Steely-eyed, crossbow-wielding Daryl Dixon never loses his cool in a zombie attack, but the actor who plays him, Norman Reedus? He might just jump out of his skin if set upon by the undead. The Walking Dead star got an unexpected visit from a superfan, transformed into a brain-eating monster by the show's special effects guru Greg Nicotero, during a promo tour for the mega-hit AMC TV series. He reacted in a very un-Daryl-like way.

See the video below, which joyfully (for us) and embarrassingly (for Reedus) replays his jump/yelp in slow motion. Walking Dead fan Nick Santonastasso, 17, has pulled this prank before on unsuspecting grocery shoppers, who defended themselves with bulk paper towels and party supplies. Reedus had only his endearing personality to shield him.

AMC, meanwhile, has just released the newest trailer for the Feb. 9 return of the zombiepocalypse drama. (See that below as well.) The prison is lost, the survivors are scattered and on the move, and everybody, it seems, is losing it. Reedus can relate.

Next time you're caught driving in a winter storm, Nissan Canada wants you to be grateful you're only dealing with the natural elements and not a supernatural mob of malicious snowmen who are hell bent on destroying everything around them.

Unless you're driving a Nissan Rogue, in which case be happy knowing that if the evil snowmen do magically appear, you can use your all-wheel drive to plow through them like you're playing a less twisted version of Carmageddon, and save all the poor rubes driving other makes and models by letting them pile into the back of your roomy interior.

The creatures in this new spot, from TBWA Toronto, may happily remind Calvin and Hobbes fans of The Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons. More generally, it's a neat, fresh way for Nissan to dramatize the product's suitability for harsh weather conditions—full of entertaining moments like the angry snowmen beating the crap out of a snow blower with snow shovels, and the perfectly creepy head cock one offers right before getting pancaked.

Now all we want to know is where we can get one to keep as a pet.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Nissan Canada
Agency: TBWA, Toronto
Executive Creative Director: Allen Oke
Creative Director: Rodger Eyre
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Susie Lee
Writer: Jonah Flynn
Head of Broadcast: Nadya Macneil
Production House: Sons and Daughters
Director: Mark Zibert
DP: Chris Soos
Executive Producer: Liane Thomas
Line Producer: Neil Bartley
Editing: Poster Boy
Executive Producer: Michelle Rich
Editor: Mark Paiva
Assistant: Johnny Okkerse
Transfer: Alter Ego
Colourist : Wade Odlum
Effects: Legacy Effects, LA
Effects Technicians: Shane Mahan/Mark Killingsworth
Post Production: The Mill, New York
Producer: Jeremy Moore
Compositing Lead/VFX Supervisor: Kyle Cody
CG Lead: Jeff Dates
VFX Supervisor: Andreas Berner
Executive Producer: Melanie Wickham
Audio House: Eggplant, Toronto
Head of Production: Nicola Treadgold
Director: Adam Damelin
Engineer: Nathan Handy

Client: Nissan Canada
Agency: TBWA, Toronto
Executive Creative Director: Allen Oke
Creative Director: Rodger Eyre
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Susie Lee
Writer: Jonah Flynn
Head of Broadcast: Nadya Macneil
Production House: Sons and Daughters
Director: Mark Zibert
DP: Chris Soos
Executive Producer: Liane Thomas
Line Producer: Neil Bartley
Editing: Poster Boy
Executive Producer: Michelle Rich
Editor: Mark Paiva
Assistant: Johnny Okkerse
Transfer: Alter Ego
Colourist : Wade Odlum
Effects: Legacy Effects, LA
Effects Technicians: Shane Mahan/Mark Killingsworth
Post Production: The Mill, New York
Producer: Jeremy Moore
Compositing Lead/VFX Supervisor: Kyle Cody
CG Lead: Jeff Dates
VFX Supervisor: Andreas Berner
Executive Producer: Melanie Wickham
Audio House: Eggplant, Toronto
Head of Production: Nicola Treadgold
Director: Adam Damelin
Engineer: Nathan Handy

Here's a feel-good moment from Swiffer. A new ad for the brand stars an interracial family, which deserves some credit, if lamentably, in light of the idiotic controversy around last year's Cheerios ad. But also, Zack Rukavina, the husband and father in the documentary-style spot, also lost an arm to cancer—a fact that is central to the ad's narrative about how the brand makes cleaning easier, and which seems to be earning the P&G-owned brand extra points.

Zack is also cast as an active participant in the cleaning, unlike Morty Kauffman, the husband in the geriatric Swiffer-endorsing couple from last year, who only does the laundry and leaves the rest to his wife, Lee. In fact, Rukavina even cracks wise about how much better he is at cleaning than his wife, Afi.

