Paper craft car

Here is a papercraft-style commercial from Brazil for Chevrolet:

Nice touches in the spot include the squirrel on the stick and the quick big-wheel tire change across the river.

It's a car!

Here is a hipster-home-run-of-a-campaign for the Toyota Yaris featuring comedian Michael Showalter:

Most car commercials are pretty boring in that they pretty much say the same thing on how THIS vehicle is THE breakthrough "innovation."  The Yaris campaign is pretty straightforward with the tagline: "It's a Car!"  The dialog contains the witty sensibility of hipster McSweeney-esque humor, while not being too off-putting for the general masses.

Some of the spots in the campaign are not as fun as the one above as they demonstrate some of the Yaris' feature like "Soft Touch Dash!", "Airbags!" and "Contemporary Styling!":

Some the spots are a little too-aware of hipsterish things [Is that a fixed-gear?], and of course, hipsters hate that kind of stuff:

Overall, the ads are funny showcasing a car comes in a multitude of "Colors!" [but not yellow.  NO.] with the added feature of "Windows!" that go up and down, standard on every car!

All in all, I give this campaign a chk chk chk for its gratuitous use of exclamation points!  !!!

I'm just a people person

Here's a commercial for the new "family" of Toyota Prius models:

Eighteen dancers were used to create a gigantic human that goes about its' normal morning routine.  As it walks out and spies different types of Priuses, [Prii?] including "the regular one," "the bigger one," "the smaller one," and "the one that plugs in," this human sculpture comes apart so they can find the Prius that's right for them. 

Who says there isn't chivalry in beer ads

Here is a commercial from London for Stella Artois:

A gentleman seated at a cafe sees a stunning woman and goes after her.  Being the fine gentleman he is, he places his coat over a puddle as she walks across the street.  Well, a storm must have recently passed through since there are many puddles on the street.  He begins to strip off his other garments so she can have something to step on over these other puddles.  As she hops over other puddles, he continues to tear off his clothes for her, and finally he asks, "Can't we just talk?"  "But we are in a commercial," she quips.  It's a cute, risky response, but works for this commercial and the look and feel is very nice. 

Hit on chicks with a ukulele

Here's a commercial for Match.com from London:

This bloke serenades a girl with an impromptu ukulele song and sparks what may be a budding relationship.

Nervous nail biters? You know this much is true...

Here's an odd ad for Argentinian herbal spirit Fernet 1882:

It appears there's a large field filled with 1882 nervous individuals.  The crowd becomes overjoyed when large versions of objects they can chomp on in order to temper their nervousness, such as a pen cap, are flown in by helicopter.  When the helicopter takes the chewed up pen cap away it's kind of hilarious.  

Scary ads

Here are a couple of frightening ads.

The first one is a traveling ambient ad for AMC's The Walking Dead:

A truck with bloody limbs coming out of the back was seen driving around at Comic Con 2011 promoting the second season of the post-apocalyptic TV show. 

The second ad is a commercial directed by Rob Zombie for Woolite:

It's hard to believe the horror-movie film directing, heavy metal playing rocker would direct a commercial for a detergent. 

The happiest box of all

Here's a commercial from the UK for McDonald's:

Larger-than-life McDonald's happy meal boxes were set up in several locations.  From shooting jets of water to mechanical robo-happy meals, each replica of the McDonald's kid's meal had a fun little surprise. 

Vivident's unexpected turn

Here's an oddvertisement for Vivident gum in Italy:

Oddvertising can sometimes come off as lame.  This Italian commercial kind of works for me.   

Marionettes are great. 

Robotic burgers

This commercial for Carls Jr. (or Hardee's -- depending on the region) features a robot coming home from a hard day [... of being a a robot?] who is looking forward to a hand-breaded chicken sandwich:

Oh silly robot.... robots do not have mouth holes to enjoy fast food.  The robot is sexy and reminds me of other cool robot things:

Here is the Behind the Scenes video for Robot video:

Wimbeledon balls

In homage to Bravia's bouncy balls, a Wimbledon spot was created.  But instead of colorful superballs pelting the streets of San Fransisco, this UK commercial for the Wimbledon Finals has a bunch of tennis balls and was filmed in 3D for Sony:

The broadcast on BBC HD included a "tennis ball hunt" contest where "virtual tennis balls" were released all over the internets.  Each virtual ball "caught" was an sweepstakes entry for a chance to win VIP tickets to the Wimbledon Women's Final.

If you've watched the Making of Bouncy Balls, it's a pretty spectacular feat, involving 170,000 superballs.  When the bouncy balls are shot out of the cannon, the sound of the balls hitting the street is deafening, setting off car alarms, leaving crew ducking for cover as they try to get the shot. 

Remember?

Even though there's 3D element in the new Wimbledon spot, it doesn't seem to capture the same essence as the original bouncy balls. 

Rube Goldbering around!

Here are two ads that contain Rube Goldberg gadgetry to tell their visual story.

The first one is from France to illustrate the Ford Active's Park Assist feature:

This is well done in how they used doggies to initiate the actions in the "most spectacular dog show ever."  Even the beginning sequence where the dog imitates the MGM lion is pretty brilliant.  I've said this before how I love the French creative stuff.  It's absolutely magical in its simplicity, proving once and again you do not have to waste much on CGI-stuff to weave a good (visual) tale.  This Rube Goldering starts off with a doggie who turn on the jams to begin the musical sequence amid backyard ramps in a jungle of toys.  I love how the backdrops have this child-craft aesthetic to it so it looks like a bunch of kids really took the time to create this magical display.  Aww... and the lifeguard dog "rescues" a drowning Barbie.  I love the "unconventional" domino pieces used like board games and books.  

