Hasta La Creative!

If you still needed proof that selfies have taken over the Internet, here's a telling infographic about how brands went into pic-snapping overload in the past year.

To help promote the upcoming deadline for entries (Feb. 18) in The Shorty Awards' Best Facebook Campaign category, contest sponsor Unmetric decided to analyze how major businesses embraced the selfie in all its ego-stroking glory over the course of 2013. From Target and Samsung to Aflac and Beggin' Strips, all manner of brands created selfies or hosted selfie-centric promotions, with the numbers climbing steadily throughout the year. 

While relatively few of the branded selfies are truly compelling, a few worth noting are GoPro's image from a fan atop Mount Everest, shown above, and Samsung's #TogetherWeRise campaign, which created a massive mosaic of LeBron James out of selfies submitted by fans.

If Dannon's Super Bowl ad teaser left you hoping for a Full House-themed spot in the big game, you're probably going to be disappointed.

The Oikos Greek yogurt ad starring John Stamos is now live on YouTube, and, as you can see below, the anticipated appearance by fellow sitcom stars Bob Saget and Dave Coulier barely even registers as a punch line.

In fact, the ad largely plays out the same as 2012's Oikos Super Bowl spot, focused on Stamos romantically sharing a yogurt with a ladyfriend. But this time, instead of getting headbutted, he gets cockblocked (sorry, mom, there's no other word for it) by his Full Housemates.

For a :30, it's a lot of setup without much payoff. But then again, the same could be said of Stamos' multiple attempts at dairy-centric seduction.

If you're still craving more Stamos-Saget-Coulier shenanigans, check out Dannon's "Bromance" microsite, where you can find a few low-budget clips of the TV uncles clowning around. Or just cross your fingers and hope that the 2015 Super Bowl's inevitable Family Matters reunion turns out more fulfilling.  

Here's this year's Super Bowl ad for Oikos:

And here's the 2012 Super Bowl's largely similar ad for Oikos:

It's the eternal Super Bowl conundrum: Make a funny ad with people, or make a funny ad with puppies? If you're CarMax, you do both.

For its first Super Bowl appearance since 2011's "Kid in a Candy Store," the auto retailer and agency Silver + Partners have created a game-day spot called "Slow Clap," along with a Web version called "Slow Bark" that re-creates the ad shot for shot with puppies.

"The task came down to what we could do to get people engaged with the ad in advance of the game," Laura Donahue, CarMax vp of creative marketing, tells Adweek. "The agency came to us with a strategy of increasing buzz and conversation about the brand: What if CarMax was the first advertiser who remade a game-day commercial with an all-furry cast?"

In "Slow Clap," we see a CarMax customer driving home in his new car, while a wide array of characters line the street to give him solemn applause in the vein of a Hollywood sports drama. He passes cheerleaders, competitive pie eaters, a park ranger with a bear and several more, including a cameo from Sean Astin reprising his 1993 role from Rudy.

In "Slow Bark," we see pretty much all the same stuff, but with dogs. And judging by how many times my children just made me replay the clip for them while writing this up, it's probably going to be a hit.

Harold Einstein at Station Film directed the human version; Ronnie Koff of Imaginary Forces directed the puppy version.

Donahue says she'd be OK with the puppy version of the ad becoming a bigger YouTube success than the actual Super Bowl version. Both online iterations of the ad are 45 seconds, while the edit you'll see during the game is a :30.

"I will feel excited about any of our combined efforts around the Super Bowl that generate enthusiasm around our brand," Donahue says. "Whether it's the puppy version or the extended version of the ad running online, any of those outcomes is great."

Here's one baby that no one's expecting. "Devil Baby Attack," a rather mean-spirited if grimly hilarious marketing stunt for the upcoming horror film Devil's Due, shows what happens when well-meaning New Yorkers try to check on an unattended baby carriage.

Here's what happens: They get screamed at by a horrific demon infant. And sometimes chased around by the horrific demon infant's remote-controlled stroller.

Sure, the prank—by Thinkmodo, which also did last year's super-viral Carrie coffee-shop spot—sparks some fun jump-screams from passersby. But watching the results, it's hard not to think of last year's spot-on parody by Canadian agency John St. about the cruel lengths to which advertisers now seem willing to go.

If we must be subjected to more prankvertising stunts, it would be nice to see ones that punish people for making poor moral choices rather than watch normal pedestrians get tormented because they tried to check on a screaming baby left alone in the snow.

Via Mashable.

Don't think of your tax return as an annual blood sacrifice to our merciless bureaucratic overlords. Think of it more as a delightful recap of your exciting and eventful life!

That's the upbeat message of TurboTax's new campaign from Wieden + Kennedy, themed "It's Amazing What You're Capable Of." With ads already running on TV and online, the campaign will also include a 60-second Super Bowl spot—the brand's first. (In addition, parent company Intuit is donating a 30-second Super Bowl ad slot to a small business selected by voters.)

