Hasta La Creative!

In Thailand, 80 percent of people killed in road accidents are riding motorcycles. Now, one agency hopes its new invention could literally mean the difference between life and death. 

The “Helpmet” was designed by BBDO Bangkok for the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (the same partnership that recently came up with the fat-reducing AbsorbPlate) to help address Thailand’s staggeringly high rate of motorcycle fatalities—the second highest in the world. 

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If you’ve arrived at this ad without having seen Ogilvy’s previous work for Thai Life Insurance, take a minute or two to get familiar—here and here. Oh, and grab some tissues first, you old softie.

OK, now that we’re up to speed, here’s the latest spot from the wizards of weeping, the sultans of sobbing, the ballers of bawling. 

In the perfect short-film-style vignette, we follow the life of our unlikely hero, Pornchai Sukyod: a husky schoolboy with unusual superhero aspirations. Despite its three-and-a-half-minute run time, it’s a flawlessly shot and edited spot that presents a concise, poignant narrative—with a reveal that feels nothing at all like an insurance commercial.

We’ve all been there, as a father, family member or designated baby holder. Mom hands off her bundle of joy to you as she grabs four minutes of alone time in the Applebee’s bathroom. Now it’s you and Junior. Alone. And he just. Starts. BAWLING.

There’s nothing like the sound of a weeping baby to whip you into a state of panic. And you want nothing more than to find Mommy. But if Mommy’s gone, and you’re in Thailand, you grab your cellphone from DTAC in a frantic effort to distract the child with soothing technology.

Let’s just say it doesn’t quite work out as planned.

This new DTAC ad, from Y&R Thailand, is the latest in a spree of sob-fest spots from Thailand in recent years. (Man, they’re good at this stuff.) The premise is debatable—show me a living human infant who is immune to cartoon penguins—but the sentiment is a sweet one, and parents with vague underlying guilt about the smartphone as babysitter will relate.

Plus, it’s refreshing to see a tech ad where the gadget most certainly doesn’t save the day. Not every tech marketer would be OK with that.

Check out the spot below. Spoiler: Dad doesn’t eat the baby.

"My Beautiful Woman" is a series of three short ad films totaling 20 minutes of running time. And while that might sound like an eternity on YouTube, in this case it's definitely worth it.

The stories—narrated in Thai, subtitled in slightly broken English—are beautiful, emotional and likely to move sentimental types to tears. (They did for me, anyway.) The real surprise is that they're for lingerie brand Wacoal, though you'd never know it from the completely unsexual storytelling. 

Each movie tells a story about a "beautiful woman," and then quietly closes with the copy "Wacoal believes all women were created to be beautiful." Then comes a request: "Who is your beautiful woman? Post a photo and hashtag #MyBeautifulWoman."

I don't want to give away the storylines, because they're lovely and surprising in their subtle twists. Some may argue they're sappy or cloying, and there are certainly some cultural differences to take into account. But feel free to block this off as your sniffly-faced, feel-good moment of the day.

La semaine dernière, l’ultime étape de la saison de Red Bull Cliff Diving a eu lieu au milieu des paysages de Krabi en Thaïlande. Un évènement impressionnant remporté par le plongeur Artem Silchenko qui se dévoile dans une série de photographies à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

Looking for a tear-jerker today? Thai mobile company TrueMove has got you covered with this story of a noodle seller whose generous act toward a young boy with a sick mother brings unexpected rewards 30 years later.

With almost 6 million hits in just a few days, the ad is getting lots of press. The tagline is, "Giving is the best communication." It's not entirely clear (at least in the ad) how that relates to a mobile company, but frankly, it doesn't need to. The buzz (and the vague hope that it will encourage random acts of kindness among viewers) is all that really matters.

Oddly, instead of focusing on the story, a bunch of bloggers have latched onto the ad and are using it to start a flame war with American advertisers about why we can't come up with ads this moving and cinematic. Way to generalize, guys. I didn't see you talking about awesome Thai ads when they punked you last month with the hot chick who was a dude.

I guess that was a different kind of crying game.

Le créatif Christian Grewe nous propose de découvrir la vidéo « Travel Love », un superbe montage résumant en 4 minutes ses voyages réalisés dans 8 pays en Amérique du Sud et en Asie. De belles images de la Bolivie, du Vietnam, du Pérou ou de la Thaïlande à découvrir en vidéo dans la suite de l’article.

Grand amateur de voyages comme en témoignent ses séries Highlands et Waterscape, le photographe hongrois Akos Major revient cette fois-ci avec la superbe série « Eastward », réunissant des clichés magnifiques capturés à Dubaï, en Thaîlande et au Cambodge. Plus d’images dans la suite.