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Lease-to-Own Retailer Promises You'll Go From Rags to Riches in No Time

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Can't afford that furniture, those appliances or those electronics? Sure you can.

Aaron's, the lease-to-own retailer, has unveiled a new ad campaign that suggests leasing products from the company isn't just a wise idea for credit-challenged people—it's the first step toward becoming rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams.

The ads, from 22squared, feature characters—Bobby, Charmony and Emilio—who've become wildly successful, but as it turns out, they once didn't even know the basics of living beyond their means. A fourth ad stars Nascar driver Brian Vickers, who apparently just gets super excited about Aaron's in general.

The theme is "Own the life you want," which is certainly an interesting mix of aspirational and financial—a reminder that, for many, they're one and the same.


Adweek's Top 5 Commercials of the Week: April 11-18

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You can learn a lot from this week's best new commercials. 

Centenarians shared the wisdom of their long lives in a Dodge ad highlighting its 100th anniversary. A boy with one leg teaches us about perseverance for Powerade. Duracell shows us the power of determination with a documentary account of the two youngest men ever to row across the Atlantic Ocean. Job seekers learn that the world's toughest job is one they've often taken for granted. And a touching breast-cancer awareness tribute teaches us that even as we face death, we can still choose to make a difference in someone's life. 

Take a look at our picks below, and help us decide which commercial was the best of the week. And if your favorite isn't here, tell us in the comments.

Bud Light Does Its Own Version of 'World's Toughest Job'… for Dads

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Every giant viral ad needs a parody (or a few dozen), and so Bud Light is here with a spoof of the American Greetings "World's Toughest Job" video—celebrating dads instead of moms.

The joke writing is a little odd—it's caught between wanting to honor dads and wanting to make fun of them, and doesn't really accomplish either one very well.

The gold standard for this kind of parody was the spoof of Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" where the guys suffer from excess self-esteem rather than the lack of it. That came from a comedy group, though, not from a brand with a vested interest in not making guys look too buffoon-like.

K-Pop Group Twerks to the (Really) Oldies in First Classical Music Video Ever

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Belgium'sB-Classic music festival, whose mission is to "give classical music the same recognition as pop and rock music," brings us a rather interesting sensory collision in the form of the music video below, promoting its "Classic Comeback" competition.

Korean pop-dance group Waveya interprets the godfather of Slavonik dance music (and Brahm's brosef) Antonín Leopold Dvořák in the three-minute synchronized bump-'n'-grind-gyration-twerk-fest set to "Symphony No. 9 Allegro con fuoco."

The video, shot by Raf Reyntjens in South Korea, is cleverly edited and choreographed, albeit shameless in its attempts at drawing in a younger demographic. See, the organizers of the festival believe "the kids" simply need more access to classical music.

Music videos, they believe, are the best way to do this.

In a short documentary also posted below, Frank Peters, a Dutch classical pianist and spokesperson for B-Classic, says he's "not convinced that youth are uninterested in classical music. I think that it's simply more difficult for them to discover."

Chereen Gayadin, a senior music programmer at MTV, adds, "I think that this is the first video in which one listens to classical music without being aware that it is classical music."

Via Ads of the World.



CREDITS
Client: B-Classic
Agency: DDB, Brussels
Creative Director: Peter Ampe
Creatives: Tim Arts, Stefan Van Den Boogaard
Designer: Christophe Liekens
Account Team: Francis Lippens, Kaat De Brandt
Strategic Team: Dominique Poncin, Maarten Van Daele, Michael D’hooge
Digital Strategy: Geert Desager
Digital Project Manager: Stefanie Warreyn
TV Producer: Brigitte Verduyckt
Production Agency: Caviar
Producer: Geert De Wachter
Director: Raf Reyntjens
Music, Sound: Sonicville
Aired: April 2014

Jeweler's Clever Business Card Rolls Into a Ring Sizer

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I have a pile of business cards on a tray in my office, and I'd be hard pressed to remember where I met the people whose names are on those cards if it weren't for some hastily scratched notes in the white space. ("Start-up owner, kept joking about Mad Men, didn't catch my Tupac reference.")

