Kia's hamster commercials are that rarest of advertising species: a campaign that by all objective measures you should hate, but which you can't help but love.

The formulaic setups—fruit doesn't hang much lower than dancing animals—are redeemed by the supremely gleeful (and skillful) execution, and the attention to detail. The ads, by David&Goliath, are so well produced—and they go so all in—that you can't help tapping your foot to the music, even as you try to stifle the smile that so annoyingly seems to be spreading on your face.

In the end, you might as well just sit back and enjoy it.

Kia certainly is. The campaign has picked up Effie awards and Nielsen's "Automotive Ad of the Year" honor and racked up tens of millions of YouTube views. There's a good reason this is the fifth spot in the series.

And it might be the best yet—despite once again being almost completely clichéd. It promotes the all-new 2014 Soul, which has been significantly redesigned. And so the hamsters themselves get a makeover. You learned to love them because of their baggy clothes and endearingly chubby dances—à la Weird Al's "Fat" video—but here they work hard to develop a new image, and end up fitting into much more stylish attire.

Normally, an ad like this would use the Rocky theme, or maybe "Eye of the Tiger." But this one is set to Lady Gaga's new single "Applause," and it will have a well-timed TV premiere connected to the song—a 60-second version will debut on Sunday's Video Music Awards following Gaga’s first-ever live performance of it. Perhaps she'll even show up in a hamster suit. (The spot will also reach cinemas. The 90-second web version is below.)

"The hamsters always have their paws on the pulse of pop culture," says Colin Jeffery, D&G's executive creative director, who directed the latest spot. (Even the PR around these ads is required to be cheesy.) "With the help of Lady Gaga, some current fashion trends and our friends at MPC VFX, we introduce a sleeker, sexier and more sophisticated Soul. The hamsters don't look too shabby themselves."

Hopefully they'll put the weight back on before the next ad. This is a campaign that will stay cool by being the opposite.

Scroll down to see photos from the shoot.

CREDITS
Client: Kia Soul
Spot: "Totally Transformed"

Agency: David&Goliath, Los Angeles
Chief Creative Officer: David Angelo
Executive Creative Director: Colin Jeffery
CD/Copywriter:  Gary DuToit
CD/Art Director: Eron Broughton
ACD/Copywriter: Greg Buri
ACD/Art Director: Basil Cowieson
ACD/Art Director: Kriss Grove
Executive Producer, Managing Director: Carol Lombard
Executive Producer: Paul Albanese
Managing Partner, Client Services: Brian Dunbar
Group Account Director: Brook Dore
Account Director: Justin Manfredi
Account Supervisor: Nancy Ramirez
Account Executive: Kammie Dons
Associate Strategic Planning Director:  Steven Garcia
Sr. Planner: Armando Potter

Production Company: @radical.media
Director: Colin Jeffery
Executive Producer: Frank Scherma
Producer: Kathy Rhodes
Director of Photography: Toby Irwin
Production Designer: Brock Houghton
Wardrobe Stylist: Christina Blackaller

Special EFX: Legacy Effects

Editorial: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Angus Wall
Executive Producer: CL Weaver
Producer: Toby Louie
Assistant Editor: Austyn Daines

Post Production: MPC
VFX Supervisor/ 3-D Lead: Andy Boyd
Compositing Supervisor: Jake Montgomery
Animation Lead: Stew Burris
Animator/Rigger: Ian Wilson
Animator: Jean-Dominique Fievet
Lighter: William Schilthuis
Lighter: Shaun Comly
Texture: Hayley O'Neil 
Modeler: Aaron Hamman
3-D FX: Charles Trippe
Tracking: Mike Wynd 
Compositor: Clement 
Compositor: Jason Heinz
Compositor: Brendan Smith
Smoke Artist: Mark Holden
Telecine: Mark Gethin
Executive Producer: Asher Edwards
VFX Producer: Nicole Fina

Record Label: Interscope Records
Artist: Lady Gaga

Sound Design: Hammers Project
Sound Designer: Johannes Hammers

Music Editing: Massive Music

Audio Mix: Margarita Mix
Mixer: Nathan Dubin

Magazine Covers Courtesy of:
Wired / Condé Nast
Rolling Stone / Wenner Media LLC
Men's Health / Rodale

You're not the first guy who climbs into the ring and beats the crap out of the second guy. You're the third guy who makes sure the two muscle machines punching each other in the face are following the rules while they do. That's why you drive an Audi station wagon.

This new spot for the carmaker, created by BBH London, focuses on high-profile boxing referee Tony Weeks (who, to anyone not familiar with the sport, might just seem like another boxing referee). In the ad, Weeks officiates a fight between cruiserweights Steve Cunningham and B.J. Flores.

Weeks does what a referee does, but does it well—bossing the fighters around and jumping in to break them up, apparently without flinching at the thought of getting hit by a stray fist. After the fight ends, with the crowd still cheering, Weeks exits the arena, disappearing into a dark tunnel. From the tunnel, an Audi 560PS RS 6 Avant emerges. "Power … from a less obvious place," says the tagline.

The ad, directed by Jonathan Glazer—the celebrated director of the film Sexy Beast and a host of TV commercials, including the legendary Guinness "Surfer" spot—offers a rich and charmingly counterintuitive take on celebrity. That Weeks might not be instantly recognizable to some doesn't matter much. The takeaway is still clear—he may not be the star of the show, but he's certainly running it. That serves as a quiet play to the viewer's ego. Are you like him? Or are you the diva? If you're loud and flashy, maybe this isn't the car for you. This is the car for the strong, stoic type who takes care of business and then goes home while everyone else is racking up the accolades.

That may seem to be an odd—and potentially condescending—sales pitch. Weeks is at the top of his field and still gets some measure of the spotlight, mitigating any impression that he's relatively unimportant to the heart of the endeavor. At the same time, referees, generally speaking, are easily replaced—as are the regular process guys that keep the trains running in less glitzy industries than boxing. Do you want to be that guy? The one who disappears into a dark tunnel and metamorphoses into a hatchback?

