Hasta La Creative!

Time is always running short, so Samsung is offering to help you save some.

In a fun new action-comedy ad, created by Wieden + Kennedy and starring Danny Glover, the tech giant claims its Galaxy S7 phones will help you shave precious minutes off the chore of charging … with dire consequences for the owners of mobile devices that take longer. 

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Much of Skittles advertising is built around the candy’s rainbow profile. But to honor the LGBT pride celebrations in London this past weekend, the brand stripped off its colors. 

“So this is kind of awkward, but we’re just gonna go ahead and address the rainbow-colored elephant in the room,” reads an uncharacteristically monochromatic open letter from the marketer, addressed to revelers, published in print on Friday. “You have the rainbow … we have the rainbow … and usually that’s just hunky-dory. 

“But this Pride, only one rainbow deserves to be the centre of attention—yours. And we’re not going to be the ones to steal your rainbow thunder, no siree.” 

See the letter here. Click to enlarge:

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It’s a beautiful day in Safetyville, but not if you try to race a speeding train across the tracks or distractedly walk into its path while scrolling through Tinder. Splat!

That’s the message in a scared-straight-style animated campaign from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles, which takes a cue from the Cannes Lion-winning Aussie series “Dumb Ways to Die.”

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“There would be no such thing as extremism in the world if people knew their heritage.”

So says Aureile, one of the teary-eyed subjects in “The DNA Journey,” a stirring campaign from Danish travel site Momondo that’s become a surprise viral hit, tallying millions of global views in just a few weeks (the lion’s share for its centerpiece five-minute video).

Created with DNA testing service AncestryDNA, ad agency &Co and production house Bacon, the initiative focuses on 67 very diverse people who, at the outset, think they know a thing or two about their heritage, and some of whom hold strong views (read: prejudices) about other nationalities. Many of their expectations are upended, however, when they receive the results of DNA tests that determine their true genetic origins. 

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After so many years of its signature quirky advertising, it’s tempting to think of the Old Spice work as dated. But then “Rocket Car” plays for a full house at the Cannes Lions Film awards, to the absolute delight of the crowd, and you remember that this is a campaign that stays fresh not by reinventing itself regularly—but by fully committing to its bizarre ideas and executing to perfection.

A new Old Spice campaign by Wieden + Kennedy Portland for the Old Spice Swagger line broke during the Cannes festival with a spot called “Five Year Plan.” It stars a brand new Old Spice guy, actor Thomas Beaudoin, who emerges victorious in the most anatomically freaky job interview you’ll ever see.

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Not many people know that Burger King pulled out of France for 15 years between 1997 and 2012. Because it didn’t. But the fast-food chain gleefully imagines such a nightmare scenario in a new seven-minute mockumentary from agency Buzzman.

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Finnish probiotics brand Gefilus is so good at building up healthy bacteria in your gut—thereby strengthening your immune system—that you could lick a pay phone in Moscow and not get sick.

That’s the rough premise of a 22-minute (!) ad from dairy conglomerate Valio.

To illustrate the effectiveness of its product, the marketer hired travel television host Ian Wright, known for his willingness to eat just about anything, to bounce around the globe with a germ-measuring meter. 

Along the way, he slides his tongue across the filthiest surfaces he can find while maintaining a steady Gefilus diet to boost his body’s internal defenses.

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If the biggest extracurricular activity your agency has had time for lately is the yearly holiday card, prepare to have the bar hoisted higher than your T-rex arms can reach.

Los Angeles creative agency Omelet has released its first full-length documentary, a project that took three years to complete. The hook of “License to Operate” feels like a buddy-movie plot: It follows former gang leaders committed to improving their communities—partitioned into de facto war zones by subsets of gangs, sprung from the original Bloods and Crips—working with law enforcement when necessary. 

Along the way, we meet characters like founder Aquil Basheer of the LTO Movement and the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute (PCITI, which trains and certifies interventionists and other professionals), former Athens Park Blood Kenneth Jones, and Reynaldo “Whiz” Reaser, a former Raymond Crip. 

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When my son was about 5, and was asked what he thought I did for work, he replied: “Pushing letters.” That was pretty painfully accurate—and describes so many modern middle-class jobs, where working with your hands is a thing of the past. 

Jung von Matt/Limmat taps into the nostalgia for good, honest work in these amusing ads for OBI, Switzerland’s biggest do-it-yourself store. 

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Everyone has a blind spot while they’re driving, when vehicles are in between your field of vision and what the mirrors show. These Hyundai ads from Ukrainian agency Tabasco cleverly address this by demonstrating a different kind of blind spot—the one on your retina.

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