What Will Kevin Hart Do Next? Well, for Starters, This Ad Campaign for Xfinity

Kevin Hart’s upcoming stand-up concert film is called What Now? Which is the question he poses to his uninterested wife and son in this Xfinity ad by 72andSunny New York.

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British PSA Urging Cyclists to Avoid Turning Trucks Draws Fire From Riders

A road safety ad by AMV BBDO is sparking cries of victim-blaming in the U.K. for warning cyclists to hang back from trucks that are making left turns—the driver’s blind side on that country’s roads.

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Havas Chicago Filled a Room With Boobs You Can Play With for #CheckYoSelf Campaign

Havas Chicago certainly knows how to stop pedestrians in their tracks with its office-window installations for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Last October it set up peep-show windows, but the peepers got a bit of a shock when they looked inside. This year’s effort, which launched Tuesday and runs through the end of the month, features a Plexiglass room in the lobby filled with 3-foot boob balloons—latex spheres painted to look like breasts.

Brightly colored window decals invite passersby to come inside at 36 E. Grand Avenue and just have a good old time playing with them.

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Amazon Made More Than a Hundred 10-Second Ads Asking Alexa the Funniest Things

People are using Amazon Echo in so many different ways, and asking its AI, Alexa, so many different things, that the brand decided it was perfect for little vignettes. So, it’s rolling out more than a hundred 10-second spots, each with a funny little question or request of Alexa, in contextual and targeted digital, TV and social placements.

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The Nike Mag Self-Lacing Sneakers Are Finally Here, but They're Only Making 89 Pairs

The Nike Mag self-lacing sneakers from Back to the Future II are finally a reality—27 years after the movie, five years after Nike built a Mag prototype, and seven months after it announced a different self-lacing shoe altogether.

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This Guy Posed as a Donut Delivery Man to Get Into Agencies and Try to Land a Job

Lithuanian marketing professional Lukas Yla arrived in San Francisco this summer with a sweet plan to make a name for himself in what may well be the world’s most oversaturated job market. 

Yla was able to get his literal foot in the door at 10 of the Bay Area’s top ad agencies and 30 tech companies without hyping a new app or a viral campaign or even a portfolio. He did it with one not-so-weird trick—free donuts. 

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DDB Just Figured Out How to Boost Milk's Popularity: Give It a Special Glass

How do you improve a glass of milk? 

By improving the glass of milk. (Ba dum—tss!) 

With help from DDB Canada, the Dairy Farmers of Canada introduce The Milk Glass™. Because you don’t want to drink milk from just any old thing, and certainly not a clumsy mug that’s as adapted to coffee as it is to dairy. 

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It Took Three Child Actors to Get This Scene Right in the New Garanimals Ad

Working with toddlers in commercials can be tough. Sometimes, the wee thespians just can’t take direction. In these cases, alas, the kid most definitely does not stay in the picture. David Bernstein, chief creative officer at The Gate Worldwide, and his team faced just such a challenge as they shot new spots for iconic children’s clothing brand Garanimals.

The apparel has been sold exclusively by Walmart since 2008, and the new ads introduce the line “Big on cute. Small on price,” because Garanimals items start at less than $4.

“Everybody remembers Garanimals” from the brand’s 1970/’80s heyday, Bernstein says. In that era, the colorful tops and bottoms could be easily mixed and matched by youngsters based on which critters appeared on the items’ hangtags. (Those tags were discontinued when the label began specializing in clothes for newborns and the 5T set.)

“Even first-time moms have probably been exposed and maybe even have worn the brand as a child,” says Bernstein. “Part of our target audience live in multi-generational homes. The media strategy and selected programming allows one generation to remind the other about the brand and to speak of its virtues.”

To facilitate production when working with kids, “You always cast several actors for the day of the shoot,” he adds, “because they don’t always want to act on the day of the shoot.”

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It Took Three Child Actors to Get This Scene Right in the New Garanimals Ad

Working with toddlers in commercials can be tough. Sometimes, the wee thespians just can’t take direction. In these cases, alas, the kid most definitely does not stay in the picture. David Bernstein, chief creative officer at The Gate Worldwide, and his team faced just such a challenge as they shot new spots for iconic children’s clothing brand Garanimals.

The apparel has been sold exclusively by Walmart since 2008, and the new ads introduce the line “Big on cute. Small on price,” because Garanimals items start at less than $4.

“Everybody remembers Garanimals” from the brand’s 1970/’80s heyday, Bernstein says. In that era, the colorful tops and bottoms could be easily mixed and matched by youngsters based on which critters appeared on the items’ hangtags. (Those tags were discontinued when the label began specializing in clothes for newborns and the 5T set.)

“Even first-time moms have probably been exposed and maybe even have worn the brand as a child,” says Bernstein. “Part of our target audience live in multi-generational homes. The media strategy and selected programming allows one generation to remind the other about the brand and to speak of its virtues.”

To facilitate production when working with kids, “You always cast several actors for the day of the shoot,” he adds, “because they don’t always want to act on the day of the shoot.”