In other words, because the ad relies so heavily on metaphor—and more simply, doesn't show Weeks getting into the car—it ends up flirting with a melodrama of its own. Is he a symbol for the car? For the driver? If you have to work that hard to convince yourself you're powerful, are you, really?

Nonetheless, if it means you're not getting slammed about the head for a living, it's probably a good way to go.

CREDITS
Client: Audi
National Communications Manager: Kristian Dean

Agency: BBH, London
Creative Team: Simon Pearse, Emmanuel Saint M'Leux
Creative Directors: Matt Doman, Ian Heartfield
Executive Producer: Ruben Mercadal
Strategic Business Lead: Richard Stainer
Strategist: Edd Southerden
Team Director: Polly McMorrow
Team Manager: Stephen Jones
Additional Production: David Lynch, Georgina Kent

Production Company: Academy
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Producer: Simon Cooper
Production Manager: Bugs Hartley
Director of Photography: Barry Ackroyd
Visual Effects, Online: MPC, London
Telecine: John Claude, Dirty Looks, London
Editing: Paul Watts, The Quarry
Sound Mix, Design: Ed Downham, Johnnie Burn, Wave
Music: Peter Raeburn, Soundtree
Music recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London

This new ad for French perfume house Guerlain's Shalimar fragrance is perhaps the single most elaborate spot this side of the same director's famous Cartier commercial from last year. Say what you will about Bruno Aveillan's baroque aesthetic. No one will ever claim the guy did anything halfway.

Speaking of aesthetic choices, the spot definitely has a Russian vibe—our hero is kind of making a tundra-to-Moscow trek here, and perhaps that's appropriate given the nationality of the object of his desire, Natalia Vodianova. But in fact it's based on a Persian legend about the love between the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal in the 17th century—a story that inspired Jacques Guerlain to create Shalimar (a reference to the gardens around Mumtaz's remote home) back in 1925.

The landscape is undeniably beautiful, as is Vodianova, but can someone please tell me when YouTube relaxed its prohibitions on nudity? This seems to me like a fairly recent occurrence. That racy Robin Thicke video is basically naked girls all the time (no, we're not going to link to it—you're at work, you pervert), as is the Justin Timberlake "Tunnel Vision" video.

YouTube addressed this in July, saying its guidelines "generally prohibit nudity, [but] we make exceptions when it is presented in an educational, documentary or artistic context." You could actually argue this spot is artistic and you wouldn't get laughed out of the room. It's certainly cool, what with the slow motion and the pretty girls and the dehydrated city springing forth from the lake that the harem overlooks. It's sort of Lawrence of Arabia, without any texture or characters.

Anyway, kudos to Guerlain for, well, spending what is obviously a superhuman amount of cash on this ridiculous confection, and to Avellian for making it. It looks like the trailer for a movie that got every Oscar nomination in every category and made the cover of Time magazine.

I will also say that the lovely violin score is just good—not ironically good or lots-of-money-and-no-taste good. It does exactly what it's supposed to do, even when everything around it looks like the Bellagio Las Vegas in music-video form.

CREDITS
Client: Guerlain
Director: Bruno Aveillan

In today's culinary environment, a restaurant needs more than good food, solid service and aesthetically pleasing décor to gain public acclaim. Its ingredients need to be coddled, too.

Beef must be grass-fed, the chickens free-range, and baby lettuce should be softly serenaded with lullabies every night. And we're not just talking about trendy farm-to-table restaurants here—hell, even McDonald's has been waxing poetic about its suppliers. Now, Rubio's, a West Coast purveyor of fish tacos, is running a campaign from barrettSF that attempts to pay grand homage to the source of its famous seafood, with rather mixed results.

"To the ocean, that mythical beast of such enormity, to be calm and calming," proclaims a gravelly voice with a level of solemnity that almost belies the fact that it's narrating a spot for a fast-casual taco purveyor, not a Discovery Channel special. "Its waters bring shrimp and pollock, rain, tilapia," the voice continues, against images of waves bobbing upon a vast ocean filled with tilapia, that most majestic of creatures.

But a fish taco needs more than just fish. After bringing said seafood to shore, it's time to "blacken the fish, pluck the lime, slice avocados and chilis in a place that is itself very much the ocean, full of great things, patient, swift and afloat," the narrator continues, seemingly unaware that he's not making much sense.

The point of the ad is clear—Rubio's respects the ocean, hooray for sustainability, etc.—but the execution is a bit of a head-scratcher. Is the strangely somber, perplexing narration actually a commentary on the vast unfathomability of the sea? Or is it just another ad by a fast-casual restaurant taking itself a bit too seriously?

Either way, I'm craving a fish taco.

CREDITS
Client: Rubio's
Spot: "To the Ocean"
Agency: barrettSF, San Francisco
Creative Directors: Pete Harvey, Jamie Barrett
Copywriter: Pete Harvey
Art Director: Nik Daum
Executive Producer: Kacey Hart
Managing Partner: Patrick Kelly
Account Director: Molly Warner
Senior Proofreeder: Saul Sabarr
Production Company: Academy Films
Director: Marcus Söderlund
Director of Photography: Allan Wilson
Head of Content, Producer: James Cunningham
Editorial Company: Cut + Run, London
Editor: Ben Campbell
Producer: Annabelle Dunbar-Whittaker
Postproduction: Finish, London
Colorist: Paul Harrison
Audio Mix, Sound Design: 740 Sound
Mixer, Sound Designer: Rommel Molina
Music: "Labor" by Small Sur

When the advertising gods cast my soul into hell as punishment for writing negative reviews, I'll probably be forced to watch a witless, artsy perfume commercial like this Dior Homme spot on an endless loop for all eternity.

Moody monochrome images of Rob Pattinson's "smoldering stares" will sear my eyes forever, while the clip's soundtrack—Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"—scalds my ears like the screams of the damned.

