A classic rock ballad, "Beth" by KISS, that inspired a thought balloon—"Wouldn't it be funny to hear Beth's  side of the story?"—is now a short film. The four-and-a-half-minute piece from Bob Winter, executive creative director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, centers around a 1970s-era phone call between Beth and an actor portraying Peter Criss, the band's original drummer and co-writer of the song.

Beth is home, cooking meatloaf and wondering when Peter will get home. Peter is in the studio, unable to commit to a time (he keeps repeating a refrain in the song, "What can I do?") and anxious to get back to recording. He and his bandmates are inexplicably dressed in full costume and face paint, despite being nowhere near a concert hall. Ah, but hey, what says KISS more than makeup and platform boots?

The back and forth turns hostile when Peter, who said he'd be home in a few hours, shifts to another line in the song: "I hope you'll be all right 'cause me and the boys will be playing all night." "What?" Beth replies, stunned. "Peter, you just said you were going to be a couple of hours. I made dinner. It took me all afternoon to make. You know what? … I might as well just throw it into the garbage." Rather than reply, Peter sighs, leaves the phone cord hanging and returns to the boys, sits down behind a piano and belts out the song. Beth doesn't hear it, though. She glumly hangs up and sits down to eat with her two children.

Directed by Brian Billow of Anonymous Content, the film feels part Behind the Music and part Saturday Night Live, with just enough '70s home décor (beige stone, dull wood cabinets, a toaster oven) to make you yearn for The Brady Bunch. Winter first got the idea for the spoof when he was chief creative officer at Young & Rubicam in Chicago. As he told Adweek previously,"I was thinking that it might be fun to create a series that's like the made-up stories behind real songs."

Asked this week what's next, Winter replied, "Maybe the next song is 'Jump' by Van Halen, and it turns out it was really about one band member helping another band member avoid stepping in dog poop. Something serious like that."

CREDITS
Director: Brian Billow
Production Co.: Anonymous Content
Sr. Exec Producer: Eric Stern
Exec Producer/Production: SueEllen Clair
Producer: Paul Ure
Writer: Bob Winter
DP: Darran Tiernan
Editor: John Dingfield/Beast Editorial
Actors:
Beth: Lilli Birdsell
Peter: Steven Olson
Kid #1: Michael Hamilton
Kid #2: Robert Hamilton
Ace: Roy Green
Paul: Alec Paul Cartinian
Gene: Rocco Fonzarelli
Roadie: Jason Lee Beckwith
Performer Beth Piano Intro: Coleman Zurkowski

The New York Times took some heat from readers on Monday for allowing an online ad showing a bloodied man lying on the ground to appear next to coverage of the bombings in Boston. The ad, for the Sundance Channel show Rectify, received enough criticism that the paper's public editor, Margaret Sullivan, weighed in with a piece Wednesday—giving some background and confirming that the paper did indeed approve the juxtaposition, and that it wasn't just some oversight. "This did not feel like it crossed the threshold," the Times's ranking advertising executive, Todd R. Haskell, tells Sullivan. Haskell says that by Monday, it had been a full week since the bombings, which made the ad more acceptable. "We try to be as respectful as we can but these are subjective calls that we make in real time," he adds. (The show premiered Monday, which also made it more difficult to move it to a later date.) Sullivan ends up agreeing with Haskell and with Richard J. Meislin, a former associate managing editor who now is a liaison between the newsroom and the ad department, who said he thought the juxtaposition was "unfortunate, but it did not cross the line to the point where we would ask that the ad be taken down." What do you think?

Why send out an email about your new hires when you can rent a plane, attach a banner to it announcing the additions, and fly it around New York City? Barton F. Graf 9000 chose the latter route to introducing creatives Brandon Mugar and Dave Canning, who join from Wieden + Kennedy, and creative technologist Johnathan Vingiano, from OKFocus. A video with a Van Halen soundtrack doesn't hurt, either. More on the new guys below.

