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Design Firm Gets Real With Orange Is the New Black's Great Opening Credits

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Dozens of women are featured in the captivating, Regina Spektor-driven opening credits for Netflix's Orange Is the New Black—but none of them are in the show itself. As Fast Company's Co.Design blog reports, showrunner Jenji Kohan wanted the title sequence to suggest that the show—about women incarcerated in a minimum security prison—would tell many stories, not just that of the main character, Piper. So, Venice, Calif., design company Thomas Cobb Group settled on a solution—it photographed real women who had been in prison in close-ups that would shield their identities while also feeling immediate and intimate.

Michael Trim photographed nine women in New York, while Thomas Cobb photographed 52 women in Los Angeles. TCG executive producer Gary Bryman explains: "Thomas directed each woman to visualize in their mind three emotive thoughts: Think of a peaceful place, think of a person who makes you laugh, and think of something that you want to forget. He apologized ahead of time for the last question but found it was incredibly effective in evoking a wide range of unfortunate memories. … Thomas found this really interesting sweet spot of cropped compositions that would not necessarily reveal who the person was, but at the same time provide a portal into their soul through their eyes."

Piper Kerman, who wrote the memoir on which the show is based, is the blue-eyed woman who blinks at the 1:02 mark. Check out the rest of the story at Co.Design.


    

Windows Tablet Passes, iPads Fail in Microsoft's Back-to-School Ad

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Microsoft's new back-to-school ad for Windows 8 tablets—here, the Lenovo Yoga in particular—is being touted, at least by CNET, as another huge diss against the iPad. It is, of course, but it's not as harsh as all that. The Yoga's ability to multitask is mostly compared to less impressive classroom behaviors, like fumbling around for a pen as the professor reads aloud from Keats's "The Second Coming," which he wouldn't do in real life. Sure, a lot of the ill-prepared students are using iPads, but the tone is more "The Yoga is great" than "Apple products are crap." Which is good, because it's hard for me to take a product named Yoga (that isn't actually yoga) seriously. How much more white and middle class could that name be? Will we be seeing ads for the Lenovo Mumford & Sons next fall?


    

'WTF' Are You Looking At, Asks Campaign for Toronto's Museums and Historic Sites

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The city of Toronto is offering prizes as part of its "What the Fact?" campaign promoting local museums and historic sites to young people. Unfortunately, those prizes are passes to the museums and sites in question, which should squash any interest among the target audience. Kidding, of course. But my snarky intro illustrates a very real problem facing the client: How do you market museums to a fickle audience that basically lives online?

Its answer is a campaign in 100 area bus shelters and online, headlined by the slogan "WTF?" in bold letters. The ads show historic artworks, soldiers' uniforms and other exhibits, and invite people to go to Facebook and guess what each item might be. Correct guesses get you free passes, which will be awarded once the campaign ends on Sept. 10, when the artifacts' identities will also be revealed.

"We wanted to find a way we could reach out to the general public and ideally a younger audience," museum services program designer Ilena Aldini-Messina tells the Toronto Star."We find that social media is a great way to reach out to that audience."

Kudos for embracing interactivity, and for the quasi-questionable "WTF?" headline, which has predictably ruffled some feathers in the Great White North and generated free publicity for the cause. According to Inside Toronto, the campaign has already been shared or commented on 1,200 times—though I'm not convinced that will translate into more young people patronizing local museums and historic sites in the long run. The youthful target audience probably plans to sell the tickets to get cash for beer and earbuds.


    

Jersey Shore Star Shows Off His Package (of Mascara) in Cosmetics Spot

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Vinny Guadagnino of Jersey Shore stars as a well-endowed yoga hunk in this decidedly unique Benefit Cosmetics spot for They're Real! mascara. The ad opens to hunky dude ogling, which is oh so trendy right now. But it wastes no time focusing right on their man candy, as all the ladies around them become visibly excited. Then the men reach into their pants and pull out … a handful of mascara tubes to toss to the women—delivering the message that their bulges might be fake but your lashes could be nice. Or perhaps the message is the tagline: "Laughter is the best cosmetic."