It's generally hard to make an impression on a piece of cardstock that's 3.5 by 2 inches, but German agency Jung von Matt definitely found a winner with its incredible business card for jewelry company Marrying—which, as the name suggests, specializes in engagement rings and wedding bands.

The card rolls up, becoming a handy tool to measure one's ring size. The idea is that men who are shopping for a ring can use the card at home to subtly check the size of a woman's current rings, saving them the rather obvious reveal of saying: "Hey baby, what's your ring size? What? No reason."

The agency effectively married (sorry) utility with good advertising, and I like it.

Via Design Taxi.

Ad of the Day: This Wonder Bread Campaign Is the Greatest Thing Since … Well, You Know

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Wonder Bread takes its fair share of abuse, but this campaign from Canada is a lot of fun—appropriately light and fluffy, and more fulfilling than you might think.

Produced by The Hive in Toronto, five ads use a pleasant stop-motion technique to show someone making a sandwich—though actually, it looks like the sandwich is making itself. The person is then heard in voiceover having a conversation with a loved one—a chat that is then cleverly mirrored somehow in the prep of the sandwich itself.

Example: A son who has recently gone off to college gets a call from his mom. As they're talking, he seems mildly exasperated by her questions about whether he's homesick. He flatly denies it. Yet we see that he's cutting the crusts off his PB&J, undercutting his protestations subtly and delightfully.

Each spot ends with the on-screen line, "The greatest thing since …" and a phrase relating to that particular ad. (The mom-son ad closes with "The greatest thing since moving out.")

The sandwiches become like little emotional canvases where small family stories can play out—pop art for the unpretentious. It's a nice, repeatable structure—one that TV viewers have surely come to recognize and enjoy. It's the kind of campaign where you'd probably feel inordinately happy when a new execution comes on.

The visual style draws you in, and the interplay between the animation and dialogue keeps you engrossed. The scenarios are simple and relatable, and they cast the brand as a ubiquitous and welcome bit player in warm everyday dramas.

As for "The greatest thing" line, Wonder Bread is often credited with creating the phrase. But you can get the real story here.



CREDITS
Client: Wonder Bread
Agency: The Hive, Toronto
Executive Creative Director: Simon Creet
Associate Creative Directors: Brad Van Schaik, Klint Davies
Director: Shin Sugino
Postproduction: AXYZ
Sound: Grayson Matthews
Producer: Jennifer Cursio
Planner: Michelle Prowse
Account Director: Skye Brain

Hair in a Can? This Insane Product Demo Might Actually Be Real

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Is it just me or did hair-loss products evolve a million years since the days of spray-on hair?

Bald dudes everywhere rejoice! Check out this demo for a product that appears to be real (although we've got our eye on you, Kimmel). With more than 5 million views in just a few days for this crazy ad—for a product that seemingly sprouts freaking hair on your scalp in seconds—the folks at Caboki may have a hit on their hands. 

According to the company websitethe product is all natural and works like this: "When you sprinkle Caboki into a thinning area of your hair, the fibers automatically cling to your hair like millions of tiny magnets. Each thin wisp of your hair instantly becomes thicker and fuller, eliminating those embarrassing thinning areas."

One reviewer warns, however: "There will be marks on your pillow covers if you don't wash your hair before you go to bed." Thanks, Debbie Downer.

Take a look below at this miracle of follicular wizardry.

UPDATE: This appears to be a reupload of an older video. And according to several commenters, stay away from this stuff!

OK, This Parody of 'World's Toughest Job' Is Actually Pretty Funny

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Bud Light's spoof of the super-viral American Greetings "World's Toughest Job" video was a bit underwhelming. But now Funny or Die has delivered a more amusing one—even if the "punch line" isn't really a laughing matter. The hashtag is: #actualworldstoughestjob.

Wisely, they get to the point pretty quickly, and also spend quite a bit of time mimicking actual lines from the original. Plus, thankfully, it has nothing to do with dads.


