Hasta La Creative!

If job interviews had a skip button, would anyone be willing to hear out an ex-con? That's the question Leo Burnett and a U.K. nonprofit try to make you answer in the innovative interactive clip below.

As the video opens, a young man recently released from prison speaks directly to the camera, as if the viewer is the hiring manager. As he awkwardly tries to tell his story, a "Skip Ad" button appears on screen. Each time the button is pressed and the video restarts, the applicant grows increasingly apprehensive and downbeat, until he's almost begging to be heard. Finally, he becomes resigned to his fate.

"I'm sorry that you don't want to listen," he says to those who've skipped their way to the end. "I hope you can find time in the future to give an ex-offender like me a second chance."

If viewers don't press the button, his pitch, though tentative, gets increasingly upbeat and ends on a hopeful note: "A lot of people just write me off pretty much straightaway as soon as they hear I've been inside. Today's been different. Thanks for that. Yeah. Thanks for listening."

The video by Leo Burnett Change, an activism division of the agency's London office, is part of the "Ban the Box" campaign from the nonprofit Business in the Community, which is pushing for the removal of mandatory check-off boxes on U.K. job applications that ask about criminal convictions. "With the subject of ex-offenders being such a contentious issue, we wanted to create a thought-provoking idea. Something that would make people reassess how they feel toward ex-offenders," agency cd Hugh Todd says in a statement on Leo Burnett London's Facebook page. "Using and subverting the 'Skip Ad' button gave us the perfect opportunity to do this."

That unusual approach underscores the broader message that denying this guy a chance to be heard is like locking him up all over again and throwing away the key.

Try out the video for yourself here.

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!

Burt's Bees doesn't exactly balm in its debut on Vine, but the effort isn't da balm, either.

The brand riffs on classic literature in animated "adaptations" of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Little Women, with more to come, all created by ad agency Baldwin&. Burt's products stand in for the characters and key story elements. For example, a foot-cream tube and a hand-salve tin—the latter with tentacles—play the Nautilus submarine and giant squid, respectively, in the 20,000 Leagues clip. Lip-balm tubes portray the Little Women. (Burt's seven core products are called "classics," hence the theme of classic books.)

Jethro Ames's energetic, playful stop-motion work is a highlight, and the all-out attempt to be wacky is laudable. Still, this feels like a brand searching for its voice in a new medium and falling just a little flat.

Most fans will access the clips through Burt's social outlets, so they'll understand the literary theme. Still, with products playing people, the quirky animation and the oddball dialogue snippets—"Less Leagues! Less Leagues!"—there may be too much to absorb in six seconds.

Burt's plays it far simpler in its first Instagram campaign, showing founder Burt Shavitz paddling a canoe, making tea and generally kicking back in woodsy Maine. These bucolic images do a fine job of illustrating the brand's "classic" folksy motifs. In fact, tastefully edited, with an appropriate soundtrack and logo at the end, they'd make quietly understated Vines that could grow on you.

See the two released Vines below, and scripts/images for three more below that.

Heineken and Wieden + Kennedy in New York revisit the concept of unscheduled trips in this sequel to their popular Departure Roulette stunt. That effort, from the summer, dared JFK travelers to ditch their plans and immediately fly to more exotic locales chosen at random by pushing a button. For the follow-up, the brand made surprise visits to people who had tweeted during the earlier campaign that they would want to try Departure Roulette—and let them do so.

In the sequel video, camera crews confront unsuspecting tweeters at their front doors, at work and on the sidewalk, with the big green Departure Roulette board in tow. The board becomes something of an actor in the drama, popping up behind tweeters during interviews and suddenly appearing around street corners. It's creepy and goofy at the same time, keeping the subjects off balance but generally adding to the fun. And there's an amusing bit halfway through the three-minute clip in which a brand ambassador knocks on a person's apartment door and calls out, "You're totally gonna miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" A neighbor steps into the hall to see what the commotion is about, takes in the scene with the lights and cameras, and quickly retreats back inside.

One guy who wins a trip to Bucharest seems less than stoked. "Romania … OK. I'll go to Romania. I guess." Maybe he was hoping for Budapest. Other destinations include Marrakesh, Morocco; Reykjavík, Iceland; Seoul, South Korea; and Panama City. As with the original Departure Roulette, the sequel is designed to capture Heineken's bold, adventurous spirit. Personally, I prefer Tui Brewery's approach to stunt marketing. They pump beer through your pipes so you can take off without ever leaving home.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Heineken
Project: Departure Roulette

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal, Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Directors: Erik Norin, Eric Steele
Copywriter: Will Binder
Art Director: Jared White
Executive Producer: Nick Setounski
Assistant Producer: Kristen Johnson
Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Jacqueline Ventura, Sydney Lopes
Social Strategist: Jessica Abercrombie
Project Manager: Rayna Lucier
Community Managers: Mike Vitiello, Rocio Urena
Director of Interactive Production: Brandon Kaplan
Head of Integrated Production: Lora Schulson
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Lisa Quintela, Quentin Perry
Global Travel Director: Colleen Baker
Lead, Senior Travel Consultant: Angela Wootan
Senior Travel Consultant: Joelle Wainwright

