Hasta La Creative!

Ever wanted to view your whole world through the earthy optimism of Instagram filters? On the off chance your answer is "yes," then you'll want to check out a new brand of Wayfarer-style sunglasses called Tens.

Calling their creation "a real life photo filter," the makers of Tens set out quite a while back to bring the vibe of Instagram to everything around you. 

"What if there was a way that we could skip all the cameras and apps?" co-founder Marty Bell recalls the team asking themselves. "What if there was a way we could filter everything we see while being disconnected from technology?"

The process clearly wasn't an easy one, as co-founder Kris Reid explains in the video below.

"After two-and-a-half years of exhausting sampling and switching between different supplies, trying to create the perfect lens, we finally have a product that we truly believe in."

The sunglasses are available for preorder on crowdfunding incubator site IndieGogo, where the project has raised roughly 1,700 percent of its goal.

Despite their clear popularity, the sunglasses may leave others skeptical about whether the creators have really achieved their goal of disconnecting us from technology. Is this an example of inspiring people to get out and enjoy the real world, or is it another case of the Internet saturating the rest of our lives?

Via Quartz.

Amy Poehler is back to grilling strangers about their Old Navy outfits.

Last month, she played a high-powered lawyer questioning a job applicant about her checkered pants. Here, she plays a server at a fast-food burrito joint, pressing a customer about a red dress.

It's not easy to dissociate Old Navy's Poehler from her intense part as Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation, but still fun to see the rapid-fire style translated to roles outside of a small-town middle-America bureaucracy. Like the law firm ad, the outtakes for the fast-food commercial include some added gems—including the evergreen gift of watching a usually deadpan comic lose it and crack up midtake.

That's assuming viewers don't run out to buy clothes before the video's done.

Agency: Chandelier Creative.

There's dark humor, and then there's morbid humor. And then there are these French-made ads for Burlington socks, which likely don't qualify as any sort of humor whatsoever. 

The brand's newest ad opens on the deathbed of a weeping grandfather clinging to his last threads of life. When his initially sympathetic grandson notices the dying man is sporting some nice socks, he decides to mock Grandpa's suffering and then gleefully murder him.

"I've seen a lot of shock campaigns," writes veteran ad critic Marc van Gurp on his cause marketing site, Osocio. "But this French spot from sock brand Burlington exceeds all bounds of decency."

Sadly, the euthanasia ad isn't even the worst one created for the German brand by French agency Pain Surprises, which may or may not be creating these spots under a legitimate ad contract. (Burlington France's supposed Facebook and Twitter channels only mention the agency's work, which seems suspect, although several reports in the French press say it's a real brand campaign.)

Last October, they posted a spot that's one big joke about a mom appearing to perform sex acts on her young son. (Spoiler alert: She's not.) You can check out that uncomfortable oddity below. 

Then there's the ad from earlier last year that opens with a naked man saying, "Look at me, motherfuckers." There's more to it, but there's not really more to it.

Some will (logically) argue that we shouldn't give undue attention to ads that are this morally bankrupt. But sometimes it's good to scrape the bottom of the barrel to see what's festering down there and remind ourselves that American advertising's not quite as repugnant as it could be. Um, yay? 

Warning: Video contains NSFW language (and a naked guy).

If I could stand up and Top Gun high-five a brand right now, it would definitely be Aerie and its new Aerie Real campaign.

The sister brand of American Eagle markets bras, panties and sleepwear to girls 15-21—girls in high school and college who are notoriously bombarded with the message "You need to be hot." Lest you think I exaggerate, surf Tumblr or the hashtag #thinspiration on Instagram, and you'll see what I mean.

Aerie's new ads are unretouched. The girls you see in the ads are what they look like in real life, which is, sadly, groundbreaking. The models are wearing makeup, they look healthy, the poses are flattering, and the lighting is perfect. But theres's been no Photoshop-surgery removal of skin folds or digital slimming of thighs and stomachs. The copy on the print ads declares, "The girl in this photo has not been retouched. The real you is sexy."

"But these particular girls don't need retouching," you say. And I would agree that the girls are probably pretty close to flawless in real life. But in a world where Photoshop morphs already super hot models into super hot models with thigh gap and flawless skin and inhuman proportions (Google Victoria's Secret Photoshop Fails for glorious examples), this is a step in the right direction.