The agency, Portal A, also roped in actor Simon Rex (aka Dirt Nasty) and Vine-famous comedian Brittany Furlan to round out the cameos. Benefit is doing exactly the right kind of things to draw attention to its tiny, feisty brand, but the spot doesn't go quite far enough to be funny or outrageous. Vinny, in particular, comes off as inexplicably suave as he winks in tree pose. Maybe they should have just let Brittany make five six-second Vines and call it a day. Her Vines aboutthespot are hilars.


    

Belize Tourism Makes Most of Country's Unflattering Mention on Breaking Bad

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Taking "a trip to Belize" doesn't sound fun, at least the way the phrase was used on Breaking Bad last Sunday. But the small Central American country took the reference in stride and is out to prove that a visit to Belize isn't, in fact, a one-way trip to oblivion—by offering free vacations to Vince Gilligan and eight members of the AMC show's cast.

"Many of us are big fans of the show and can't wait to see what happens over the last six episodes," the tourism board (with help from ad agency Olson) wrote in its invitation. "While we hope that some of our favorite characters don't get 'sent on a trip to Belize' in the show, we do hope you will take us up on the following offer—we'd like to send all of you on an ACTUAL trip to our country after the season is over."

As Olson explained to us in an email, this is certainly a better response to the unflattering mention than just freaking out about it.


    

Apple and Samsung Users Remain Violent Half-wits in Latest Ad for Windows Phone

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There isn't a public event that Apple and Samsung users can't spoil by fighting with each other, according to Crispin Porter + Bogusky's hyperbolic but still amusing campaign for the Windows Phone—which continues with the spot below, again directed by Roman Coppola and set to air Sunday during MTV's Video Music Awards.

Coppola directed the earlier spot, "The Wedding," which was a big success (more than 6 million YouTube views), and he brought back many of the same actors for "The Recital." In the new spot, Apple and Samsung users again jockey for position to get the best photos, and are soon ridiculing, head-butting and otherwise trying to take each other down. (On the plus side, at least they seem interested in the school play and aren't just falling asleep.) The spot pushes the Nokia Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixels and reinvented zoom, which apparently helps you get better pictures and also just be a nicer person.

There's less snappy dialogue this time, though it's a fun moment at the end when the woman who's literally spouting Apple's recent advertising copy gets thumped to the floor.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Microsoft
Spot: "The Recital"
Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer: Rob Reilly
Executive Creative Director: Dan Donovan
Creative Directors: Dave Swartz, Dave Steinke
Associate Creative Directors: Paul Sincoff, Kyle Jones
Art Director: Jeff Hunter
Copywriter: Aaron Cathey
Integrated Head of Video: Chad Hopenwasser
Executive Integrated Producer: Sloan Schroeder
Senior Integrated Producer: Laura Keseric
Production Company: Directors Bureau, Los Angeles
Director: Roman Coppola
Executive Producers (Production Company): Lisa Margulis, Elizabeth Minzes
Producer (Production Company): Francie Moore
Director of Photography: Chris Soos
Postproduction: NO6LA, Santa Monica, Calif.
Visual Effects: Method, Santa Monica, Calif.
Executive Producer, Design: Robert Owens
Producer: Ananda Reavis
Editor: Jason McDonald
Music Company: JSM Music
Junior Music Producer: Chip Herter
Arrangers: Joel Simon, Doug Katsaros
Sound Design Company: Henry Boy, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Sound Designer: Matthew Hedge


    

So Bad, It's Bad: Samsung Video Is the Cringeworthiest Thing You'll See Today

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Reddit has declared that the Samsung promotional video below features "possibly the world's worst actors," a description that might not be literally true but is close enough. In the ad, for Samsung's 840 EVO solid-state hard drive, three animatronic stereotypes—baffled housewife, studious Asian gamer and corporate ladder-climber—robotically recite a script about how amazing the product is. The result is something that can't really be described in writing, so watch it for yourself below. The original was pulled from YouTube after it became a laughingstock on Reddit, but mirrored versions continue to circulate so that the world can appreciate this impressive feat of faux sincerity.

