The future of TV is evidently here, and a new series of spots from 72andSunny for Samsung portray the typical American family coming to terms with the fact that they will forever be enslaved to the glowing rectangle in their living room, especially considering that it now hooks up to the Internet.

Yes, Samsung’s smart TV comes with a remote that turns the set on when you hold it up to your mouth like a microphone and say “Hi, TV.” Useless? Maybe, until you consider that crippling loneliness that most of us endure. It’s nice to be able to talk to someone sometimes, you know? Even if it is just a TV. A nice, friendly TV who you can tell your problems to and routinely greet.

Samsung is also offering an “Evolution Kit,” which you can stick on the back of your grandfather’s TV. Of course, being a total grandpa, gramps will inevitably turn the conversation into one about his hip. Silly grandpa! Always talking about his fake hip. What a total grandpa move. One more spot, which features the grandpa and the dad watching Star Trek, and credits follow after the jump.

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If you live in either Chicago or Boston, you may have watched (or wanted to watch) the Stanley Cup Finals, in which case you realized that you don’t have access to NBC Sports. After some McGyver-ing and hooking you iPad to your TV, you got thousands about thousands of commercials advertising that NBC Sports would be broadcasting every game of England’s prestigious Barclays Premier League. After digesting this fact, you immediately stopped caring because 1.) You’re an American who likes ‘merican sports and 2.) Again, you don’t have access to NBC Sports.

But who better to make you, an American without access to NBC, care about this development than Jason Sudeikis, a former Saturday Night Live cast member who has appeared basically fucking everywhere in the last month? First, dude quits SNL. Then, he starts going on a press tour for his terrible-looking new movie, Meet The Millers, where he stars opposite Jennifer Aniston, who plays a middle-aged stripper. Then, he joined ESPN to count down the top 50 “This Is SportsCenter” ads last week. Then, he made cameo appearance in Drinking Buddies, a new film playing on Apple TV before it hits theaters at the end of the month and stars Sudeikis’ real-life fiance, Olivia Wilde. Then, Kiran shows me this and asks me to write about it, compelling me to start complaining about how Jason Sudeikis is fucking everywhere these days. Then, wouldn’t you know it, he releases a viral video YESTERDAY where he leads a parody version of Mumford & Sons, with Ed Helms, Jason Bateman and Will Forte starring as his bearded indie-folk backing band.

Seriously, it’s absolutely impossible to get rid of this guy. Watch him play a dumb American coach who doesn’t get soccer above in a new campaign from the Brooklyn Brothers (who you may remember from those kick-ass John Krasinski/Alec Baldwin New Era spots), and then don’t talk to me about Jason Sudeikis until you’ve developed some sort of Sudeikis repellant.

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Steak ‘n Shakes still exist apparently (ed. This was our college late-night sanctuary), and Minneapolis-based Carmichael Lynch, which took over for KBS+ on the diner chain’s biz in late March, is here for a brand new campaign “Hunger Wisely.” What “Hunger Wisely” means is a bit vague, but, you know, kung-fu masters are wise and hungry people eat food, so why not?

While these ads, which were directed by Harold Einstein of Station Films, are a little nonsensical, they do bring up some important topics. For example, Steak ‘n Shake seems to be pretty cheap. The “shake” in Steak ‘n Shake stands for “milkshake,” as opposed to dancing while eating steak. Finally, Steak ‘n Shake offers hotdogs, one of the few fast food places (other than like Sonic or something) that does so maybe. In other words, you take away that weird kung-fu master stuff, and you’re left with a pretty effective brand awareness campaign. (Checks Google Maps). Too bad I’ll never go to one as there aren’t any in Chicago. Watch a one-minute long video of more kung-fu stuff, and another I embedded of some guy getting his head kicked off, after the jump.

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Here’s a 3-minute long music video for Smirnoff Ice from director Jon Jon Augustavo. From what we can tell, it encourages young women to pre-game their nights out with a substance commonly instilled on others as punishment.

