Hasta La Creative!

Oh, hey there, ladies. Feeling fat? Of course you are. Don't worry. I've got some advice. Don't get sugary, fattening soda from that fat, tubby vending machine over there. Get delicious, trimming diet soda from from me! The Slender Vender. I'm so skinny, I fit between chairs at the hair salon, so you can be thin, but pretty too. I fit between treadmills at the gym, so you can drink more diet soda—it hydrates!—while you're working hard, so you can be more thin, like me. You won't find me, though, at that sketchy artist's loft in Brazil, where that soap company hangs out. Whatever you do, don't go there. They'll try to convince you that you're not anywhere near as fat and hideous as you think you are. And they'll probably serve you soda in a creepy skinny can. For Diet Coke, from Ogilvy Paris.

Little Debbie did not consult with Gap, JCPenney or any other noted logo overhaulers before updating its own logo—the first tweak to the design since 1985. The change is remarkably subtle, so much so that the dessert-snacks brand is challenging its fans on Facebook to see how many differences they can find. "Leave a comment with the changes you can spot, and share it with your friends to see how keen their eyes are," the brand says. For hints, check out the 1,200 comments left so far.

UPDATE: Below, check out the original 1959 photo of Debbie McKee, and the first logo, from 1960, which was based on the photo.

All you've ever wanted is to make it easier for that too-friendly guy you were too polite to while drunk at that party to stalk you the next day. No? Budweiser Brazil has the solution for you, anyway. The Buddy Cup (not a sexual position) comes with a QR code and built-in chip that connects it to your Facebook profile, so every time you toast some rando at a Bud-sponsored event, they gain instant access to your Facebook life. Because the world needs another uselessly hi-tech advertising innovation, and because the bar for being Facebook friends these days needs to be even more like blinking at a stranger passing on the street. Brought to you by Agencia Africa, which was also responsible for Bud's less idiotic Will.i.am magazine ad that doubled as a vinyl record.

"Col. James Porter was laid to rest in Morpeth, where worms began eating his body." Droga5 delivers one of the best commercials ever about a company's founder—for Newcastle Brown Ale. Read more about the brewer's latest campaign here.

Cats doing aerobics? DDB Chicago's amusing new video for Temptations cat treats is likely to blow up the Internet. No wonder Temptations-eating felines have the leg muscles to be able to cling so ardently to their owners. Check out the Work It Kitty website, where you can download the song ("I Don't Wanna Dance," recorded by Alex Gaudino, featuring Taboo) and learn more about the cats in the video. Ask your veterinarian if you're healthy enough for the Work It Kitty workout. Not recommended if you're on drugs, like those fools in JWT's Litter Genie spots. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Temptations Cat Treats
Agency: DDB, Chicago
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Ewan Patterson
Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director: Mark Gross
Vice President, Creative Director, Art Director: Wayne Robinson
Vice President, Creative Director, Copywriter: Matt Collier
Vice President, Executive Producer: Will St. Clair
Executive Digital Producer: Jon Ellis
Music Production Manager: Linda Bres
Executive Producer, Music and Integration: Eric Johnson
Production Business Manager: Scott Terry
Designer: Cody Petruk
Digital Artist, Designer: Annie Tsikretsis
Print Producer: Erica Bletsch
Art Buyer: Karen Blatchford
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Editorial Company: Beast, Chicago
Editor: John Dingfield
Telecine: Company 3, Chicago
Post Effects, Graphics: Method Studios, Chicago
Music: Ultra Records, "I Don't Wanna Dance," recorded by Alex Gaudino featuring Taboo

Last year, granola-bar brand Nature Valley and ad agency McCann Erickson, New York, unveiled one of the most ambitious digital campaigns of the year, Nature Valley Trail View, which created a first-of-its-kind interactive hiking experience thanks to teams who used Google Street View technology to map trails in three National Parks—the Grand Canyon, the Great Smoky Mountains and Yellowstone. The effort won two gold Lions at Cannes and legions of fans across the nation.

Today, agency and client unveiled the next evolution of the site, with three main improvements: more trail view footage (partly through the addition of 50 miles of footage from a fourth park, Sequoia); a comprehensive hub for the brand's past, present and future preservation activity; and fully interactive social functionality.

As mentioned in the video below, the preservation message is key. That part of the site now includes an interactive map with expert conservation content. Now, as users discover the trails, they can also get a sense of the preservation needs in each area and how Nature Valley is working to help.

In the past three years, Nature Valley has donated more than $1.3 million to support America's national parks. The brand will give $500,000 more this year to the National Parks Conservation Association.

"Nature Valley is about inspiring consumers to get outside and enjoy what nature has to offer," says Maria Carolina Comings, associate marketing manager for Nature Valley. "Our national parks are America's treasures that must be preserved and protected, and we hope to help raise awareness of the parks through Nature Valley Trail View and our ongoing restoration efforts. Through technology, we can help make the parks accessible to all, and encourage outdoor exploration for years to come."