Darwin to Shakespeare: If Historical Figures Had Business Cards and Letterhead

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I've often wondered what the business cards and personal stationery of William Shakespeare, Henry VIII and other historical figures would look like. I mean, who hasn't?

Well, wrack your brains no more! British online printing company MOO has created cards and letterhead for a dozen iconic names known for their strong personalities and penchant for writing and communications.

Some of the results are playful, some powerful. Are they printed on cool pastel retro machines like this? Of course! (Not.) But they're well worth a look. Highlights include:

 
• Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" layout, which conveys his message of hope in an appropriately bold and inclusive black-and-white motif.

 
• The irony of Jane Austen's canny quote about friendship and financial reward (sense) rendered in a frilly, romantic typeface (sensibility).

 
• Charles Darwin's card, clearly identifying the naturalist as a "Homo sapien," in case there were any doubt.

 
• King Henry VIII's oversized script and boastful claims—"polymath," "poet," "lover," "Renaissance man"—which crowd the white space, reflecting his girth, ego and penchant for excess. (As I recall, he never needed a business card to get ahead.)

 
• A damned spot (actually, an asterisk) playing off an age-old controversy by calling Shakespeare's authorship into question.

 
• Albert Einstein's cleverly formulaic address, though judging from the ZIP code (20210, which is Washington, D.C.), there seems to be some confusion over the relative position of Mercer County, N.J., in space and time.

See more at MOO's Flickr page. Via Design Taxi.

The Women in This Tequila Commercial Only Have Time for One Kind of Bro

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This new ad for Mezcal El Silencio tequila by agency Pablo Escargot starts off the same way many beer/liquor ads do—i.e., like from a clip of Ocean's Eleven, with bunch of guys in suits walking in slow motion to a steady rock/techno beat and a deep raspy voiceover.

It celebrates men being men, and the viewer quickly realizes it's satire. (The Post-it notes on the forehead are a nice touch.) When it comes to the requisite seduction scene, though, things totally fall apart and an unlikely hero emerges.

There's plenty of goofy overacting here, and the celebration of the strong, silent type isn't exactly revolutionary, either. But it's still a funny jab at all of the fist-pumping bro-mercials we've seen lately.

Via Co.Create.

Amy Poehler Goes From Lawyer to Fast-Food Worker in Old Navy Campaign

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Amy Poehler is back to grilling strangers about their Old Navy outfits.

Last month, she played a high-powered lawyer questioning a job applicant about her checkered pants. Here, she plays a server at a fast-food burrito joint, pressing a customer about a red dress.

It's not easy to dissociate Old Navy's Poehler from her intense part as Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation, but still fun to see the rapid-fire style translated to roles outside of a small-town middle-America bureaucracy. Like the law firm ad, the outtakes for the fast-food commercial include some added gems—including the evergreen gift of watching a usually deadpan comic lose it and crack up midtake.

That's assuming viewers don't run out to buy clothes before the video's done.

Agency: Chandelier Creative.

Ad of the Day: Watching Sex Scenes With Your Parents Is Weird, Says HBO

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As someone who once, as a teenager, was watching this George Carlin bit when his parents walked into the room, I can appreciate SS+K's new HBO campaign, aimed at millennials, which rightly attests that some programming is just better consumed without your mom and dad around.

Seven new online spots feature awkward family scenes where a pair of hyper-oblivious parents sit down with their young-adult son and daughter to watch some of HBO's notoriously racy shows—among them, Girls and Game of Thrones.

It doesn't go that well.

Most of the spots involve the family silently watching sex scenes—always a good time, especially when the old folks pipe up with cringe-worthy banter. (Part of the humor here derives from Mom and Dad not actually seeming uncomfortable enough.) All of the ads end with the on-screen line, "Might be a good time for HBO Go," followed by a voiceover: "HBO Go. The best of HBO on all your favorite devices. Far, far away from your parents."

The better spot are the subtler ones—in particular, "Your Body, Your Choice" and "Faithful Dad." (The parents are maybe drawn a little broadly in some of the spots.) But most of them should earn a flash of recognition from young people, and may even drive consideration for HBO Go—a streaming service that's apparently pretty good, when it's working.

