Nasty insults standard on all Dacia vehicles

This commercial by production company Artcore for Romanian automaker Dacia (and likely not approved by the client) presents an old couple and a car salesman trading a dizzying array of inventive insults. Which do you like best: "shriveled little toddler's prick," "dirty geriatric circus monkeys" or "seedy old yogurt seller"? Via BuzzFeed.

Filed under Automotive, Dacia, Nudd, Spec
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Suicide: still not the best advertising theme

Oh goody, another suicide ad. What is it about cars that leads people to the suicide theme? You'll recall that Volkswagen disowned a rogue suicide-bomber spec commercial four years ago. General Motors had no such choice after airing its disastrous suicidal-robot spot in the 2007 Super Bowl. Now comes a presumably unauthorized (or at least deniable) Audi spot showing a man in a parking garage trying to kill himself by attaching a hose to his tailpipe. Wouldn't you know it, to his profound dismay, the diesel-powered Audi won't produce enough toxic exhaust to do the job. Bummer. The on-screen copy reads, "Clean diesel technology. Good for the environment. Good for you." We're left with a cheery shot of the man closing the car window on his neck. My question: Has the suicide motif ever been used successfully in a commercial? It just seems like a bad direction to go in when you're looking to check the "edgy" box. Via Adverblog and Adland.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Audi, Automotive, Morrissey, Spec, Suicide
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Robots: Switch them on, and they just do it

Big Lazy Robot Visual Effects created this "spec commercial inspired by Nike." Whatever that means. I guess nobody's got paying clients these days. Now, I'm no fan of robots, but this is one impressive vignette. It subverts expectations by using a mechanical subject and lifeless cement-and-steel cityscape to vividly communicate pursuits of the human spirit, or at least the robot spirit, like pushing oneself to new heights, smashing limitations and being in total sync with the environment. Or running on all circuits. There's no need for this sprinter to chug Gatorade at the end of his gravity-defying run. That would just burn out his transistors, anyway.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Big Lazy Robot, Gianatasio, Nike, Spec
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Cheryl Hines' focus group for Vitaminwater

Cheryl Hines is one talented woman. Not only is she an accomplished star of stage and screen, she's a virtuoso when it comes to leading focus groups for Coca-Cola-owned non-carbonated beverages. This is gleaned from the video above, where she adroitly steers a Vitaminwater research session with a female consumer. Her inquiries about shirtless pilates instructors, in particular, reveal brand truths that would be inaccessible otherwise. The video was done on spec by marketing agency Ideocracy. And if Vitaminwater's not interested, maybe Hines has the makings of a sitcom character here. With the axe having fallen both on her show, ABC's In the Motherhood, and on TNT's ad drama Trust Me, the timing could be right.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Ideocracy, Nudd, Spec, Vitaminwater
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