This second spot is the "1st Impression" for the Sony Tablet:

This vid is certainly more "polished" than the Frenchy one, but that kind of jettisons away from what typical Rube Goldberg machines looks/feels like.  Rube Goldbering is fascinating because it's a bunch of stuff thrown together to create an overly-complicated machine to do a very simple thing.  But in this complex contraption, we see the tinkerings of an imaginative inventor who sees mundane processes is a new ways.  Probably the most classic example is from Pee Wee's Big Adventure:

Pee Wee is the quintessential child that never grew up. 

The French spot contains numerous wonder-elements that keep us enthralled as we wait for the next sequence of events.  Whereas, the Sony spot tries too hard to maintain this sleek-aesthetic and ends up being very static, sterile and ultimately very slow.  It never wins our heart.  So when the tablet displays the words "I love you," it comes off as tremendously creepy and disingenuous.

While I do slightly enjoy the 'sleekness' of the look, since tablets are sexy products that deserve clean lines, elements of the Sony spot seemed so forced.  The randomly placed figures seem misplaced, as if it was a last-ditch effort to include ties to a humanistic connection to the product.  Those figurines could have removed from the shot and it wouldn't have made a difference as the spot comes off cold.    

Had there been more high-speed ramps, like the first one (0:10), I think it would have made for a more interesting video.  But alas the majority of the film is eaten up by a slow-moving train that illuminates a background.  As beautiful as the shadows cast on the wall are, where ordinary objects were made to look like real scenery, the movement of the train is too slow, and it could have been sped up just a tad or this illumination concept could have been incorporated in a more dynamic way. 

Sliding the tablet near the end is kind of cool (1:31), which they should have had more of, to make it more visually compelling.  The shadow cast on the wall of the "To Be Continued..." was really a nice touch, but I had a hard time getting to the end of this almost two-minute vid.  It felt more like five minutes long.  Perhaps the next one will be more exciting.

These kids hate you and your pizza

Normally I don't really like it when ads have cutesy pie kids or bloody freikin adorable infants.  It seems kind of lazy.  But I do like this one for Domino's Pizza.

The jewel of this spot is at the very end when the kid just slams a soccer ball in the adult's face.  That was kind amazing.

And who gave that kid a bullhorn?

Balloon animation

Amazing video from Brazil for MTV:

To make this stop-motion video they used a laser guide to line up hundreds of balloons to show you this amazing rockin animation with Slash, Ozzy, and KiSS...

okay okay ... the Royal Wedding already

The announcement of Prince William and Kate Middleton marriage was a big so-what.  But I will say, she will make a very beautiful queen.  So here are a few adverts that are spotlighting the wedding.

This video from T-Mobile is still a pretty good watch, where the royal-look-alikes are pretty spot-on.  

This one is a "commemorative plate" for the Royal celebration from London for the brewery John Smith.  

 

Doing nonsensical

There are great WTF nonsensical advertising that works.  But so much depends on execution and being tapped into the meme-mindset.  Otherwise it comes off as parody.  This one for Dairy Queen is trying to be nonsensical: 

This ad doesn't work is because it is a traditional commercial, selling before it becomes a nonsensical commercial, which makes the nonsensical elements seem extremely incongruent.  Everyone gets turned off before you can even get to the part about "rainbows on fire.*"  [*Which is kind of cool.]  But shaving bunnies?  

The rest in the campaign just relies on one "punchline" to drive the ad:

 

Ping pong power

A pretty impressive commercial "Gravity, Meet Your Archenemy" for ASICS that uses ping pong balls and compressed air:

The xylophone phone

Some in the blogosphere are incorrectly calling this commercial from Japan for the NTT Docomo a "Rube Goldberg machine."  This Japanese commercial is pretty impressive but it does not have the multitude of moving parts that most Rube Goldberg machines have.

It is a pretty long commercial.  Almost three minutes, but there were no cuts or special effects CGI-ed in.  What was shot was a genuine wooden ball rolling down a xylophone ramp set up in a way so it plays Bach.  There are some "Rube-Goldberg-like" moments when additional xylophone ramps played faster notes in the song, but for the most part this commercial is fairly calm compared to typical Rube-Goldberg machines.  The forest shots are stunning, and the nature setting brings it back to the idea of the wood shell for the SH-08C phone.

Slutty cat

This is a campaign from France for AIDES awareness.  Oh warning, this is from Europe and commercials are more sexually daring over there.

I do like this PSA's old-school animation with Joan Jett blaring in the background.  But I think the last AIDES Paris commercial where there is focus on using protection was more effective:

I prefer the "Graffiti" commercial over Smutley the cat.  The animation is really clever, and the anthromorphsized penis is interesting in how it moves throughout the scene.  There is a definite focus on condom use*, whereas, Smutley just resorts to a tagline to make the point... "He's got nine lives.  You've only got one.  Protect yourself" and he continues to just bang every animal in sight. 

*I hope that girl threw away that eyeliner.

I make all my major decisions by Plinko

This ad for ESPN... and the fact I LIKE this ad for ESPN says a lot because I am not a sports-watching kind of gal.  But here the focus is not on the game or the players but the important decision of choosing wisely for the tournament challenge: 

This is the longer version of the commercial, where the shorter one cuts out the gumball bit.  Who makes their decisions based on gumballs?!? Talk about ridiculous.  

I am usually very opposed to the use of infants in advertising.  But when the baby picks the stuffed animal team representation that was adorable.