"The tension of watching TV with your parents is just ripe with comedic moments regardless of whether what you're watching is even graphic or shocking. It's just the dynamic that provides so much fodder," says Bobby Hershfield, chief creative officer at SS+K.

Adds senior copywriter Lindsay Lanpher: "From personal experience, it's always better to watch TV without your mother reminding you you're going to hell."

The seven videos will run on BuzzFeed and in HBO's YouTube and Twitter feeds. They were directed by David Shane of O Positive Films.



CREDITS
Client: HBO
Project: "Awkward Family Viewing"

Agency: SS+K
Chief Creative Officer: Bobby Hershfield
Senior Copywriter: Lindsey Lanpher
Copywriter: Richard Tseng
Senior Vice President, Director of Production and Innovation: John Swartz
Senior Producer: Kim Cross
Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy and Innovation: Kevin Skobac
Vice President, Group Account Director: Jennifer Barr

Production Company: O Positive
Director: David Shane
Executive Producers: Ralph Laucella, Ken Licata
Director of Photography: Marc Laliberte Else

Editing: Mackenzie Cutler
Editors: Gavin Cutler, Ryan Steele
Post Producer: Evan Meeker

El Al's New Airline Joins the Parade of Funky In-Flight Safety Videos

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Even the discount airlines need a rockin' safety video now.

Get down with the latest in-flight jam, titled "Up," created for a new budget airline also called UP, owned by Israel's El Al. The jaunty boogie takes a five-minute scenic tour through some great moments in rock history, including Devo, Robert Palmer and Ziggy Stardust.

Yes, they're jumping on the flight-video bandwagon without a unique take like Air New Zealand's bikini models or Delta's attack of the killer scrunchies. In fact, it's rather similar to Virgin's "Safety Dance." But that doesn't make it less charming.

In general, informational videos forced on a captive audience should be applauded for any attempt at edutaining us. And the afros and cottonball cloud costumes are certainly working here. Plus, you gotta love a good keytar.

Media Agencies Are Bullish on Chicago

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Lately, a whole string of media agencies are falling in love with Chi-Town.

As some marketers, especially heartland brands, see Chicagoans as more representative of the American consumer than those who live and work on the coasts, agencies like Mindshare, OMD, Spark and BPN are all expanding their Windy City outposts while smaller shops like Empower are establishing offices there, too.

“If you are a brand like Ace Hardware or Famous Footwear, you know who your consumer is,” said Spark CEO Chris Boothe. “Some clients like that don’t want to work with New York agencies because they see them as out of touch.” Spark’s Chicago office has grown from 98 employees in 2012 to nearly 300 today.

Middle-American realness isn’t the only reason behind this embrace. Cincinnati-based Empower sees the “potential to partner with up-and-coming independent creative agencies that don’t have media expertise,” said CEO Jim Price.

Others see Chi-Town as a burgeoning tech hub, with Google, Motorola and various startups establishing a presence there.

“There’s so much innovation happening here,” said Liz Ross, North American president of BPN. “Chicago should rank among [bigger cities] and should be a place where agencies have a robust presence.”

Inside BBDO's Harmonious New Brand Campaign for AT&T

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IDEA: Wouldn't it be nice if everyone broke into song in a commercial and it felt somewhat natural and not like a cheesy Broadway show?

AT&T manages that feat in a 60-second launch spot for its latest brand campaign, introducing a shiny new tagline: "Mobilizing your world." BBDO creatives Bill Heater and Marc Klein had been working for a year on a successor to the 4-year-old "Rethink possible" campaign, and came up with the idea that AT&T technologies work so seamlessly with people in their modern lives that harmony is achieved, and the world sings.

That cried out for an ad that delivered public displays of inflection (the vocal kind), and the pleasantly freewheeling "Anthem" spot obliges. It shows ordinary people singing a reworked version of "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys to celebrate how AT&T makes everything seamless and interoperable.

