Hasta La Creative!

Mother’s Day surprises were aplenty this weekend, including a big one for the U.S. women’s World Cup soccer team.

Due to their demanding schedules, it’s been years since many of the players have seen their moms on Mother’s Day. In a very sweet video uploaded to Facebook and YouTube by Fox Sports, the team sat down for a pre-game dinner, and their coach introduced special surprise guests—their moms.

The mother-daughter reunions are lovely to watch. Maybe even more remarkable is seeing the a second surprise happen—check out the video to see what it was.

“Abby’s been on this team for 14 years. For 14 years, I have not had you around for a Mother’s Day,” says Abby Wambach’s mom, Judy. The video cuts to the two of them standing side by side on the field.

The video closes with a request to “Cheer on our women this summer.” (Fox will be broadcasting the tournament across its networks, including 16 matches live on the flagship broadcast station.)

The team won the game 3-0 with their moms watching. Wambach scored career goals 179 and 180, and turned around after her second goal to point at her mom.

Heartwarming and inspiring all around.

Those of you who’ve been pining for another episode of Shit Girls Say are in luck: Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey’s amusing web series, based on the popular Twitter account, just did a spot for haircare brand Aussie—in the same style as their unbranded videos.

Sheppard directed the ad and is also the star, donning a wig and narrating common hair woes. (We’re told mcgarrybowen was the agency.)

“I can’t it wet!” he complains. “This looks stupid.” “Does this look dumb?”

Aussie recently conducted a #hairprobs survey, which found:

• Women run late an average of one day per week due to hair drama.
• One third of moms (35 percent) say their hair requires more time than their kids in the morning.
• 40 percent of women under 40 cried at least once over their hair in the past six months.
• Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of women under age 40 think that while having sex, a partner ruining their hair would be worse than a partner who can’t perform.
• Seven percent of women admit to avoiding getting intimate altogether to preserve their hairstyle.
• Women spend 20 minutes per day on their hair, translating to a full work week each year.

If you think most of these stats are hard to believe, I’m with you. Who are these people?

Stats aside, the video itself is fun—relatable and entertaining. It ends with Aussie encouraging women to #DitchtheDrama and their complex hair routines (with a shampoo plus conditioner combo product and a dry shampoo) in exchange for “fully living life.”

Which also means not crying over your hair or thinking about it during sex, probably.

LG launched its #MomConfessions campaign earlier this year with a series of cynically amusing TV spots, and since then, real moms have started to get in on the confessional action.

While the appliance brand and agency Hill Holliday seeded the campaign with their own Tumblr posts (“I go running to relieve stress. Just kidding, I drink margaritas.”), there are plenty made from the keyboards of your next door neighbor or PTA president and submitted to MomConfessions.com.

Some of them are funny, some are actually from dads, and some are quite brilliant (“My child thinks the ice cream truck is a music truck. We dance as it goes by.”). Of course, some left me making a face like I just had a bite of day old yogurt, know what I mean?

Here are a few of the better ones, slowly transitioning to the rather sad:

Feminine hygiene brand Carefree has released some videos from DDB Sydney promoting its new website, and they’re absolutely 100 percent not your typical feminine hygiene ads.

No mysterious blue liquid being poured onto a maxi pad. No woman in white walking along the beach looking unreasonably elated for someone who’s supposedly on day two of her period. Instead, the spots feature three different hosts—Harmony Freebush, Fanny Glitterwinkle and Stefan Van Der Blöed—who monologue emphatically about different aspects of vaginal care.

One is devoted entirely to vagina names. The hosts and their monologues are all ridiculous (that’s the point) and end with the on-screen text: “Really? For a more real take on [vaginas, periods, tampons, fill-in-the-blank], visit carefree.com.au.”

The videos range from funny to ridiculous to “watching a sex scene with your parents in the room” cringey. Stefan Van Der Blöed and his turtleneck get my vote for best videos, but you’ll have to watch them all and decide for yourself which is best.

You might want to grab a snack and get comfortable, because Cornetto's newest ad is an eight-minute short film that is totally worth the watch. As with its other long-form ads, the ice cream brand takes a back seat to a bigger story. In this case, it's a love story.

Between the storyline, the style and Lily Allen's narration and cameo, it feels a bit like a softer and sweeter Judd Apatow movie, and I kept waiting for a Zooey Deschanel appearance. Directed by Lloyd Lee Choi for the U.K. market, the spot is clever and cute and funny, and as an avid fan of the Internet, I particularly enjoyed the part when the story's heroine meets brief fame and gets turned into a meme.

I don't want to give the whole thing away—you'll want to watch it for yourself.

Oh right, it also sells ice cream. Some may argue the product being an afterthought makes for bad advertising, but I think there's something to be said for its entertainment value and the consumer connection. Cornetto has done this before with a romantic three-minute video that's been viewed over 30 million times, and also with a cheesy-but-cute-but-confusing spot last month.

It's also just one spot in Cornetto's "Cupidity" series in the U.K. Others include a film about finding love on a road trip; one where a girl declares, "Everything is ugly beautiful"; and a remake of last month's aforementioned confusing video, minus the techno music. It's heavy on the hipster (Instagram photos, flowers in the hair, I'm sure there's a Pabst Blue Ribbon in there somewhere), but totally cute and appealing to what is likely Cornetto's target—millennials and TwoKays (born after 2000), which is apparently what we're calling the generation after millennials.

For the next video in the "Cupidity" series, I'm hopeful for a story about an underdog competing in a rap battle in Brooklyn.