Sure, the “Bros Icing Bros” phenomenon of 2010 may have jumped the shark when Coolio got “Iced” in someone’s back yard. But for anyone between the ages of 21 and 30 who either likes playing stupid jokes or regularly finds themselves as a spectator of others’ stupid jokes, Smirnoff Ice is known as something bros make their bros chug. In fact, in 2010, Smirnoff Ice even admitted that the stupid meme helped kickstart sluggish sales of the milky white beverage. The next step? Get the ladies involved with the aid of canine Tumblr superstar Tommy Pom.

Could young women nationwide start sizzurpin’ the SmirnIce as part of their “Straight Primpin’” ritual? If you encourage widespread use of celebrity Pomeranians to get the pre-party started, anything’s possible. Download “Straight Primpin’” here and view credits after the jump.

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And now for something completely different:

A tipster points us to a quaint little discussion in Reddit’s Advertising sub-reddit that asks: “Do agencies drug test? Or is it something that’s on an agency by agency basis? I’m more of a creative and about to start entering the field, just wondering what to look out for.” We figure it’s our duty to distract you from this whole Publicis/Omnicom thing with a few of our favorite responses.

User auto-didact imagined an employee having to break the drug test results with the boss:

“Well, the designers all showed up positive for marijuana. So we fired them. Most of the creative directors too. All the account honchos came up positive for opiates. Most likely coke. They’re gone. All our PLD’s and software engineers tripped up for speed. Not surprising. We’ll have to offshore that work now. Oh, and almost all the senior leadership was clean, but bloodwork showed liver failure in progress. We caught our IT guy huffing cans of spray paint.”

User panthur offers a different experience:

They did at my agency. It was a local agency but now we are owned by a giganto agency conglomerate. A lot of them are owned by big companies and testing unfortunately tends to come with that.

Finally, user pugofwar responded simply with:

Never. (I’m at W+K.)

You can read the whole thread here, and we invite you to share your own experience in the comments.

As one might imagine, the announcement (and Vine video) of the biggest merger in advertising history is causing quite a reaction from those in the industry. Above, Keith Hunt, managing partner of M&A consulting firm Results International, hypothesizes about the implications the newly formed Publicis Omnicom Group will have.

As Hunt notes, the merger means the company will be able to buy media very cheaply, leapfrogging WPP in the process. But, Hunt wonders, how far can you push down prices? At one point do vendors draw the line?

Also, Hunt says, there’s the issue of who’s in charge. Co-chief execs, John Wren (Omnicom) and Maurice Levy (Publicis)  are elder statesmen. Levy, the older of the two at 71, is now on the hot seat in terms of naming a successor, that is, if the balance of power between Publicis and Omnicom remains a priority. As WPP’s Martin Sorrell said in an interview today, “It’s a nil-premium merger — effectively a takeover of Publicis by Omnicom [without exchange of money].”

Finally, says Hunt, there’s the matter of positioning. It benefits the new company to frame the merger as one that hinges around new technologies and emerging markets, allowing Publicis Omnicom Group to compete against tech companies outside advertising agencies like Adobe. “Exciting times,” he adds before staring into the camera wistfully. It’s only the beginning.

Check out Wren and Levy bonding after the jump.

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In a somewhat surprising weekend move that’s now been broadcast everywhere, French advertising network Publicis and New York-based Omnicom Group announced today that they are merging, supplanting London’s WPP to become to world’s largest advertising firm.

The news comes as a bit of a shock, especially considering the announcement was made on a summer weekend. Reports of merger negotiations first happened on Friday afternoon, followed by more concrete details on the merger coming out yesterday via a report from Bloomberg. The newly christened Publicis Omnicom Group will be led by Omnicom CEO John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy, who will acts as co-chief executives.