UPDATE: Here's a note from the Reddit thread, apparently from the "corporate" actor in the spot:

"Hi. So I'm an actor/model living in Seoul, and im playing the 'businessman' in this promo. now, admittedly its not my best work lol, but most people arent aware of just how many factors go into making it this bad. Allow me to elaborate. They force us to speak slowly since this will be dubbed over in Korean, and even when it isnt, most people viewing it will be Korean. They ask us to exaggerate since many Korean people feel thats how we 'naturally' act (most people here are not very expressive). Ive worked many jobs where I tried to act naturally only to be told by the director to act more 'bright' (ie exaggerate). its how the director and client (in this case, Samsung), WANT us to act. the script is brutal. written by non-native english speakers, and sometimes the PD or director wont even take our suggestions to change some parts so they sound like something a normal native english speaker would say. its a promotional video, not a tv commercial, meaning it will be shown at conventions and expos and in-house. most of the people watching it are korean and thats why they make us do all of the above. edit: almost forgot, shooting took place from 730am - 3am the next day, and by the time they shot the scenes with the girl, she was literally falling asleep in her chair, hence the stoned expression and tone :)"


    

Art Replaces Ads on 22,000 Billboards and Other Out-of-Home Sites in the U.K.

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There's art everywhere! It's loose in the streets! The onslaught of art will kill us all! possibly brighten our dreary, workaday lives!

The Art Everywhere project in England fuses art and commerce on a grand scale, with reproductions of 57 popular works—ranging from the 16th century to modern times—replacing ads on 22,000 out-of-home ad sites, including billboards, bus shelters, tube-station walls and other locations like shopping malls and office buildings. Innocent Drinks cofounder Richard Reed spearheaded the initiative (it was his wife's idea), and he described Art Everywhere to the Guardian as "a joyful project with no agenda other than to flood our streets with art and celebrate the creative talents and legacy of the U.K."

Some $4.7 million worth of ad space is being used for the project's two-week run—the tagline is, "A very very big art show"—with online donations helping to cover costs. The art was chosen by the public, with pieces selected from a list provided by the Tate gallery and the Art Fund. "The Lady of Shalott," an ethereal, evocative 1888 oil-on-canvas by John William Waterhouse, inspired by a Tennyson poem, topped the vote count. But, d'uh, who couldn't guess that.

It's only appropriate that ad space is being employed, since billboards, commercial posters and advertisements of all kinds are the popular art of modern times, reflecting the contemporary culture as surely as pre-Raphaelite paintings captured the nuances and obsessions of an earlier age.

Not that I'd advocate such a thing, but I'm sure that at some point a few taggers (perhaps even Banksy, England's maverick anti-advertising artist) will see fit to deface the public displays. It's clearly vandalism, but I think they'd be creating valid hybrid works that could say quite a lot about art, human nature and the media-saturated times in which we live. Or else they'd just be jerks.


    

Argentine Soccer Star Deletes His 92,000 Twitter Followers for Nike Campaign

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Here's a nice little Twitter activation from Nike and BBDO Argentina. The marketer had Burrito "The Mule" Martinez, star forward for the Boca Juniors soccer team, wipe out all of his 92,000 Twitter followers and start over from zero with the goal of regaining all the followers he erased. "Today I erased my 92,112 followers with the idea of winning them back by playing every match as if it were my first," he wrote in his first message back. (He's back up to 32,000 followers or so—so people apparently aren't too annoyed at having to re-follow him.) The stunt also ties in thematically with Nike's recent TV spot "Baptism" (below) in which veteran Boca Juniors players shave their heads—a ritual usually reserved only for rookies—to demonstrate their ongoing allegiance to the club.


