Kahuna itself—the Super Bowl.

The faux teasers below launch an "If We Made It" campaign, celebrating the Super Bowl commercial the brewer would have made—if it had been able to afford one. The deadpan copy is spot on, and as ambush marketing goes, the whole campaign is hilariously done as it takes down the overblown process of Super Bowl ad rollouts.

Gird your loins for more content to roll out into the middle of next week.

What if Patrick Bateman were a hipster? It would look a lot like this brilliant remake of two American Psycho scenes, updated for our decade of obsessive beard cultivation and vintage clothing perfection.

The nearly six-minute film, complete with hipsters committing murder set to classical music and comparing their pants like they're comparing their cocks, is actually an ad for Denham the Jeanmaker—whose stores are also now serving coffee. Denham is a small, boutique fashion brand focused on mixing denim with "workwear tradition." It's safe to say they're a brand created for the denim enthusiast, the sort of person who is as interested in the creation process behind their pants as they are in wearing them. In fact, their cheapest jeans currently retail for 130 euros, which may be more than I have spent on all the jeans I have purchased in my lifetime.

Created by Flickering Wall, the parody (aptly titled "Denham Psycho") was created to coincide with the opening of a Denham pop-up store in Berlin, has gone viral by hitting the twin zeitgeist of hipster humor and murderers who love civet coffee. Witness the terrifying brilliance, and fear for vapid, soulless hipsters everywhere.

CREDITS
Client: Denham the Jeanmaker
Agency: Flickering Wall
Directed by Hugo Keijzer
Produced by Remco den Hartog
Cinematography by Robbie van Brussel
Edited by Nils Rensen
Written by Ben Clark
Graphics by Ali Kirby
Costume by Denham