It's another one of those things that shouldn't be a story but is—an ad from a major U.S. brand featuring an interracial couple and their daughter. You'd think this new Cheerios ad might go largely unnoticed, given the plethora of interracial couple on TV these days. (NBC's Parenthood is a notable example, though far from the only one.) But it's not going unnoticed—it hit Reddit's front page, a place largely reserved for life's great oddities, and the YouTube view count is rising fast. The problem is that TV advertising has always lagged TV programming in this regard, as so many brands are clearly scared of being perceived as making a political statement with the casting of their commercials. Thus, the Cheerios ad, despite its characters being representative of tens of thousands of actual couples in America, sticks out like a sore thumb. And then you have the YouTube comments section, which predictably has devolved into an endless flame war, with references to Nazis, "troglodytes" and "racial genocide." At what point will an ad like this just seem normal?

Proud to play the mom in this adorable new @cheerios commercial! bit.ly/13XhPC2

— Whitney Avalon (@whitneyavalon) May 28, 2013

Ogilvy France and Ogilvy Asia-Pacific joined forces to make a can that splits in half for Coca-Cola, the most literal extension of the brand's global "Share Happiness" concept. The split-can design is admittedly pretty cool, although sharing a Coke with anyone who isn't a germaphobe is already pretty easy, so this is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. It does make Twix look even worse for their infamous "Two for me, none for you" campaign back in the day, though.

Burger King in Puerto Rico celebrated its 50th anniversary by giving away "Hands-Free Whopper" holders to 50 lucky customers. DLC/Ogilvy & Mather helped develop the gag gift, which is still the most brandtastic invention since, I dunno, that Nivea print ad that charges your cell phone. The clip below shows folks feeding their faces while the holders free up their hands for other important stuff, like boxing, working in a tattoo parlor and taking dogs for a walk. (After about 30 seconds, I wished the dude strumming his guitar and belting out the "Hands-Free Whopper" song would take a big beefy bite and give my tortured ears a rest.) Actually, I'm not so impressed. Looks like there's plenty of room on that thing for a French fry dispenser and sippy-cup holder. I don't want to live in a world where I have to burn a single calorie reaching for my big gulp at lunchtime.

JWT joined with Warner Bros. and the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center in São Paulo, Brazil, to craft a super-powerful campaign designed to help children with cancer better understand their treatment and be less frightened by chemotherapy. The initiative revolves around superheroes. The game room at the hospital is tricked out like the interior of the Justice League, and colorful chemo-bag covers bear the insignia of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, transforming the oft-scary drugs into a "Superformula." Specially drawn comic books tell medically realistic tales of the Dark Knight and his friends defeating cancer-like diseases to resume their war against evil. Although it uses D.C. Comics characters, this effort is a marvel, helping kids gain knowledge, courage and faith in themselves—the ultimate superpowers. Via Copyranter.

Holland's new tourism campaign proposes that the country everyone knows for canals and wooden shoes is actually the coolest place on earth. In fact, the video below claims that Holland is the Original Cool, since all the bourgie lifestyle liberalism that Americans enjoy (bicycle culture, organic food, locally owned shops, Bas Rutten) has been a part of the Dutch lifestyle for way longer, and it's more accessible to boot. It's a fair point, to be sure, and they can't rely on legal weed and prostitution to drive tourism forever, so it's good that they're drawing attention to other things. I bet their Pleasure-Island-for-repressed-Westerners reputation got old a long time ago. The campaign, by Mustache Agency in New York, is a collaboration among the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Amsterdam Marketing and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Mobile advertising stinks? Whoa, hold the phone, that never occurred to me before! Solve Media picks an easy though apt target to skewer in this video starring comedian Harrison Greenbaum, who riffs about annoying banner ads ("I'm trying to just live my life, and you're throwing signs in my face") and complains that mobile screens are too small for people to interact with such messages ("Who has fingers that tiny? I feel bad for that man"). You're invited to tweet your stories of bad mobile advertising using the hashtag #MobileAds. Greenbaum works hard to amuse, and mostly succeeds, much like Police Academy sound-effects guy Michael Winslow, who, in Solve's previous promo, read aloud from a children's book about the negative impact of bots' bogus clicks on Internet advertising. These clips are fine in and of themselves, but I'm not sold on Solve's proposed solution. The company wants to replace banners and Captcha boxes (where you have to reproduce often illegible words and symbols to access content) with text ads that prompt you to type in taglines instead. Sure, Captchas and banners suck, but being forced to robotically type "I'm lovin' it" seems a tad dehumanizing, and this approach just boils down to throwing a different kind of sign in my face. I don't think they've solved the problem yet.