The ad, by Publicis Kaplan Thaler, pulls so many progressive levers at once that it risks feeling contrived or opportunistic, but ultimately ends up coming across as real enough to actually warrant a rare bit of respite from cynicism. Enjoy.

Via Jezebel.

Some folks are finding Barton F. Graf 9000's latest advertising excursion for travel site Kayak.com a less than uplifting experience.

In the 30-second spot, a middle-aged man commandeers his elderly mother's stairlift for a ride as he pecks away at his laptop, searching for a good hotel. He explains that he can't waste a second doing anything else, including walking up the stairs. Meanwhile, his mother grasps the bannister, gasping for air, as Sonny Boy glides past, bragging about the great deal he's just found.

"Forcing an elderly woman to struggle up stairs while her son uses her electric stairlift. Do you think this is funny? It's not. It's mean and juvenile," says one viewer on the company's Facebook page. A YouTuber on the opposite side of the argument writes, "For those that are offended: lighten up. It's funny precisely because it is insensitive." (In an odd twist, some commenters have actually praised the spot for raising stairlift awareness.)

Stirring controversy never gets old for Kayak, whose 2012 brain surgery commercial was banned in the U.K. over perceived insensitivity toward brain surgery patients. Clearly, ads like "Stairlift" and "Brain Surgeon" are designed to be somewhat over the top and elevate Kayak's buzz. Are they mean-spirited or offensive? That's a gray area.

What if Patrick Bateman were a hipster? It would look a lot like this brilliant remake of two American Psycho scenes, updated for our decade of obsessive beard cultivation and vintage clothing perfection.

The nearly six-minute film, complete with hipsters committing murder set to classical music and comparing their pants like they're comparing their cocks, is actually an ad for Denham the Jeanmaker—whose stores are also now serving coffee. Denham is a small, boutique fashion brand focused on mixing denim with "workwear tradition." It's safe to say they're a brand created for the denim enthusiast, the sort of person who is as interested in the creation process behind their pants as they are in wearing them. In fact, their cheapest jeans currently retail for 130 euros, which may be more than I have spent on all the jeans I have purchased in my lifetime.

Created by Flickering Wall, the parody (aptly titled "Denham Psycho") was created to coincide with the opening of a Denham pop-up store in Berlin, has gone viral by hitting the twin zeitgeist of hipster humor and murderers who love civet coffee. Witness the terrifying brilliance, and fear for vapid, soulless hipsters everywhere.

CREDITS
Client: Denham the Jeanmaker
Agency: Flickering Wall
Directed by Hugo Keijzer
Produced by Remco den Hartog
Cinematography by Robbie van Brussel
Edited by Nils Rensen
Written by Ben Clark
Graphics by Ali Kirby
Costume by Denham

When you think of Kansas City, you don't think death-defying, super-fast waterslides. Actually, I'm not sure what you think when you think of Kansas City. But pretty soon you'll think Verrückt, a gigantic waterslide opening soon at the Schlitterbahn water park.

The Herculean teaser below for the larger-than-life, 17-story coming attraction has the works—the dirt battle field in which the slide was constructed, arial camera shots, dramatic title cards. But what really drives this virtual tour is the sensational score. It almost makes you feel like you're nervously peering over the edge and your best friend sneaks up behind you and gives you a good scare.

Verrückt—translated from the German, meaning "insane"—opens Memorial Day weekend and is billed as the world's tallest waterslide. It's taller than the Niagara Falls! And indeed, its 17 stories make a mockery of the previous record holder, the Brazilian waterslide Insano—see a naming pattern here?—and its measly 14 stories. (Insano definitely has the better email marketing, however.)

Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry says Verrückt riders will reach speeds faster than 65 mph. So, you and three friends—it's a four-person ride—can finally embark on the journey of a lifetime. Which will probably last 30 seconds. But hey, if you count the waiting in line and the terrifying climb up all those stairs. You might actually consider it a journey.

Also check out a parody movie poster for the ride, posted below.

Isaiah Mustafa, who recently returned to the Old Spice world in a British campaign, is now fronting a new online initiative for the P&G brand's new body spray. The campaign is built around nine bogus websites that advertise fake, faux-manly products and services—like black leather sheets, spray-tan parties, push-up muscle shirts and more—and Mustafa's comical disdain for all of them, and anyone who would be sucked in by them.

You can send the sites to friends as a prank (via Twitter, Facebook or email), and when they try to click around, a warning buzzer sounds and Mustafa appears to deliver a good scolding—an "Internetervention"—in his trademark style. A different video plays on each site, and there are all sorts of sight gags and other funny bits.

