Snack Brand Reaches Out to Coders in Desperate Attempt Not to Be Killed by Robots

When the robopocalypse comes, will you be ready? Or will you at least have some snacks on hand so you can ride out the chaos in an underground bunker somewhere?

A snack brand called Halfpops wants to help—partly by stoking fears that highly advanced artificial intelligence will rise up and kill us one day (soon) and partly by offering sustenance to the robofighting code ninjas among us. These two groups need each other to survive, says Halfpops.

That’s the premise of the brand’s new digital ad campaign, which teases the concept of Armageddon. It’s all in fun, though, so there’s really no need to worry about death by cyborg (at least not yet).

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Deep Breaths, Everyone: McCann Made a Perfume That's Meant to Stimulate Creativity

To celebrate its 70th anniversary in Uruguay, McCann Montevideo has created I CANN Eau de Créativité, a limited-edition fragrance meant to, well, boost creativity. 

“In our research, we determined that creativity is completely emotional and with no logical process,” explains Leándro Gomez, McCann Montevideo’s CEO and general creative director. “We also learned that scents are a powerful medium to convey emotions—in fact, 75 percent of our emotions are connected to scents that immediately take us back to very specific moments of our lives.”

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Corn Dogs Beat Down the Most Monstrous Hunger in This Ad for Foster Farms

A horned, hairy monster represents a pre-teen’s ravenous appetite which, left unchecked, swells to Godzilla-esque proportions in the first-ever ad campaign for Foster Farms Corn Dogs. On the plus side, that furry freak is a beast on the soccer field (we’d pick him for our team any day!)—and the middle-schooler jonesing for a snack never once morphs into Marilyn Monroe:

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Dinosaurs Dance to a Song About Underwear in Happiest Ad Ever About Child Abuse

The Aardman studio, known best for creating Wallace & Gromit, made the rollicking cinema commercial below for the NSPCC’s anti-sexual abuse “Pants” campaign in the U.K. The ad is a four-minute music video for a song, produced by Adelphoi Music and voiced by X Factor’s Peter Dickson, urging children to speak up if someone tries to touch them inappropriately.

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19 Mind-Bending Videos From Advertising's Stop-Motion Master

Short film maestro PES has just signed with BlinkInk, a sensible arrangement that positions the guy who made Honda’s Emmy-nominated “Paper” under the same roof as the Layzell Bros (of Harvey Nichols’ “Shoplifters”) and Greg Barth (whose Hello Play! 360-degree video has the kind of dreamworld weirdness that Michel Gondry pines for).

To celebrate—because we’ll take any excuse to celebrate—we’ve compiled this handy retrospective of ads PES has directed over the years. 

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This Condom Maker Just Designed Some Sportswear Out of the Same Material

A new fashion-flavored campaign is putting a new spin on the idea of a full-body condom.

To prove how comfortable its proprietary non-latex material really is, condom brand Skyn decided to create a line of athletic wear, and put it to the test.

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Esports Team the Immortals Just Made an '80s-Style Dating Video … for Underwear

MeUndies, the makers of perfectly serviceable skivvies, just inked a sponsored ambassadorship with esports team the Immortals … after discovering that one of its members doesn’t own underwear. (Wait. We’ll get there.) 

This week, they released an ’80s-style dating video about finding love. In your pants. 

Titled “Perfect Pair: The Quest for Immortal Love,” it was shared on Facebook and features Huni, Reignover, WildTurtle, Pobelter and Adrian against a laser backdrop, the kind you probably chose for a school picture at some point, if you were stylin’. 

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A&W's Root Beer Mug Has Many Uses Beyond Holding Root Beer, Says Goofy Infomercial

We had high hopes for this A&W Restaurants infomercial by agency Cornett for the A&W mug. Created for InStyle TV, it promised to be tongue-in-cheek, possibly nostalgic and—why not?—mobile friendly. 

Well, it’s definitely mobile friendly, if the vertical panels are any evidence.

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Minnesota in a Box: To Get You to Visit, the State Will Now Visit You First

Take a vacation to Minnesota? Nah, it’s too cold and dreary with all that snow and dreary-ness. Brrr…

To combat this common misperception, Explore Minnesota Tourism tricked out a pair of steel shipping containers for an immersive campaign that invites prospective visitors to “sample” a pair of the state’s diverse attractions and share their experiences via social media.

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Surfers Are Audacious Snails in Samsung's Latest Paean to the Waves

Why did the snail cross the road? To go shoot the curl, of course.

This new ad for Samsung frames the enterprising spirit (or, skeptics might say, the biological hardwiring) of a slug in a shell as as a source of great inspiration—namely, for surfers.

That may sound a little stupid, but the the marketers at the consumer electronics company know it—the minute-plus commercial, by Leo Burnett Chicago, somehow manages to be existential and lighthearted at the same time, musing on the inner life of a mollusk as a metaphor for a young boy who loves the sport of surfing.

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Ken Griffey Jr. Gets a Lovely Tribute Ad From Mariners and Their Longtime Agency

There was the dramatic, series-winning slide into home base in 1995. There was the gravity-defying, wall-climbing catch in 1991 (and then another one, four years later). There were the hundreds of home runs—and countless moments of inspiration for fans.

