Hasta La Creative!

This cute Halloween video from Mekanism introduces a faux product called Lil' Pepsi, "the tiny treat that does the trick at any party!" We're talking about itsy-bitsy cans of soda, maybe 0.5 fluid ounces each, sized to fit in a doll's mini-mini-mini fridge, right next to the itty-bitty beers from that Dish commercial.

We're assured that Lil' Pepsis "are not available anywhere at any time," which is a shame, because most commenters seem enthralled, and Pepsi could make a bundle selling them as curios for keychains and such. (Queens, N.Y., rapper Big Baby Gandhi has a track called "Drink a Lil' Pepsi." It begins: "Drink a lil' Pepsi/Mix it with codeine … Big batch for the whole team." Gosh, I wonder why the song wasn't licensed for this ad?)

Lil' Pepsi sprang from the client's challenge to its in-house marketing execs and domestic agencies to come up with a fun ad concept. The spot is getting a fair share of spooky-week press and starting to pop on YouTube, so I guess that proves there aren't any small ideas. Or maybe it proves there are.

—Jeff Goodby of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners wrote "got milk?"—one of the greatest marketing taglines ever. Here, he looks back at the campaign on its 20th anniversary.

It is perhaps the most boring product imaginable.

We have all tried it. Most of us already own some. There is very little to say about it.

Milk is not new. It is not improved. It is white.

And so it was that when the California Milk Processor Board first asked us to pitch their business in 1993, we were shockingly ambivalent. A number of us simply thought the product was inherently too boring.

Oversimplifications of the history abound. Here's what really happened: Jon Steel and Carole Rankin were at a focus group when the clouds parted and a woman said, "The only time I even think about milk is when I run out of it." Goodby scrawled "got milk?" on a poster board for a meeting and decided it might be a tagline. And Silverstein set it in that typeface that has by now been appropriated ("got ____?") by lots of junk, donuts, wine and Jesus folks.

And of course, a 20-year downturn in California milk consumption leveled off and has even headed upward now and then.

Actually, there were a number of false starts before all that, as you can imagine. Someone noted that people always seem to drink milk along with something else—which was a fine insight, but they wanted to call the campaign "Milk and…" There was also a contingent that perhaps loved hard, milk-fed bodies and whiter teeth a little too much.

In the end, however, the consummate patience and advice of the California Milk Processor Board members, their directors Steve James and Jeff Manning and a cadre of artists like Kinka Usher, Noam Murrow, Michael Bay, Tom Kuntz, Jonathan Elias, Don Piestrup, Terry Heffernan, B-Reel and Method (and hundreds of others there is not room to name) made all the difference. Not to mention dozens of my favorite people ever to have worked at Goodby Silverstein & Partners (if I begin listing them, I am certainly in trouble).

Our research shows that "got milk?" has become the most remembered tagline in beverage history, outstripping those of beer and soft drink companies with budgets many times the size of ours. It is so ubiquitous, in fact, that people don't think of it as a tagline anymore. It is a piece of culture that was always just … there.

We have always felt that it's fitting that the campaign got its start in California, which is at the leading edge of experimentation and health trends. But it has been a long time since it was exclusively a GSP creation. After a period in which the California campaign ran nationally, it has been ably extended by a number of national agencies, and extended into Hispanic America by John Gallegos with a unique humor and artistry.

In short, we have all been very lucky to find each other and have this happen. When something lasts 20 years in a very pure form, it reminds us all how much serendipity and chance contribute to what we like to think is a very orderly, brilliantly orchestrated process.

I wouldn't trade it for anything. May we have 20 more, please.

Late last week, a creative twist on print advertising became a global phenomenon, as the "Auto-Complete Truth" campaign for UN Women exploded across social media and generated worldwide discussion.

AdFreak's writeup of the campaign by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai has been shared more than 116,000 times on Facebook alone, making it the most-shared item of the year on Adweek.com. The campaign has since been featured by hundreds of blogs, news sites and social media feeds around the world. 

"We have been overwhelmed by the instant enthusiasm and support that our campaign has received," says Ronald Howes, managing director of Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai. "This has encouraged us to develop it even further, after the global acclaim that is has received.” 

The client, of course, was ecstatic to see a relatively modest ad campaign spark the exact kind of international debate it was intended for. "UN Women is very heartened by the discussion the campaign has sparked," says Nanette Braun, communications and advocacy chief for UN Women. "Very obviously there is a demand for a global conversation on women’s rights, empowerment and gender equality, which is exactly what the ads were intended to generate.”

To learn more about the campaign and the vocal response it has received, check out our Q&A with the team that created the ads, after the jump:

AdFreak: How did this project come about? Was it intended to be a print campaign from the start, and will these ads actually be running in print?

Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai: This creative idea for UN Women began, as many searches naturally do, on a Google search bar. What we came across was simply shocking. The appalling global results to an auto-correct search of terms such as "women should" was something we felt needed to be shared.

