Ice Cream-amania!!!

Long story short, wrestling + ice cream = amazing.

While most modern-day advertising stays away from the celebrity spokespeople who look like a coked up pedophile on a five day bender, this delicious WWE (formerly the WWF) ad comes from an age of no shame. Speaking of no shame, please reread the headline. Now one may argue that using a subtitle, explaining who your spokesperson is a milli-meter away from their face, defeats the purpose of using that person to represent your product, but when your man's nickname is "the mouth of the south," can you go wrong?

So overall this ad may seem a bit out of place and god-awful by today's standards, but I only only imagine that there is someone in Williamsburg who still looks like this.

Das Ridiculous Ad

Also, thanks to Mike for unearthing this tasty treat

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BMW Plays Chess in Santa Monica

I mean, I'll always be an Audi loyalist, but this is completely fantastic. Well-played, BMW.

(photo via)

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Keira Knightley for Women's Aid

In this unbelievably well-produced PSA for Women's Aid actress Keira Knightley is beaten senseless by her domineering boyfriend. The spot plays out more like a short film than any other PSA I've ever seen. It is well-scripted and the director, Joe Wright, does a fantastic job with both the shots and the depiction of violence.

It may be hard to watch, but in that way it's especially shocking and eye-opening. Hopefully, the message helps Women's Aid inspire people to support the cause of preventing domestic violence.

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Olay Mystery Solver

Some great media placement right here. Cheers to both Olay and the person over at Time Out Sydney's ad sales. I'd imagine they had a hand in this, also.

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Head and Shoulders is in your head. Haunting your thoughts.

Some things even we can't get out of your head.

This spec work created by Richard Wilkinson for Saatchi & Saatchi Germany is fan-freaking-tastic. His illustrations are incredible and remind me of my favorite digital artist, Stuntkid. Both have a wonderful command of their art with a special focus on little details that make their pieces pop. I recommend checking out the rest of Wilkinson's work. It's lovely.

This set of posters for Head & Shoulders (see the rest here) aren't even remotely in-step with anything I've ever seen from H&S. In fact, these are times upon times better. The dark humor actually gives the brand a bit of personality, something it's never had before. I'd love to see them take this route.

Is it cool if my favorite ads of 2009 (so far) are spec work?

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Tyson vs. His Inner Child

Like all good tragic heroes in America today, Mike Tyson's documentary hits the screen April 24 2009. James Toback’s Tyson, appears to be an inventive retrospect of one of the most famous sports personalities of all time. An icon of boxing, "Iron" Mike Tyson's roller coaster life has always been center stage in the media, it will be interesting to see if this film meets the hype.

I find the the poster's art direction particularly interesting and intelligent. The overall tone feels insightful, even poetic. The softer aesthetic nearly makes the portrait of Tyson appear wise, something that no other media outlet has done. While I have a distaste for the serif typeface "Tyson" is set in, I'll always back a movie poster featuring someone with face tattoos.

Knout Highlights
Quotes

7 out of 10: Das Great Ad

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New York Snickerbockers

I think my last five posts have been sports related, so why stop now?

Last night Patrick Ewing was honored as a Knick Legend during halftime of their game at Madison Square Garden. Needless to say, we at Das Good Ads felt compelled to pay our respects.



TBWA/Chiat Day has released some pretty memorable Snickers ads in the past year or so, and this one is no exception. I especially love how Patrick Ewing wears a wig. Considering he looks like this now, I guess it wasn't a bad idea to bring back the hi-top fade.

7 out of 10: Das Great Ad

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Taco Bell seems to be baby crazy

Is there some baby-obsessed copywriter working at DraftFCB (they still have Taco Bell business, yeah?) putting out all these awful, pregnancy oriented ads? Ok, so maybe it's only two, but that's two more than I ever needed to see. Maybe she/he is trying to send a message to a significant other about a ticking biological clock. Or maybe they really can't come up with anything better.

What was the last Taco Bell ad you can actually remember liking? I'm having a hard time remembering any.

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Dockers wants you to shake it.

Your iPhone, that is.

This may be the first iPhone-based ad that people will actually want to use. Using the iPhone's accelerometer the ad makes Dufon Smith, an urban street dancer, react and dance to the user-created movement.

The ad "will appear in the iPhone games 'iBasketball,' 'iGolf' and 'iBowl' and the lifestyle application iTV." Between different levels of the game, the ad will pop up prompting the user to make Dufon dance before moving on to the next board.

The ad is an obviously effort by Dockers to remain relevant to the middle-age, tech-savvy, male customer is covets.

(I kind of hate the use of numbers in "Shake 2 activ8" and "Shake 4 encore". Seems a little forced and tacky to me. More tween than successful business man.)

EDIT:
Dockers is really stepping it up by also co-sponsoring the Pandora application for BlackBerry. Dockers branding will accompany the start-up of the application as well as song information.

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Hulu still run by aliens.

Back in February, Hulu ran its first ever ad during the Super Bowl. (Can you remember that far back?) Prior to the release of the ad, they hyped it up, claiming they were going to out some "big secret". Well, as it turns out, Hulu is an alien-run company hell-bent on destroying the minds of Earthlings. Fine by me, as long as I get to watch 30 Rock on my own time, amirite?!

They've just recently released the second ad, which features Eliza Dushku from Fox's show Dollhouse. (Hulu is a joint venture between NBC and Fox. Try to keep up.)




Sure, Eliza Dushku's tongue has some sex appeal, but I'm still loving the Jack Donaghy-esque Alec Baldwin from the Super Bowl.

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