Hasta La Creative!

Prankvertising shifts into high gear for this elaborate X-Files-esque stunt from Crispin Porter + Bogusky promoting Scania's 2014 competition for professional truck and bus drivers.

Daniel Olsson, who has five years of experience behind the wheel, must come through in the clutch after he picks up a mysterious shipment and passenger at a warehouse. Horrifying sounds and visuals suggest that a hostile creature has been loaded aboard his truck as he navigates around crates in the cramped space. 

"He did not expect anything strange would happen, and the whole setup was pretty normal," Gustav Martner, ecd at CP+B in Gothenburg, Sweden, tells AdFreak. "Then, he obviously thought it was a bit unusual that his passenger was an old, well-dressed English gentleman who insisted on riding with him down to the harbor to see that the crate was safely delivered."

In fact, Olsson looks fairly freaked out, but he still keeps his cool, as the weirdness intensifies, with his jittery cab-mate "Dr. Sullivan" (a professional actor) gesturing back toward the noisy payload and ominously muttering, "I think actually you've woken him up."

"I became increasingly nervous and stressed, but I had no thoughts of quitting," Olsson says.

The three-minute "Cargo Madness" clip serves as an entertaining invite to the competition, where drivers must "handle more than their trucks" as they test their skills to overcome various obstacles.

"The production was much more complicated than we thought," recalls Martner. Instead of switching Olsson's ordinary side-view mirror with LCD-implanted units as planned, "We had to project the monster onto the ordinary mirror from behind. It was extremely stressful to create this solution in a matter of hours, but we managed to pull it off."

Folks love debating if such stunts are genuine or if the participants were in on the gag. "We did the stunt with three different drivers, all of them being totally unaware," Martner says. "Daniel was the best."

Given prankvertising's continued popularity, Martner doesn't expect agencies or clients to slam on the brakes any time soon. "It seems like people love this kind of advertising, and what people love, they share," he says. "I choose prankvertising over a standard commercial any day … at least if everyone involved can laugh about it in the end."

Some evil genius of an agency is getting global buzz for delivery service DHL with a endearingly cold prank on the brand's rivals. There's just one problem: DHL didn't have anything to do with it.

In a video that's exploded across the Web over the last two days, we see how delivery services like UPS were tricked into toting around large packages that were essentially mobile billboards saying, "DHL is faster." The stunt was supposedly accomplished by wrapping the boxes in thermo-active foil that, when cooled, hid the message until well after the packages had been picked up by the competition.

Many viewers debated whether the stunt was real or fake, which still isn't quite clear. What is certain, though, is that it's not an official ad for DHL.

In an email to Consumerist, DHL issued the following denial of responsibility:

"This was not something that was initiated by DHL. The video was created by an external agency for their own internal competition. We were aware in advance of the intention to use it for this purpose. We were not aware of any plans to share it externally."

Oops.

The brand stopped short of naming the agency behind the "Trojan Mailing," but the supposed video case study, already viewed more than 600,000 times, is hosted by German firm Jung von Matt/Neckar.

Real or staged, it's hard-hitting advertising at its best. Attention grabbing and not afraid to show its teeth, but also clever enough to avoid just being obnoxious.

Pancreatic Cancer Action has issued a thoughtful, heartfelt defense of its controversial U.K. awareness campaign that shows sufferers saying they wish they had other types of cancer with higher survival rates.

One print ad in the series uses a quote from 24-year-old pancreatic cancer patient Kerry Harvey—"I wish I had breast cancer"—as its headline and notes that the survival rate is only 3 percent, the lowest among all 22 common cancers.

"With a limited budget, it was vital that the advert would stand out and provoke thought and initiate discussion among members of the public, the media and influencers," PCA chief executive Ali Stunt writes in the Daily Mail. Stunt says the work, from Team Darwin, "reflects the genuine insight of many pancreatic cancer patients upon diagnosis, and how it feels to be diagnosed with a disease that leaves you with no hope at all."

The effort, which includes a video that focuses on the troubled faces and intense emotions of those diagnosed with the disease, has drawn significant fire:

• Breast Cancer Campaign CEO Delyth Morgan says she was "shocked and saddened" by the initiative. "While the intention of the campaign is great, the adverts are hugely upsetting and incredibly insensitive and divisive."

• Breakthrough Breast Cancer chief Chris Askew said his organization would "strongly dispute any message which suggests that one type of cancer is preferable to another," adding, "I've yet to meet a man or woman with breast cancer who would consider themselves in any way fortunate to have received a diagnosis."

• Writing on cause-marketing blog Osocio, Reuben Turner, whose grandfather died of pancreatic cancer, calls the ads "the last resort of the desperate," though he concedes this: "Maybe that's the point. Maybe these people are desperate. Desperate for attention. Desperate for funds. Desperate for a cure."

PCA executive Stunt has known such desperation firsthand: "When faced with a 3 percent chance of surviving more than five years, it is not unreasonable to wish for a cancer with a better survival rate. This is exactly how I felt when I was diagnosed with the disease in 2007."

"The attention this campaign has received," she adds, "has also paved the way for a symptoms-awareness campaign that we launched on the London Tube this week. Our aim is to save lives, and that is achieved by early diagnosis, which come from creating awareness wherever and whichever way we can."

A big player like the one Comcast and Time Warner intend to create in the United States would probably meet antitrust obstacles on the Continent.

In a loopy but memorable attempt to symbolize the sweetness of its biscuits and tea-cakes, McVitie's new British TV campaign shows cute, cuddly critters emerging from its snack packages.