There's nothing subtle about Red Bull the drink—it gives you wings, after all—but Red Bull the marketer decided to keep its messaging low-key around a recent New York entertainment/pop-culture event. Title sponsorship aside, the brand promoted its two-week Red Bull Music Academy mostly with logo-free wallscapes, subway and outdoor ads, wild postings, website takeovers and a free, daily, non-advertorial, 80,000-circulation newspaper. (Sample story: "Celluloid Heroes: New York Cinema and Its Soundtracks.") The omnipresent, art-heavy campaign, from Brooklyn-based ad agency Doubleday & Cartwright, pointed local music fans to the academy's collaborations, performances, workshops and labs, using spokesman Questlove as a focal point. (See some of the work in progress in the video below.) Attendance was reportedly strong, propping up the idea of content marketing as a way to speak to hard-to-corral hipsters and young music lovers.

It's taken the fantasy genre decades to grow out of its image as a juvenile boys' club obsessed with cleavage and crossbows. And just as Game of Thrones seemed to be lifting fantasy into the modern mainstream, it's now taken a step backward—with many of the genre's professional writers shocked to see that a recent issue of their most-respected industry journal had dedicated its cover to the image of a warrior woman in a scalemail bikini straddling the corpse of a frost giant.

Sure, scantily clad women with swords were a staple of fantasy fiction in the 1960s through the 1980s, thanks largely to the popular artwork of husband-and-wife team Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. But as the pool of writers and readers for the genre has become more diverse, the exploitative cover art style has fallen out of fashion. (Here's a good gallery of what modern fantasy covers look like.) So when the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America ran the scalemail bikini cover on its winter 2013 SFWA Bulletin, many members were offended. Making thing worse, the next issue featured an essay from a male writer praising Mattel's Barbie doll for "maintain[ing] her quiet dignity the way a woman should."

Then the minotaur shit really hit the fan with the next issue, in which two veteran genre writers, Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg, argued at length that there's nothing wrong with busty barbarians and that the SFWA was being bullied and censored by irrational feminists bent on "thought control." The effect of this attempted rebuttal was a bit like dousing a campfire with a bucket of bullets and gasoline.

In recent days, female fantasy authors have blogged at length about what they perceive as a clear pattern of sexism by their own industry publication. "That isn't armor she's wearing, and she's not a warrior woman," author Foz Meadows fired back on Sunday."She's a masturbatory fantasy from your misspent youth, and now you're trying to act as though the past fifty years of equality never actually happened." Similar reactions were posted by authors such as E. Catherine Tobler,Kameron Hurley and Mary Robinette Kowal, all of whom are worth reading for more context on how the debacle played out.

The SFWA president has issued a lengthy apology and created a task force to look into how the bulletin could or should be reimagined to better reflect the people writing fantasy today.

UPDATE:Here's a handy list of more than 50 authors who've written blog posts criticizing the SFWA for allowing a pattern of sexism in its quarterly Bulletin.