Check out the nine sites and accompanying videos below.

Credits at the bottom of the post. Via The Denver Egotist.

www.glitzelectronics.com
www.partytanz.com
www.zaneckworkouts.com
www.toughsheets.com
www.smellpulse.com
www.theflatteringman.com
www.brodominiums.com
www.freshbodycoupons.com
www.flavorpatch.com

CREDITS
Client: Old Spice
Project Name: "Internetervention"

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Craig Allen, Jason Bagley
Interactive Creative Director: Matt O'Rourke
Copywriter: Andy Laugenour
Art Directors: Matt Sorrell, Matt Moore, Croix Gagnon
Executive Interactive Producer: Mike Davidson
Interactive Producer: Ben Sellon
Account Team: Liam Doherty, Yaya Zhang, Michael Dalton, Jessica Monsey
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman | Joe Staples
Director of Broadcast Production: Ben Grylewicz
Director of Digital Production: Pierre Wendling
Group Media Director: Kelly Muller
Associate Media Director: Kerry Antos
Media: Lisa Feldhusen, AJ Blumenthal
Technology Lead: Ryan Bowers
Business Affairs Lead: Cindy Lewellen
Print Producer: Heather Smith Harvey
Group Strategy Director: Britton Taylor
Brand Strategy Director: Anibal Casso
Digital Strategy Lead: Michael Holz
Social Strategist: Danny Schotthoefer
Director of Interactive Strategy: Zach Gallagher

Digital Production Company: Stinkdigital, New York

Production Company: Skunk
Director: Craig Allen

Editorial: Arcade Edit
Editor: Geoff Hounsell
Assistant Editors: Sean Lagrange, Dean Miyahira
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Producer: Leslie Carthy

VFX: Timber
Creative Directors: Kevin Lau, Jonah Hall
Producer: Shelby Wong
Lead Flame Artists: Chris Homel, Matt Lydecker, Jan Cilliers
Assistant Flame Artists: Eli Beck-Gifford, Austin Hickman-Fain

Sound Design and Mix: Barking Owl
Executive Producer: Kelly Bayett
Engineer: Brock Babcock

Cadbury has invented a trench coat that basically dances when you eat the brand's chocolate. Because eating Cadbury chocolate brings euphoria so intense that it makes even your clothes dance, or something. Or mostly because Cadbury wanted to try to grab people's attention with an oddity it hopes will help it sell more candy bars.

A pair of the so-called "Joy Jackets," created by digital shop Hirsch & Mann for Cadbury PR agency Golin Harris, also play music and puts on a light show. Yes, each jacket's moves are choreographed to its tune. The hem shimmies itself up. The shoulder flaps fan open. The Cadbury-purple collar pops out like peacock feathers before a confetti gun goes off. The cameras built into the jacket reportedly trigger the sequence if you're eating one of two Cadbury candy bars (though a pair of brand integrations featuring a British YouTube duo shows parts of the jacket's tech "responding" to other types of fun, like puppies).

It's a cool and endearing bit of technology, if perhaps seeming like a little more trouble than it's worth. As branded, wearable computers go, Ballantine's Internet-enabled T-shirt looked like a much better time.

IDEA: The Internet of Things—or as Cisco calls it, "the Internet of everything"—is quickly advancing, as seen in the array of magically interconnected devices at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. (Teddy bear that checks your kid's vitals as she sleeps? Check.) But how to dramatize that in a TV spot?

The ad itself should be magical and interconnected, Cisco reasoned, and offer a glimpse of a near future that, in fact, is almost the present day. "It's here, it's now, it's happening," said Jon Randazzo, creative director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. "It's not sci-fi anymore. It's upon us."

The company's new 60-second spot delightfully surveys this new landscape through the story of a near-future family man and his ordinary day—a simple today-meets-tomorrow tale that, like the brave new world it depicts, comes full circle.

COPYWRITING: A girl at home pours milk for her cat, setting in motion a chain of events that a male voiceover describes in single, nursery rhyme-like sentence (in the style of "This Is the House That Jack Built") that lasts for the whole ad.

"This is the cat that drank the milk," he begins, "and let in the dog that jumped on the woman who brewed the coffee that woke the man who was late for work and drove the car that found the parking spot that alerted the door that opened the control room that secured the data that directed the turbines that powered the sprinklers that watered the grass that fed the cow that made the milk that went to the store that reminded the man to buy the milk that was poured by the girl who loved the cat that drank the milk."