The changes to the Aerie website might be my favorite part. When shopping for a bra, most websites let you shop by size, but whether or not you click 32AA or 40DD, you're still looking at the same model sporting the "ideal" 36C breast size. When you surf on the Aerie site, clicking on a 32AA bra size will show you a model wearing a 32AA sized bra on her 32AA sized breasts. Same for 40DD. And the models are all smiling.

I love that this is what 15-year-old girls will see when they go bra shopping. It's such a stark contrast to Victoria's Secret's Pink line (marketed to the same crowd), which features models that are so Photoshopped they kind of look like really glowy superhumans.

Nice work, Aerie. I hope other brands follow suit. I love seeing this for the high school/college crowd, but I'd be ecstatic if this trend worked its way up to brands that serve older demographics as well.

More images below. Via The Huffington Post.

As an actor, Christopher Walken can effortlessly stretch from insanely intense to intensely insane. The cooler end of his range comes into play in these darkly stylish spots by Copenhagen ad agency &Co. and director Martin Werner for Danish clothier Jack & Jones.

"Made From Cool" is the theme, and Walken portrays a weird tailor who goes about his clothes-making chores in strange, presumably supernatural fashion on impressive sets that recall Anton Furst's neo-Gothic vision of Gotham City. Check out the sheep's look of shear terror about eight seconds into the first spot below. Its expression seems to say: Holy crap, it's Christopher Walken!

Though famed for his voice, Walken doesn't utter a word. Perhaps he sewed his mouth shut by mistake. The Oscar winner's silence ratchets up the tension and enhances the hypnotic atmosphere. This dude's piercing, otherworldly gaze is just sick. My pants aren't ready? Whatever! Just get outta my head, freaky tailor!

Soiling their skivvies is not an option for slackliners Antoine Moineville and Tancrède Melet as they perform mind-bogglingly dangerous stunts 2,500 meters above the ground in the French Alps for a video promoting Paul Smith underwear's autumn/winter collection. (For all you Americans, 2,500 meters works out in feet to, roughly … lemme see … carry the one, OK … super freaking high.) Clad in Paul Smith fashions throughout, Moineville and Melet wind up in nothing but boxers as they bounce around spiky, snow-capped cliffs, tightrope-walk above lofty gorges and do handstands on mountaintops.

The three-minute clip was created to "celebrate the vibrancy" of the brand, and it ranks as a finely crafted, compelling piece of content that in some ways transcends its marketing mission. Since this is, ultimately, a commercial posted online, there's really no tension in the central concept. We know the daredevils won't take any tragic headers into the valley below; everything will turn out just fine. And yet, the clip is so well done, it still manages to evoke an edge-of-your-seat aura. (I got so caught up in the action, I forgot they wouldn't die. And I mean that as a sincere compliment.)

Of course, the performers deserve most of the credit, but props also to producer/director Sébastien Montaz-Rosset for his crisp, documentary-style photography. This is achieved, in part, by using a very cool James Bond-ian drone camera copter, which we see hovering around Moineville and Melet in "Behind the Scenes" footage that's just as riveting as the main video.

It's worth contrasting Paul Smith's approach with another recent high-altitude brand-content "thriller" that I found far less effective. This summer, the first installment of Range Rover's "The Driven Challenges" series starred stunt racer Paul Dallenbach setting a speed record on Pikes Peak. Though well made, that effort fell flat by overloading on Hollywood-style editing, narration and music cues to build suspense. In the Paul Smith video, the cinematography is awesome but simple, allowing the action to unfold naturally with few distractions. The music by British duo Snakehips isn't ever intrusive. Sometimes we just hear the wind. And overt branding is kept to an absolute minimum.

Moreover, watching this clip makes me realize that I have never been truly alive … not for one single second of my sedentary, risk-averse earthbound existence.

I salute you, nearly naked Alpine acrobats! Writing the post in my tighty whities, sitting cross-legged on my comfy couch, I salute you!

After years of the hard sell, some regional and national retailers are actually trying to build brands. Last month, Men's Warehouse jettisoned its bearded chairman from its advertising (after jettisoning him from the company) in favor of a music-driven approach. And last week, Sleepy's put its first outside agency to work with playful new ads. Now, Burlington gets a brand makeover in a character-driven campaign from Silver + Partners.

Directed by Harold Einstein, TV ads feature adults in public spaces oddly voicing their internal thoughts about their clothes and what they represent. And while the clothes don't make the man (or woman), they may reflect his or her personality—at least according to the campaign. Each ad segues from a series of verbal thought balloons to pop-up images of clothes and a male voice that says, "Style says it all." Oh, and there's a bit of hard sell via on-screen copy that notes, "Up to 65% off department store prices every day." The tagline: "Style is everything."