More photos and credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Nature Valley
Project: Nature Valley Trail View 2.0
Agency: McCann Erickson, New York
Chairman: Linus Karlsson
Chief Creative Officers: Tom Murphy, Sean Bryan
Executive Creative Director: Leslie Sims
Group Creative Director: Mat Bisher
Creative Director: Jason Schmall
Copywriter: Sarah Lloyd
Chief Production Officer: Brian DiLorenzo
Executive Integrated Producer: Catherine Eve Patterson
Senior Integrated Producer: Geoffrey Guinta
Editor: Nathan Thompson
Executive Music Producer: Peter Gannon
Production: Traction
Creative Principal, Field Producer: Bryan Roberts
Producer: Adam Baskin
Digitech Cameraman: James deMuth
Lead Cameraman: Brandon McClain
Preservation Lead, Writer: Greg Jackson
Design and Development: Your Majesty
Executive Creative Director, Photographer: Jens Karlsson
Design Director: Riley Milhem
Tech Lead: Micah Acinapura
Developer: Raed Atoui
Executive Producer: Heather Reddig

Talk about beef jerky. The trend of using actual security-camera footage in ads continues, with Kent's Meats & Groceries in Redding, Calif., setting footage of a botched burglary to the theme from The Benny Hill Show. The portly perp is probably lucky he failed, because the last thing he needs is another helping of deli. The meaty miscreant's attention to planning and detail is shockingly lean. Clad in pajamas, as if he's just rolled out of bed craving a late-night snack, the oafish offender adjusts his face-stocking, breaks a window and then falls down trying to run away. The performance is more pathetic than funny ha-ha. I prefer the mannequin-mangling antics of the felonious fashionistas who looted a Reserva boutique in the year's other notable security-cam commercial. As for Kent's, I'm cool with the ludicrous lawbreaker's escape, because that fatty pink pastrami shown at the end of the clip is the real crime on display here.

We are hoping to turn lemons into lemonade with this latest TV ad.Remember the "bumbling burglar"?… fb.me/IUUBMTYu

— Kent's Meats(@kentsmeats) April 18, 2013

The world's most famous spokespitcher, the Kool-Aid Man, just got a glassy makeover to help promote the brand's new sugar-free liquid drink mix. The Kool-Aid Man, who's been around since 1954, was made over by Saatchi & Saatchi in New York and VSA Partners of Chicago. At 59 years old, he's now completely CGI, appears a bit slimmer, has a new voice—including an "expanded vocabulary and developed personality" (!)—and of course his own brand-new Facebook page.

Thankfully, he will still say, "Oh, yeah!" and burst through walls. But in the new commercials, he's also seen working out at the gym, buying flowers and wondering which of his 22 fabulous flavor "outfits" to wear. (Hey, is the Kool-Aid Man gay now, too? If so, that's kool with me—give him a big equals sign over his midsection and make it his new profile pic.) In June, Kool-Aid will also launch a Kool-Aid Man PhotoBomb mobile app, which will allow fans to superimpose images of Kool-Aid Man into their own photos.

"This is one of those fun projects we love to work on: Bring Kool-Aid Man back, better than ever," says Saatchi New York chief creative officer Con Williamson. "When we set out to do that, when we really dug in, we discovered that there's a lot to love in the evolution of this iconic character. We wanted people to get to know him a bit more. Kool-Aid and Kool-Aid Man are undeniably fun and positively bold. We wanted that happiness to shine through in his personality and attitude."

LowLow is an Irish brand of cheese products that have one-third the fat of regular cheese. But rather than produce the typical diet-food advert where women who don't need to be on a diet wiggle orgasmically as they chow down on cardboard-textured food stuffs, LowLow decided to make fun of the whole concept of diet-food advertising.

In the spot below, we meet the girls from adland: Smug Girl, Ditzy Girl and Muffin Girl. These superficial girls each have their own issues. Smug Girl dines on crackers just to fit into her jeans. Ditzy Girl dances about everywhere she goes because she loves her diet food just that much. And poor Muffin Girl is so obsessed with muffins that she sees them everywhere. However, the truly subversive content is in the jingle which asks, "How many clichés are we gonna stand?" There is more than a passing gibe toward Special K, whose red and white color palette and blue-jean obsession is mocked. And the spot ends with a furious montage of women measuring and weighing themselves as the jingle sings, "They know they bring us down, but it's for our own good, cause we gotta keep you girls all feeling bad about food."

The tagline, "Sick of clichés? So are we," invites you to head over to their Facebook page and rant about how much you hate it when diet-food ads patronize their audience. Clearly, they've struck some sort of chord, perhaps because the whole thing is so silly. After all, no one has ever eaten a low-calorie cheese and been overwhelmed by the sudden need to dance, turn cartwheels on beaches or run through a field of wild flowers. I think the best you can hope for is a diet food that doesn't result in anal leakage.

Over in Australia, Kit Kat decided to commemorate its limited-edition white-chocolate Kit Kats by taking the last 50 and getting illustrator Mike Watt to melt them down and create 50 original illustrations from them. After crushing and melting the things, he painted the resulting goo on canvas and used a knife to scrape away the sections he didn't want, leaving behind a white-chocolate relief. They're really quite beautiful. Kit Kats never look that good crushed and melted in the bottom of my purse. The illustrator characterizes the project as preserving a piece of the brand's history. I dunno if I'd go that far. Eventually that brittle layer of chocolate on each canvas is going to break apart. View all the posters in this Facebook gallery.