Other spots from the "Cupidity" campaign:

St. John Ambulance, the first-aid teaching and awareness organization, has put together some incredible, horrifying PSAs through the years.

We've covered many of BBH London's ads for the group. Last year, the agency won a silver Film Lion at Cannes for "Helpless," a two-minute film based around the statistic that first aid could prevent 140,000 deaths a year—the same number who die from cancer. BBH followed that up with the heartbreaking "Save the Boy" spot last fall.

Now, here's a new spot—for St. John Ambulance in Australia. Created by The Brand Agency in Perth, it's equally heart-wrenching and difficult to watch. And effective, at least in my case. After watching this, I found myself searching the Internet for local first aid courses.

Warning: The video below may be upsetting.

The new face of Jim Beam, the iconic bourbon brand, might not be quite what you expect. While a rough-around-the-edges cowboy or country rock star might seem to fit the bill—Jim Beam has used Kid Rock at times in the past—its newest spokesperson is the petite and beautiful Mila Kunis.

The 30-year-old actress, who says she is a big fan of bourbon in general, is featured in two new 30-second Beam ads, as well as five other videos ranging in length from 15 seconds to more than three minutes.

The first commercial features a series of quasi-historical events (the transition to the '60s is a little visually jarring), and in the second, Kunis is seen branding her own barrel of bourbon. She narrates, and smolders, in both. "Make history" is the tagline of the new global campaign.

The supporting videos are pretty fun. Save for "Mila Kunis & Hibernation," which feels a little bit too much like a production of a scene in Indiana Jones, the other shorts are funny and quirky and a little less serious than the two main spots. And if you find yourself feeling the need to whisper "Shut up, Meg," it's because Kunis—no stranger to voiceover work—has been the voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy for the past 14 years.

Nice move on Jim Beam's part in an attempt to appeal to millennials. The campaign is by FutureWorks, a new entity comprised of three regional Beam creative agencies—StrawberryFrog in New York, The Works in Sydney, Australia, and Jung von Matt, Hamburg, Germany.

It's been a great year for women-empowering ads. Brands tackled everything from gender stereotypes (Pantene) to sexism (UN Women) to cultural repression (Tanishq), encouraged women to be kinder to themselves (Dove), got girls to celebrate their own strength (GoldieBlox, Mercy Academy), and even made a this-is-for-real ad about periods (HelloFlo).

Below, we've collected the seven most popular campaigns of the year. Popular doesn't necessarily mean universally loved; none of the work was received without some backlash or criticism. You can vote for your favorite with a tweet. Not seeing your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

UPDATE: The runaway winner is Mercy Academy. Congratulations!

Pantene Philippines has launched a powerful campaign pointing out how identical behavior often earns men and women different labels in the workplace.

In this spot by BBDO Guerrero in Manila, a lovely cover of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears plays while each scene displays a double-standard in a working environment. A man is the "boss" while a woman is "bossy." A man is "persuasive" while a woman is "pushy." He's "neat" but she's "vain." He's "smooth" but she's a "show-off." "Don't let labels hold you back. Be strong and shine," says the copy at the end.

There's nary a shampoo bottle in sight, although glossy hair certainly features here. But the video delivers, and the #whipit campaign has inspired discussion on both the YouTube video and Facebook.

• "Too bad they couldn't find a male equivalent of 'bitch.' This is the one I hear the most about strong women in the workplace."
• "Sell product by convincing your target market that you are more invested in contributing to emotionally charged, globally relevant women's image issues than you are in advertising your product."

While it is disappointing that they used only light-skinned models—a long-standing trend in the Philippines—it's a potent spot with an important message criticizing gender stereotypes. Oh, and Sheryl Sandberg is a fan.

GoldieBlox went from hero to zero in one short week, putting our ad-loving hearts through a roller coaster of emotions. Now, it's belatedly making amends by removing its parody of the Beastie Boys' "Girls" from its mega-popular "Princess Machine" ad—and posting its own "open letter" to the band (and the world) telling its side of the story.

To recap: GoldieBlox last week released an empowering spot using a rewritten version "Girls" as the soundtrack to breaking gender roles in the toy space. (Sample lyrics: "It's time to change/We deserve to see a range/'Cause all our toys look just the same/And we would like to use our brains.") The ad was clever and cool, and everyone loved it—except they failed to ask the Beastie Boys for permission to use the song. The band objected, and GoldieBlox sued to have its soundtrack declared fair use. That precipitated a PR nightmare (especially after the Beasties' posted a frankly damning open letter in response). So now, GoldieBlox has surrendered—deleting the video, posting a new one with a more generic soundtrack and releasing its own lengthy statement about the affair.

"We don't want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans," GoldieBlox founder Debra Sterling writes. She goes on to defend her intentions but says "our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats." Sterling says she had no idea the late Adam Yauch was opposed to using his music in ads (not every "huge fan" of Yauch's knows this, apparently, even one who is looking into doing just that), and adds: "We don't want to spend our time fighting legal battles. We want to inspire the next generation. We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends."

It's basically a passive-aggressive non-apology, casting the Beastie Boys as bullies and GoldieBlox as the victim—and also, irritatingly, the bigger person. The company suddenly doesn't want to fight a legal battle, even though it started one. And it wants to be friends, even though it's spent a week trying to be enemies.

Perhaps this bitterness is understandable. The company had a huge hit on its hands—deleting it must be tough to swallow. And the new spot (posted below), without the Beastie Boys song, definitely has less energy—although maybe it just seems that way because most of us are sort of over it.