Vapid visions will fill my designer-fragrance inferno. They include: Rob fully clothed in a bathtub, smoking a cigarette. Rob rocking designer shades on a rooftop, looking all intense. Rob and French model Camille Rowe making out in an elevator, crashing some society party, making out some more, tearing up the beach in a vintage BMW, diving into a pool with their clothes on.

If there's any cosmic justice, the ad's director, Romain Gavras, will suffer in the fiery pit by my side. "I loved your dad's films, but your Dior commercial sucked," I'll say to him over and over and over and over. Yeah, I plan to be a real charmer in the afterlife.

The spot's getting ludicrously positive press ("hot" seems to be the descriptor du jour, but not in a netherworldly sense), and the "uncensored director's cut" below is pushing 2 million YouTube views after just a couple of days. It's like Rob and his Hollywood hype machine put everyone under a vampire spell. Wake up, people! There's no real concept or creativity here! (And yes, I wish I looked like Rob Pattinson. And yes, his personal hell would be to wake up looking like me. That has nothing to do with how I feel about the commercial. Well, not much, anyway.)

In my ad-themed Hades, I'll writhe in agony, begging for the pseudo-sexy silliness to stop. Yet the horror of these cookie-cutter, big-budget fragrance ads—this one as pale and needy as the Twilight bloodsucker Pattinson so famously portrayed—won't let my soul rest in peace.

CREDITS
Client: Dior Homme
Director: Romain Gavras

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: The bar for deodorant ads has gotten really, really high over the last few years.

Don't look at me. I didn't decide this was the category that needed really absurd comedy creative. But Procter & Gamble's Old Spice has proven remarkably game throughout multiple campaigns from Wieden + Kennedy, and its directors—in this case, Steve Rogers of Biscuit Filmworks—have been correspondingly willing to let their freak flags fly.

Old Spice just released four new 15-second spots for the NFL season. First off, these are really funny ads. "Snow Globe" may be my favorite, but "Absent" made me laugh really loud at my desk just now, so that's got to be worth something. It's interesting how directly these spots, done in the same style as W+K's recent Old Spice bar-soap ads, make fun of a specific kind of creative—basically everything with a choral jingle over an otherwise-silent CPG spot in the 1980s. Musically, they're all dead on.

They're kind of perfect for ad nerds, actually. Remember the Doublemint ads where everybody loaded their gum into their mouths in exactly the same ridiculous way? Right, OK. Now, see how these guys sniff the deodorant sticks in exactly the same ridiculous way no one has ever sniffed a deodorant stick (in public, at least)? That's some deep CPG ad knowledge right there, my friends. Learn from it.

That, ultimately, is what makes these ads so good—they're super-accurate pastiches of a specific kind of ad with one huge, horribly wrong difference. You may not know all the little ins and outs of the parodies—I'm fairly sure I'm missing several—but we've all seen somebody transported to a beach by the taste of his beer/smell of her laundry detergent/experience of sucking Cheeto dust off his thumb. Yet for some reason, lizards are never eating that guy's legs, as in the "Lizards" spot, although Wes Welker of the Denver Broncos will probably never catch another forward pass now. (The other guy in the ads is New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo.)

Really, if you think about the number of inexplicable beachside teleportations that go totally well, this is just the law of averages finally working itself out.

CREDITS
Client: Old Spice
Spots: Snow Globe :15 | Lizards :15 | Absent :15 | Coach :15

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Jason Bagley | Craig Allen
Copywriter: Nathaniel Lawlor
Art Director: Croix Gagnon
Producer: Lindsay Reed
Producer: Jennifer Fiske
Account Team: Liam Doherty | Nick Pirtle
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples | Susan Hoffman
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Steve Rogers
Executive Producers: Shawn Lacy | Holly Vega
Line Producer: Jay Veal
Director of Photography: Ben Seresin

Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Adam Pertofsky
Asst. Editor: Marjorie Sacks
Post Producer: Julia Batter

VFX Company: The Mill
Head of Production: Arielle Davis
Producer: Christina Thompson
Coordinator: Ben Sposato
Creative Director: John Leonti
Shoot Supervisor: John Lenoti | Narbeh Mardirossian
Visual Effects Supervisor | Lead Flame Artist: Tim Davies
3D Lead: Lu Meng-Yang
2D Artists: Ben Smith, Narbeh Mardirossian, Adam Lambert
3D Artists: James Ma, Thomas Briggs, Mike Di Nocco, Jason Jasnsky, Brian Yu
Matte Painter: Daniel Thron

Music: Libman Music
Composer | Arranger: Paul Libman
Record | Mix: Avatar Studios
Engineer: Jay Messina
SFX Studio: Lime Studios
Sound Designer: Loren Silber

Color Transfer: Company3
Artist: Sean Coleman
Producer: Matt Moran

Over the years, Go Daddy has developed a reputation for raising eyebrows with provocative ads starring very voluptuous women wearing very little clothing. The Web-hosting company's latest effort might be even more of a shocker than usual—not because of any X-rated themes, but because it doesn't have any sexy women at all. And because it's just really weird.

The new spot, from Deutsch in New York, titled "The Baker," opens with the owner of a small bakery at work in his kitchen. Thanks to his new Go Daddy website, he's getting lots of online orders—and seems to be getting a bit overwhelmed. And then, out of nowhere, '90s action star Jean-Claude Van Damme appears, in full split position, playing a pair of bongos. (OK, so the sexual innuendo isn't entirely gone.)

A second later, he's up near the ceiling, shaking two maracas while maintaining a manic smile. And then he's in the fridge—still in a split—blowing on panpipes so forcefully that flames are coming out the other end. Finally, an upside-down Van Damme takes a break from his musical efforts to tell the baker, "It's go time." The baker, while slightly confused, is surprisingly unfazed.

Go Daddy is working hard to achieve a sort of hip bizarreness here—Jean-Claude Van Damme playing the bongos?! OMG, so random!—but nonetheless, it's nice to see the brand try something that doesn't involve a buxom model in a tiny tank top. Here's hoping that next winter we might be spared the annual Super Bowl cringe fest.

