Hasta La Creative!

Perhaps you've seen RPA's new TV spots for the Honda Odyssey, which has the world's first in-car vacuum cleaner. The ads, voiced by Neil Patrick Harris and Rainn Wilson, feature junk on the minivan's floor—crayons, candy, lint balls, tiny toys—chatting obliviously before getting sucked up by the vacuum.

On Tuesday, RPA launched a social element, in which @Honda is tweeting at snack and toy brands, warning them about what's in store if they fall on the floor of an Odyssey. The idea is fun, and the tweets are generally decent—but the added bonus is that many of the brands are responding or retweeting, extending the reach of the communications beyond Honda's 176,000 followers. Well, OK, there have been snarky replies, too.

Check out some of the tweets below, along with the TV spots.
 

Little dropped snacks everywhere, your days are numbered. The Odyssey with available vacuum is here. Whoooooooosh.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

I will #HaveAbreak. To devour your crumbs on the floor @KITKAT. – The Honda Odyssey Touring Elite with Built-in HondaVAC.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Hey @BurgerKing, we'll be #Satisfried when we've vacuumed every one of you off our floors. – Odyssey with available HondaVAC

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Now showing in the Honda Odyssey Touring Elite Theater: Attack of the Popcorn-Devouring HondaVAC. Watch out @OrvillePopcorn & @PopSecret.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Powerful crunch vs powerful suction. Hmm, I think I win. See you soon @doritos. – Odyssey w/ available HondaVAC. pic.twitter.com/cYYBTuVAwx

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Kids love snacking on you, @RedVines. Unless you end up on the floor. Then I do. Sincerely, the Odyssey with an available HondaVAC

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Mmmmmmmm. The rainbow is tasty @Skittles. Sincerely, The Honda Odyssey Touring Elite with built-in HondaVAC. pic.twitter.com/wGnkRrrsfI

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Dear @mmsgreen, you may melt in mouths, but you get sucked up on Odyssey Touring Elite floors. Sincerely, Built-in HondaVAC.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Dear @LEGO_Group, Friendly reminder: bricks on the floor are mine. Your fan, The Odyssey w/ an available HondaVAC pic.twitter.com/V36BrAgFBW

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

We love how juicy you are, @Starburst. Just not when you're on the floor. Sincerely, The Honda Odyssey with and available Built-in HondaVAC.

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

You know what’s wonderful, @GetCrackin? A clean van. I plan to keep it that way. Sincerely, The Odyssey Touring Elite with Built-in HondaVAC

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

Dear @Oreo, nothing personal, we just don’t like your crumbs on our seats – Odyssey w available Built-in HondaVAC pic.twitter.com/fG5vN7SZvK

— Honda (@Honda) October 1, 2013

It was the greatest ad seeking an executive assistant in the history of executive assistants—sending applicants from an intimidating Craigslist post through a set of ludicrous online challenges and on to many rounds of interviews (in person and in Google Hangouts).

"Rich Silverstein answers to nobody," said the ad. "And that nobody could be you."

A month later, we have a winner.

After receiving a staggering 4,500 applications, San Francisco agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners today revealed Rich Silverstein's new assistant. Her name is Grace Diebel. The Fairfax, Calif., native and U.C. Davis graduate wasn't put off by the horror stories of how demanding Silverstein can be. Like most of the applicants, she was intrigued by the creativity of the job listing and figured the work would be just as interesting.

"I could tell they were having fun with it. I thought, 'Yeah, this guy is probably a little intimidating,' but I wasn't afraid," she says in a Q&A. "I was a fan of the posters and branding-identity work that he'd done for the Golden Gate National Parks, so I thought that somebody who loved the outdoors and Marin [County] couldn't be all that bad."

Diebel, who was brought into the agency three times for eight separate interviews, starts this Monday. "The most important thing is that this isn't a reality-show contest; this is a job," she says. "And I was picked because they think I can do the job. So I'm going to do the job really well."

Here's a pretty clever new chapter in Samsung's long-running mockery of Apple line-waiters. For the launch of the Galaxy S4, New Zealand agency Colenso BBDO created a "Smart Phone Line"—a digital queue that fans could join and then move up in line by posting in social media about the phone. A large screen in Auckland actually showed the avatars waiting in line, sharing tweets in real time and skipping ahead. (The fan who worked his or her way to the front of the line by launch got a free S4.) As a subtle jab to Apple fanboys notoriously willing to endure anything for a new iPhone, Samsung's virtual line-waiters curled up in sleeping bags at night and put up umbrellas when it rained. Watch the case study below to see how it worked and hear the results. Via Ads of the World.

Adobe just passed the 1 million subscriber mark for its Adobe Creative Cloud and is celebrating with this eye-catching spot from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners—a salute to "the new creatives" in art and advertising.