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Chance the Rapper Meets Chance the Wrapper in Weird, Awesome Kit Kat Ad

In advertising’s best pun so far this year, Chance the Rapper encounters Chance the Wrapper in this new Halloween-themed Kit Kat commercial by agency Anomaly.

The 23-year-old hip-hop star is seen wearing a bear suit and shopping for Halloween candy (Kit Kats only, of course) when his wrapper alter ego calls out to him. And as promised, we get Chance’s version of the Hershey brand’s famous “Gimme a Break” jingle—a slow, crooning piano version of it, as it turns out.

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Chance the Rapper Meets Chance the Wrapper in Weird, Awesome Kit Kat Ad

In advertising’s best pun so far this year, Chance the Rapper encounters Chance the Wrapper in this new Halloween-themed Kit Kat commercial by agency Anomaly.

The 23-year-old hip-hop star is seen wearing a bear suit and shopping for Halloween candy (Kit Kats only, of course) when his wrapper alter ego calls out to him. And as promised, we get Chance’s version of the Hershey brand’s famous “Gimme a Break” jingle—a slow, crooning piano version of it, as it turns out.

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This Director Just Schooled Us on 360 Video With an Immersive Short Story for Facebook

Director Alex Smith has created his first-ever 360 video, as part of an ongoing series called “Picture This,” a project started by Facebook in partnership with Semi-Permanent, an Australia-based global creative and design thinking platform. And it’s one of the most instructive uses of the technology we’ve seen. 

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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Vie Awkwardly for Tom Brady's Love in Support of Three Good Causes

If either Matt Damon or Ben Affleck has an actual superpower, it’s their epic friendship—a bond so endearing and renowned that it even won them an award.

Until Tom Brady arrived. 

The #BFFgoals-inspiring pair are facing off for Brady’s affections via Skype in this weird, but charming, promotion for fundraising platform Omaze, which is offering you the chance to win an afternoon in Boston with all three of them, part of an effort to raise money for three charities. 

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That Epic Audi 'Duel' Commercial? Here's What It Looks Like Played Forward

 

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This Brand Put 16 Cameras in a Family's Home for 2 Weeks and Made Ads From the Footage

How do you shoot real, authentic, unscripted footage of a family for your advertising campaign? Set up a bunch of cameras around their house, and then go away for a long time—so the family can (mostly) forget about the cameras, and you, and just be themselves.

That’s what ad agency CHI & Partners has done for TalkTalk, the British TV, internet and mobile provider. They found an ordinary family—mom Julie and dad Paul, sons Peter and Harry, daughters Sophie and Lucy, niece Daisy and family dog Elvis—and filmed them for two straight weeks with unmanned cameras.

Then they sorted through the hundreds or hours of footage to find ordinary, everyday moments to write ads around. The point? That small moments matter, and indeed, are the stuff of life—particularly moments involving TalkTalk’s products and services, from trying to have a TV dinner with a dog on the sofa, to texting boyfriends, to teaching your aunt how to use a tablet.

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Alexa Is Your Suburban Guardian Angel in Amazon's New Ads for the Echo

The Alexa-enabled Amazon Echo can answer questions, play music, control smart devices and fulfill numerous other suburban needs, according to two new ads for Amazon’s command device.

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Drones Try to Assemble a Layer Cake in This Nutty Norwegian Phone Ad

Finally someone has found a good use for drones: Making a cake.

A team of little flying robots assembles a three-tier confection by airlifting genoise, splashing icing, firing candies out of a makeshift cannon and even lighting a sparkler with a blow torch—all in a new ad for Norwegian telecoms company Telia.

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Dove Straps Heart Monitors on Men to See How They React to Models, and Their Loved Ones

Imagine you’re asked to assess the beauty of airbrushed photos of professional models—and then regular snapshots of your spouse, or a close family member.

A new Dove ad from Portugal does that to a group of men, sitting them down in an empty warehouse and strapping them to a heart monitor in an attempt to measure their emotional response when a screen flashing pictures of stereotypically attractive women—the kind who might grace a shampoo ad with a half-smile—suddenly gives way to pictures of wives, sisters, daughters and grandmothers.

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A Lone Red Balloon's Journey Ends Joyfully in Latest 'Practically Magic' iPhone 7 Spot

Among iOS 10’s shiny new toys is a messaging feature that allows you to add effects to your message bubbles, send full-screen animations with your messages, add handwritten notes and more. Apple pushes those capabilities with a pretty new spot from TBWAMedia Arts Lab that focuses on one full-screen animation in particular.

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This Porn Star's Startling Ad for a Sex Show Accuses Spain of the Ultimate Hypocrisies

A striking new ad from Spain is making waves there, accusing the nation’s culture of being completely disingenuous—and using an adult film star as its righteous messenger. 

“My name is Amarna Miller,” she says, staring into the camera, as she introduces herself in the commercial’s first shot. “I’m a porn actress, and was born in a hypocritical country, where the same people calling me a whore jerk off to my videos.” 

It’s a brutally effective opening salvo, and the 90-second commercial—promoting the 2016 Salon Erótico de Barcelona Apricots, a live sex show staged in that city—doesn’t let up, indicting bullfighters, politicians, financiers, priests and all other forms of forked-tongued bad actors. 

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