CREDITS
Client: Go Daddy
Agency: Deutsch, New York

DDB Chicago's latest Aaron Rodgers ad for State Farm begs a timely question: Are Cheeseheads more hard-core football fans than Brateaters?

Both camps appear in the ad, which takes place on a plane. Rodgers, the star quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, finds himself awkwardly seated between "Bob" and "Carl," two characters from Saturday Night Live's "Da Bears" sketches from the 1990s. Reprising those respective roles are actor George Wendt and satirist Robert Smigel, right down to the fake mustaches, "Chee-cah-go" accents and fan apparel.

It's an inspired seating arrangement, given the start of the NFL season—and the SNL season, for that matter. (The show's 39th year begins on Sept. 28.) And Rodgers, now in his ninth ad for the insurance giant, proves, as usual, to be a good sport.

He takes the middle seat, even though his ticket is for the window seat. He endures needling about being the "discount double-check guy." He even puts up with the smell of brats wafting from tray-table grills that the Bears guys flip down. Only in advertising, right?

Well, at least Rodgers has the support of a loyal Cheesehead. In yet another return performance, the curly-haired fan with the yellow foam cheese wedge on his head appears at the end of the commercial—on the wing of the plane, no less. "Rodgers!" he yells, before aping the QB's seatbelt move. Sadly, he loses his wedge in the process.

Oh, well. No doubt these now-familiar State Farm players will be back soon. After all, it's a long season.

CREDITS
Client - State Farm 
Agency - DDB, Chicago
Group Creative Directors - Barry Burdiak, John Hayes
Associate Creatives Directors - Chad Broude, Brian Boord
Executive Producer - Scott Kemper
Production Manager - Scott Terry
Production Co. - Arts & Sciences
Director – Matt Aselton
Editorial Co. – Cutters
Editor – Grant Gustafson
Finishing - Filmworkers Club

General Electric's technology is making time travel easier. Kind of. Not really. Still, that hasn't stopped the brand from making a new ad based on Back to the Future.

The spot, from BBDO in New York, part of the client's "Brilliant Machines" campaign, features enough of the essential cues: the souped-up DeLorean with the "Outatime" license plate; Marty McFly's scuffed Nike sneakers; and a voiceover by Michael J. Fox. The commercial doesn't actually show Fox, perhaps because it would shatter the illusion to see a middle-aged McFly droning on about how you kids don't know how good you have it. Back in his day, it wasn't so easy to find 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.

Instead, we get an animated trip through the DeLorean's charging apparatus. McFly riffs about the wonders of GE's hardware and software. Ultimately, we learn, the brand's technology powers entire cities, as the camera zooms out to feature a bird's-eye, Lite-Brite profile of New York City (bringing to mind the surreal Hurricane Sandy photo of a blacked-out lower Manhattan). "The turbines of today will power us all into the future," says Fox, as the sci-fi ride takes flight and disappears in a characteristic flash of blue.

The pop-culture premise of the ad is cool. The metaphor is a bit thin—the virtual ride through a power grid and stream of buzzwords don't quite forge a convincing connection between the classic work of fiction and the brand's products. On the other hand, the dazzling, vague sense of warm and fuzzy that this ad is meant to spark may be the best a brand like GE—which deals in such a wide range of hard-to-explain technologies—can hope to deliver in 30 seconds.

Sure, if Doc and Marty had had GE's 2013 technology, they wouldn't have had to chase lightning bolts up a clock tower. That would have been a less interesting movie. Don't hate on GE for trying to ruin classic films, though. It should keep paying famous actors lots of money to rattle off 30 seconds of marketing speak, and make the brand look nice.

CREDITS
Client: GE
Spot: "The Future Is Now"

Agency: BBDO, New York
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars
Senior Creative Directors: Eric Cosper, Michael Aimette
Group Executive Producer: Anthony Nelson
Producer: George Sholley
Copywriter: Laszlo Szloboda
Art Director: Akos Papp
Director of Music and Radio Production: Rani Vaz
Worldwide Senior Account Director: Emma Armstrong
Senior Account Director: Peter McCallum
Account Managers: Lindsey Conklin, Sam White
Assistant Account Executive: David Slifer

Production Company: Chelsea
Director: David Gordon Green
Director of Photography: Simon Duggan

Music House: Human

Editing House: MacKenzie Cutler
Editor: Ian MacKenzie

Visual Effects House: Framestore

Audio Mix: Sonic Union
Mixer: Michael Marinelli

I just want to point out that these (largely excellent) new ads from Geico point up something that many critics have observed about advertising and media in general: The suburban housewives checking out the giant are surprisingly put-together and attractive, while the scuba divers inside the whale are surprisingly schlubby. Or rather, they're to be admired for their confidence in themselves. To quote somebody or other, "Men and women will never be equal until a fat, bald woman can walk through Times Square wearing nothing but sweatpants and know that she is beautiful."

Also, y'all know that whales have internal organs, right? Livers, kidneys, lungs, the works.

Geico has pretty good comedy creative across the board (thank God the gecko is nowhere to be found in these ads), but does anyone else think there's probably a funnier punch line for these spots than "I just saved 15 percent on my car insurance?" It seems like the brand's insistence on its service/tagline staying focal is maybe not the best thing for the creative. Not that this should just be a 30-second joke with no branding, but perhaps there actually are more creative ways to illustrate the joys of being insured.

Anyway, if there are, The Martin Agency seems like a prime candidate to provide them. These are funny spots, lame punch line or no lame punch line, especially the whale one—the gent floating in on the kayak at the end is priceless. In all of them but the giant spot, too, the proclamation of the silver lining—in the form of cheap insurance—kind of begs the question. Yes, but why is that good? You'll never see your car again, guys who are in the belly of a whale/spaceship/girl who probably won't be driving anytime soon.

The bad-magician spot is a lot of fun as well, especially since he actually seems to have uncontrollable superpowers, rather than butterfingers.

