Subservient hunter hawks Tipp-Ex white-out

Leave to a brand of ink-correction fluid to create the most entertaining YouTube campaign since the Old Spice response videos. The clip below, for Tipp-Ex, with a hunter who encounters a bear at his campsite, sets in motion a whole interactive choose-your-own-adventure game where you decide what the hunter should do to the bear by typing directions into a field above the video. (The hunter uses Tipp-Ex to erase the word "shoots" and asks you for replacements.) It's basically Subservient Chicken all over again, but with a YouTube spin. Here are some suggestions for commands, offered up by the peanut gallery: dances with, sings with, talks to, hugs, draws, fights, doesn't shoot, is shot by, loves, kisses, fucks, pisses with, sleeps with, eats, watches TV with, swims with, plays with, shakes hand with, buys, takes a photo of, fishes with, drinks with, rides, plays football with, spanks, farts, is cooked by, breakdances with, cuts, does nothing with, high fives, smokes with, moonwalks with, washes, jumps with, tickles, shows his ass to, seduces. Done by a French agency called Buzzman, according to Adverblog. Via Copyranter.

Filed under Buzzman, Nudd, Tipp-Ex, YouTube
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Quaker is a morning person in Juniper's ads

Quaker Oats makes morning sound almost palatable in its new "Wake Up" spot from Juniper Park in Toronto. And after some rudimentary fact checking, both the Apollo 11 moon landing and the first successful ascent of Mount Everest occurred in the morning (Eastern time and local time, respectively), so I supposed their spiel about morning being amazing has some truth behind it. Doesn't mean I'm giving up my nocturnal writer's schedule anytime soon, but it was nice of them to try. Quaker oatmeal still tastes good at 1 in the afternoon, by the way. Via AgencySpy.

Filed under Food and drink, Juniper Park, Kiefaber, Quaker
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Smoking likened to being eaten by zombies

Zombies are everywhere, it seems, even in American Legacy's latest "Truth" commercials. Timed to the launch of The Real World's 24th season (Jesus!) on MTV, we get Zombieville, a Real World parody with young people on a reality show tormented by the undead. And for a change, it's not each other. The trailer is below; see the first two episodes after the jump. This all sounds miserably convoluted and overly high-concept, but the episodes so far are decent—a mix of goofy gore and thankfully minimal anti-smoking rhetoric. (Smoking and zombies both kill you, is the basic premise.) Any campaign where a snotty geek get his heads torn off is aces with me. If only this crew had cigarette lighters, they could set the zombies ablaze. Instead, these goody-goods have plump, healthy, flavorful lungs for those monsters to munch on. The spots will air in breaks during the MTV show this fall. Arnold helped with story lines, but the spots were produced by in-house MTV.

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Filed under Anti-smoking, Arnold, Gianatasio, MTV, Parody, Truth, Zombies
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Drake University's ad campaign gets big D+

Drake University officials are feverishly scrambling to explain why they thought "D+" would be a great theme for a recruitment ad campaign. The D+ is meant to be shorthand for the magic that occurs when Drake plus a student get together. To many, though, it seems to position Drake as a school whose standards barely exceed total failure. However, in a note to faculty and staff this week, Drake defends the campaign as "intentionally edgy," and just right for the target market. "The D+ was not designed to stand alone or represent a grade. Instead, it was designed to be paired with prose and draw attention to the distinctive advantages of the Drake experience," reads the note. "Our experience in the survey and in the field suggests that the kind of students whom we want to attract to Drake easily understand and appreciate the irony of the D+, and that it is having the intended effect of encouraging students to find out more about what makes Drake so special." Via The Awl.

Filed under Colleges, Education, Nudd
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Hong Kong advertises canisters of fresh air

The air quality in Hong Kong is so bad that they're starting to sell fresh air in canisters, which you can strap to your face to enjoy lovely, brief periods of unpolluted respiration. Available in pleasant scents like vanilla, the beach and "horses," the canned air is "the revolutionary new product that lets you experience breathing like the rest of the world does," according to the spot below. Of course, it's a parody infomercial, nicely produced by DDB and the Hong Kong Clean Air Network (CAN), urging environmental protection. Says the line at the end: "If we do nothing about Hong Kong's air pollution today, we can look forward to this tomorrow." Via Time magazine's NewsFeed.

Filed under Asia, DDB, Environment, Infomercials, Parody, PSAs
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100,000 live bees plead for help on billboard

Honey-bee populations are mysteriously dwindling worldwide. In England, the Banrock Station winery created the "world's first ad with live bees" to call attention to the problem. They used queen-bee pheromones to attract a giant swarm of bees (as many as 100,000, according to the BBC) from a nearby honey farm to spell out an "SOS" message on a billboard. No bees were harmed and no one was stung during the stunt. The winery is also donating 5p to the honey-bee cause for every bottle sold. Clare Griffiths from Banrock Station tells the BBC: "We thought there was no better way to raise awareness of the British bee decline than get the bees to tell their story themselves. We hope the billboard has created a bit of a buzz in Devon and beyond." Via Copyranter.

Filed under Europe, Honey bees, Nudd, PSAs
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'Walking Dead' gets gravely awesome trailer

The first episode of Walking Dead hasn't even aired yet, and AMC has already green-lit a second season. It's hard to blame them after watching the ass-kicking trailer below, which takes its time in slowly revealing the show's zombie-infested world. That kind of pacing is reassuring, since Walking Dead will have to find ways to engage viewers long-term through a horror sub-genre that's usually compacted into 90 minutes of plot-free gore. In this case, the pilot alone will be 90 minutes, making its debut on Oct. 31, with five more episodes to follow in the all-too-brief first season. If that leaves you hungry for more, good news: You've got about seven years' worth of monthly Walking Dead comics to catch up on.

Filed under AMC, Griner, TV, Zombies
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Sony Pictures helps you lose pesky virginity

This week's little bit of manufactured controversy comes courtesy of Sony Pictures, which is it promoting its upcoming movie The Virginity Hit by putting the phrase "Still a virgin?" on outdoor boards, bus shelters and subway walls across the country. (You can see the movie's trailer below.) For a low-budget comedy with no recognizable actors, this is a pretty smart move, as illustrated by the fact that the ads are being shared via cell phone on the Facebook and Twitter feeds of almost everyone who sees them. Regardless of your V-card status, you're bound to be disappointed if you actually call the "help line" promoted in the ads. It's basically just a toll-free phone tree with options like "Press 3 if you don't know if you're a virgin or not." The movie's two main characters then dispense tips for getting action, and it's worth about what you paid for it. Photo credit: Deadline New York.

Filed under Griner, Movies, Sony Pictures
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Apple spots celebrate new iPod touch, nano

As you may have heard, Apple had a little event today where it unveiled a revamped line of iPods and a new version of AppleTV. Here are two brand-new ads from TBWA—one for the iPod nano below, and one for the iPod touch after the jump. The iPod shuffle got hosed, as usual, getting a makeover but not a new commercial. UPDATE: The featured songs are "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake and "Come Home" by Chappo.

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Filed under Apple, Nudd, TBWA, Technology
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Chinese ad honors Diana by undressing her

Britain's Daily Mail got its knickers in a twist about this underwear ad from China featuring a bra-and-panty-clad Princess Diana look-alike. She's playing a cello, naturally. Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of Diana's death, and some Brits abroad apparently took umbrage with the ad's oddly timed appearance at China's Shenzen Airport. Honestly, who in the Royal Family are they supposed to use to illustrate the tagline, "Feel the romance of British royalty"? Charles and Camilla?

Filed under China, Controversy, Gianatasio, Lingerie
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