In the annals of advertising, there are some songs we just keep coming back to. "Baby Got Back" is one of them. From hawking Burger King's SpongeBob meal to bustin' out the D-grade talent for Butterfinger, Sir Mix-a-Lot's timeless 1992 ode to wide rears is basically an advertising supersong. Still, I didn't see a brand like Charmin leveraging the ditty by taking its tubby animated bears and having them break into the worm from the unmitigated joy that comes from having a nice clean ass. Clearly, Charmin itself is a little shocked, which is why the latter half of the video consists of the red bear staring with disbelief at the breakdancing, ass-slapping blue bear. I mean, you can "Enjoy the go," and then you can revel in Rabelaisian ecstasy. Anyhow, if you like big prizes, you can like Charmin on Facebook and partake in the Charmin Baby Got Back Sweepstakes.

When it comes to branded content, the better the content, the better the branding. And so it goes with Desire (below), a short film from ad agency The Brooklyn Brothers and Ridley Scott's production company, touting Jaguar's F-Type sports car.

Of course, Jag is a vehicle of excess, and the clip's 13-minute length, like the car's $92,000 price tag, is pretty darn excessive. I usually can't concentrate on anything for 13 minutes. Still, Desire held my attention all the way through with solid storytelling, visual panache (props to director Adam Smith) and strong performances from its three leads.

Homeland's dapper Brit, Damian Lewis, who would make a great James Bond, plays a "delivery man" tooling around the Chilean desert in search of the new owner of a red F-Type. He picks up perky, gun-toting Shannyn Sossamon, who is on the run from her psychopathic, drug-dealing husband. Jordi Molla just about steals the show as the scruffy gangster, spitting out lines like "Shut your face or I'll rip it into pieces" with just the right mix of humor and menace, and breathing into a paper bag in a fruitless attempt to keep his rage in check.

Desire is basically an extended car chase punctuated by zippy dialogue, a twisty plot and lots of gunfire. The film makes good use of its running time without overstaying its welcome.

As content, it works on par with the similar BMW Films series a decade ago. That comparison is inevitable—everyone else is making it, and I didn't want to feel left out!—but also pretty pointless. Art informs art, and ads inform ads. A more salient question is: Does Desire succeed as advertising?

I'd say it performs better than expected. The Jag appears in almost every shot, but that makes sense in the context of the story, so it never feels gratuitous—more like an extended product placement. The key test comes near the finale, when Lewis rattles off a litany of F-Type technical specs, at gunpoint, to prove he really is in the desert to deliver the car. The speech doesn't sound forced or out of place, and the scene would be amusing if this were an unsponsored action flick that just happened to feature a Jag.

I'm betting prospective Jaguar owners like to believe they're sorta special—and for 92 grand, who can blame them?! So, a long-form, cinematic blockbuster ad seems well suited to this particular audience. (Leave the jokey 30-second cable spots for those of us on Honda Civic budgets.) Viewers can sit back and enjoy the wild ride, ogling the F-Type's impressive design and road handling. It never feels like we're being taken for a spin by an advertising vehicle.

At the crossroads of content and commerce, Desire, like its enigmatic hero, delivers.

It's a Malibu Barbie world. Pointlessly gendered products are anything but rare. Pink razors, pink deodorant and pink tool kits abound. But even in the fuscia fantasyland of femininity cooked up by a notoriously male-dominated ad industry, some women-targeted products surpass credulity, diving headfirst into the surreal. These are the purest manifestations of the deranged and predatory marketing hive mind, in which women are walking piggybanks brimming with cash, insecurity and an insatiable hunger for all things pink. At the link below, check out 10 of the most absurd products marketed to women.

Gallery: The 10 Dumbest Products Marketed to Women

The stunning May cover of Boston magazine features a photo of shoes worn in this year's Boston Marathon, arranged in a heart shape. "We will finish the race," says the cover headline. Tragedies often bring out the best in magazine designers. Other notable Boston Marathon covers include those from The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated. And then, of course, there was the incredible Hurricane Sandy cover of New York magazine.

The red-hot pitching arms in Cincinnati are costing one local pizza chain a pretty penny. LaRosa's Pizzeria has already given away $100,000 worth of pizza this season (can't be good for the bottom line) through its "Strikeouts for LaRosa's" campaign with the Reds. The challenge, which is promoted on the Reds scoreboard, is simple enough. Anytime Reds pitchers combine to strike out more than 11 batters in a game at home, every ticket holder gets a free eight-inch pizza valued at $6.79. Not sure which mathematician worked out the algorithm, but 11 K's doesn't seem like much when you have stud starters like Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos and a freak like Aroldis Chapman closing games out. Hope you're hungry, Ohio. Last season, in the first year of the campaign, the Reds had a total of 13 free-pizza games. But this year, just 15 home games into the season, Reds pitchers have K'ed more than 11 batters seven times already. At this rate, it wouldn't surprise me if Ohioans petition to change the Reds logo into a giant pizza.