Casting, as always, is key here—the Close Encounters guys have a great buddy-comedy thing going, and the women sipping their coffee while looking out at the giant are smilingly oblivious in a very funny Stepford Wives kind of way.

Good job, Geico. Maybe now it's time for a new tagline.

CREDITS
Client: Geico
Agency: The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va.

Fiona Apple, CAA Marketing and the Oscar-winning animators at Moonbot Studios prove to be impressive collaborators as Chipotle takes the formula that worked so well two years ago—celebrity cover of a famous song + gorgeous long-form animation + potent environmental message—and replicates it for a new campaign.

In fact, it enhances the formula by adding a gaming component, too.

Like the acclaimed, award-winning "Back to the Start" campaign, the new effort, called "The Scarecrow," is another grand statement from the restaurant chain about the world of industrial food production. The centerpiece is a free, arcade-style adventure game for the iPhone and iPad, supported by an animated short film of the same name.

The film, posted below, is a dystopian fantasy in which a famously antagonistic relationship—that of crow and scarecrow—is turned on its head. Crows are running the show at the Crow Foods factory, which is staffed by scarecrows who've lost their jobs at the farm and are forced into supporting the unsustainable processed-food system. The first two-thirds of the film are oppressively bleak, as chickens and cows are pumped full of hormones and our hero scarecrow all but blanches at the horror of it all. In the end, of course, he breaks free and opens his own little restaurant, where he serves—naturally—wholesome-looking handmade burritos.

The animation by Moonbot is lovely. (The studio won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2012 for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.) And the music—a Fiona Apple cover of the song "Pure Imagination" from 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—is flat-out hypnotic. Together, they produce a deeply evocative atmosphere that connects the viewer emotionally to the story—even if it's not quite as magical as the brilliant, stripped-down, stop-motion "Back to the Start" video.

But it's not all about the film anyway. The game, also developed with Moonbot and CAA, is a major focus, too. You're challenged to "fly through the city of Plenty to transport confined animals to open pastures, fill fields with diverse crops at Scarecrow Farms, and serve wholesome food to the citizens at PlentyFull Plaza, all while avoiding menacing Crowbots." And if you get at least three stars out of five in each of the game's worlds, you get a coupon for free food at Chipotle.

Branded entertainment goes doesn't get much more well rounded or better executed than this. Apple's song will hit the iTunes Store soon, with 60 cents per download benefiting the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. And the game is available for free at the App Store.

Now, go get those evil crows.

CREDITS
Client: Chipotle
Agency: CAA Marketing
Animation: Moonbot Studios
Music: Fiona Apple
Music Supervision: duotone audio group

Over the years, Axe has been telling men around the world that smelling a certain way (namely, like a hormone-addled teenage boy doused in pungent drugstore body spray) is a surefire way to attract hot, vapid ladies (as if there is any other kind!). The same goes for their hair—style it just right, and like magic, an attractive female will appear out of nowhere. Alas, men being men, the actual styling process can present a challenge: Which pomade to buy? What does one do with said pomade once it has been purchased? Wait, what is pomade?

In a new series of spots from BBH London, Axe demystifies the process by offering up four distinct male hair tropes complete with step-by-step instructions and the specific Axe product needed to achieve it (even though they all appear to be the exact same goo). There's "The Clean Cut Look," a combed, parted and rakishly backswept style; "The Messy Look," favored by fans of Harry Styles; "The Natural Look," a bit of a puzzler, considering it could conceivably be achieved by not using any styling product at all; and "The Spiked Up Look," to satisfy any lingering nostalgia for David Beckham circa 2002 (or, at the extreme end, Ryan Cabrera circa Audrina Patridge still being relevant).

Surprisingly enough, in addition to being informative, several of the video tutorials are also mildly amusing, each poking fun at its own conceit. There is no godly reason for the star of "The Messy Look" to be styling his hair while caught in a storm at sea, or "The Spiked Up Look" guy to pause for a primping session during an action sequence. And Axe knows its "Natural Look" man is a tool ("Take note: this step requires a modicum of effort"). Only "The Clean Cut Look" is a total yawn—posh accent, douchey guy, martinis, snore.

Better yet, although the spots all provide the usual end reward—a hot girl—they're tongue-in-cheek enough to avoid being aggressively misogynistic. Then again, maybe the women aren't on camera long enough to be exploited.

Either way, it's a step in the right direction for Axe.

CREDITS
Client: Axe
Global Vice President: Dean Aragon
Global Brand Director: Victor Hugo

Agency: BBH, London
Creative Team: Harry Orton, Robin Warman, Mark Lewis, Matt Fitch
Creative Directors: Gary McCreadie, Wesley Hawes
Deputy Executive Creative Director: David Kolbusz
Producer: Glenn Paton
Strategic Business Lead: Ngaio Pardon
Strategy Director: Jonathan Bottomley
Strategist: Tim Jones
Team Directors: Heather Cuss, Roxane Gergaud
Team Manager: Cressida Holmes-Smith

Production Company: Caviar
Director: Nick Jasenovic
Executive Producer: Anna Smith
Producer: Neil Cray
Director of Photography: Ben Todd
Postproduction: Framestore
Editing House: Cut+Run
Editor: Sam Jones
Sound: Factory Studios
Sound Engineer: Sam Robson

Today in semi-obscure but fantastic source material for ads: A-ha's famous video for "Take on Me" has inspired the fun new Volkswagen spot below by Deutsch LA.

The VW spot, directed by David Shane, whose résumé includes Bud Light's "Swear Jar," is a combination of stills, animated sequences and live action, just like the original video. And like the original, it was rotoscoped—meaning they filmed the actors and the cars and then animated the results.

The automaker must have figured enough of the target market was soaking up MTV in the mid-1980s to make this worthwhile. The original video, directed by Steve Barron, made the song famous rather than the other way around—the track was released three times before finally hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1985, a year after it was recorded. The video won six prizes at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards but was beaten out for Video of the Year by another Barron production—the video for "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.

