Hasta La Creative!

One December day at the International Scene of Contemporary Dance in Stockholm, Sweden, a man named Olle, one of the best air acrobats in the world, did a triple-somersault jump. It was a jump like hundreds of others he’d done before, but this time was different. 

He fell on his head. 

“Within that second I heard my neck break. A moment devoid of time,” Olle writes. “The sound of the neck break echoed in my head, itself an endless, dark, spherical space in which I was hovering weightlessly.” 

Olle crushed several cervical vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord. He was paralyzed from the neck down. The doctors couldn’t say how much brain functioning he’d regain, or even whether he would walk again. One thing was sure: He’d never jump again.

It’s been 10 years since then. Olle has miraculously recovered. Many people like him would count their blessings, move to a quiet town and take up gardening. But in what’s being dubbed “the most irresponsible circus performance ever,” Olle is gearing up to repeat the same jump, with just one difference. This time, he’ll do it from up to 12,000 feet in the sky.

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Forget about next week’s Cannes Lions. Check out all the crazy cats in this commercial for Netto, a German supermarket chain. 

These 75 seconds of epic kitty cuteness take place in an incredibly detailed miniature version of a Netto store and feature clones of Maru, Keyboard Cat and other stars of famous feline memes. Is the No No No Cat among them? Yes yes yes! 

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Kudos to Procter & Gamble brand Lenor (known in the U.S. as Downy) for managing to eroticize fabric softener in surprisingly poetic fashion.

Each of these four long-form ads from Grey Dusseldorf delivers a cheeky ode to a different type of garment—skirts, trousers, shirts and scarves.

The first may be the wittiest, but overall they feature some of the richest copy in recent years, full of little twists and turns perfectly juxtaposed with a wildly varied montage that splices contemporary footage with older live clips, stills and cartoons spanning the better part of a century—not to mention a few much older works of art. (Modern highlights include a nod to the No Pants Subway Ride, and a sideswipe at Americans for misusing the word “pants” altogether.)

Even when the prose does get a bit purple, it stays oddly delightful. That’s in large part because, despite reveling in its own wordplay, it hews pretty closely to a truth-telling tone—not in a myopic, product-peddling kind of way but in a broader, clever and observational sense. 

“So let’s not skirt around the subject,” explains the voiceover in a quirky Icelandic accent that doesn’t hurt the work’s charm any, either. “You turn heads, drop jaws and make grown men speechless. You help us in our search for Mr. Right, but locate so many Mr. Wrongs.”

In other words, it doesn’t always take the most progressive tack, but the whole thing is credible and entertaining enough to make you feel like Lenor doesn’t just want to reach into your pocket and pull out the cash (along with whatever blue lint it can find).

Rather, it wants to share the secrets to a life well lived. Because what is doing laundry about, if not the meaning of existence?

Next up in our Kids Behaving Inappropriately series, BBDO Berlin got a bunch of children to yell extremely dirty words to make a point about Smart cars, and how they can lead to a more calm, lighthearted temperament.

My favorite is the little guy in the suit. Angry, angry young man.

Smart cars look a lot like artisanal jelly beans, but that is by design—Mercedes-Benz design, as it turns out. The video goes on to show off the car’s maneuverability and convenient parking size, although the street was oddly free of traffic hazards in what was supposed to be a stressful urban environment.

Where was the random car sitting in the middle of the lane with his hazards on? The pedestrians running into traffic without looking? The 1,000-person family all using the crosswalk one at a time? C’mon guys, give those kids something to really swear about!

Actually, don’t. That’s more their parents’ job, anyway.

What better way to sell foot-care products than with an entire magazine for and about feet?

Hansaplast, a Beiersdorf-owned band-aid brand, is launching a line of creams, deodorant and antiperspirant called FootExpert. To promote the products, agency Being created Feet Mag, a luxury publication designed with heavy paper that can be easily turned by one’s feet, and large print that you can enjoy from an eye-to-foot distance (for those unable to lift the book close to their faces using only their toes).

The magazine is packed with foot-themed stories about art (by the likes of Renoir, Gauguin, Delacroix and Manet) and fashion, with sassy pictures of women playing cards and blowing kisses with their own feet. There are even foot horoscopes (with advice like putting on rubber boots to prepare for the coming storm).

Check out a copy of the magazine here. (PDF link)

It’s a fun way to draw attention to a decidedly dull subject, certainly more noteworthy than buying ads in a well-established beauty magazine. But it doesn’t seem right to make your feet do all that extra work—even in the name of leisure.

Via PSFK.