    

Alex Bogusky Shows You His Foolproof Way of Bringing Back 1 Million U.S. Jobs

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Been wondering what Alex Bogusky is up to? He's just put out this little video in his latest push for social good: the Million Jobs Project. Bogusky stars in and narrates the infographic short (with animation and art direction by Scott McDonald) that implores Americans to spend just 5 percent more on products made in America. Apparently, if we shift our buying habits by just that small amount, we will create 1 million new jobs. There are some nice lines ("They call it outsourcing, which is a fancy word for 'You're fired' "), but at four minutes, it's a bit long. Fortunately, there's a short list of some American manufacturers to buy from over at millionjobsproject.us, which is an easy read. Of course, it's not a new message, but it is well told here. Will it work? The video hasn't taken off yet, but maybe that's because the ask is slightly confusing. Are we supposed to always buy American, buy 5 percent more for American, buy just one thing that's American, or share the video with two friends? The answer is all of those things.


    

Incredible Tweet-Inspired Illustrated Billboard Gets 60-Second Spot to Match

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Mexican stationery company Scribe won a Bronze Lion in Cannes for its "Scribe Billboard" campaign, in which artist Cecilia Beaven lived inside a blank billboard like a shoemaker's elf for 10 days and added illustrations to it based on tweets from the public. (The finished work can be seen above.) The illustrations have now been turned into a 60-second cartoon by Vetor Zero/Lobo, and the results—featuring characters like a rabbit DJ, a surfing giraffe and a taxi driving Pegasus—wouldn't be out of place on Adult Swim. Really. I could see something like this paired with Adventure Time, no problem. Via The Inspiration Room.

More about the billboard's creation:


    

Adolf Hitler Killed as a Boy by Speeding Mercedes in Film Students' Crazy Spec Ad

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If you were a car, and you could travel back in time and kill Hitler when he was a boy, would you do it?

Well, if you were a Volkswagen, the answer would probably be no, since you'd be murdering your own father, and you'd probably cease to exist. A C-Class Mercedes-Benz, however, would suffer no such temporal paradox, and that's the vehicle of young Adolf's destruction in this well-made though extremely odd commercial parody, created as a thesis by some German film students.

In the 80-second clip, the driverless car avoids various kids in Hitler's picturesque Austrian hometown but mows down young Adolf. The vehicle's Collision Prevention Assist technology, we're told, "detects dangers before they come up." The final image of the school-age never-to-be-Führer lying on the ground, limbs splayed out like a swastika, is memorably intense.

Mercedes parent Daimler is understandably miffed, and forced the students to add blaring disclaimers that identify the project as a spoof. The controversy has helped the clip go viral, with almost 700,000 YouTube views since Friday. Couching the film as an ad for a real automaker also provides, perhaps unintentionally, extra layers for interpretation by bringing the global corporate/industrial/media complex into the picture.

The filmmakers—Tobia Haase, Jan Mettler and Lydia Lohse—have said they wanted to explore the morality of technology by asking what would happen if machines had souls. I wonder what the world would've been like had Hitler had one.


    

Devin Graham Hooks Up With Mountain Dew for New Stunt: a Death-Defying Human Catapult

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Devin Graham has always seemed right up Mountain Dew's alley. The director, aka Devin Supertramp, who specializes in building giant outdoor contraptions that fling attractive young people into the air, was even apparently the inspiration for a 2011 Mountain Dew spot—its footage of BMX bikers launching themselves into a lake sure looked a lot like this 2010 Graham production. Now, Mountain Dew has officially teamed up with Graham for a new video and an upcoming tour. The video, below, presents lots of woozy footage of people flying back and forth on a giant catapult—with plenty of Mountain Dew signage and products around. (One guy empties a bottle of the stuff on his face mid-'pult, adding to his own personal horror.) Attractive young people who missed out on this stunt, worry not. Dew and Devin are going on a road trip! As Graham writes on his site:"On September 1st, we're jumping into an RV full of Mountain Dew and all the equipment we need to pull off some seriously amazing stunts. And the best part is, YOU will be planning the locations and the stunts themselves right along with us!" Graham has worked with brands before—on stunts like this neck-breakingly awesome lake-jumping waterslide, co-branded by Vooray.