Last year, granola-bar brand Nature Valley and ad agency McCann New York unveiled one of the most ambitious digital campaigns of the year, Nature Valley Trail View, which created a first-of-its-kind interactive hiking experience thanks to teams who used Google Street View technology to map trails in three National Parks—the Grand Canyon, the Great Smoky Mountains and Yellowstone. The effort won two gold Lions at Cannes and legions of fans across the nation.

Today, agency and client unveiled the next evolution of the site, with three main improvements: more trail view footage (partly through the addition 50 miles of footage from a fourth park, Sequoia); a comprehensive hub for the brand's past, present and future preservation activity; and fully interactive social functionality.

As mentioned in the video below, the preservation message is key. That part of the site now includes an interactive map with expert conservation content. Now, as users discover the trails, they can also get a sense of the preservation needs in each area and how Nature Valley is working to help.

In the past three years, Nature Valley has donated more than $1.3 million to support America's national parks. The brand will give $500,000 more this year to the National Parks Conservation Association.

"Nature Valley is about inspiring consumers to get outside and enjoy what nature has to offer," says Maria Carolina Comings, associate marketing manager for Nature Valley. "Our national parks are America's treasures that must be preserved and protected, and we hope to help raise awareness of the parks through Nature Valley Trail View and our ongoing restoration efforts. Through technology, we can help make the parks accessible to all, and encourage outdoor exploration for years to come."

More photos and credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Nature Valley
Project: Nature Valley Trail View 2.0
Agency: McCann NY
Chairman: Linus Karlsson
CCO: Tom Murphy
CCO: Sean Bryan
Executive Creative Director: Leslie Sims
Group Creative Director: Mat Bisher
Creative Director: Jason Schmall
Copywriter: Sarah Lloyd
Chief Production Officer: Brian DiLorenzo
Exec Integrated Producer: Catherine Eve Patterson
Sr. Integrated Producer: Geoffrey Guinta
Editor: Nathan Thompson
Executive Music Producer: Peter Gannon
Production: Traction
Creative Principle / Field Producer: Bryan Roberts
Producer: Adam Baskin
Digitech/Cameraman: James deMuth
Lead Cameraman: Brandon McClain
Preservation Lead/Writer: Greg Jackson
Design and Development: Your Majesty
Executive Creative Director and Photographer: Jens Karlsson
Design Director: Riley Milhem
Tech Lead: Micah Acinapura
Developer: Raed Atoui
Executive Producer: Heather Reddig

Behold! Various Chick-fil-A's around the nation are hosting medieval-themed Mother-Son Date Knights. Oh the perils of marketing that occur when franchises create their own LOL-worthy events. According to the press release, "During this special medieval-themed evening, moms and their sons are encouraged to spend some time together while they enjoy dinner, great conversation and several special activities." The special activities are unnamed, and probably vary by region. But last year in DC, the event included getting to meet a knight from the Maryland Renaissance Festival (because medieval and Renaissance are the same thing) and … a car show. So, yes, Chick-fil-A, which has absolutely no brand connection to feudalism, has decided to promote mother-son relationships by providing placemats with "fun questions" and a "take-home booklet" in Ohio, North Caroline, Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas and Missouri. Placemats are free, food is not. So, ladies, gather up your young lords and proceed forthwith to MotherSonDate.com to make reservations at ye olde local Chik-fil-A. I'm sure it will be a knight to remember.

San Francisco-based designer Alex Cornell slapped together an instructional chart about where to go on a first date, and I have to say he's pretty much on point. In some cases, he's even being too nice. Anyone who takes a first date to a sports bar deserves the crappy evening ahead of them, in my opinion. I'd also argue with him about house-party dates if we were in the same room, because unless something like this happens, they're generally awkward for the other person. But whatever, those are minor nitpicks. Alex made a pretty helpful (and respectful) date-advice poster, with none of that obsessive, dating-as-a-science Ted Mosby crap or any fratty PUA weirdness. His seating-suggestions poster is similar in tone, and similarly helpful, although the visuals are a bit lazier.