Ordinary folks open their boxes and out pop puppies, kittens and, most disconcertingly, a wide-eyed, Yoda-like primate called a tarsier. (They're getting pretty lax down at the packaging plant, I guess.)

The snackers, unfazed, snuggle with their new furry friends, which vanish once the biscuit-munching begins. Oh, and classic TV themes—from Murder She Wrote, Fawlty Towers and the U.K. game show Blockbuster—play in the background, naturally.

The presence of twins in one spot and a hospital setting in another intensify the self-consciously weird vibe that agency Grey London was shooting for. Even so, director Owen Trevor does a fine job treading the line between "Sweeet" (the campaign's tagline) and "Creeepy" by making the spots feel more random than unnerving.

"We loved the idea that one word could encompass everything these biscuits might mean, but that each biscuit would have a different kind of Sweeet," Grey ecd Nils Leonard tells AdFreak. "We also wanted a cinematic way to evoke the feeling of McVitie's. A way to create unique experiences that brought to life the different feelings each of the biscuits creates. Nailing the essence of each biscuit was critical, so we ate loads of them to help the creative process."

What's more, "We sweated every element of this work to create conversation and appeal to our audience." (And hopefully sweated off some of those many biscuits they ate)

The offbeat approach is designed to speed social sharing and sweeten the campaign's shelf life, even if some viewers sour on all that saccharine. "I just fainted from sweetness overload," notes one YouTube viewer, while another confused viewer asks,? "McVitie's Digestives taste like live dog?" 

In America, you'd need to have a rich, overindulgent father to have the lifestyle of your average Swedish worker, says a bizarre new ad from a Swedish trade organization. 

TCO, an umbrella confederation that includes a number of unions, presents to you "Like a Swede," a three-and-a-half-minute ode to the many benefits—like long vacations and employer pensions—enjoyed by Swedish employees. 

The story is told, quite surreally, through character Joe Williams, a resident of Beverly Hills. His dad, also his boss, treats him to six weeks of annual vacation and six months of paternity leave. Williams all-around enjoys a life of opulence thanks to his decision to live "like a Swede."

For the uninitiated, living like a Swede means using your friskvårdskbidraget, a Swedish health-care stipend, to hire a celebrity personal trainer—but only for a few minutes a year, because, you know, such social support only goes so far. It also includes playing kubb, a Swedish lawn game involving the tossing of wooden sticks; drinking nubbe, a Swedish liquor; and, we're told, singing a song about how the Swedish labor negotiation model is the greatest.

In other words, Swedes are, in a roundabout way, poking fun at Swedes for being spoiled. Credit for their advantages, the spot sort of explains, goes to the Swedish model of labor negotiations, which depends on a high level of collaboration between workers and employees groups and limited government involvement. 

If you're still totally clueless as to what the hell is actually going on, a spokesperson for TCO sheds some light on the campaign in English-language European publication The Local. "It's to make the Swedish Model more visible in a different way. People often know very little about it, which makes it harder for the unions to justify their own existence," says the spokesperson. "The Swedish Model means that the two parties can talk about what is needed in that particular industry, and be supple, rather than have very rigid legislation that we don't think is good for the Swedish economy."

The spot is one of the most intricately produced awareness ads you'll ever see. But if you're a non-Swede like me, by the time you're done unraveling it, you'll probably be too exhausted to laugh.

Via Ads of the World.

Officials may seek to break down country-by-country partitions that keep pay TV from being a single market in the European Union.

Fitness chain Virgin Active brings a free-spirited, born-to-be-wild attitude to this minute-long spot, showing a determined guy in underpants riding a motorbike at high speed across a dusty South African desert.

"We wanted people to look at it and see a guy who is living life how he wants, without fear or restraint," said Karmarama ecd Sam Walker, the spot's director. "It's about being active in every way, not just about exercise."

A biker attending a local rally was hired on the spot for the ad. Quick splices of big cats, rockets, clocks, blooming flowers and other offbeat imagery add a slight tone of surrealism, as does the use of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 Choral—Molto Vivace" for the soundtrack. (Sorry, Steppenwolf.) The tagline: "Live happily ever active."

It's a welcome change from the predictable New Year's glut of gym-based ads that show hard bodies pumping iron. Kudos for breaking the cycle!

This series of French McDonald's ads for three new sandwiches proves that, for better or worse, European stereotypes of Americans have changed a bit over the years. Instead of being fat tourists or dumb rednecks, we're now hockey players, cops and sexy lifeguards demanding that total strangers hand over their Double Shiny Bacon burgers.

Slate and Consumerist think the whole thing is out of left field, but I disagree. Sure, the hockey player is more of a Canadian icon (unless you live in Detroit), but the other two make sense enough. And unfortunately, we probably have earned a reputation as loud ostentatious bullies who always want what other people have.

In an era of "personal brands," there's one man who clearly needs his own style guide and appropriate-use policies: Santa Claus. Stepping in to fill the gap is British agency Quietroom, which has created a Santa Brand Book that would make any festive account planner swoon. 

Er, sorry, that should be the *Santa* Brand Book. The first asterisk "reminds customers of a snowflake alighting on the eyelash of a fawn," while the closing asterisk "points customers to the polar star, and hence the birth of dreams."

Delightfully overthought and packed with subtle humor keyed to those who've had to delve through such dreck for real consumer brands, the *Santa* Brand Book educates you on how to "live the brand" (Snap it, clap it, wrap it), which pantone of white to use, and why we do not refer to him as Father Christmas (because it anagrams to "The Rich Mr. Fat-Ass").

Hat tip to @Cloudspark.