The Seattle Mariners are celebrating Ken Griffey Jr.’s induction into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame this past Sunday with an emotional long-copy print ad that tries to capture some of the star’s many contributions to the sport—and the city’s reputation.

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This Ad for a Snorkeling Mask Is So Elegant, You Won't Want to Hit the Beach Without One

This ain’t your grandpa’s snorkeling mask.

To promote Tribord’s Easybreath full-face snorkeling mask, French agency Rosapark released a spot that almost seamlessly blends water and sky—a visual metaphor for how the Easybreath lets you breathe underwater just like you do on land. 

“Easybreath is a real innovation in the world of diving—gone is the need for a separate mask and snorkel, and the difficulties some people having using them,” explains the agency’s creative director, Jamie Standen. “Our brief was to get across the scale of this invention.” 

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Kleenex Explores the Sadness and Anxiety of Moving From Elementary to Middle School

Kleenex’s “Someone Needs One” campaign is back with an emotional back-to-school video designed to make you need some Kleenex.

Heading back to school is always an emotional time for kids, but the stakes are higher when you’re transitioning to a new school—so Kleenex targeted the switch from elementary to middle, which may well be the worst transition of them all.

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From Writers to Directors to Musicians, Kids Made Target's Back-to-School Ads

For retailers, the back-to-school season is especially lucrative, which makes it all the more important to ensure the message is impactful to young people. ?Nipping this problem in the bud, Target’s back-to-school campaign puts the kids themselves in charge.

The ads don’t just star kids—they were written and directed by kids, who also illustrated the sets. Helping to organize the action was 826LA, dedicated to helping youth develop creative writing skills, and agency Adolescent. 

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This Agency's Weird, Fascinating Model Imagines If Humans Evolved to Survive Car Crashes

Platypi have always been our favorite example of the weirdness of evolution. And while we laugh, it’s easy to forget that nature makes us the way we are for reasons we can’t always gauge. Humans specifically have changed their habits so quickly that our bodies haven’t quite had time to compensate. 

That’s why agency Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and Australia’s Transport Accident Commission (TAC)—alongside artist Patricia Piccinini—created Graham, a human designed to withstand crash forces. 

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Agency Sends Copywriter Into Wilderness to Live Exclusively on Its Clients' Brands for 5 Days

You’ve heard the adage that agencies should use their clients’ products. It’s the least you can do, if you’re going to be selling them. 

But what if you upped the stakes a little and made a social reality show out of it? One man. Five days. 15 brands … and the ravages of nature. 

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Domino's Apologizes for Years of Totally Overcharging You for Pizza on the Weekend

Domino’s wants consumers to know it feels guilty about charging more for pizzas on the weekend, and it’s trying hard to make things right. 

For years, the fast-food chain has offered bargain pricing on Monday-to-Thursday carryout, charging $7.99 for a large three-topping pie. Now it’s extending that deal to seven days a week, and launching an apology campaign from longtime agency CP+B, offering compensation to customers who’ve overpaid in the past. 

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For Its First New Cereal in 15 Years, General Mills Makes Animals Our Food-Dispensing Overlords

Animals act like people—and vice versa—in a singularly silly campaign introducing Tiny Toast, General Mills’ first new breakfast cereal in nearly 15 years.

Created by an agency with an appropriately beastly name, New York’s Walrus, the teen-targeted push casts critters as our benevolent overlords; humans are depicted as lower forms of life, addicted to Tiny Toast’s real-fruit taste. (Hence the tagline “Humans can’t resist.”)

In this spot, for example, a horse does the whispering for a change:

Nice hoof-work there! Here’s an explanation of the creative strategy, straight from the horse’s mouth:

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Yelp Remixed Its Ad About a Bad Yoga Instructor, and Now He's Even Worse

Back in June, Reid Sheehan Latimer + Crew made this “Yoga” spot for Yelp, positioning the review network as the place people go to find businesses that meet their needs (instead of where assholes and aspiring Internet comedians go to whine about bad service).

The spot’s yoga instructor merited his own Twitter feed,  the spot’s back with a remix, giving you even more of the rotund yoga instructor who has mastered The Weeping Cobra and generally making everyone around him uncomfortable.

The resulting clip includes footage not seen in the original spot, along with a house drum loop, cartoony overlaid animation, and a splash of Auto-Tune on the bad yoga instructor’s vocals.

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Fruit of the Loom Opened a Fake Lingerie Store to Prove How Fancy Its Panties Really Are

Früt is the hottest new lingerie boutique in town. There’s only one catch—all the underwear it sells is from Fruit of the Loom.

In “Welcome to Früt,” a campaign by agency Ketchum, the packaged clothing marketer treats shoppers to a new twist on the old bait-and-switch: Opening a chic pop-up store that supposedly sells expensive designer pieces (which are actually just the same old panties you can buy in a bag).

A pair of case study videos claims consumers were lured in by airy fabrics and vibrant patterns, only to discover a dirty secret—they were falling in love with lowbrow underwear.

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