"We are clearly the leaders in this space, and we're not going to be quiet about it," said Sandra Howard, assistant vp of brand advertising at AT&T. "With this campaign as a starting point, we're showing that we're at the center of mobilization and are taking folks into the future."



COPYWRITING: "We must have written 400 versions of the script," said BBDO executive creative director Matt MacDonald. "The question was, How do we make this story big and dramatic and visually different?"

They did it by showing lots of technologies in as many interesting locations as possible, and then rebuilding the lyrics to match the scenes. The spot shows regular people and businesspeople—moms, gamers, weathermen, birdwatchers, on and on—harnessing technology to connect to what's important to them.

Both the people and the technology (many of the gadgets have cartoony faces) sing lines like: "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older/Then we wouldn't have to wait so long/Wouldn't it be nice to live together/In the kind of world where we belong."

A male voice at the end speaks two lines of copy: "At AT&T, we help people and things speak the same language. Because when everyone and everything works together, your world just sings." That's followed by the tagline, globe logo and att.com/sing.

FILMING/ART DIRECTION: Director Noam Murro, known for his humanizing touch, shot the launch work all around Southern California over three and a half weeks.

"Anthem" is visually warm and inviting. Giving the technology a face was tricky. "How do you make it natural and not scary?" said MacDonald. "We settled on these characters that were very simple and very expressionistic."



TALENT: The agency didn't want people who were perfect singers.

"We didn't want it to feel like Frozen," MacDonald said. "In casting, we'd have to tell them, 'No, no, no, don't make it too good. Pull it back a little bit. Sing like you're having a conversation, not like you're singing on stage.' That unlocked so much nuance. They worried less about the singing and more about what's going on with their lives."

The voiceover artist isn't a known voice, for the same reason. "We wanted a regular-guy voice, not someone who would bring too much of their personality to bear."

SOUND: "Wouldn't It Be Nice" was perfect. It's uplifting, lyrically apt and a melody everyone knows. (This allowed BBDO to make a second :60, "Network," in which the melody is created through sound design of gadgets buzzing, with no words at all.)

"All the harmonies, the vocals. That rich depth, that wall of sound production. It gave us a lot to play with," MacDonald said.

MEDIA: The two :60s are joined by two:30s, all shot at the same time as AT&T's "Network Guys" ads. "I had to go home," MacDonald said, "just to remember what my kids looked like."

THE SPOTS:

 

CREDITS
Client: AT&T
Spots: "Sing Anthem," "Sing Network"

Agency: BBDO, New York
Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive Creative Director: Matt MacDonald
Creative Director: Matt Vescovo
Copywriter: Bill Heater
Art Director: Marc Klein
Group Executive Producer: Julie Collins
Executive Producer: Diane Hill
Assistant Producer: Sasha White
Executive Music Producer: Melissa Chester
Senior Account Director: Walker Teele
Account Manager: Ashley Gill

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Noam Murro
Director of Photography: Eric Schmidt

Music House: Human
Composer: Sloan Alexander

Edit House: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Stewart Reeves
Assistant Editor: Luke Mcintosh

Visual Effects House (Network): Spontaneous
Visual Effect House (Anthem): Method


Has This Creepy Guy From Mother New York Been Stalking Your LinkedIn Profile?

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Have you noticed a man named Donald Buscando looking at your LinkedIn profile?

You'd remember him. He's wearing a beige turtleneck that somehow accentuates his eerily white teeth and his hair, which is reminiscent of Robert Cornelius (you know, the guy that took the alleged first selfie ever).

Well, it seems Buscando is a faux executive—part of a tongue-in-cheek effort by Mother New York to recruit interns for its summer program. Mother is identifying potential interns and having "Donald" stalk them on LinkedIn, which is easier than ever thanks to the site's newly souped-up "Who's viewed your profile?" section.

Donald's own LinkedIn page is treasure trove of odd, too. He writes:

I spent a few hours on your profile looking deep into the soul of your business-related online identity. From what I saw, you should apply.

Are you a copywriter or art director? I've closely examined your portfolios and you should apply.

Are you a designer? You have beautiful bezier curves. You should apply.

