From Apple and TBWA/Media Arts Lab comes the spiritual sequel to last month’s “Photos Every Day” spot for the iPhone.

“Music Every Day” uses the exact same formula as its predecessor, with similarly excellent execution. We’ve come a long way from Apple’s original iPod commercials. No longer do we have silhouetted dancers projected against green screens with a loud, indie-rock soundtrack. Instead, just like “Photos Every Day,” we have a simple concept that, more than anything, humanizes iPhone users. What are these people listening to? It doesn’t matter; the important thing is that they’re enjoying it. We see them smile, nodding their heads along to a beat, something that we see occur is real life every single day.

Again, it ends with a single-sentence VO: More people listen to music on the iPhone than any other phone. The entire concept seems obvious, but sometimes it’s the obvious that needs to be said. Credits after the jump.

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Grey New York wants to tell you that “It’s Never Not a Good Time for a Refreshing Mike’s.” Excuse the double negative (what about “It’s Always a Good Time…?), but to draw your attention away from the grammatical errors, they included some very, very random celebrity cameos from actor Martin Landau and rapper Coolio. The 30-second spots include some random rhyming that leads to a series of non-sequitors, hence the random celebrities. Random is the only way to describe this campaign.

Before watching these spots, I hadn’t thought of Landau and Coolio in years. Both are stored away firmly in the Club for G-List Celebrities Who Will Never Be Famous Again. In Landau’s defense, he’s 84 and had a memorable run of “Entourage” a few years back (not to mention his Oscar-winning turn as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood). Coolio is Coolio. They both picked up paychecks in return for a loss of dignity. That’s advertising for you. Check out the Coolio spot and credits after the jump.

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Now that the dust has settled around the overplayed Windows smartphone wedding commercial directed by Roman Coppola, there’s a void in Windows-bashing-Apple negative campaign ad territory. Well, with some help from CP+B, the brand is back to tackle a new comparative subject: tablets.

There are actually two new spots, first covered over at Mashable, both taking not-so-subtle digs at iPad products. The spot above even goes as far as to use Siri against Apple – in short, iPads can’t do as much as Windows 8 tablets. But you can play chopsticks on an iPad for whatever that’s worth. And if you watch the commercial, it’s apparently not worth much. You have to respect the brash stance Windows is taking here. They are clearly playing catch-up in the publicity game, and going after Apple in such a direct fashion could be the right way to make up the distance. And the best part is, since both companies are so rich, suing each other over copyright infringement and/or libel won’t even make a difference. Ding, ding. Time for the next round to begin. You can watch the more informational attack ad after the jump.

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When DraftFCB and Kmart released their spot “Ship My Pants” last month, it was lauded far and wide as shot of adrenaline for both the retail brand and the Chicago office of the agency. Sure, it was silly, considering the spot’s entire charm rested on the fact that “ship” can sound like “shit,” but it was still a funny and delightfully unexpected execution for brand not known for taking risks.

After “Ship My Pants” racked up a whopping 17 million+  YouTube views, it would be foolish to switch up a formula that’s proven itself on such a grand scale. So, we now have “Big Gas Savings,” a new spot which tries to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle success of its predecessor. Now first off,  it lacks the unexpectedness of “Ship My Pants,” not to mention that “gas” and “ass” is a bit further of a reach than “ship” and “shit.” And, of course, “shit” is a far funnier word than “ass.” Also, advertising discounts on gas might not be the best way to get people into your store. In other words, no, this doesn’t live up to “Ship My Pants,” but really could it?

Kmart was left with two options here when it became clear that they had to stick to an execution they knew would bring in viewers. The first, which they went with, was to use a different swear word. The second, which may have worked better, was to continue going with “shit” and come up with new jokes. This isn’t to say that “Big Gas Savings,” isn’t better than 90 percent of ads out there. In fact, it’s still a very enjoyable watch. It’s impossible to hit it out of the park with every swing, and a single sure isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Credits after the jump.

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We’re sure some sort of bubbly is flowing in the offices of Cramer-Krasselt’s various offices as the agency follows up retaining the Porsche creative biz by nabbing ad duties for tequila brand, Patron. The spirits brand previously worked with Dallas-based The Richards Group on its ad work, but it’s now turned its focus to C-K’s New York office.

In a statement,  Patron VP of marketing Jennifer Pisciotta says, “As we look to build on the brand’s premium positioning within the tequila and ultra-premium white spirits categories, we must ignite the unique passion people have for Patrón. Our product is different than the rest of our category, right down to each individual bottle, and Cramer-Krasselt has demonstrated they are the ideal partner to help us show off this truly special product.” From what the parties involved say, Patron was inspired by C-K NY’s holiday work for the brand. We’re awaiting links on this one.

So, we’ll let the conversation roll in a regular series we dub, “Is it Racist,” which is essentially the brainchild of Gitamba Saila-Ngita, a multidisciplinary designer and innovation strategist, living, working, and playing between CT / NYC / SF. He is the founder and chief innovation strategist of DEFT COLLECTIVE, a creative innovation agency based in Hartford, Connecticut.