Check out the eight-minute behind-the-scenes video below, in which it takes all of 25 seconds for someone to suggest trying "two girls at the same time."


    

Environmental Campaign Suggests Naming Vicious Storms After Climate-Change Deniers

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New York ad agency Barton F. Graf 9000 has turned its roguish attention to the issue of climate change, and helped activist group 350 Action with the amusing video below. According to the YouTube description: "Since 1954, the World Meteorological Organization has been naming extreme storms after people. But we propose a new naming system. One that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the policy makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy. If you agree, sign the petition at climatenamechange.org." The snarky tone preaches to the choir, but it's hard to resist lines like, "If you value your life, please seek shelter from Michele Bachmann." Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: 350 Action
Contact: Daniel Kessler

Agency:  Barton F. Graf 9000, LLC
Chief Creative Officer/Founder:  Gerry Graf
Executive Creative Director:  Eric Kallman
Executive Creative Director:  Brandon Mugar
Creative Director/Copywriter:  Dave Canning
Creative Director/Art Director:  Dan Treichel
Senior Designer: Matt Egan
Head of Production/Executive Producer:  Carey Head
Creative Technology Director: Jonathan Vingiano
Account Director: Jennifer Richardi
Business Affairs Director:  Jennifer Pannent
Planner: Danielle Travers

Production Company: Furlined
Director: Ted Pauly
VP/Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Executive Producer: Dave Thorne
Executive Producer of Sales: Meghan Lang
Line Producer: Jennifer Gee
DOP: Kris Kachikis

Edit: Big Sky Edit
Editor/Sound Designer/Mixer: Chris Franklin
Co-Editor/Colorist: Dave Madden
Sr. Asst. Editor:  Liz Bilinsky
Jr. Asst. Editor:  Megan Elledge
Graphics/FX:  Ryan Sears/Steve Kutny
Executive Producer:  Cheryl Panek
Asst. Producer:  Grace Phillips

Music: APM Music
Account Executive: Lauren Bell

Stock Video Footage:  T3Media
Senior Account Manager: Amy Geisert

Photography: Magnum Photos
Corporate Sales Manager:  Diane Raimondo
Photographer: Paolo Pellegrin


    

Makers of the Squatty Potty on Your Bathroom Habits: You're Doing It Wrong

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This "educational video" about the Squatty Potty, which is basically a step stool (ha!) that corrects your toilet posture (tagline: "Healthy colon. Happy life"), feels more like an expertly done PowerPoint than a real ad. It's also full of correlation/causation fallacies, but there's a whole team of scientists at Stanford who study this sort of thing, and apparently they signed off on it. That's great, and I'm glad someone is interested in the long-term health of my colon. But something approximating the Squatty Potty is so easy to find in your own home that I'm surprised they decided to actually make one. Plus, what modern adult wants to use anything with "potty" in the name?


    

Healthy Kids Feast on Unhealthy Foods in Vintage Back-to-School Ads

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In the spirit of back to school, let's fatten up our kids and send them into anaphylactic shock! Seems that wasn't much of an issue in the '50s, when fall advertising aimed at lunch-packing moms revolved around peanut butter, dairy and sugar. The kids in the marketing were invariably trim and rosy-cheeked, never lactose intolerant or nut allergic. Yet Mrs. America, the domestic goddess of the time, stuffed those brown bags lovingly (irreconcilably?) with processed food. Hey, Madison Avenue said it was the right thing to do. Cookies and jam were often positioned as "pure enjoyment" food, while milk, cheese and peanut butter were touted as brain food, not projectile-vomit-inducing and constrict-your-throat food. Ah, nostalgia. Check out some more back-to-school print ads from a simpler time, courtesy of Reminisce magazine.