Are you a strategist looking deep into what makes people tick? Yes. You should apply, too.

Do you want to work in the shop? Don't know what that is? Sounds like you should apply.

Are you a producer who makes things happen? I've seen your profile and yes you are. Yes, apply.

There also the video below. You can go to mothernewyork.com/opportunity to apply.

"Tonally this is nothing unusual for us," Mother founding partner Paul Malmstrom tells AdFreak. "We thought it'd be a fun way of learning about the program and give a sense of what it's like to work here."

National Zoo and DDB Help an Endangered Tiger by Releasing an Endangered Song

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DDB is hoping the Sumatran tiger doesn't go the way of the vinyl record—particularly the quickly degradable one.

For Earth Day, DDB New York and the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park and Conservation Biology Institute are raising awareness of the endangered animal—of which only 400 are left—by creating an endangered song. 

For The Endandered Song Project, the agency got Atlantic Records band Portugal. The Man to write a new track simply called "Sumatran Tiger" and release it only on 400 lathe-cut vinyl records, which are designed to degrade after a certain number of plays (about 100 plays, we're told). The 400 people who got the record (we were one of them) are being asked to digitize the song, thus keeping it alive, and share it through social media using the hashtag #EndangeredSong.

"We liked the idea that there is this degree of difficulty to the project in terms of what people had to do," Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer of DDB New York, tells AdFreak. "We are responding a little bit to the whole slacktivism thing. We want more than just a tweet. Of course we want that, too, but saving a species is more than just a Facebook like. You have to physically get involved and do things."

DDB initially thought about releasing the song on a cassette. "Then we found out about the lathe-cut records," said Eastwood. "Records, too, are almost extinct these days. And the song will slowly become extinct if you don't copy it over to digital … It's very old school meets new school, which I like. It's old technology, but we're promoting it using the digital technology of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook."

The Sumatran tiger was a somewhat arbitrary choice (there is no shortage of endangered species) but a compelling one, Eastwood added. "It's not an unusual animal, but it's a rare and exotic animal, and everyone loves tigers," Eastwood said. "There are only 400 of them, which to us just seemed so desperate. You could fit them in a car park. It's ridiculous."

Portugal. The Man, whose members hail from Wasilla, Ala., and are committed to environmental causes, were happy to join the cause. The campaign doesn't have a specific call to action for donations, but you can contribute through a link on the campaign site.



Various digital copies of the song have already popped up on Soundcloud, or you can check out our proudly low-fi version here.

Two Guys Suffer Through Relentless Downpours of Food for a Good Cause

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Attention large-hearted rubberneckers: Watching some dude making dumb faces and getting slimed, Nickolodeon-style, with all kinds of food stuffs is better when some of the proceeds go to an anti-hunger charity.

A pair of Internet personalities, Steve Kardynal (infamous for his bearded Chatroulette re-enactment of Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball") and Alex Negrete (of meme animator Animeme), made these slow-motion, close-up videos of themselves getting showered by consecutive meals like hot dogs with extra ketchup and mustard followed by spaghetti and meatballs, and a Denver omelette followed by chicken and waffles. After releasing the clips, the duo decided to donate "a large portion of the profits" to Action Against Hunger, according to a fundraising page they set up to help the non-profit's mission to feed malnourished children. (A number of YouTube comments had called out the video makers for wasting food.)

Presumably, any profits for the clips, which (as of this writing) have 1.5 million and 74,000 views, respectively, come from ad revenue earned via the video sharing site.



As we saw with last week's Pedigree video, there's always the question of how much money viewers can actually generate just by watching videos, given downward pressure on YouTube ad rates. And sure, there might be better ways to raise awareness about hunger than dumping a bunch of edibles on your head for the amusement of others. But there's no use crying over spilled milk, and so far Kardynal and Negrete's fundraising page shows $280 committed of an $8,000 goal. At $45 to feed one starving child back to health, it's still a lot better than nothing—anything is.

As for the videos themselves, they're willfully stupid, disgusting and kind of amazing to watch, for a little while at least—beautiful in an odd way, but not anywhere near as charming as Proximity BBDO's masterpiece of pastry porn for French coffee brand Carte Noir.

