Hasta La Creative!

I never thought I'd hear Tegan and Sara in an Oreo commercial, but I also never thought Tegan and Sara would make bouncy dance pop, so everything's up in the air at this point.

The Canadian duo provided a pretty awesome version of the "Wonderfilled" jingle for this "Dare to Wonder" ad from The Martin Agency (it first aired during the Grammys) promoting a series of limited-release Oreo flavors including berry, peanut butter, lemon and mint. Honestly, all those sound really gross, but the jingle is right in line with Tegan and Sara's lyrical sensibilities, and of course they didn't even write them—the ad agency did.

Living in a world where Tegan and Sara play a song they didn't write for the purpose of selling junk food feels a bit strange, but they've said they don't make albums to keep their old fans, so perhaps that same principle has been applied here.

Christmas is coming, and along with it comes the worst part of the year: ironic ugly sweater parties. Formerly the sole domain of grandmothers and Bill Cosby, ugly sweaters are some kind of awkward hipster mating plumage now, so it's only ill-fitting that Coke Zero has capitalized on it with the Coke Zero Sweater Generator, built by Droga5. You design a sweater with minimal Coke branding, and it goes into an online gallery where other people can vote on the best/worst designs. The top 100 will be made and sent to their creators, who will probably model them on Facebook. Above is the one I made.

Some precocious Maori children in New Zealand argue about whose dad is more irresponsible in this curiously amusing PSA about driving while stoned—the latest in a string of such ads from Clemenger BBDO for the New Zealand Transport Agency. Jalopnik promised that I would feel "all sorts of feels" while watching the ad—and I probably would if I could understand more than one-third of what the kids are saying. Still, the approach is interesting. Using humor and a light touch is certainly preferable to shock tactics like hitting little girls with cars. This spot was shot on 35mm black-and-white film by Taika Waititi, whose short film Two Cars, One Night also featured kids chatting in cars. Below, check out another recent ad in the series featuring shopkeepers complaining about customers who come in high.

Lenovo has moved on (at least for the moment) from comparing itself to Apple to having Kobe Bryant play Beethoven on the piano with symphonic accompaniment for no reason. Really. There's barely a connection made between Lenovo's product line and Kobe in this Chinese spot, though there are worse things in life than gratuitous piano playing. For those of you who are surprised that Kobe had this talent, check out his six-second video that was the inspiration for the ad. He has said the Moonlight Sonata, in particular "calms me down when I reach my breaking point."

Kraft is bringing back the Zesty Guy for a new series of print ads, despite (or more likely because of) the backlash the brand received last time around from conservative protest group One Million Moms. Zesty Guy, created by agency Being, played by model Anderson Davis and photographed by Douglas Friedman, will be shirtless and sometimes pantsless in ads for the Raspberry Vinaigrette, Classic Catalina, Thousand Island and Classic Ranch dressings. (Check them all out after the jump.) His obsessive need for salad dressings in bizarrely nonfood situations is still a bit odd, but the variety of costumes and settings makes up for it. Plus, he seems like he's having a good time. And to think, he might not have come back at all if the moms hadn't complained about his "g*nitals" the first time around.

If you ever run across a marketer offering you an impromptu adventure overseas, you might first want to clarify whether it will entail you being kidnapped by clowns and dropped from an airplane. That was the terrifying fate of South African graphic designer Clint Jacobs, the final latest of four participants in Heineken's "Dropped" campaign from Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam. As you may have guessed, the campaign (which got a lot of buzz from the related Departure Roulette stunt in JFK) literally drops real people into remote destinations to film their adventures. In the campaign's last installment, a group of Heineklowns tosses the affable Jacobs into rural Poland and makes him hitchhike and tandem-bike his way to Germany, where he must host his own circus. This seems like the sort of proposition you'd have to be drunk to accept, so it works as a long-form beer commercial even if it seems like a total non sequitur. Watch how the story plays out after the jump.

The Jack Daniel's biker bee is back in this new spot from Arnold in Boston, and this time he brought a whole swarm of friends to tear through a weirdly empty city to find a bottle of Tennessee Honey. The music is less bikery than last time, and I can't say the overall vibe is as effective, but it's short enough to still work. Kinda wish they had to weave through traffic or chase people off the sidewalk, though. The agency says the ad was "pre-released" on Twitter and Facebook and generated more than 10 million impressions before hitting TV. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey
Spot: "Swarm"

Agency: Arnold, Boston
Chief Creative Officer: Pete Favat
Executive Creative Director: Wade Devers
Group Creative Director: Pete Johnson
Director of Global Marketing, Jack Daniel's: Carmen D'Ascendis
Creative Director: Jose Luis Martinez
Art Director: Alyssa Wilson
Copywriter: Peter Hughes
Producer: William Near
Assistant Producer: Alex Saevitz
Business Affairs: Maria Rougvie
Planners: Lisa Borden and Angus McCoubrey
Marketing Producers: Paul Nelson, Emily Brooks & Shannon Coletti

Production Company: Smuggler
Production Company Executive Producer: Allison Kunzman
Production Company Line Producer: Michael Schlenker
Director: Laurent Ledru – Psyop
Cinematographer: Robert Elswit
Editorial Company: Lost Planet
Editor: Max Koepke
Colorist: Tom Poole
Sound Designer: Max Koepke, Mike Secher
Sound Engineer: Mike Secher
Animation – Psyop

Microsoft vents its inferiority complex with Apple yet again—by humiliating Siri—in this new spot from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, following a similar ad last month that got more than 5 million views on YouTube. The new spot compares Dell's XPS 10 tablet to the iPad. Microsoft is still smarting about the "Mac vs. PC" ads, to judge by the tone of these ads, which is a shame, because that Dell tablet looks cool enough to stand on its own. And if you think this is harsh, I wouldn't be surprised if future ads take potshots at the Sony Xperia after what happened at E3 this year.

Huggies and Ogilvy & Mather Argentina made a belt for men that allows them to feel their unborn baby's kicks. The belt is synced up with the real-time movements of the baby in the mother's belly, apparently through some kind of wireless sorcery. It's a neat idea, although the description of it as "something special to compensate fathers" is a little weird, like pregnancy is some kind of cakewalk that they're missing out on. But, whatever. It's hard for me to get on my high horse about this when things like the Daddle exist.