The effort broke this week and follows a similar push by the retailer for back-to-school clothes in ads featuring kids speaking their minds—via internal voices, this time—as they view themselves (and their clothes) in the mirror. Best of that bunch: a boy in a striped shirt and jeans who thinks, "I'm about to go ninja in here," before he strikes a karate pose.

CREDITS
Client: Burlington
Campaign: "Style Says It for You
Agency: Silver + Partners
Chief Creative Director: Eric Silver
Creative Director, Copywriter: Ashley Marshall
Creative Director, Art Director: Jaclyn Rink Crowley
Managing Director: Michael Stefanski
Account Director: Lauren Pollare
Senior Producers: Chris Thielo, Terry Brogan
Production Company: Station Film
Director: Harold Einstein
Managing Partner: Stephen Orent
Executive Producer: Eric Liney
Editorial: The Now Corporation
Editor: Jesse Reisner
Executive Producer: Nancy Finn
Post, Finishing: Suspect
Managing Partners: Rob Appelblatt, Tim Crean
Director: Hoon Chong
Creative Director: Colin McGreal
Director of Photography: Evan Cohen
Producers: Tsiliana Jolson, Kevin Daly, Alexander Decaneas
Lead Animator: Damien Cho
Lead Flame Artist: Brendan O'Neil
Telecine: Co3
Colorist: Tim Masick

CREDITS
Client: Burlington
Campaign: Back to School
Agency: Silver + Partners
Chief Creative Director: Eric Silver
Creative Director, Copywriter: Ashley Marshall
Creative Director, Art Director: Jaclyn Rink Crowley
Managing Director: Michael Stefanski
Account Director: Lauren Pollare
Senior Producer: Chris Thielo
Production Company: Coverdale
Director: Amir Farhang
Executive Producer: Andy Coverdale
Editorial: The Now Corporation
Editor: Jesse Reisner
Executive Producer: Nancy Finn
Post/End Tag Animation: Hornet Inc.
Designer: David Hill
Executive Producer: Jan Stebbins
Producer: Cathy Kwan
Post/Finishing: Suspect
Producers: Tsiliana Jolson
Telecine: Co3
Colorist: Tim Masick
Audio Mix: Sound Lounge
Mixer: Tommy Jucarone
EP: Vicky Ferraro

Apparently unable to think up a new idea vapid enough for its liking, Abercrombie & Fitch—the self-proclaimed brand for the cool kids!—revisits its "Stars on the Rise" campaign from the early 2000s, now with new faces. Jacob Artist of Glee, Alexander Ludwig of The Hunger Games and Lily Rabe of American Horror Story are among those featured. Ludwig is shirtless. It looks like he works out. "For many of our consumers today, they might not know what we did in 2005, so it seemed relevant to discuss this concept we've done in the past," Abercrombie director of marketing Michael Scheiner tells BuzzFeed. Strange, he used the word "relevant." Without irony. I think. The monochrome print campaign, shot by Bruce Weber, also features famous dogs, like the Jack Russell terrier from The Artist, for no particular reason. Now, you might say it's just too easy to criticize soulless fashion and fragrance advertising, that there's no sport to it, and that doing so shows a certain intellectual laziness on my part. Well d'uh! The original version of the campaign thrust Taylor Swift and Ashton Kutcher into the limelight. Haven't we suffered enough already?

It's fairly well established that Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't want the wrong sort of people wearing its clothes. A couple of years back, it even offered (as part of a goofy PR stunt) to pay Jersey Shore star Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino to stop buying its apparel, saying his implicit endorsement "could cause significant damage to our image." Now, the clothier is getting heat for its supposedly exclusionary marketing policies once again—this time based on a 7-year-old quote from CEO Mike Jeffries. In the quote—dredged up in the wake of similar criticisms levied at A&F in a new book—Jeffries says, "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids." That incensed a guy named Greg Karber, who decided to try to piss Jeffries off by giving A&F clothes to the most uncool kids he could find—homeless people. Despite Karber's best intentions, his video of the stunt comes off as forced and, in a way, exploitative itself, as he's simply using the homeless as a tool to trash the brand. (The charity aspect is clearly incidental.) But the video, posted Monday, is quickly closing in on a million views, proving yet again that hating on Abercrombie is a pastime most people can get behind.