Each ad in the TurboTax campaign focuses on the major life decisions you make each year that can have an impact on your taxes. "That's what taxes are: a recap, the story of your year," notes the narrator. And speaking of the narrator, it sure sounds like character actor John C. Reilly, but as with many celebrity-voiced campaigns of late, the agency couldn't confirm that due to contractual obligations.

Check out the anthem spot below and a few more executions after the jump.

What better way to cap off the year in which agencies were obsessed with prankvertising than with an agency pranking its own staff?

Baltimore shop Planit created the amusing video below after luring unsuspecting employees to sing holiday songs on camera. When a Leatherface-masked elf jumps out of the large present next to them, their reactions range from sprinting panic to cool-headed indifference.

There's not much more to it than that, but the wide array of staff responses make it worth a watch. Planit also deserves points for giving the clip a strategic message, ending with the kicker, "We believe the best ideas should scare you."

In a lot of ways, 2013 was an amazing year for the portrayal of women in advertising. Ogilvy's "Real Beauty Sketches" for Dove sparked a massive discussion of self-image and the definition of beauty. UN Women's "Autocomplete Truth" campaign brilliantly highlighted inequality worldwide. GoldieBlox created a viral anthem for girl empowerment (while admittedly fostering some avoidable ill will along the way). And a Pantene ad from the Philippines took issue with gender hypocrisy in the workplace.

But not every ad in 2013 was a coup for feminism. Today, we look back at some of the more egregious examples of negative stereotypes about women from ads around the world this year. Some might bother you more than others, but either way, it's a debate worth having.

Late last week, a creative twist on print advertising became a global phenomenon, as the "Auto-Complete Truth" campaign for UN Women exploded across social media and generated worldwide discussion.

AdFreak's writeup of the campaign by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai has been shared more than 116,000 times on Facebook alone, making it the most-shared item of the year on Adweek.com. The campaign has since been featured by hundreds of blogs, news sites and social media feeds around the world. 

"We have been overwhelmed by the instant enthusiasm and support that our campaign has received," says Ronald Howes, managing director of Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai. "This has encouraged us to develop it even further, after the global acclaim that is has received.” 

The client, of course, was ecstatic to see a relatively modest ad campaign spark the exact kind of international debate it was intended for. "UN Women is very heartened by the discussion the campaign has sparked," says Nanette Braun, communications and advocacy chief for UN Women. "Very obviously there is a demand for a global conversation on women’s rights, empowerment and gender equality, which is exactly what the ads were intended to generate.”

To learn more about the campaign and the vocal response it has received, check out our Q&A with the team that created the ads, after the jump:

AdFreak: How did this project come about? Was it intended to be a print campaign from the start, and will these ads actually be running in print?

Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai: This creative idea for UN Women began, as many searches naturally do, on a Google search bar. What we came across was simply shocking. The appalling global results to an auto-correct search of terms such as "women should" was something we felt needed to be shared.

The campaign was published earlier in 2013 in the UAE and became a viral success this week. UN Women plans to publish internationally in the future.

Many of the commenters and people sharing the campaign have been posting screenshots of their own autocompleted searches, with different results around the world. Was this something you hoped the campaign would spark people to try?

We have been pleasantly surprised by the viral success of this campaign. We wanted to start a conversation on the major barriers which are in place of women's economic, political and social empowerment across the globe—issues that UN Women is working to address. We hope that our work will go some way to help raise awareness of the sexist global attitudes toward women and will enable a dialogue to begin on the topic. We encourage people to join in the debate on Twitter with #womenshould, or on the UN Women website.

We are so pleased to see others are inspired by our work and witness the creation of their own versions of our campaign, which tackle other social issues.

Did you selectively edit the results of the Google searches you did for this campaign? Were some irrelevant suggestions tossed out to focus on the most egregious examples of sexism?

What makes our campaign so powerful is its truth and simplicity. None of the searches were engineered to produce these results; that's why we were so shocked to discover them. In order to raise awareness of the inequality women face, we did choose to highlight the most compelling answers, to deliver the most impact, however the search results from Google autocorrect were not falsified in any way.

Some have criticized the campaign by saying that Google autocomplete suggestions have been used in several marketing campaigns in recent years. Were you concerned about this approach seeming derivative or over-used?

Our campaign is not focused on Google autocomplete suggestions. The medium of Google search was merely a base upon which we were able to successfully illustrate our point. Google search is an iconic symbol in our digital world and therefore recognizable for millions of people, so we used this as a vehicle to express our ideas. The truth behind the search about people’s global perceptions is what our campaign focused on, not the technology of Google autocomplete.

Lots of people are debating whether you can actually change these kinds of search results. Do you think it's possible, or is it something that will have to change slowly over time as a barometer of equality?

We are aware that change of this magnitude will not happen overnight! However we hope that our work will go some way to alter perceptions by raising awareness of the issues which women face.