"If you're wondering where the beef is, we have it, and we'd never deprive you of it." Thanks for the tip, Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's! Your straight-faced and earnest delivery of that line in a video message about McDonald's move to drop the Angus Third Pounder from its menu has restored my faith in humanity. Purists might complain that you're co-opting Wendy's classic tagline to zing McDonald's, but purity has no place whatsoever in the QSR world. Just kidding. I hope. Anyway, Puzder shines in the clip as he addresses disgruntled McD's customers, reads some of their whiny tweets and heartily chomps down on a Carl's Jr. 100% Angus Six Dollar Burger. He takes a hearty, executive bite. I can see why this guy is CEO. Also, his signature graces full-page ads from 72andSunny that ran this week in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Both the video and print ads prompt folks to visit ReclaimYourAngus.com (don't mistype that) and download $1-off coupons for the Six Dollar Burger. Hmm, let me see … subtract the 1 from the 6, and hey, now it should only cost $5! But it's even less, because, despite the name, the Six Dollar Burger actually starts at $4.49 pre-coupon. Kinda strange ... still, I've got no beef with that.

Cats get most of the Internet love, but bunnies can put on quite a show of devastating cuteness as well—as displayed in this new spot from BETC London for Ibis Hotels. The ad was filmed over two days in the Ibis London Blackfriars hotel, with 30 bunnies allowed to roam free in a top-floor hotel room. Supposedly the group snuggle on the bed was unprovoked. (Perhaps they cranked the A/C.) "We really wanted to highlight the ultimate comfort of the Sweet Bed by Ibis," says Neil Dawson, executive creative director, BETC London. "Bunnies snuggle up to each other and find cosy places to sleep. And what better evidence of the ultimate comfort of the Sweet Bed by Ibis than for the bunnies to seek out and sleep there on their own." Ornette Spenceley of Independent Films directed the spot. The music is a contemporary remake of "Hushabye Mountain" by Richard Hawley from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Full credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Ibis Hotels
Marketing & Distribution Director, Accor (UK & Ireland): Karelle Lamouche
Marketing Manager, ibis, ibis Styles, ibis Budget at Accor (UK & Ireland): Lisa Belloni

Spot: "Bunny Bed"

Agency: BETC London
Executive Creative Director: Neil Dawson
Copywriter: Clive Pickering
Art Director: Ciara O'Meara
Producer: Olly Chapman
Strategy: Andrew Stirk
Account Director: Zoe Hinckley

Production Company: Independent
Director: Ornette Spenceley
Exec Producer: Matt Minor
Producer : Charlie Stanfield
Director of Photography: Niels Reedtz Johansen

Editing company : Final Cut
Editor: Ed Cheesman
Post-Production Company: The Mill
Sound Studio : Factory
Music : Hushabye Mountain by Richard Hawley

Ever stood slack-jawed on a street corner with a friend trying to figure out where to go to throw back a beer? Or debated whether it'd be better to hop on that approaching bus or descend into the subway to catch a train? The latest nifty gadget from the hardware and software engineers at Breakfast offers a slick solution to those problems, and others. Called "Points," it's a rotating digital street sign built to display a flexible range of data, from which favorably reviewed restaurants are within walking distance to nearby tweets. And it comes with an at-hand, interactive menu of options that can be programmed to change based on the time of day (are you hungry for breakfast or dinner?) or the needs of a particular setting (sports scores at a stadium).

Feats of technology and design aside, at least some of the info is already accessible to people with smartphones in their pockets. It's easy, though, to imagine the value of aggregating and conveniently serving up certain cues in the context of their environments—especially at big, often chaotic events like music festivals, where signs could literally and dynamically direct attendees toward the overlapping acts going up on different stages. Unlike some of Breakfast's other projects, "Points" wasn't created for a particular brand client, but the agency sees myriad ways to customize the interface for marketers, including, naturally, at sponsored events and locations. That not to mention the obvious public-service and tourism applications for municipal governments. So, what say all you brand jockeys out there—on point, or pointless?

Now that women are the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of American households, it's a great time for Swiffer to co-opt the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter—who urged women to roll up their sleeves and join the workforce during World War II—and use her to get women back in the kitchen where they belong! Funny thing, though, a lot of women objected to that, and now Procter & Gamble, in one of those smart moves where companies actually listen to their consumers, is working to remove the image everywhere it's being used. Satisfied consumers are chanting Rosie's slogan of "We can do it!" relatively pleased that Swiffer heard them.