Each phrase is its own scene, featuring meow-activated cat flaps, driverless cars and instantly responsive farm-to-fridge supply chains. "One way to show really simply that everything is connected is to tell a story that loops back to itself," said GSP creative director Justin Moore. "You find that kind of narrative structure in children's books. The task for us was to apply it differently—make it less of a fairy tale and more of a relevant, interesting story."

The narrator closes with: "The Internet of everything is changing everything. Cisco. Tomorrow starts here."

FILMING/ART DIRECTION: Christopher Riggert shot the spot over five days in New Zealand, where he could achieve a global feel that wasn't too North American or European. All the gadgets featured are on the market or just around the corner (even the self-driving car). The visual look is "futuristic, but with a simple, graphic, warm palette," said Randazzo. "As gray and modern as that home is, it's still human and warm and approachable."

The theme of connection extends to the camerawork and editing. "Whether it was a dolly move or a push or [the father] floating with the camera itself, it had to feel seamlessly connected to the next shot," he said. "The voiceover, film work, cadence and editing all combine to tell this circular story, without getting tricky."

TALENT: The main actor, from Sydney, had a dramatic and comedic background. He needed to be "a guy you would like very, very quickly," said Moore. "When you're telling a high-tech story, you need some humanity and fallibility mixed in." The narrator's deep voice lent a gravitas that balanced the spot's childlike conceit.

SOUND: The score has a playful, lightly bouncy vibe—and is circular as well, returning at the end to where it began. Sound design was crucial, too, to give the sense that all the devices are talking to each other. "We didn't want to be too literal, but we wanted to hear that conversation going on," said Randazzo.

MEDIA: CNN, Bloomberg and NBA TV throughout January, and online.

THE SPOT:

CREDITS
Client: Cisco
Spot: "Circle Story"

Agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
Partner: Rich Silverstein
Creative Director: Jon Randazzo and Justin Moore
Associate Creative Director: Bee Reynolds and Shane Fleming
Executive Producer: Hilary Coate
Group Account Director: John Coyne
Account Director: Tanin Blumberg
Account Manager: Kateri McLucas
Assistant Account Manager: Chelsea Bruzzone
Project Integration Director: Liz Clark
Brand and Communication Strategy
Group Brand Strategy Director: Kelli Robertson
Sr. Business Affairs Manager: Judy Ybarra

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Christopher Riggert
Director of Photography: Jeremy Rouse
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Line Producer: Michael Hilliard
Editing House: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Stewart Reeves
Assistant Editor: Luke Mclntosh
Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver
Head of Production: Angela Dorian
Producer: Alexandra Zickerick

Visual Effects: A52
Executive Producer: Jennifer Sofio Hall, Megan Meloth
Producer: Scott Boyajan
Lead Flame: Jesse Monsour
Flame Artists: Mark Alan Loso, Enid Dalkoff, Christel Hazard, Cam Coombs, Steve Wolff
CG Supervisor: Max Ulichney
CG Artists: Max Ulichney, Gregg Domain, Caleb Hecht, Joe Chiechi, Tim Donlevy
Graphic Design: Lisha Tan, Henry DeLeon, Leanne Dare, Lynn Cho, Jon Forsman,
Graphic Animation: Alan Chen, Sean Garfinkel, Steven Do
Roto: Tiffany German

Music House: Quickstrings
Composer: Jonathan Dreyfus

Sound Designer: Barking Owl
Audio Mix: Lime Studios
Mixer: Rohan Young
Assistant: Jeff Malen

GoDaddy, which this fall promised no more sleazy Super Bowl commercials, still shows plenty of skin in its first ad for this year's game—but it's mostly male, and it's absurdly pumped up.

The Web-hosting company on Wednesday rolled out one of its two 30-second spots for Super Bowl XLVIII, titled "Bodybuilder." Unlike most of its Super Bowl work since 2005, which was marked by provocation and sexual innuendo, this year's spots are meant to be different in two respects: They focus on what GoDaddy does to help small businesses succeed online; and they show women as smart, successful small-business owners rather than scantily clad sex objects.

The plot of the new spot is simple: Bodybuilders race through a city, eventually converging on a spray-tan business—whose female proprietor uses GoDaddy to help her "Get found. Get business," as the on-screen copy says. Raising a spray-tan pump as she surveys the crowd outside, the woman utters the tagline: "It's go time."

The spot also stars longtime GoDaddy spokeswoman Danica Patrick, who plays one of the bodybuilders, thanks to a muscle suit created by Legacy Effects. (Images of a pumped-up Patrick first leaked from the shoot back in December.) This is the racecar driver's 13th GoDaddy Super Bowl ad—she's done more Super Bowl spots than any other celebrity.