The end of the VW spot is amusing, and true to life: As Rolling Stone has noted,"Take on Me" does indeed have "one of the hardest-to-sing choruses in pop history."

CREDITS
Client: Volkswagen of America
Interim Chief Marketing Officer: Wayne Brannon
Vice President, Marketing: Kevin Mayer
General Manager, Marketing Communications: Justin Osborne
Advertising Manager: Jeff Sayen
Advertising Specialist: Chanel Arola

Spot: "Feeling Carefree"

Agency: Deutsch, Los Angeles
Executive Creative Director: Michael Kadin
Group Creative Director: Matt Ian
Creative Director: Mark Peters
Associate Creative Director: Ryan Scott
Director of Integrated Production: Vic Palumbo
Director of Content Production: Victoria Guenier
Executive Integrated Producer: Jim Haight

Production Company: O Positive
Director: David Shane
Executive Producer: Marc Grill
Line Producer: Ken Licata

Editorial Company: Union Editorial
Editor: Jim Haygood
Assistant Editor: Dylan Firshein
Executive Producer: Michael Raimondi
Producer: Joe Ross

Post Facility: Company 3
Colorist: Beau Leon

Animation, Visual Effects Company: Passion Pictures
Head of Production: Anna Lord
Executive Producer: Alex Webster
Producer: Matt Saxton
Director: John Roberston

Music/Composer: "Take On Me"
Performed by a-ha
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records Inc. & Sony/ATV Music Publishing
By arrangement with Warner Music Group Commercial Licensing & Sony/ATV Commercial Music Group

Audio Post: Lime
Mixer: Mark Meyuhas
Assistant: Matt Miller
Producer: Jessica Locke

Additional Deutsch Credits:
Chief Executive Officer: Mike Sheldon
Account Management Credits:
Group Account Director: Tom Else
Account Director: Monica Jungbeck
Account Supervisor: Alex Gross
Account Executive: Tara Poosti
Assistant Account Executive: Mary Cherwien
Product Specialist: Eddie Chae
Account Planners:
Chief Strategic Officer: Jeffrey Blish
Group Planning Director: Susie Lyons
Legal/Broadcast:
Director of Integrated Business Affairs: Abilino Guillermo
Group Director, Integrated Business Affairs: Gabriela Farias
Director or Broadcast Traffic: Carie Bonillo
Broadcast Traffic Manager: Courtney Tylka

Few client-agency teams do scare tactics quite as well as St. John Ambulance and BBH London.

With their artful yet horrifying set pieces about the importance of knowing first aid, the pair have been mainstays at Cannes, mostly recently winning a silver Film Lion for last year's excruciating "Helpless" spot. Now, they're back with a new film and interactive experience, launching today—and it's just as bleak, and sneaks up on you just as cunningly.

The film hinges on an element of surprise, which we won't spoil, but things are ominous from Blink director Dougal Wilson's very first frames. Something's going to happen to this kid—but what? In the end, though, it's not really about the child at all. It's about the woman and the man, and only one of them has a chance to save the boy's life.

The 60-second spot is supported by an interactive experience that immerses you in the story and demonstrates simple first aid, which can be the difference between life and death.

"I had an experience myself where someone needed my help and I didn't know first aid, and I will always feel that I could have done more," says Wilson, best known for his John Lewis ads and recent "Pony" spot for Three."By putting other people in this position through the film, and then teaching them how to save the boy with the online interactive experience, we hope to avoid anyone having that feeling of helplessness in real life."

CREDITS
Client: St John Ambulance

Agency: BBH, London
Creative Team: Rob Ellis & Alex Ball
Creative Director: Matt Doman & Ian Heartfield
TV Producer: Natalie Parish
Interactive Producer: Kate Sutherland
Strategic Business Lead: Ann-Marie Costelloe
Strategist: Carl Mueller
Team Manager: Lauren Blunden

Production Company: Blink
Director: Dougal Wilson
Executive Producer: James Studholme
Producer: Ewen Brown
DoP: Lasse Frank

Post Production: MPC
VFX Producer: Josh King
VFX Supervisors: Tom Harding and Adam Crocker
Colorists: Jean-Clement Soret and James Tillett

Editor/Editing House: Joe Guest / Paul Moth @ Final Cut
Sound: Factory
Sound Engineer: Sam Robson

Adult Swim is veeeery, very gingerly getting into product placement, and this first big ad from the network, for Subway, is a big win.

It's hard to mesh Adult Swim's sensibilities with the innate conservatism of most product brands, but Subway has spent a lot of time and energy on appearing unpretentious and cool (remember Britta's love interest on Community, the man named Subway?), and this is right in its wheelhouse.

As with recent spots for Old Spice, this piece is funny mostly because of how expertly it mocks the whole medium of advertising, particularly infomercials. Adult Swim's pods are very short, and this piece is the right length to fill one (yup, it's 90 seconds long, and it will air Wednesday night on the linear network). Irony or no irony, the piece manages to get across everything Subway wants you to know: cheap eats, healthy, easy, located everywhere.

The star is Mookie Blaiklock, late of ABC's very funny, over-titled Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, as well as Comedy Bang! Bang! on IFC. Adult Swim tends to get up-and-coming comedians for this sort of thing—witness its 2011 spot for Wendy's.

The Subway work is a good riff on old-fashioned infomercials of the kind arguably perfected by Dr. Nick Riviera and Troy McClure (you may remember him from such films as P Is for Psycho and The President's Neck Is Missing) in their ad for the Juice Loosener on The Simpsons. Blaiklock is a lot of fun as Sal Lami, and the sound editing on this piece is tops—the air guitar/drum solo/three-pointer finish is great.

Overally, it's a well-crafted spot that points up many of the good things a smart team can do when they've got plenty of time to work up a head of steam. Adult Swim is a network that will absolutely lose viewer share if it starts to clutter the airwaves, so making ads that fit in tonally and keep the joke rate high is important. Given those requirements, this seems like a pretty safe bet.