The merger is sending shockwaves throughout the industry, with reaction to news quite mixed. While many agree that shareholders will benefit from the news, looming doubts remain about how the new company will strike a balance of power with its bases split between continents, as well as how Publicis Omnicom Group will go about solving the many client conflicts as competing brands (Coca-Cola and Pepsi, McDonald’s and Taco Bell) are brought under one roof.

Omnicom (whose properties include BBDO, DDB, and TBWA) and Publicis (whose properties include Leo Burnett, DigitasLBi, Saatchi & Saatchi and media giant Starcom) have a combined annual revenue of $23 billion. We’ve heard that Levy has sent out a network-wide email about the merger.

About a year ago, Intel and Toshiba partnered together with the help of Pereira & O’Dell to create “The Beauty Inside,” a so-called “social movie” that paired not-quite-movie stars Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as two young actors who can’t believe that this is where their careers have taken them thus far. The big budget online film was apparently effective enough at whatever it was trying to do to spawn a spiritual sequel, “The Power Inside,” starring Harvey Keitel as a guy you kind of feel sorry for until you you consider that he’s still finding work at his age.

As a press release tells us, the heavily product integrated plot will consist of “An alien invasion by a race of extraterrestrial moustaches and unibrows who take over the upper lips and eyes of people around the world. The main character is Neil, who together with his friends and the help of technology discovers his inner strength to defeat the moustache and unibrow invaders called Uricks. Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba play an important role in Neil’s journey of self-discovery.” We assume “inner strength” and “Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba” are pretty interchangeable in this scenario.

Similar to its predecessor, computer processor fans every can be part of the film by interacting with the protagonist via Facebook. Users can also upload a photo of themselves, edit that photo with a moustache and unibrow, and reach self-actualization after the process is completed. Credits after the jump.

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Meet Octicorn, a half-octopus half-unicorn abomination that has either teeth or gills affixed to the front of its face.

What began as a simple sticker designed by former W+K producer and current filmmaker Justin Lowe now has a Kickstarter page devoted to bringing Octicorn to life in the form of a children’s book. The hope, of course, is that Octicorn’s mixed-species parentage will help little boys and girls who have tails or whiskers feel better about themselves, knowing that somewhere, there’s a terrified looking seabeast who’s also a bullying victim just like them. Remember, any two animals can successfully conceive offspring with the power of self-confidence.

As with anything created under the guise of “children’s entertainment,” Lowe already has planned for his book to become Disney-fied with pillows, t-shirts and, potentially, a mobile app that finds Octicorn searching for his true parents, only to find that they disowned him years ago when they tried to distance themselves from their “crazy sexually experimental college years.” In fact, if the $15k total is met in the next 24 days, there’s even the hint at a future Octicorn rap video that finds our loveable hero talking about how a history of getting bullied inevitably turned him to the gang life, where he worked as a drug runner until getting in with a connected producer who helps him jump start a hip-hop career under the pseudonym “Ock-T.” Dreams do come true, if you pony up and donate to this Kickstarter.

During the NBA Finals last month, PlayStation debuted a new mini-film from BBH NY titled “Greatness Awaits” which featured a wide array of game characters and a whimsical narrator talking sternly to the camera (much like in this 2009 spot BBH NY did for Johnnie Walker). With over 5 million YouTube plays, the big budget ad was hailed as a mild success, falling somewhere between “Hedgehog Reacts to Fart” and “One Direction Crash Barbie’s Party! 1D Dolls Party All Night! OMG !.::Original Video::.”

To the untrained eye, it would appear that the spot’s success was owed to its subtle nods to some of PlayStation’s biggest titles paired with the sort of over-the-top visual effects that gamers subsist upon. However, any true gamer knows that the ad’s success is owed predominantly to the elaborate costuming employed, causing PlayStation to make a second ad in order to offer the costumes as prizes of some sort. Yes, it’s an ad for an ad, or “Adception” if you will.

Anyway, gamers can bid of the costumes from the spot using trophy points or something that they earn by being good at video games. Then everyone will play dress-up and have a great time. Learn more at bidforgreatness.com and view credits after the jump.

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