The spot, set to air during the second half of the Feb. 2 game, was created by Deutsch in New York and directed by Bryan Buckley. GoDaddy will have a :30 in the first half as well.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: GoDaddy
Spot: "Bodybuilders"

Agency: Deutsch New York
Chief Creative Officer: Kerry Keenan
Executive Creative Director: Matt McKay
Associate Creative Director Rich Kolopeaua, Art Direction
Associate Creative Director: James Cowie, Copywriting
Director of Integrated Production: Joe Calabrese
Senior Producer: Crissy Cicco

Client, Client Contact:
Vice President – Brand Marketing: Will Sliger

Production Company: Hungryman
Director: Bryan Buckley
Director of Photography: Scott Henrickson
Executive Producer: Mino Jarjoura
Producer: Brady Vant Hull

Editorial Company: Bikini Editorial
Editor: Avi Oron
Assistant Editor: Gus Roman
Executive Producer: Gina Pagano
Senior Producer: Brad Wood

Telecine: Company 3
Colorist: Tom Poole

Visual Effects Company: Framestore
Head of Production: Satoko Iinuma
Senior Producer: Sarah Hiddlestone
Lead Compositor: Raul Ortego
Compositor: Corrina Wilson
Compositor: Sang Joon
Compositor: Hieu Phan
Compositor: Mayuko Saito

Prosthetic Muscle Suit: Legacy Effects

Music/Licensed Music Tracks: JSM
Creative Director(s): Joel Simon, Ross Hopman

Audio Post Company: Sonic Union
Engineer: Steven Rosen

Shoot Location: Long Beach, CA

Additional Deutsch Credits:
Chief Executive Officer: Val DiFebo, Deutsch NY
Group Account Director: Jayme Maultasch
Group Account Director: Tyler Helms
Account Executive: Matthew Cahn
Assistant Account Executive: Elissa Mendez-Renk
Chief Strategic Officer: Brent Vartan
Group Director of Integrated Business Affairs: Maria Taris
Senior Manager of Business Affairs: Jaymie Lipman
Integrated Business Affairs Manager: Joanna Soliszko

Honda wants you to know something: This world is not actually as horrible and soul-crushing a place as it appears.

In a lengthy online anthem titled "Today Is Pretty Great," which launches a new Gen Y-focused campaign for the redesigned Civic Coupe and Si Coupe, the automaker and agency RPA partnered with modern bluesmen Vintage Trouble to create a spot highlighting all the good things happening in a world also beset by conflict and climate change.

The examples of reasons to hope, however, are a bit of a mixed bag. The spot leans heavily on pop culture and Internet fads, likely in hopes of keeping the message from seeming overly serious. But in the end, selfies, beards, cosplay and screaming goats seem pretty underwhelming compared to some of the spot's more serious optimism boosters, like artificial blood, genetic therapy and metamaterials (which could enable everything from invisibility to next-generation wireless communication).

"This new Civic campaign connects with a new generation of buyers by prompting them to focus on the positive and consider what they love about today," said Honda's svp of auto operations, Mike Accavitti. "The Civic campaign also introduces a crew of fun pop cultural references that will pique Gen Y's attention across media they frequent."

To help create a message tailored to millennials, Honda partnered with popular Cartoon Network show Adventure Time and Internet meme Nyan Cat, along with some lesser-known content creators like singer-songwriter Laura Maust. (Despite being shown in the clip as a viral sensation who's racked up a million views, Maust actually has less than 20,000 views on her most popular YouTube performance at the moment. Of course, being in a major ad like this might help turn her portrayal into reality.)

The full campaign, "One More Thing to Love About Today," includes a 30-second TV spot, digital takeovers of popular sites and print ads.

Perhaps most interesting, Honda is partnering with Spotify to create a "digital scrapbook" that lets you connect your social-media posts from across the years to the specific music you were listening to when you first posted each update.

So, will this campaign be enough to convince millennials that Honda is the ultimate partner for a carefree yet socially aware and technologically literate lifestyle? If not, they can always lean harder into their celebrity endorsements from Jake the Dog, Finn the Human and Princess Bubblegum.