When you watch an Ikea ad, you can generally expect one of two groups to be the target: One, style-conscious twenty-somethings looking to furnish their cramped apartment on a dime; or two, busy young families that need their coffee table to double as toy storage and a mobile workstation.

"Teddy's Speech," a spot from Ikea Australia's "Make Time for Living" campaign, fits squarely in the second category. Like so many other family-oriented Ikea ads, it stars a precocious-but-not-cutesy child (the titular Teddy, in this case), but rather than using Teddy to show how much easier life can be with the proper Ikea furnishings, the two-minute spot barely focuses on the store's offerings at all. Instead, it revolves around a simple message: Your home isn't just a place for catching up on emails or stopping by between appointments. It's a place for living.

That's a noble sentiment in an age when getting the family together for a meal can seem impossible. Unfortunately, the execution of the spot—by ad agency The Monkeys—leaves the viewer as exhausted as a 12-year-old with a dozen after-school activities.

As Teddy gives his speech, the camera follows him on a brisk walk around his underused home. Or is it homes? Every time he rounds a corner, we seem to have entered a new house, but the brisk pace makes it hard to tell. Poor Teddy can barely keep up himself. He looks (and sounds) perpetually out of breath as he enters room after room.

Presumably, there's a point behind the disordered visuals of "Teddy's Speech." Perhaps it's meant to mirror the hectic schedule of the modern family, never stopping to sit down and take a breather. But the spot ends up keeping viewers too busy trying to get their bearings to appreciate the message.

CREDITS
Client: Ikea Australia
Agency: The Monkeys
Film Production: Revolver
Director: Matt Devine, The Glue Society
Post: The Editors
Sound: Nylon
Content Production Company: Will O'Rourke
Director: Richard Bullock
Photography: Michael Corridore, Carine Thevenau, Jeremy Shaw
Media Agency: Match Media
Communication Director: Nick Wokes
Communications Manager: Mark Echo
Communications Manager: Russell Dowse
Online Content Hub Agency: Lavender
Client Services Director: Gayle While
PR Agency: Mango
GM: Claire Salvetti
Account Director: Ella Tacchi

If you're at Advertising Week in New York this week, chances are you'll see this new Adobe commercial quite a bit. The good news is, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has produced another winner for the company.

The spot, for Adobe Marketing Cloud services, will run at 64 seminars and events during Advertising Week, and is also airing all this week on CNBC and Bloomberg. (It's Adobe's first TV buy in 10 years.) And it humorously makes the case that the Marketing Cloud's suite of services—from campaign analytics to a media optimizer and more—could help you avoid disastrously misinterpreting your customer data and give you a better handle on just who, exactly, is clicking on those banner ads of yours.

The fictional product in the spot—a set of hardbound encyclopedias—is the kind that seems eminently unlikely to enjoy a sudden sales spike. But that's just what happens—or at least, it appears to. The punch line at the end of the ad reminds you not to make too many assumptions where your marketing is concerned.

"Do you know what your marketing is doing? We can help," says the copy at the end.

The new ad follows a great spot from last winter—it aired right after the Super Bowl—in which a chimp and a horse discussed how ludicrous it can be to shell out millions to advertise on the big game. Adobe says that first campaign targeting marketers helped drive a 25 percent increase in Adobe's digital marketing business, which now represents 25 percent of the company's total revenues.

Adobe is also running a full-page ad in the media section of The New York Times today.

CREDITS
Client: Adobe
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

ESPN has traditionally aired ads for SportsCenter, its famed highlights show, only on ESPN networks—a strategy that senior marketing director Seth Ader told Adweek last year was "a treat for our viewers to stay tuned during the commercials."

Well, now everyone's getting a treat.

A new SportsCenter campaign that broke on Saturday will air beyond ESPN properties, and takes a different approach than the deadpan "This Is SportsCenter" work, which has been widely celebrated.

The 60-second launch spot, posted below, features a range of athletes, from amateurs to pros, who sing the "DaDaDa, DaDaDa" sound that plays at the beginning of SportsCenter broadcasts—as they perform impressive feats in their particular sports.

"Fans have a strong emotional connection with the show," said Aaron Taylor, ESPN's svp of marketing. "And what we realized is that 'DaDaDa' is emotional shorthand for not only the great moments that happen in sports, but how SportsCenter presents those moments—giving context to them with perspective and personality."

Athletes featured in the ad include Chris Chester, Robert Griffin III, Kory Lichtensteiger, Will Montgomery, Alfred Morris, Tyler Polumbus, Trent Williams, Stephen Curry, Landon Donovan, Sam Gagner, Jimmie Johnson, Patrick Kane, Clayton Kershaw, Andrew McCutcheon, Jason Pierre-Paul, Justin Tuck, Paul Rabil, Maria Sharapova, Bubba Watson and Russell Westbrook.

The campaign, from Wieden + Kennedy in New York, will include digital creative that will be updated over time to include timely "DaDaDa" moments.

ESPN is looking to boost the profile of SportsCenter, whose ratings have slipped slightly of late as other networks have developed similar formats.

CREDITS
Client: ESPN, SportsCenter
Spot: "DaDaDa DaDaDa"

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal
Creative Directors: Stuart Jennings, Brandon Henderson
Interactive Creative Director: Gary Van Dzura
Copywriter: Will Binder
Art Director: Jared White
Head of Content Production: Lora Schulson
Executive Producer: Temma Shoaf
Producer: Kelly Dage
Brand Strategist: Marshall Ball
Account Team: Brandon Pracht, Casey Bernard, Brian Racis, Jonathan Chu
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski, Lisa Quintela

Production Company: RSA Films
Director: Jake Scott
Executive Producer: Tracie Norfleet
Head of Production: Elicia Laport
Line Producer: David Mitchell
Director of Photography: Crille Forsberg

Editing Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Post Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld
Editorial Assistants: Ryan Steele, Pamela Petruski

Visual Effects Company: Framestore
Visual Effects Supervisor: Mike McGee
Visual Effects Composite: David Forcada, Ben Cronin, Chris Redding, John Loughlin, Yoon Sun Bae, Raul Ortego, Jessica Laszlo
Visual Effects Producers: Sarah Hiddlestone, Heather Kinal, Sarah Dicks

Telecine Company: CO3
Colorist: Tom Poole

Mixing Company: Heard City
Mixer: Keith Reynaud
Sound Designer: Henry Boy
Producer: Kate Gibson

Song: "Yell It Out"
Artist: The Derevolutions

Everyone seems pretty excited this week about Satisfries, the new lower-fat, lower-calorie french fry at Burger King—no one more so than the characters in the first commercial for the menu item.