Our core value is to make cleaning easier, no matter who's behind the handle. We apologize and are working hard to remove the image.

— Swiffer (@Swiffer) June 4, 2013

If you didn't know the history, the ad would seem boring at best. It has a woman in Rosie's trademark red polkadot hairkerchief and rugged denim button-down holding a Swiffer steam mop with an arched eyebrow and a no-nonsense look on her face. She's about to get her deep clean on with steam clean. If wardrobe had put that woman in nearly any other outfit, we wouldn't have thought twice about it. But now bloggers are not only upset over the soon-to-be-destroyed Swiffer ad, they're scrutinizing the entire cleaning category, which has been overpopulated for far too long with the sort of sexist bullshit that demeans both sexes, reducing men to bumbling children and elevating women to powerful princesses of cleanliness. Which is ridiculous.

I recommend they take some tips from Tide. Look, gender doesn't matter in cleaning. Women, men, even children and probably a few intelligent dogs can mop a floor. And that will be true until we ditch our Swiffers and start mopping the floor with our genitalia.

It's a shame what powerful G-forces will do to one's face. The latest reminder of this comes in new ads for amusement park Cedar Fair by Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago. The flappy, wind-crushed faces will also appear on out-of-home boards and in print—the actors' visages frozen in a clown-like rictus of fun, allowing friends and family members to make fun of them for years to come. The ads are part of C-K's "Thrills Connect" campaign, which helped drive record season-pass sales for Cedar Fair in 2012. In related news, to see some of your favorite advertising people being pummeled in the face by high winds, click here.

First, Coca-Cola tried to thaw relations between India and Pakistan. Now, the brand has created bottles that are guaranteed to melt in your hands. Foodbeast gives a chilly reception to Coke's bottles made of ice, pointing to potential hygiene issues. But I can see folks warming to the offbeat promotional items, introduced in sunny Colombia just in time for beach season. There's no denying that the containers are … cool. Usually you have to go to a restaurant to get watered-down soda. Now you can enjoy it straight from the bottle. A red Coke-logo band lets you hold the frozen flask without chilling your hand too much, and doubles as a keepsake bracelet, because who wouldn't want one of those? Seriously, though, the brand's latest foray into innovative packaging (following the split-can idea) carries with it a certain ironic symbolism—with one of consumer culture's most famous icons, the Coca-Cola bottle, drip-drip-dripping away through customers' fingers, leaving only an advertisement (that band with the logo) behind. Now that's what I call pop art!

Not since I used to play Summer Games on the Commodore 64 have I bludgeoned computer hardware in an effort to complete a simulation of a track-and-field event. But now, thanks to two creatives at Grey London, I can do so again—with The 100-Meter Scroll.

"Usain Bolt holds the record as being the fastest person in the real world—100 meters in an astonishing 9.58 seconds," Rasmus Smith Bech and Jonas Roth tell us in an email. "But who is the fastest person on the Internet? The 100-meter scroll game is made to find out exactly that. It's a website where you scroll 100 meters or 283.500 pixels on time. Scroll for fame, scroll to settle an argument, scroll in the hope it becoming an official 2016 Olympic discipline, or just scroll simply because you love to scroll."

I came in at a lousy 1:00:60. Somebody named "Satan" appears to be atop the leaderboard with what looks like an unbeatable time of less than 1 second.

We've written here and there about prankvertising and the joy marketers seem to derive from scaring the crap out of people in public places. This video eclipses them all, though, for the sheer bluntness of its fear factor. Perhaps not surprisingly, the #PubLooShocker campaign is a drunk-driving PSA—which means all bets are off when it comes to any kind of restraint. Hope Leo Burnett had a plan for cardiac arrests.

We've written about the advertiser, British road-safety campaign Think!, many times before. It's almost always horror-movie stuff. Have a look back at the notorious Damien spot, as well as this famous bartender ad, which actually features some stunning acting.