CREDITS
Client: Honda
Title: "Today Is Pretty Great - Performance"

Agency: RPA
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Joe Barratelli
Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director: Jason Sperling
Senior Vice President, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff
Vice Presidents, Creative Directors: Chuck Blackwell, Ken Pappanduros
Creative Directors: Gage Clegg, Becca Morton
Vice President, Executive Producer: Isadora Chesler
Senior Producer: Jack Epsteen

Production Company: Rabbit Content
Director: +jacksonkarinja

Editing: Lost Planet
Editors: Hank Corwin (:30s), Federico Brusilovsky (long form)
Music: HUM
Artist: Vintage Trouble

—Print credits

Agency: RPA
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Joe Baratelli
Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director: Jason Sperling
Creative Directors: Gage Clegg, Becca Morton
Art Director: Michael Enriquez
Retoucher: Peter Modaffari
Art Buyers: Ginnie Assenza, Jessica Maxwell
Production Manager: Renato Quilalang

Given the rough few years he's had lately, it's not surprising Arnold Schwarzenegger might want to be someone else for a while. He's making a habit of it, anyway.

The Governator, who looked hilarious in a Bjorn Borg getup for Bud Light's Super Bowl teaser, dons another disguise in a different video, going undercover as an employee at Gold's Gym in Venice, Calif., to draw attention to his After-School All-Stars program.

Schwarzenegger famously worked out at the same Gold's Gym in his bodybuilding glory days of the '70s. In the new video, Arnold, aka "Howard," is comically awkward as he strolls around the gym, bothering the patrons, many of whom clearly do a double-take.

It's pretty funny stuff, and has gotten well over a million views in its first day on YouTube. It seems a little odd that there's no big reveal at the end, à la Jeff Gordon's Pepsi MAX spot, where Schwarzenegger could take off the disguise and delight everybody. Instead, it just ends. On the upside, Gold's might have a new tagline thanks to Arnold's ad-libbing.

Say it with me, in Arnold-speak: "This is Gold's Gym. It's not a baby gym."

Hat tip to @arrrzzz.

Apple's "Your Verse" commercial, which rolled out 10 days ago, was a pretty nice start to 2014 for the company's marketing. The 90-second spot, advertising the iPad, is great to look at, and has an inspired—if borrowed—message. It's been airing all over and generally getting an enthusiastic response.

On Wednesday, Apple rolled out two 30-second cutdowns of the spot, titled "Light Verse" and "Sound Verse" (see both below). They carry the same Robin Williams voiceover, just truncated to focus on the Whitman quotes. More interesting, though, is the "Your Verse" page on the Apple website, which goes into greater depth about the people featured in the ad—and how they use the iPad in real life.

Marine biologist Michael Berumen, mountaineers Emily Harrington and Adrian Ballinger, Bollywood choreographer Feroz Khan, rock band Yao, New York filmmaker Josh Apter, the Los Angeles Kings hockey team—there are sections devoted to each. Berumen gets a lengthy and fascinating profile, in which it's revealed that he and his team developed an "iDive" iPad case that lets you take iPad deep under water. (Well, not you specifically. A footnote clarifies: "iDive housing is currently not available for sale.")

Apple did a similar thing with its "Life on iPad" campaign in the fall. The difference is, those stories expounded on the characters in an online spot. (The TV spot at the time was "Pencil" with the Bryan Cranston voiceover.) The "Your Verse" content online is connected to a better-known broadcast ad. In all, it's a solid content play backing up more evocative, less info-heavy broadcast work.

On another note, could we see Apple in the Super Bowl this year? It is the 30th anniversary of "1984," after all, and Lee Clow has been dropping hints.

Gonna be a goodSuper Bowl. Mac's gonna be 30 :)

— Lee Clow (@_clow) January 20, 2014

God bless Newcastle Brown Ale. As much as we all enjoy advertising when it's good, so much of it—as Newcastle would say—is bollocks. The British brewer (with help from Droga5) has always excelled at skewering irritatingly transparent marketing tactics, and now it sets its sights on the Big Kahuna itself—the Super Bowl.

The faux teasers below launch an "If We Made It" campaign, celebrating the Super Bowl commercial the brewer would have made—if it had been able to afford one. The deadpan copy is spot on, and as ambush marketing goes, the whole campaign is hilariously done as it takes down the overblown process of Super Bowl ad rollouts.

Gird your loins for more content to roll out into the middle of next week.

A year after the Red M&M belted out Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)," it's Yellow's turn to take the spotlight during the Super Bowl.

The Mars candy brand just released a teaser for its 30-second spot, set to air in the first half of the Feb. 2 broadcast. Not much is revealed, aside from some aerobics and an abduction via tranquilizer dart.

The spot, from BBDO New York, will promote peanut M&M's.

"It's about time we remind the world how irresistible M&M's Peanut really is," Seth Klugherz, senior director of M&M's Chocolate Candies, said in a statement. "Each M&M's Peanut is literally 1 in 100—meaning we have to sort through 100 different peanuts, just to find one that's lucky enough to make its way into a bag of M&M's Peanut."

