lil dicky condoms

Fair warning, if you click through and watch the following video, either do it with headphones or have some really chill officemates. Trojan is a brand for the NSFW moments in life, and they know it. That is why Lil Dicky is giving The Talk in this lil piece of branded content. 

just like a woman

Creating a memorable moment on the internet is a challenge these days, unless you are OK Go. Jeff Buckley is taking a stab at making a memorable experience with his interactive "Just Like a Woman" cover. You decide if you want to add more audio tracks, change the look of the panels floating by, or just sit back and let it all unfold. It is a wonderful rendition with some really solid interactivity. Check it out. 

human testing

When was the last time you saw a commercial for a coffee brewer that both made you chuckle and enticed you to buy the thing the company was selling? OXO may actually be doing that now with their campaign, Tested on Humans. The ads are subtly humorous and make a clear point about the produce. But, the biggest takeaway from the campaign is that OXO is pronounced "Ox-oh".

fooseball will make you forget all about those emissions tests...

Scandals and controversy are nothing new to big, multinational companies, but we should let the PR folks handle that. What we need is a fun, engaging way to show people how to engage with their favorite soccer players. The marketing team over at Volkswagen have put together just the thing. It's a digital fooseball table that will let you compete with a footie player from France. On top of the general engagement play, they will also be live streaming the whole thing. Check it out. 

where did all the buzz go?

Bees are important, like really REALLY freakin' important. Their pollination is responsible for 1/3rd of the food we consume. So you can imagine why General Mills Canada believes it's imperative we do something to save them. And what better spokesperson for this than Buzz, the Honey Nut Cheerios bee? Well, not exactly a spokesperson, but a symbol for all bees everywhere. How will he do that? By removing his adorable little self from all boxes of cereal for 6 weeks. In addition to that, General Mills created a TV & digital campaign (below) of animals in need that'll make you cry like someone's cutting onion up in there. And the call to action (because what's a good campaign without one) is to register for free wildflower seeds with the goal of planting 35 million so the bees pollinate the heck out of them. Well done!

pre-roll ad gets whacked

For the latest installment of "fun with pre-roll ads" we have a trailer for the new hitman type game, The Wolfshark, that is intercepted by an ad for the same game, with a CTA to kill the ad (vs. skip). And, from there, well, people get killed. See what they did there?

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#AdiosAmigo

When was the last time you saw a brand give a mascot a proper farewell? Dos Equis is actually giving the Most Interesting Man in the World a deserved send off as he moves on from being a brand icon and internet meme (though the meme will probably continue long after his role is over as these things tend to) to a permanent resident of Mars. It's been a good run, and it is time to go out on top. Let's all say #AdiosAmigo.

stella wants your legacy

Beer seems to be at a place where the brewers market themselves as either being steeped in tradition or breaking all the rules. It's no surprise that Stella Artois is taking a both/and approach by telling the story of how the brewery was founded. It feels a little like a Cohen brothers deal, which is a good thing in this case. Hopefully they keep it up as they continue to tell the story.

every agency website, ever

Oh, this website it totally worth the 10 minutes of mindless browsing this morning, especially if you need a good laugh to get the air flowing. Toronto based agency, Zulu Alpha Kilo, created this parody website of the typical agency website, complete with vomit-inducing buzzwords, meaningless awards, pointless flowcharts, and random TM'ed bullshit. It's almost parody perfection, except that, like a true legal-fearing agency, they added a disclaimer to the homepage saying it's a parody site. UNLESS, they were doing that ironically? Ohhhh that's good Zulu Alpha Kilo, reeeeaaaaal good.

strength has no gender

This new campaign from Brawny, in honor of Women's History Month, does a great job of honoring all the awesomeness that are women without pandering or trying too hard or seeming too desperate . . . all of which can be hard to pull off in this biz. The campaign, using #strengthhasnogender, highlights four real women working in fields traditionally dominated by men, all donning that iconic Brawny plaid shirt for nice, subtle branding. Check them all out!

going live on facebook

Everyone is trying to push closer and closer to live content. Twitter gave us Periscope, Twitch.tv has been satisfying that itch for gamers for a while now, and Facebook really wants you to like Facebook Live. The newest addition to the Facebook Live inner circle is the MLB. Live is great, but just wait for a brand to have it's first snafu.

social and kohl'd

Kohl's is really throwing their weight behind digital marketing and integration in to tv shows. Did you notice Kohl's strategy for the Oscars? They recreated acceptance speeches from the past with a bit of a twist. Those ads ran during the live show and drove people to a live Periscope broadcast. It's a breath of fresh air seeing old media drive to the new, rather than the other way around.

will run for sneakers

Want a free pair of Reebok ZPump2.0 sneaks? Easy. Just run past this billboard in Stockholm equipped with a speed came going at a pace of least 10.5mph and they're yours. Brilliantly simple!

apparently we CAN all get along

Right now is a time of sky-high political tension (pun intended). Just scroll your social feeds and it's pretty clear we're not seeing eye to eye. Jet Blue wanted to prove that seeing eye to eye wasn't impossible, so they deployed a clever little experiment at 30,000 feet.

All 150 passengers aboard Jet Blue flight 603 were told that if every single one of them could decided, together, where they wanted to take a trip to, then they'd all get a free trip. After some initial criteria was decided, the passengers had to unanimously agree to either Costa Rica or Turks & Caicos. From there discussions, chants, and arguments stated for one or the other on the plane intercom ensued. Believe it or not, in the end, the entire plan agreed to Costa Rica, proving that if we all work together and have rational discussions, we can, in fact, see eye to eye.

Now if only this would translate to the election.

fast forward pre-roll

The Pre-roll ad has become a staple in the digital marketing mix, but how to you get people to actually click through? Geico's latest solution is to show viewers the beginning and the end and then let them find out how the two go together by viewing the extended version. Great content marketing yet again.

staying home for leap day

If you are going to run a big promotion with a nice payoff it's good to make sure your customers can actually redeem. Hotels.com decided to run a leap day promotion for 29% off your hotel bill, the problem it was almost impossible to redeem. Consumerist printed off all the excluded hotels from the promotion... 39 pages. As they point out, it probably would have been easier for the marketing department to list all of the hotels that were participating rather than 39 pages outlining who was not. This is not the way to creating a great customer experience.