Hasta La Creative!

Between 1997 and 2003, you probably fell asleep to psychic Miss Cleo telling you, in her upbeat Jamaican accent, that she could predict your future during her infamous Psychic Readers Network infomercials. Now, this April Fools’ Day, the pitchwoman is back. But instead of reading tarot cards, she’s trading makeup tips.

Miss Cleo is now apparently shilling for the Benefit Cosmetics Flawless Friends Network, a hotline that compliments your look. And this time, your calls to her number, 1-844-SO-FLAWLESS, won’t cost you $9.95 a minute. While she gets it makes fun of her most famous role, she’s totally on board with the prank. 

“Laughter is truly the best healer,” she tells AdFreak. “It’s the best way to celebrate. I love to laugh. I think that if anybody takes themselves too seriously, you run the risk of missing out on a lot of wonderful things.”

Don’t believe her? You can also hear testimonials from Shannen Doherty and Joey Lawrence, who make cameos in the ad. (As for me, I’m a firm believer in Miss Cleo’s predictive power. The psychic told me I’m a sensitive soul on my third life, which gives me the ability to take a concept and make it happen at top-level quality. Totally true.)

CREDITS
Client: Benefit Cosmetics
Vice President, Brand, Digital Marketing: Nicole Frusci
Executive Producer, Director: Claudia Allwood
Creative Director: Adriana Parada
Audio Producer: Laurin Hicks
Talent Casting, Management: The Eighth Floor Communications

Video Production Team
Producer: Danny Skarka
Scriptwriter: Brandon Snider
Postproduction Supervisor: Blake Padilla
Motion Graphics: Jimmy Giliberti
Los Angeles Director of Photography: Lew Abramson
Los Angeles Audio: Tom Curley
Miami Director of Photography: Gianfranco Bianchi
Miami Audio: Jeff Alex Thomas
Editor: Loren Sorensen

Hotline Production
Scriptwriter: Janie Stolar
Sound Engineer: Dexter Paulino

Talent: Cleo Harris, Shannen Doherty, Joey Lawrence

Hotline created by IfByPhone, Chicago
Recorded at Aesthesia Studio, Los Angeles; Graphographics, Miami
Edited at DigitalCore, San Francisco

Those who follow the saga of Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch’s media interviews know he is notoriously a man of few words.

Whether it’s answering every question with a laid-back “Yeah” or just thanking the press instead of uttering a real response, Lynch has unceremoniously been fined several times for his refusal to talk to journalists. However, not one but two brands—Skittles and Progressive—have now managed to get the tight-lipped athlete to talk.

Skittles, a first-time Super Bowl advertiser, staged a mock press conference with Lynch as part of the teasers for its in-game ads. He answers questions like whether he prefers cat or dog videos, if he wishes he could rush for a 200-yard touchdown, and if he’d rather arrive to the game in a blimp or a jetpack. There’s also handfuls of the candy available for Lynch to chomp down on, which is probably why he looks uncharacteristically joyful during the stunt.

Separately, Lynch also sat down to chat with sports reporter Kenny Mayne for Progressive in the amusingly off-kilter video below. They mostly just play word association, although at one point Marshawn shares his love of Progressive’s spokeswoman, purring, “I’m all about that Flo, boss.”

The Progressive campaign is also raising money for Lynch’s charity, Fam 1st Family Foundation. The running back has signed a pair of cleats, which will be sold on eBay—with all proceeds benefiting the foundation.

Please keep being you, Beast Mode.

The #IAmARepublican campaign was meant to show Americans that Republicans can be normal, reasonable people. However, it’s become the latest case of snarktivism, as social media users hijack the hashtag to mock members of the political party.

The attempt to humanize Republicans was created by Vinny Minchillo, who had worked on Mitt Romney’s ad campaigns during the 2012 presidential election. He launched a website called RepublicansArePeopleToo.com for the cause, and supplemented the message on Facebook and Twitter. He also masterminded a video showing that conservative Americans drive Priuses, publicly peruse The New York Times and struggle through building Ikea furniture like the rest of us.

“On social media, I’ve been called every name in the book,” Minchillo explained to The New Republic. “It’s become socially acceptable to talk about Republicans in the most evil terms possible, and that doesn’t seem right. We wanted to do this to really remind people that Republicans are friends, neighbors and do things that maybe you wouldn’t expect them to do.”

While there is no doubt all the statements in the video are true, the campaign has taken a farcical turn. Most notably, The Daily Banter discovered that the photo used to illustrate that “Republicans are black” is, in fact, a stock image that’s been used to promote a variety of causes, including the Georgia Association of Black Woman Attorneys and QuickPaydayNow.com. 

Also, people are indeed tweeting about what it means to be a Republican—but they’re probably not the kinds of sentiments Minchillo had in mind when he created the campaign. 

I don’t need fancy-shmancy high school diploma to know dinosaur fossils were put there by satan to trick smarty-pants libs. #iamarepublican

— mcdowdy (@mcdowdy) October 3, 2014

This made my day: http://t.co/CF82RBE9iL. #IAmARepublican pic.twitter.com/wFjx1JhWHm

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) October 2, 2014

There’s absolutely no reason to worry about being shot dead by a gun. But Obama must cure Ebola now. #IAmARepublican #fearmongering

— The Real Carmen (@Carmeanie) October 3, 2014

#IAmARepublican because I accept all races, religions, and classes of ppl. As long as they’re white, Christian, and rich.

— Aaron Thorpe (@AaronThorpe3) September 30, 2014

#IamARepublican because I need the menfolk to tell me what to do with my ladyparts. And white Jesus. Amen and pass the ammo.

— Mari Steed (@culchiewoman) September 30, 2014

Minchillo should chalk this one up as a learning experience. Republicans can get burned online, too.

Great Odin’s Raven! If you ever wanted to play video games with self-proclaimed video game wiz Will Ferrell, here’s your chance to do so—and support a great cause.

The Saturday Night Live alumnus is asking fans to donate money to help kids who are battling childhood cancers. One lucky donor will get to spend an evening gaming with Ferrell in San Francisco, all of which will be livestreamed on Twitch.

The proceeds from the campaign, being crowdfunded on Indiegogo will go to Cancer for College and DonateGames.org. The former provides scholarships to cancer survivors; the latter helps children with cancer and their families by using video games and other technology, including selling game bundles to raise money for financial aid or donating video games and equipment to hospitals.

Hear the contest announcement from Will Pharell himself, who allegedly once played Asteroids for 37 hours without taking a bathroom break:

If you don’t win Will Ferrell’s SuperMegaBlastMax Gamer Challenge, there’s still plenty of swag to take home from partners like Amazon, Twitch and Microsoft. There’s also awesome limited-edition Ferrell gear including his special gamers’ sunscreen, and best of all, signed cowbells. Trust me: We all need a little more cowbell in our life.

When you leave people to their own devices, they tend to get nihilistic. When they get nihilistic, they make darkly comic scripts for DirecTV.

Case in point: the satellite-TV company's Twitter-sourced fable—created in the style of Grey's long-running "Cable Effects" campaign—of what happens if you don’t cut the cord.

The satellite giant asked its fans to contribute a story line to the campaign by tweeting one-liners with the hashtag #GetRidofCable. The company then selected the best ideas and made a cohesive, disturbing story—read like a storybook in the video below—of getting addicted to cheese during lab experiments, going back in time and undoing your own birth … all because the protagonist refused to say no to cable.

It's actually a pretty good entry in the campaign, even if the last line is a bit long-winded. Then again, despite the medium's limitations, people on Twitter aren't really known for keeping it short, are they?