"They Don't Work for You," a gun-control campaign from Brooklyn design shop Guts & Glory, is intended to stir the emotions of the faithful and give them simple, direct and proactive ways to respond. The website gets under your skin using deceptively simple, exceptionally skillful Web design and the frequently overlooked (yet often quite powerful) tactic of repetition.

First, we see images of the six educators killed in December's Newtown, Conn., school shooting, and the headline "These teachers sacrificed their lives for the children they worked for." That's followed by pictures of the 45 U.S. senators whose recent votes killed the proposal to extend background checks on firearm sales. "These senators voted against protecting the children they work for," the copy says. As users scroll down, successive screens show individual lawmakers alongside images of kids who died from gun violence (and who, according to Guts & Glory, might not have perished if stricter firearms laws had been in place). Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) appears first, paired with 6-year-old Newtown victim Charlotte Bacon. Text reads, "Sen. Alexander doesn't work for kids like Charlotte," and urges visitors to ask him why via phone, email and social media. This basic template is then repeated 44 times, plugging in a different legislator and slain child.

Repetition is, of course, a basic tenet of advertising, political speeches and religious sermons, because it reinforces and amplifies the message, lending extra power to an argument or proposition and firmly fixing ideas in the audience's heads. It's a proven motivator. The more times you're told "Do it," "Do it," "Do it," the more likely you are to take action, especially if you already agree with the premise. The repetition here is particularly effective. The faithful grow angrier—and presumably more primed to contact senators to make their feelings known—with each passing screen.

With folks now on edge, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre appears solo near the end, along with the message, "These senators don’t work for you. They work for the NRA, who works for the gun industry, whose sole purpose is to sell more guns." One more scroll yields a hashtag: #AskThemWhy. Of course, doing so is tantamount to asking a loaded question, but that's exactly what the site's creators have in mind—and lawmakers might want to have some compelling answers ready.

Cats doing aerobics? DDB Chicago's amusing new video for Temptations cat treats is likely to blow up the Internet. No wonder Temptations-eating felines have the leg muscles to be able to cling so ardently to their owners. Check out the Work It Kitty website, where you can download the song ("I Don't Wanna Dance," recorded by Alex Gaudino, featuring Taboo) and learn more about the cats in the video. Ask your veterinarian if you're healthy enough for the Work It Kitty workout. Not recommended if you're on drugs, like those fools in JWT's Litter Genie spots. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Temptations Cat Treats
Agency: DDB, Chicago
Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer: Ewan Patterson
Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director: Mark Gross
Vice President, Creative Director, Art Director: Wayne Robinson
Vice President, Creative Director, Copywriter: Matt Collier
Vice President, Executive Producer: Will St. Clair
Executive Digital Producer: Jon Ellis
Music Production Manager: Linda Bres
Executive Producer, Music and Integration: Eric Johnson
Production Business Manager: Scott Terry
Designer: Cody Petruk
Digital Artist, Designer: Annie Tsikretsis
Print Producer: Erica Bletsch
Art Buyer: Karen Blatchford
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Editorial Company: Beast, Chicago
Editor: John Dingfield
Telecine: Company 3, Chicago
Post Effects, Graphics: Method Studios, Chicago
Music: Ultra Records, "I Don't Wanna Dance," recorded by Alex Gaudino featuring Taboo

Here's a clever idea from Publicis Frankfurt—an ad for a bike light that readers must "turn on" in order to be able to read an intentionally darkened version of a cycling magazine. Too intrusive? Perhaps—although the interruption is pretty minor, and the creative has a delightful element to it.