On the bright side, these aren't likely to make you as hungry, either.

Via Devour.

Ad of the Day: Axe Helps a Guy Get the Girl He's Chased for All of Human History

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Axe is growing up. Well, sort of.

In an attempt to shed its image as the preferred scent of horny, pubescent boys, the Unilever brand has been moving away from its time-honored (and not-so-subtly sexist) "Axe will get you laid" messaging in favor of a more mature approach, which pretty much translates to "Axe will get you laid, but tastefully!"

The "new" Axe was introduced to American audiences in the "Make love. Not war" Super Bowl spot. Now, to coincide with the relaunch of the Axe product line (which includes a "revolutionary new can, packaging design and upgraded fragrance quality," per its makers), BBH London is rolling out a new campaign across Europe.

Titled "Soulmates," a 90-second spot tells the story of a man's ill-fated pursuit of a woman throughout human history. It begins in the prehistoric era, where a young man (who bears an awfully striking resemblance to Game of Thrones' Jon Snow in full North of the Wall apparel) attempts to catch the attention of a pretty girl, only to be torn away from her by a rogue iceberg. (Love, it seems, is so not easy, a caveman can't do it.)

The story repeats itself over and over—his advances are variously thwarted by the eruption of Pompeii, the sinking of the Titanic and police at a Vietnam war protest. But finally, at a modern-day gas-station convenience store, our protagonist douses himself in Axe and—poof!—his "soulmate" appears.

Better yet, when the gas station inevitably explodes, the pair are already strolling away, arm in arm. "Don't rely on fate," says the on-screen copy. Thanks, Axe!

So, apart from that nice little cover of Harry Nilsson's "One," what makes this warmer and fuzzier than your average Axe ad? As the company explains, "While Axe continues to help men succeed in the game of attraction, the new campaign adopts a more progressive take on the story by reflecting a more thoughtful and romantic view of the relationships between a guy and a girl."

In other words, less cleavage.

CREDITS
Client: Axe
Global Vice President: Tomas Marcenaro
Global Brand Director: Fernando Desouches
Senior Global Brand Development Manager: Jeronimo Cadenas
Global Brand Manager: Michal Berski

Agency: BBH, London
Deputy Executive Creative Director: David Kolbusz
Creative Directors: Gary McCreadie, Wesley Hawes
Creative Team: Matt Fitch, Mark Lewis,
Interactive Art Director: Vinny Olimpio
Strategic Business Lead: Ngaio Pardon
Team Director: Heather Cuss
Team Manager: Amy Forster
Strategy Directors: Agathe Guerrier, Tim Jones
Strategist: Shadi Sarreshtehdarzadeh

Film Credits:
BBH Producer: Chris Watling
BBH Assistant Producer: Vaia Ikonomou
Production Company: Biscuit U.K.
Director: Tim Godsall
Executive Producer: Orlando Wood
Producer: Rick Jarjoura
Director of Photography: Tim Hudson
Postproduction: Electric Theatre Collective
Editing: Rick Russell, Final Cut
Sound Design, Mix: Raja Sehgal, Grand Central Recording Studios
Additional Track Laying, Sound Design: Miles Kempton, Grand Central Recording Studios
Music Supervision: The Most Radicalist Black Sheep Music; Leland Music
Music Production: Leland Music

Print Credits:
BBH Producer:  Sally Green
Creative Directors: Gary McCreadie, Wesley Hawes
BBH Interactive Art Director: Vinny Olimpio
Computer Graphics: Richard Green, Wellcom

1973 Personals Ad Reminds You Trolling Was a Thing Even in 1973

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Ahh, the good old days, when men were men, women were women, the Internet didn't exist and one had to troll at a much slower pace.

According to this personals ad from 1973, found by a Redditor, there was still plenty of shenanigans happening in the hot social media of the day—aka, the newspaper.

These days, of course, men still troll their partners via newspaper personals. They just do it to their current ones, not their exes.

Via HuffPo.

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