Production Company: Legs Media
Director: Dan Levin
Executive Producer: Tom Berendsen
Line Producer: Sara Greco
Postproduction Company: Joint Editorial
Senior Producer: Michelle Carman
Editor: Jon Steffanson
Assistant Editors: Stephen Nelson, Noah Poole, Brian Schimpf
Motion Graphics Director: Yui Uchida
Information Display System Fabricator: Solari Corp.
Design and Build Team: The Guild
Audio Company: The Lodge
Audio Mixer: John Northcraft
Color: Nice Shoes
Colorist: Danny Boccia
Producer: Melissa Dupre

Those jokers at Saatchi & Saatchi and Tui Brewery have a viral hit on their hands, notching more than 5 million views in about a week for various versions of a video that shows some New Zealand dudes pranking a pal by rigging the plumbing in his house so that every tap dispensed beer. An integrated campaign will follow.

Russ, the good-sport prankee, seems understandably surprised, though not especially upset, when intoxicating brown brew starts flowing from his kitchen and bathroom spigots. (The tap water in my apartment looks like that, and I get kinda woozy when I drink it, but I'm pretty sure it's not beer.)

Tui's technicians and a master plumber painstakingly hooked up kegs to the pipes supplying Russ' house. "It went without a hitch," says Saatchi creative director Guy Roberts, "although the plumber did have to make sure it was properly connected so we didn't feed beer back into the city water supply." (Now there's an ad campaign I'd like to see!)

The effort's not upsetting like some prankvertising stunts, but there is a certain inherent creepiness in having friends and strangers invade your space and make "alterations" when you're not home. Hopefully they removed all the surveillance hardware—14 tiny hidden cameras were used to make the video—or footage of Russ's butt could wind up on YouTube any day now.

This is the kind of stunt Anheuser-Busch could never attempt. If you replaced tap water with Michelob or Bud, who'd notice?

OK, Alan Varner, you probably think it's real cute that you broke through the "fourth wall" in this Little Caesars radio ad from Barton F. Graf 9000, inviting listeners who visit the restaurant to "tell 'em Alan Varner sent you. They won't know who that is, but as a voice actor, I'm always trying to get my name out there."

Oh, I imagine you fancy yourself "clever" and "innovative" for lines like, "Check me out at AlanDoesVoices.com. That's A-L-A-N-does-voices.com. But first, get the new Deep! Deep! Dish Pizza. It's hot and ready every day from 4 to 8 p.m. for just eight bucks." This isn't about you, Varner! This is about selling pizza … pizza so deep that the word "deep" gets repeated with exclamation points.

Do I insinuate myself into my AdFreak posts, Varner? I'd never sully this blog's reputation with shameless self-promotion, because I'm not even completely sure what the word "sully" means. I'm providing this link to my work and giving out my Twitter handle, @davegian, as a service to our readers, nothing more.

BBH London expands its "We Own the Weekend" campaign for the Guardian and Observer's Saturday and Sunday newspapers with a pair of dark-humored spots that focus on the "Tech Monthly" and "Cook" supplements. In one spot, a guy is unable to control the destructive force of his high-tech "MegaGlove"; in the other, a woman's hosted luncheon ends poorly for all involved. Ah well, if it bleeds, it leads.

"If our initial campaign was designed to inform the public that the Guardian and the Observer own their weekend, this follow-up dramatizes the repercussions of resistance," says David Kolbusz, deputy executive creative director at BBH. "When you try to own your own weekend, things can turn out very badly. Frankly, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't buy their papers."

The work maintains the high quality of the three-minute January launch film starring Hugh Grant. Still, I can't help feeling it's all for naught. No matter how smart its marketing gets, the newspaper business long ago got "owned" by digital media—every day of the week.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Guardian and Observer
Director of Brand and Engagement: Richard Furness
Head of Marketing and Engagement: Toby Hollis
Product Marketing Manager: Charlotte Emmerson

Agency: BBH London
Creative Team: Gary McCreadie, Wesley Hawes, Matt Fitch, Mark Lewis
Deputy Executive Creative Director: David Kolbusz
Producer: Chris Watling
Strategic Business Lead: Ngaio Pardon
Strategy Director: Agathe Guerrier
Strategist: Alana King
Team Director: Jon Barnes
Team Managers: Fiona Buddery, Jonny Price

Production Company: Biscuit
Director: Jeff Low
Executive Producer: Orlando Woods
Producer: Kwok Yau
Director of Photography: Ed Wild
Postproduction: The Mill
Editing House: Final Cut
Editor: Ed Cheeseman
Sound: Factory
Sound Engineer: Sam Robson

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?