"Creatives today do a little bit of everything, from illustration to filmmaking to Web design," says GSP associate creative director Will Elliott. "We wanted the spot to celebrate how all these different disciplines are coming together."

The spot features a series of artists whose work is projected across their faces. The artists include Joshua Davis, Dylan Roscover, Anita Fontaine, Jeremy Fish and Alejandro Chavetta. Additional artwork was crowdsourced from Behance.

The soundtrack is "Default" by Django Django. Full credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Adobe
Spot: "I Am the New Creative"
Campaign: "The New Creatives"
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

Creative
Co-Chairman, Creative Director: Rich Silverstein
Associate Creative Director: Will Elliott
Senior Art Director: Patrick Knowlton
Art Director: Sam Luchini
Copywriter: Roger Baran

Production
Director of Broadcast Production: Cindy Fluitt
Executive Producer: Cat Reynolds
Director of Graphic Services: Jim King

Account
Associate Director, Account Management: Todd Grantham
Account Director: Joel Giullian
Account Manager: Varoon "V.J." Jain
Assistant Account Manager: Laura Black

Strategy
Group Brand Strategy Director: John Thorpe
Brand Strategy Director: Brendan Robertson

Media
Group Communication Strategy Director: Dong Kim
Senior Communication Strategist: Nicole Richards

Production Company: eLevel Films
Director: Brady Baltezore
Executive Producers: P.J. Koll, James Horner
Producer: Chris Whitney
Director of Photography: Juli Lopez
Stills Camera: Claude Shade

Postproduction: eLevel
Post Producer: Katharine O'Hara
Visual Effects Supervisor: Nathan Shipley
Animation: Jessica Gibson
Editor: Erik Johnson
Assistant Editor: Quinn Moticka

Remember the "Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway" song from way back in 2010? How about the theme song from Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the 1990s? Parry Gripp was the songwriter behind the simian parody, and the frontman of onetime geek-rock band Nerf Herder, which created the intro music for the supernatural TV show. Now, he's expanding his offbeat oeuvre into anti-asthma PSAs with a series of songs performed by a group of puppets named The Breathe Easies.

Created with agency The Barbarian Group for the Ad Council, the spots, running on radio and online in English and Spanish, feature titles like "Clean Up the Mold" and "Don't Smoke in the House." The lyrics include gems like, "Don't break my heart with your second-hand smoke"—an Auto-Tuned solo, of course. The bright pastels and tongue-in-cheek presentation—Pee-wee's Playhouse meets Sesame Street—succeed at making sad and gross subject matter less off-putting. And it's hard to blame them for playing the unapologetically cheesy jingle angle, given that the cause would be all but invisible otherwise.

And who doesn't want to spend the rest of the day humming to themselves about vacuuming the floor—especially if the alternative is singing about a cookie or a pickup truck?

Apple has always been all or nothing when it comes to color. "1984" was all doom and gloom with just a flash of red running shorts. "Think Different" was mostly black and white. The TV work, from "Switchers" to "Get a Mac" to most iPhone demos, has been lots of stark white. And yet Apple loves color—from the five hues of the original iMac through all the gloriously vibrant iPod advertising. Now, Apple can celebrate color again, with the iPhone 5C (the C itself stands for color), and here's the first commercial for it—a trippy, drippy little production that visually enlivens a brand that's seemed quite ashen of late. Seemingly taking its cues from candy advertising, the spot shows the phones solidifying into shape out of flowing liquid—in footage that would make Nestlé proud. Perhaps this is why the phone is priced lower. In a pinch, you could try eating it.

Virgin Mobile has been retraining your brain for a while. Now, it wants to borrow your eyes.

In a fun stunt called BlinkWashing from Mother New York and rehabstudio, the mobile carrier makes its sales pitch in 25 separate but linked YouTube videos—which you control simply by blinking. (The site uses your webcam to find your eyes, and then accurately detect your blinks.) The best part is, all the videos are time-coded and "smart cached," so that when you blink, the next video's dialogue picks up where the previous one left off. In other words, blink and you won't miss it.

The videos themselves offer an impressive assortment of oddball characters and scenes. There are even Mother employees featured in the spots: Gabriel Blido, sporting his astounding mustache, and Debra Dean, who shows off her hip-hop dancing skills.

Give it a spin over at Virgin Mobile's YouTube page.

McDonald's and Burrell Communications update a classic Super Bowl spot from 1993, pitting Joe Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens and Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers, the opposing quarterbacks from the big game in February, against each other in a contest for the chain's Mighty Wings. Their competition features improbable passes through distant goalposts. First one to miss watches the winner eat.