Via Unruly Media.

The curmudgeonly mug of Tardar Sauce, the Internet sensation known informally as Grumpy Cat, has been spotted on an outdoor board promoting a dry prom in Elizabeth, Pa. A picture of the board greatly pleased Reddit, the original source of Tardar's fame. The ad is one of a kind and was paid for by Elizabeth Forward High School, which held a design competition for students and chose four winning boards. JT DeMarco, a junior, created the Grumpy Cat design with some great concepting and a poor grasp of copyright law. DeMarco told the local news,"I think it does work because it's something that's really popular that a lot of kids see, so they kind of can relate to it." Luckily, it doesn't seem like Tardar's owners have seen it. Or maybe they're just not grumpy enough to sue.

Forgetting that a lot of improv comedy stinks, ad agency 18 Feet & Rising is partnering with British improv troupe Mischief Theatre to produce a live ad that will air on U.K. Comedy Central on the evening of June 17. The idea is simple: With no advance preparation, the Mischief players will get three minutes to improvise an ad live on the air for a product selected without their knowledge beforehand. Three-minute-long ads are too much when the material is written out ahead of time, but I have to admire Mischief's willingness to take this project on. Pulling a legitimate commercial—even a bad one—out of thin air is no easy task, although it's probably more pleasant than soliciting topics from a typical improv comedy audience.

A McDonald's campaign that's so playful and pleasing that you want to watch it again and again? This is not happening! This is not happening! I figured I'd be snug in my grave, providing a happy meal for worms, before I'd ever have to write a glowing review of this company's advertising. And yet here I am, impressed by the savvy approach New York shop Translation takes in its "Think with your mouth" videos for the Big Mac.

These eight short clips employ different styles of music and animation to great effect. They riff on enough familiar pop-culture themes and memes to delight, or at least intrigue, viewers of all ages, yet seem fresh and innovative in their own right.

In "Dreams," a Big Mac glides over canyons, perhaps through time and space, to hang out with chanting, disembodied heads high above planet Earth. "Mouthopia" finds the sandwich resting on a bucolic hill as birds chirp and coo and friendly dinosaur-creatures stop by for a visit. Mac's the guest of honor in "Mouth Soirée," as glitter flies, shiny balloons bounce and funky dance beats reverberate. "Instructions" is the simplest of all, advising us to put the Big Mac in our mouths as the camera lingers on the sandwich and a happy-happy bubble-gum-type chorus sings in the background. Those are my personal favorites, but all the clips pretty satisfying.

A key to their success is the lack of overt "yum-yum" moments or calls to action. None are needed. This is the Big Mac, itself iconic, and placing the meaty mainstay at the center of such sensory hijinks is all the sales pitch you need.

Each spot can stand on its own—but they work best as a unit, viewed in no particular order. The overall impact is giddy, trippy, both retro and futuristic—as if the psychedelic journey in 2001: A Space Odyssey led not to the farthest reaches of the mysterious cosmos but to the local Mickey D's, where a tasty treat awaits. Damn you, McDonald's, I'm likin' it!

IBM's technology is helping cities get smarter in innumerable ways. Now, its outdoor advertising is doing the same—by making simple little improvements to the landscape. A triad of outdoor ads from Ogilvy France function as a bench, a shelter and a ramp over stairs. Sure, they're small gestures mostly intended to have a wow factor online. But they nicely embody the brand promise, and represent just a starting point—urging passersby and the online audience both to visit people4smartercities.com and submit their own, presumably larger ideas for civic upgrades. More ads, a video and credits below.

CREDITS
Client: IBM
Ad agency: Ogilvy & Mather France
Chief Creative Officer: Chris Garbutt
Executive Creative Director: Susan Westre
Art Director: Daniel Diego Lincoln
Copywriter: Lauren Elkins/Andrew Mellen
Concept: Daniel Diego Lincoln/Stephane Santana
Photographer: Bruno Bicalho Carvalhaes
Agency Supervisor: Muriel Benitah, Mary McFarland