This adorable little spot from Fitzgerald + Co. encapsulates everything that's fun and young about the Coca-Cola brand. It shows two kids falling in love, Cokes in hand, at a Six Flags. They ride the rides, but in between, they laugh and play—and don't kiss. That's right, you thought they'd kiss, but that's too cliché. With unbearably sweet innocence, our hero accidentally touches the girl's hand, and she draws a heart on his palm, and then she puts her head on his shoulder as the sun goes down. But there is no kiss and no suggestion that either of them wants anything more than to spend a perfect day together. It warms the old heart cockles with simple, classic storytelling, and provides a refreshing breather from today's cynical world. The ad, directed by Aaron Ruell, is set to air during the NBA playoffs. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Coca-Cola
Agency: Fitzgerald+CO
Chief Creative Officer: Noel Cottrell
Creative Director, Copywriter: Mitch Bennett
Creative Director, Art Director: Wes Whitener
Executive Producer: Christine Sigety
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Aaron Ruell
Managing Directors: Shawn Lacy, Holly Vega
Producer: Tracy Broaddus
Editorial: Kim Bica, Arcade
Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Producer: Kirsten Thon-Webb
Music Composition: MassiveMusic
Executive Producer: Keith Haluska
Producer: Courtney Jenkins
Creative Director: Elijah Torn
Online Effects: Airship
Artist: Matt Lydecker

Stewie Griffin, the 1-year-old prodigy from Family Guy, is a lovable character, but man can he get annoying. In this 15-second spot from BBH for Google Chrome, he proves just that. "Mom! Mom! Mommy! Ma!" he cries, as Lois stares off in a tormented haze. Ah, the gifts of parenthood. The spot makes its point, though. Google Chrome can't stop you from being interrupted, but it can let you pick up where you left off. What is it with Stewie being so repetitive in commercials? Now, someone please find Rupert so Stewie can finally shut up.

Nathan Sorrell, the heavy kid from Nike's infamous "Jogger" ad by Wieden + Kennedy, has lost 32 pounds since last summer—and plans to lose 30 more. The London, Ohio, native, now 13, returned to the Today show recently and reflected on what motivated him to follow through on a promise he made after the Nike shoot."I still can't believe that was me then, and this is me now. It just looks a lot different," he says. "I would never have changed my lifestyle if I was never in this commercial. That's not the only reason, but that really did help." Sorrell has been working with a personal trainer and a nutritionist and making healthier choices generally, which has helped him drop from 232 to 200 pounds. On a recent visit to Bob Evans, "I got a turkey sandwich" and a side of fruit, he says. "Usually that would be a double hamburger, cheese and all that bad stuff. Usually, it would be fries. Just stuff like that. Just little changes, but that's obviously carrying me 32 pounds less."

French electronic music group Opale got director Nacho Guzman to make a teaser video for their new album, and it turned out to be a lesson on how the human face changes depending on how light hits it. What's cool about this video is how low budget it is. Guzman used two modest Canon cameras and a Samyang 35mm to shoot it, and the lights are 10x10 LEDs that were rotated around the model's face on a ring. Go ahead and mute it while you watch, though, because Opale's lackluster minimalism doesn't do this video any favors. Via The Denver Egotist.

"Col. James Porter was laid to rest in Morpeth, where worms began eating his body." Droga5 delivers one of the best commercials ever about a company's founder—for Newcastle Brown Ale. Read more about the brewer's latest campaign here.

For marketers, blogger outreach can often feel like working in a field of landmines, where one misstep can detonate across the Web. The newest publicist to find himself at the center of the blast radius is Disney Motion Pictures’ Marshall Weinbaum, who jokingly posted a photo to his personal Facebook page showing female bloggers clutching his legs while he held up a sign that said, “Hi mom.” Although she didn’t know Weinbaum or the context of the photo, blogger Liz Henry promptly declared him both a “raging douche bag” and a “raging sexist.” Others soon joined the fray, saying that any blogger who defended him was simply in Disney’s pocket. But many bloggers who have worked with him, including those who were with him on the trip where the photo was taken, have come out in vocal defense of Weinbaum. One blogger tells Adweek he’s a “very sweet man” and is close personal friends with many of the bloggers he works with, a fact that likely led to the ultimately unwise decision to share the photo publicly.”I apologize for how this was construed,” Weinbaum told me in an email. “These four amazing women are some of my best friends who I have known for years and I have tremendous respect for them and the work that mom (and dad) bloggers do. We were just having fun inside a wax museum after an event yesterday taking funny photos and I wanted to spoof Chevy Chase from the ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ poster.” Late Friday, Weinbaum chose to remove the photo from his personal Facebook page. “This was so unintentional and if the people who wrote the negative article about me knew me at all, they would think the photo was goofy and silly. But out of respect for their opinions, I decided myself to take the photo down.”