The original commercial starred Larry Bird and Michael Jordan playing a game of Horse for a Big Mac. Their increasingly crazy contest took them from a basketball arena to the top of Chicago's Sears Tower as Jordan called a fantastical shot: "Off the expressway, over the river, off the billboard, through the window, off the wall …"

That tale was self-contained, and fittingly, there was no winner, giving the impression that the two titans would battle for all eternity, ultimately bouncing balls off the moon and stars in their quest for a burger. (Luckily, McDonald's food would still be in decent condition no matter how long they played.) The reboot has two parts. The first 30-second installment (posted below) breaks on TV tonight and ends on a cliffhanger, as a power failure throws the quarterbacks into darkness—"Oh man, not again!"—and someone apparently tries to make off with their box of wings. Who could it be? Jordan and/or Bird? Tim Tebow? Miley Cyrus? (OK, we know it's not Tebow.) The revelation comes in Part 2, set to air Oct. 6.

Marlena Peleo-Lazar, chief creative officer at McDonald's USA, calls the remake "a fresh take on an idea our customers have loved, but in a sport they haven't seen us do it with." That's all well and good, and the effort is certainly getting buzz. Still, a remake with stars from a different sport was hardly necessary. And regardless of the big reveal, and even with original director Joe Pytka behind the camera, it was doomed to pale by comparison with the original commercial.

Don't get me wrong. The new ad is well-made and amusing … but Bird and Jordan, in this context, cannot be replaced. They were more than great athletes. They were transcendent figures who helped define the popular culture of their generation. Flacco and Kaepernick are gifted on-field performers, and seem like nice enough guys, but they lack the stature and quite frankly, the charisma of their predecessors. The 1993 spot felt right because you really could picture Larry and Michael playing a little one-on-one for their personal edification, sans cameras, ribbing each other for each missed shot. Flacco and Kaepernick, well, I guess they'd have a throwing contest if McDonald's paid them lots of money to do it in a commercial.

Plus, the blackout, echoing the one that stopped Super Bowl XLVII for 30 minutes, and the "To be continued" aspect feel like cutesy gimmicks added to compensate for the new spot's inability to match up to its inspiration.

If Bird and Jordan don't make an encore appearance in Part 2, it would be disappointing, because that's what the setup demands. If they do, it could seem pat and predictable. The original was nothing but net. So far, the remake feels like an incomplete pass.

BETC and Canal+ together produced one of the most beloved ads of recent years in "The Bear," a hilarious and impeccably produced spot that won the Film Craft Grand Prix at Cannes in 2012. The French agency and client are now back with their latest commercial—an intriguingly odd production starring a bunch of dwarf clowns.

Why dwarf clowns? The spot promotes a new Canal+ channel, launching this month, that's fully dedicated to TV series. The great thing about TV series is you're always dying to see what happens next. Likewise, in watching this ad, the viewer has no idea who these dwarf clowns are, or what they're going to do next. And then, at the end, it turns out, rather absurdly, that they've been subjected to a cliffhanger themselves, which explains their peripatetic behavior.

"The idea was to make an intriguing film that creates suspense—you can't wait to find out how it ends. Just like when you watch a good series," says Stéphane Xiberras, president and chief creative officer of BETC Paris. "This was one of the reasons we chose dwarf clowns; in great series there's often something a bit odd about the unusual characters that makes you become attached to them—a cop serial killer, a depressed mafioso, a family of undertakers."

The spot was shot in Vancouver this summer. It was directed by Steve Rogers and will be followed by an outdoor campaign all over France. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Canal+
Client Management: Alice Holzman, Elodie Bassinet, Anne-Gaëlle Petri, Coline André
Agency: BETC Paris
Agency Management: Bertille Toledano, Guillaume Espinet, Alix de Luze, Pauline Filippi, Marius Chiumino
Executive Creative Director: Stephane Xiberras
Copywriter: Jean-Christophe Royer
Art Director: Eric Astorgue
Assistant Art Director: Damien Binello
Strategic Planning: Clarisse Lacarrau, Vianney Vaute
Traffic: Coralie Chasset
TV Producer: Isabelle Menard
Production Company: Wanda
Producer: Jérôme Denis
Sound Production: Kouz
Director: Steve Rogers

I sometimes think billboards are watching, beaming out messages meant just for me. Then I get back on my meds, and everything seems fine. Anyway, BMW's Mini, as part of its "Not Normal" campaign, worked with agencies Iris and Vizeum over the summer to personalize content to drivers of its cars on nine consecutive digital billboards along a busy London motorway. Spotters armed with iPads identified approaching Minis, and the text and images on the boards were then tailored to the individual cars. Drivers' photos were even flashed on signs further up the road. Offers of commuting snacks, car washes and flowers were also in the mix. For example, a driver in a grey Mini drove past successive signs that read, "Early start, Mr. Grey Mini driver? … Need a pick me up? … Fancy a tasty bacon butty? … Mini's buying … See you at the next garage." Nearly 2,000 Mini drivers received such personal greetings in a week. All those folks driving Vauxhalls probably felt sullen and neglected. But that's nothing new for them, now is it?