    

Haunted Connecticut Ad Agency Has In-House Ghost Writing Its Twitter Posts

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Plenty of ad agencies have skeletons in their closet, but Keiler apparently has a ghost haunting the attic of its early-18th-century Connecticut farmhouse offices. Naturally, they're put the snarky specter in charge of the Farmington shop's first official Twitter account. (That's scary and difficult to believe—not the ghost part, but the fact that they waited until now to try Twitter!) The ghost could be a sea captain, tavern owner or wheelwright—no one's really sure—but staffers have heard mysterious footsteps and slamming doors around the place for years, especially after hours, so they decided to incorporate the lore into @KeilerGhost. (Besides, social media's largely about transparency, so having an actual ghost writer makes sense. And lots of agency feeds read like they're written by dead people, so this one should fit right in.) Some examples of the phantom's wit: "I've seen a lot of advertising trends come and go in 200 years. But this stock photography thing has got to stop." "Like bad media placements, ghosts generally appear when nobody's looking." "I'm a friendly ghost until I have to sit through an ad just to watch a YouTube video." Hmmm, might be time to give up the ghost. Sorry, that was mean-spirited. Boo! Via MediaPost.


    

Jeff Goodby Sings About Agency's New App, Which Lets You Reach Out and Touch Someone Virtually

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The techies at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' GSP BETA Group have whipped up a new app which the agency is now promoting in decidedly offbeat fashion. The app is called Touch Room, and it's designed to help you not just see and hear but touch your loved ones from afar. The concept is simple: You both enter a virtual room, and when your fingers touch the same spot, your phones vibrate. It's a sweetly quirky idea that deserves some sweetly quirky advertising—provided in the video below by Jeff Goodby himself, who sings, in a warbly voice, a original song he wrote about the app while strumming an acoustic guitar. As for the visuals, well, it seems Touch Room will be particularly useful for people with freakishly long, extendable, ET-like fingers. GSP BETA Group is an in-house group of developers, UX specialists, producers, creatives and other makers that use technology to find creative solutions to problems. Download the app here. Credits below.

CREDITS
Ad Agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners BETA Group
Campaign: Touch Room
Live Date: August 27, 2013

Music & Lyrics: Jeff Goodby
Chief Digital Officer: Kalle Hellzen
Creative Developer: Chris Allick
Art Director: Pablo Rochat
Copywriter: Caroline Cappelli
Director of Interactive Production: Ellie Hardy
Group Executive Interactive Producer: Michael Phillips
Director of Business Affairs: Bess Cocke
Senior Business Affairs Manager: Judy Ybarra
Business Affairs Manager: Heidi Killeen
Co-Director of eLevel: James Horner
Shot By: Marco Svizzero, Alvin Shen, and Juli Lopez
Post-Production Producer: Ava Rant
Editor: Marco Svizzero
Audio Engineer: Nic DeMatteo
Video Creative Direction: Stevie Laux
Director of Art & Print Production: Suzee Barrabee
Copyediting Director: Ryan McDermott


    

Twerking the Hand That Feeds You: Beats Tees Off on Miley Cyrus

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"Will somebody please feed Miley Cyrus?"

That's the request from one anthropomorphized Beats Pill speaker to another in the commercial below, which aired Sunday on MTV after the pop singer's controversial performance on the Video Music Awards. To which the other speaker opines: "Don't you need ass to twerk?"

Actually, Beats, feeding Miley would be your job.