The spot, from Mother New York, shows food-porn shots of the new crinkle-cut fries before transitioning to action shots of people eating them—a family, a firefighter, a boyfriend and girlfriend, a farmer type. They all seemingly can't believe how amazing the new fry is—how life changing.

"New Satisfries from Burger King," says the gushing male voiceover. "A delicious new choice with 40 percent less fat, 30 percent less calories and big taste. Cut from whole potatoes, fried to perfection, to satisfry our lives. The heroes. The lovers. The everyman."

The spot ends on a "cool guy" who's burning out his tires like a jackass, as his girlfriend, "Tammy," celebrates the fries in the passenger seat by screaming with her arms in the air. BK's goal, the voice adds, is to "just satisfry everybody."

If the spot is quirky, so is CMO Eric Hirschhorn's way of describing how Satisfries will help you eat better. "You live in Manhattan and might be having a kale smoothie on your way to work this morning," he tells The New York Times."But a lot of people don't even know what kale is, and if they do, they don't want to eat it. You have to give people what they want."

Satisfries, which have a coating designed to be less porous and absorb less oil, will cost 20-30 cents more than regular fries. We'll see if consumers want them badly enough to pay that small premium.

CREDITS
Client: Burger King
Spot: "Satisfry Everybody"
Agency: Mother, New York
Creative: Mother
Strategy: Mother
Agency Producer: Mother
Music, Business Affairs: Mother
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Sniper Twins
Director of Photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Executive Producer: Laura Thoel
Line Producer: Donald Taylor
Wardrobe Design: Holland Neilson
Production Designer: Dan Butts
Hair, Makeup: Stella Tzanidakis
Editing Company: The Now Corporation
Editors: Nelson Leonard, Jessica Farmer
Animation, Postproduction Company: MPC
Executive Producer: Nancy Finn (Now Corp)
Post Producer: Claudia Guevara (MPC)
Final Grade, Finishing: MPC
Music Production: Singing Serpent
Music Producer: Dennis Culp
TV Mix, Sound Design: Rob DiFondi, Sound Lounge

For the eighth year in a row, Doritos is giving aspiring Mad Men (and Mad Women) the chance to create an ad to air during the Super Bowl and win $1 million in the process. To kick off this year's contest, the brand enlisted the help of the Crash Ambassador, a mustachioed, turtleneck-wearing, shamelessly Ron Burgundy-esque executive to lay down the rules.

In the tongue-in-cheek Web video below, created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, Mr. Ambassador announces that for the first time, the competition is GLOBAL (emphasis his), which means that even you, guy from Greece, can submit your very own ad. And the big prize this year—apart from the usual having-your-work-seen-by-100-million-people and getting a million bucks—is the opportunity to work on the set of Marvel's newest Avengers movie (although in what capacity is left up in the air—craft services, perhaps?).

While most of the video has a distinctly ripped-from-Anchorman feel (look at that ridiculous double-breasted suit! What an anachronistically macho demeanor! Now he's playing the drums with two turkey legs, how absurd!), there's a brief Q&A session midway through that's a not-so-subtle takedown of the self-seriousness of the ad business.

First, the Ambassador fields a question from "Film School Guy." "Hey, man. I like framing things with my fingers. Can I make an ad?" the beanie-wearing hipster asks. "Commercial making is extremely easy!" declares the Ambassador. "It's monkey simple, people!" Take that, Cannes. Then a tone-deaf girl asks for help with her soundtrack. "We'll give you all the tips and tricks you need!" the Ambassador says. See? Not hard at all.

While the video is sure to attract hordes of Ron Burgundy-quoting millennials with outsize expectations of their own genius (then again, isn't that all millennials?! Snap), it will be interesting, as always, to see what makes the cut. Not that we envy the Frito-Lay executives who will have to spend countless hours sifting through a bunch of bros' "Sex Panther" parodies.

CREDITS
Client: Doritos
Project: Crash the Super Bowl 2014
Spot: "The Crash Ambassador"

Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Co-Chairman, Partner: Jeff Goodby
Creative Director: Ben Wolan
Copywriter: Nick Morrissey
Art Director: Tim Green
Art Director: Shravan Hegde
Head of Broadcast Production, Associate Partner: Cindy Fluitt
Executive Broadcast Producer: Hilary Coate
Broadcast Producer: Leila Seghrouchni
Interactive Producer: Austin Kim
Head of Brand Strategy: Andy Grayson
Brand Strategist: Michael Whitten
Director of Account Management, Associate Partner: Brian McPherson
Account Director: Michael Crain
Account Manager: Theo Abel
Operations Manager: Mallory Frye
Business Affairs Manager: Chrissy Shearer

Production Company: World War Seven
Director: Shillick
Director of Photography: Michael Parry
Executive Producers: Joshua Ferrazzano, David Shafei
Line Producer: Wade Harpootlian

Editing Company: World War Seven
Editor: Brady Hammes
Executive Producer: David Shafei

Visual Effects, Final Conform: Coyote Post
Visual Effects Lead: Nick Frew
Visual Effects Artists: Adam Petke, Colin Kohler, Chris Friend, Abo Biglarpour, Bogdan Ciornei
Producer: Julie Hansen

Music: Schizo Pop Music

Sound Design, Mix: Beacon Street
Engineer: Mike Franklin
Producer: Caitlin Rocklen

Telecine: Coyote Post
Colorist: Paul Byrne