My name is Gitamba Saila-Ngita and I once helped an agency sell sugar water to children. I’ve also helped them sell new technologies, ideas, and other people’s culture. But what I’ve always found funniest is when I’ve been hired to make things more, “urban” and by “urban” they meant “black”. Race is a topic that in the United States at times feels like we’re trying to seriously look at it with a fine lens and other times completely turning a blind eye to avoid it because it might make for a lack of a better word a few folks, butt hurt.

Recently in the last few months I’ve found that for advertising folks and almost always on this blog we’re hashing over if something is, “racist or not”. Mainly under the pretense that a group of people were offended by the subject matter in the ad and have used the internet to voice their opinion. I reached out to Kiran because I wanted to hopefully start a casual dialogue about the matter from the perspective of ad folks who clearly make these communications for their respective clients.

First let’s define some things so we can look at this objectively.

Racism is defined by most dictionaries as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities     and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular  race” and a racist as “a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is     superior to any or all others. For fun, let’s throw in offensive as “causing resentful displeasure; highly irritating, angering, or annoying”

With those thoughts in mind, I wanted  to find an ad each time I or anyone else writes for this series and put it through those quantifying factors with understanding that the third one is purely subjective to an individual or group.

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While you’re battling Wednesday workdays at the office, Geico has a new addition to their “Happier Than” campaign that gives a literal visual representation to Hump Day. Yes, a camel, with humps. The camel’s coworkers don’t look thrilled with their humped friend running through channels of cubicles and interrupting their productivity. Wednesdays should be a time of cautious optimism – by the end of the day, a majority of the week will be finished – but these guys look like they just got demoted.

The Hump Day spot – created by the insurance brand’s longtime ally The Martin Agency – won’t be going up on the Mount Rushmore of  ”Happier Than” ads. That space is reserved for Dikembe Mutombo‘s supermarket exploits and Eddie Money’s entrepreneurial skills, commercials that dealt with clever concepts that riffed on pop culture. “Hump Day” is more of a cheesy pun dragging itself over 30 seconds of airtime. Re-strum the banjo, there’s always next time. A ridiculously long credit list awaits after the jump.

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Lately, there’s a lot of content to cover on the bathroom humor beat. Yesterday, we reviewed some poop comedy for the new Clorox campaign. Today, we have a 30-second spot titled “Poop vs. Pee” from Arnold Worldwide and truth, the anti-smoking organization. This ad takes a radical shift in tone from meaningless poop jokes. There may be some uncomfortable chuckling here, but the point is to make the viewer aware of two facts: methane, a chemical in dog poop, can be found in cigarette smoke; urea, a chemical in cat pee, is also used in cigarettes. As you’ll see in the clip, there are some silly sound effects and visual representations to make it obvious that bodily excrement is gross, and in turn, chemicals found in our waste shouldn’t be voluntarily inhaled.

On truth’s website, you can read about their strategy for raising awareness, which is echoed in the commercial. They don’t tell people to stop smoking, because that sort of pitch doesn’t work on little children, let alone addicted smokers. So, to get the point across, they appeal to their target audience with alternative methods, such as disgusting facts. Stripping away moralistic lecturing in favor of poop jokes might just be bizarre enough to catch someone’s attention. Credits after the jump.

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Well, the decision came a tad quicker than we expected but according to reports from you know who, Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt’s relationship with Porsche continues as the automaker has retained said agency’s services after a pitch that dragged on for six months. You’ve probably read Porsche’s perspective, now here’s a quick note from C-K president/CEO Peter Krivkovich:

“During the past five and a half years, C-K has enjoyed a great relationship with Porsche and we look forward to continued success together.

After the client’s best sales year ever in 2012, the best Q1 in their history to kick off 2013, and all of the industry recognition for smart strategic and creative thinking, we know we’re onto something good as PCNA’s agency partner.

When reviews like this happen – and this was a long and thorough one – it’s a good reminder for everyone that we are prepared for the challenge to work just as hard for our clients now as we were the day we were invited to their first pitch.

In the end, the proof is in the results. And Porsche has them.”

Peter Krivkovich”

As we mentioned last week, sources in the know were telling us that Porsche narrowed down its creative review to incumbent C-K, which has handled the account since 2007,  and Minneapolis-based Olson.

It’s been almost a year since we last covered Jack Link’s and their Sasquatch antihero, but everyone’s favorite ugly creature is back to sell some beef jerky and beat up anyone who messes with him (it). Minneapolis-based agency Carmichael Lynch has produced three new spots for the campaign, all of which were once again directed by Rocky Morton.

In the above commercial – “All Dolled Up” – three fools try to get their kicks by putting makeup on Sasquatch. He responds by flipping their car and possibly killing them, because, well,  Sasquatch doesn’t wear lipstick. The ads tap into the creature’s vaguely redneck brand appeal with foggy rural settings and the fact that the product is beef jerky. If I learned anything here, it’s to avoid Jack Link’s beef jerky, because eating it will lead to serious personal injury and an upset Sasquatch. Two more clips and the credits after the jump.

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