Category: Cool Ad Watch

Expedia rolls out a new marriage equality web-ad featuring a father recounting his path toward acceptance of his lesbian daughter:

Expedia is based in Washington, where Referendum 74 could overturn legislatively-approved marriage equality. By the way, those who watched the first season of The Real L Word will recognize Jill and Nikki – the father in the video is Jill's dad. Update from a reader:

Just to be clear, the pro-marriage equality vote is to Approve Referendum 74. While it is true that a possible outcome of the vote on this referendum could be a reversal of the legislatively-approved marriage equality, Washington voters should be clear that this is a referendum we want to approve.  Ballot initiatives and referenda can be tricky for some voters to follow, so it is always important very clear to connect the approve / reject vote to the resulting outcome.

A clever way to convey the strength of your coffee:

(Via LikeCool)

Update from a reader:

Please, please, put a trigger warning on this post. I have friends who have been raped and the title doesn’t even begin to describe the video. I know how disturbing they would find the images in the ad. I realize it is meant to be tough biting satire but please be more conscience of the consequences.

Old Spice does it again, with a new campaign featuring the insanity of Terry Crews:

[F]ormer NFL player and action movie star Terry Crews is literally playing cacophonous "music" with his bulging muscles, yelling entertaining non sequiturs like "GIMME A HAT!" and "SAUSAGES!" … [A]t end of the performance, the video becomes interactive and viewers are invited to bang out their own ridiculous track on their QWERTY keyboards. The native Vimeo player lets users record and share their videos too, and the slick setup is fully embeddable.

Kasia also talked to Vimeo, who partnered with Old Spice, about all the interactive features:

In addition to the live video recording of Crews, the video is a composite of over 150 different elements. While the Flash player runs through the music video, it loads the interactive portion, which is "effectively a new player." The real triumph, [Vimeo's Abby] Morgan says, was figuring out how to speed up the server-side compositing of 150 moving parts so that users could record and save their own Muscle Music videos. The process they came up with is surprisingly fast; watch the progress bar load and it just gleefully declares "COMPUTER STUFF HAPPENING!" The player is not just a sweet new interactive toy; it marks a new phase of native brand integration for Vimeo, which has traditionally avoided advertising on the site, with the exception of a few sponsored contests (Canon's Beyond the Still) and branded pages

(Disclosure: The Dish and Vimeo are both owned by IAC)

London's second act:

(Hat tip: Devour)

by Chris Bodenner

An HP commercial from 1997 that's quite relevant today:

(Hat tip: Copyranter)

Copyranter observes:

Eurostar is a high-speed rail service connecting Paris with London (and Brussels). The company has a history of mocking the English in their advertising (here's one example). Here, they've created lovely Greek style statues celebrating the "sports" the Brits are good at: snooker and darts. Love the broken off nose and penis details.

The broken nose is on the snooker player. Both figures have beer bellies. Not sure what the teensy junk is all about, but the ancient Greeks liked their male models with little ones. All in all, a slightly mystifying way to encourage people to use the train.

Meet the Superhumans – the competitors in the Paralympics later this summer. Top YouTube comment:

I like the part where they show the complicated pregnancy. That was a good reminder that some of these folk have been bitch slapping the odds since they arrived on the planet, and they're not done showing the universe who's boss no matter what it throws at them.

I can't embed it, but go watch it. It's inspiring.

Copyranter praises the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, Chile:

Commercial won a silver CLIO in May, but hasn't got much publicity. It deserves more.

From Down Under:

LEGO is celebrating 50 years in australia with an array of installations across the country, with the most recent set up in the rural town of broken hill, new south wales. residents of the outback locale were surprised to wake up to a life-size forest made up of 15 four-meter high pine trees and flower sets recreated to a 1:1 ratio of the original pieces, and then supersized to be 66 times bigger. the enormous toys speckle the living desert, contrasting red dust plains and blue skies as a part of the brand's 'festival of play'.