CREDITS
Client: Mars/M&M's
Title: "Abduction"

Agency: BBDO, New York
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars
Executive Creative Directors: Tim Bayne, Lauren Connolly
Senior Art Director: Eduardo Petersen
Art Director: Jamie McCelland
Copywriter: Roberto Danino
Senior Producer: Regina Iannuzzi
Producer: Sofia Doktori

Senior Account Director: Susannah Keller
Account Director: Carrie Lipper
Account Manager: Tani Nelson
Account Executive: Alyce Regan

Production Company, Visual Effects: Laika, House
Executive Producer, President: Lourri Hammack
Director: Kirk Kelly
Producers: Zilpha Yost, Julie Ragland
Editing House: PS260
Editors: Maury Loeb, Ned Borgman
Assistant Editors: Matt Posey, Colin Edelman
Senior Producer: Laura Patterson

As celebrity Super Bowl endorsers go, Stephen Colbert is somewhat unique because he's actually funny. He's amusing even in the few seconds of the teaser below for his Wonderful Pistachios ad airing on the Feb. 2 game. (These teasers, as we've learned lately, are not always terribly enjoyable.)

Just to be safe, though, the brand has also rolled out several minutes of a behind-the-scenes Colbert Q&A, also posted below. He doesn't reveal much about the ad, but does say: "I'm in it three times, and one of me is edible." Judging by the teaser, he may also have a co-star in the finished spot. But just who is that squawking off-camera beast?

There have been hints in recent days, even from Lee Clow himself, that Apple would be doing something special around the 30th anniversary of Macintosh, and of the infamous Super Bowl spot that launched it.

On Friday, the birthday party began, as Apple rolled out a three-minute video and exhaustive online history of the famed personal computer, showing its evolution on human creativity of all kinds, from art and science to education and fashion.

More cerebral than emotional in its study of a revolution in computing, the video stars all sorts of creators, who tell in their own words how the Mac changed their work and their lives. They include musician Moby, surgeon Maki Sugimoto, designer April Greiman, artist and programmer Daito Manabe, film composer Hans Zimmer, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, fashion designer Iris van Herpen, graphic designer John Maeda, educator Noemi Trainor, photographer Nick Knight and science author Theodore Gray.

Happy Birthday Mac! My life is infinitely better because we met. Today we salute everything you stand for. http://t.co/seLULo2cQ6

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) January 24, 2014

The accompanying timeline at apple.com/30-years is simply incredible, with all sorts of amazing vintage photos, quotes and stories about the machine that changed the world. There's also a section where you're encouraged to share the story of your first Mac.

There's no explicit mention of "1984." But of course, there's a football game coming up that might allow Apple to say a little something about advertising as well.

If there was one big winner at last night's Grammy Awards that was even more surprising than Daft Punk getting Album of the Year, it was Arby's scoring the tweet of the night.

The sandwich chain's post about Daft Punk collaborator Pharrell Williams' sartorial selection ("Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back?") was a responsive-marketing coup de grâce, with 75,000 retweets and more than 40,000 favorites by Monday morning.

Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs— Arby's (@Arbys) January 27, 2014

To be sure, jokes about Pharrell's hat, which looked borrowed from Smokey Bear, had been flying around Twitter for more than an hour before Arby's made its post. But man, what a post.

Many marketers attempted to tie their brand messaging in with the Grammys, but as you can see in Digiday's roundup, few succeeded. Arby's even merited praise from global brands like Pepsi and Hyundai, which is an odd new level of meta marketing.

#Win RT @Arbys Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs— Pepsi™ (@pepsi) January 27, 2014

Well played, @Arbys. Well played. #GRAMMYs#HyundaiTweetAwardspic.twitter.com/xGBT3lmPbm— Hyundai USA (@Hyundai) January 27, 2014

But when it comes to responsive marketing to celebrity antics, the best a brand can hope for is a response from A-lister him- or herself. And that's exactly what Arby's got in the early hours of this morning, when Pharrell asked on Twitter, "Y'all tryna start a roast beef?"

Y'all tryna start a roast beef? "@Arbys: Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs”— Pharrell Williams (@Pharrell) January 27, 2014

The Internet is Times Square pre-Giuliani, says Squarespace's Super Bowl ad—the full version of which went live Monday online, a week and a half after a teaser rolled out.

The spot, produced in-house, aims for a grand, dark vibe, but after a decently arresting opening image, it falls flat. It's hard to do convincing futuristic dystopias on the cheap, and it's clear Squarespace didn't put enough dollars into the production of this. If you want to see an amazingly rich, dark, circus-like world in advertising, with great directing and voiceover work, go back and watch Hal Riney's old First Union spots. Then come back and watch this. The difference is stark. You have to pay for it, but it pays off.