First off, hat tip to sci-fi writer Tim Maughan for pointing out the Miley-mocking video on the Beats page. The brand is involved with plenty of pop and hip-hop stars at the moment, but the confluence of Miley and Robin Thicke at the VMAs was a branding bonanza for the electronics maker.

Beats Electronics is, of course, the brainchild of rapper and producer Dre, whose Beats by Dre headphones have been a huge success. The company's next big thing is a wireless speaker called the Beats Pill, voiced in commercials by Eminem, Chris Rock and (it sounds like, at least) Tichina Arnold from Fox's late, lamented Everybody Hates Chris. The speakers have been prominently featured in music videos, notably Miley's, and Thicke starred in a full-blown RadioShack ad for them with his accessories—I'm sorry, backup dancers—using the speakers to do more or less everything except speak. 

Anyway, on Sunday, Miley and Robin got down and dirty on stage in a way that offended millions of people who were doubtless being forced at gunpoint to endure the spectacle. Beats, meanwhile, was ready—like, really, really ready (thanks to the digital wizards at Framestore)—to whip up a video showing two Pills asking where "all the thick girls" have gone while watching clips from Thicke's video and then suggesting Miley should have more material to twerk with. "Somewhere, Sir Mix-A-Lot is crying his eyes out," says one.

This actually wasn't the only time Beats teed off on a pop star during the show. It also found time to make fun of Katy Perry (who doesn't appear to be sponsored by the company) in a video with Barclays Center seats visible behind the two big-mouthed little speaker dudes. And Dre protege Eminem announced a new album at the VMAs, which Beats immediately promoted with a 30-second clip from the rapper's new single.

Check out all three videos below. It was a well-orchestrated campaign of pop-culture mockery—as well as pop-culture sponsorship, individual-artist sponsorship, cross-platform synergy, album promotion. So, y'know, don't confuse it with satire.

Here's a question: When, during the VMAs, weren't you watching an ad? Yeah, we're going to go with "never," too.


    

Dermablend App Gives You the Skinny on Super-Tattooed 'Zombie Boy'

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Zombie Boy rises again!

L'Oréal's Dermablend cosmetics brand got 13 million YouTube views for its 2011 "Go Beyond the Cover" video starring the über-tattooed Rick Genest. So, it's no surprise they've reunited, this time for an iOS app that tells the story behind the Canadian artist and model's body illustrations while touting Dermablend products.

3-D technology lets users "Uncover Zombie Boy" by clicking on his tattoos. (You can demo the app on the web here.) For example, Genest informs us that he holds world records for the 178 bugs and 138 bones emblazoned on his skin, and that getting his hands done at age 19 was a "point of no return" because "you can't really get a job at a coffee shop anymore." The app lets you turn Genest's corpse-like image this way and that, and zoom in and out, but I was kind of hoping it would give me complete control of him, so I could make him my zombie slave to do my evil bidding. Maybe next time.

Oh, you can also overlay the deep, dark eyeholes and exposed teeth and gums of his skull tattoo on a photo of your own face to see what you'd look like if you, too, never wanted to get a job at a coffee shop again. When I tried it, I basically looked the same. Too many late nights reviewing ads and apps, I guess.

Now, on one level, "Uncover Zombie Boy" provides a fascinating interactive portrait of Genest's outer and inner self. But of course, this isn't a purely creative endeavor. It exists to sell Dermablend's concealing makeup, which was famously used in the viral hit video two years ago to cover up Genest's tattoos and make it look like his skin had never know the sting of the needle. In the new app, large letter D's that appear beside his image yield information about the Dermablend products that correspond to his various body parts.

Some have pointed out the incongruity of a fierce nonconformist like Genest, who, needless to say, really stands out in a crowd, shilling for an outfit that brags about being "the No. 1 dermatologist recommended camouflage brand." Still, the guy's gotta make a living. If he's satisfied that he hasn't "sold out," who are we to draw conclusions?

Via PSFK.

See the original Dermablend video with Genest below.


    
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