The campaign was published earlier in 2013 in the UAE and became a viral success this week. UN Women plans to publish internationally in the future.

Many of the commenters and people sharing the campaign have been posting screenshots of their own autocompleted searches, with different results around the world. Was this something you hoped the campaign would spark people to try?

We have been pleasantly surprised by the viral success of this campaign. We wanted to start a conversation on the major barriers which are in place of women's economic, political and social empowerment across the globe—issues that UN Women is working to address. We hope that our work will go some way to help raise awareness of the sexist global attitudes toward women and will enable a dialogue to begin on the topic. We encourage people to join in the debate on Twitter with #womenshould, or on the UN Women website.

We are so pleased to see others are inspired by our work and witness the creation of their own versions of our campaign, which tackle other social issues.

Did you selectively edit the results of the Google searches you did for this campaign? Were some irrelevant suggestions tossed out to focus on the most egregious examples of sexism?

What makes our campaign so powerful is its truth and simplicity. None of the searches were engineered to produce these results; that's why we were so shocked to discover them. In order to raise awareness of the inequality women face, we did choose to highlight the most compelling answers, to deliver the most impact, however the search results from Google autocorrect were not falsified in any way.

Some have criticized the campaign by saying that Google autocomplete suggestions have been used in several marketing campaigns in recent years. Were you concerned about this approach seeming derivative or over-used?

Our campaign is not focused on Google autocomplete suggestions. The medium of Google search was merely a base upon which we were able to successfully illustrate our point. Google search is an iconic symbol in our digital world and therefore recognizable for millions of people, so we used this as a vehicle to express our ideas. The truth behind the search about people’s global perceptions is what our campaign focused on, not the technology of Google autocomplete.

Lots of people are debating whether you can actually change these kinds of search results. Do you think it's possible, or is it something that will have to change slowly over time as a barometer of equality?

We are aware that change of this magnitude will not happen overnight! However we hope that our work will go some way to alter perceptions by raising awareness of the issues which women face. 

Now this is what corporate nostalgia should look like. Inspired by responses to the #playstationmemories tag on Twitter, British agency PHD's content division, Drum, created this time-warping video clip that charts the history of PlayStation's evolution all the way back to the ancient past: 1995.

Absurd attention was paid to every single detail in the room, allowing you to watch the nearly three and a half minutes of video over and over while still noticing different subtle changes to the magazines,  posters, figurines and games lying on the floor. The creators even spent a good deal of their budget digitally altering the London skyline instead of just telling us the year had changed.

It all creates a strangely moving effect. I didn't realize how just listening to the start-up sounds of each generation of console would transport me back. I felt real tears lurking at the memories—or maybe I was just mourning how many hours of my youth I'd wasted.

It's really a fantastic clip, one that's dead-on with the sort of nostalgia Sony will have to generate to get its core players to shell out for yet another high-powered console with no backward compatibility. But one thing: Almost 20 years after getting his first PlayStation, and the dude is still living in the same room at home with his mom? Ouch, man. Maybe it's time Daniel ditched the PlayStation and got a JobStation.

Hat tip to Mashable.

I was enjoying Telemundo the other day when Danny Trejo interrupted a trio of cellphone-using friends to save Miller Time.

I don't speak Spanish, but you don't need to in order to appreciate the presence of Trejo. Casanova Pendrill made an excellent choice by casting the toughest of toughs. Without nothing more than a stone cold stare, he castigates the inconsiderate friends who are paying more attention to their technology than to sacred beer time. He inclines his head slightly, his heavy-lidded eyes drifting downward in an unspoken threat. Drop the phones, his face says, before you disappoint me. All three quickly dunk their phones in the Miller Lite ice bucket. Trejo lets a smile flit across his face before turning, his hair whipping back in an unseen wind, presumably running off to protect Miller Time elsewhere.

From New Belgium's app that shuts down your phone when you're drinking to the Offline Glass, which stands up straight only if it's resting on your cellphone, bars and beer companies are taking a stand against social media's social-killing effect. Of course, none of them stand quite as tall as Trejo.

R/GA London showcases a large, intricate retro-scientific device that mixes ingredients and pours a perfect glass of Baileys in this spot, which helps introduce a line extension infused with Belgian chocolate for the venerable Diageo brand.

The short online film, Liquid Alchemy—the Art of Baileys Chocolat Luxe, created without any CGI, channels the spirit of Honda's classic "Cog" ad from a decade ago. This machine/factory/Rube Goldberg-esque approach is overused in ads and a tad too familiar for my taste. Still, this one's stylish and could find an audience.

A trippy companion TV spot from ad agency 101 shows chocolate, cream and whiskey flowing and swirling, coalescing into an iPhone 5S—wait, sorry, no, coalescing into a wraithlike woman. It's visually impressive, though the female face that bobs amid the liquor and ice looks a bit like a drowning victim. Waiter, I'll have the Kahlua instead!