Also worth noting: People really don't want depressing messages on the Super Bowl. Here you've got 24 seconds of bleak followed by six seconds of bland. It will bomb on Sunday.

Sometimes it's the understated celebrity cameos that do the trick on the Super Bowl.

Johnny Galecki certainly fits the bill, and has picked a good time to make his commercial acting debut—in one of two charming 30-second Super Bowl ads from Hyundai and ad agency Innocean, both of which were posted online Monday.

Galecki, 38, known for his work on Roseanne and The Big Bang Theory, stars in a spot called "Nice," directed by Jim Jenkins. An attractive woman pulls up next to him on the road. They're both driving 2014 Hyundai Elantras. "Nice ride," says Galecki with an awkward smile. "Nice try," the woman replies, and heads off. He trails her, eventually catching up, and humorously tries out other lines, with extremely limited success. After another amusing celebrity cameo, the spot ends with a visual that's comically over the top.

Including Super Bowl worthy spectacles while lightly poking fun of them at the same time is often a winning strategy, and Hyundai pulls it off nicely with "Nice."

"I've always loved Super Bowl ads—the commercials during the game are always the highlight for me," Galecki said in a statement. "In this Hyundai spot, there's a car chase, there's explosions, and even a car jump—it's exciting, cinematic and filled with humor. I can't wait for everyone to see it!"

The second spot, "Dad's Sixth Sense," directed by Frank Todaro, is cute, too. It's all about slapstick humor, as a father saves his son from physical harm through the years—although when it comes time to learn how to drive, it's the 2015 Hyundai Genesis that takes care of him the best.

At one point in the ad, Dad gets whacked with a piñata stick, which is among the more reliable ways to get a laugh. But in fact, many of the scenes here will get a chuckle. (Bonus tie-in: The spot features the song "Count On Me" by halftime-show performer Bruno Mars.)

And speaking of chuckles, Jeff Bridges even giggles a bit in the voiceover at the end of "Nice." That sums up the vibe of these two spots—simple, laid back, fun loving and cute. They should do well on Sunday.

CREDITS
Client: Hyundai Motor America
Title & Length: "Nice" :30
Product: Hyundai Elantra
Air Date: Super Bowl 2/2/14

Agency: Innocean USA
Executive Creative Director: Greg Braun
Creative Director: Robert Prins
Creative Director: Max Godsil
Art Director: Aisha Hakim
Copywriter: Matt League
Director of Integrated Production: Jamil Bardowell
Sr. Producer: Nicolette Spencer
Producer: Chris Schaldenbrand

Production Company: O Positive
Director: Jim Jenkins
Executive Producer: Ralph Laucella
Executive Producer/Line Producer: Marc Grill
DP: Bojan Bazelli

Editorial: Arcade Edit
Editor: Paul Martinez & Greg Scruton
Managing Partner / EP: Damian Stevens
Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Post Producer: Kirsten Thon-Webb
Assistant: Pete D'Andrea

Telecine: Company 3 LA
Producer: Matt Moran
Colorist: Sean Coleman

Online & FX: The Mill LA

Audio: Eleven Sound
Artist: Scott Burns
Executive Producer: Suzanne Hollingshead

Client: Hyundai Motor America  
Title & Length: "Dad's Sixth Sense" :30
Product: Genesis  
Agency: Innocean USA 
Executive Creative Director: Greg Braun
Creative Director: Robert Prins
Creative Director: Max Godsil
Copywriter: Josh Cassidy  
Art Director: Vince Feliciano 
Director of Integrated Production: Jamil Bardowell
Senior Producer: Harry Lowell
   
Production Company: Moxie Pictures 
Director: Frank Todaro  
Executive Producer: Karol Zeno 
Producer: Laura Heflin
DP: Eric Schmidt   

Editorial: Arcade Edit
Editor: Geoff Hounsell  
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Post Producer: Leslie Carthy
Assistant: Sean Lagrange 

Telecine: Company 3 
Executive Producer: Rhubie Jovanov
Colorist: Dave Hussey
 
Online & FX: Timber
Jonah Hall: Creative Director
Chris DeCristo: Lead Flame
Compositor: Krista Benson
Flame Assistant: Austin Hickman-Fain
Head of Production: Michael Theurer
Producer: Emily Avoujageli

Mix: Eleven Sound  
Artist: Scott Burns  
Executive Producer: Suzanne Hollingshead
Assistant: A.J. Murillo