Sure, we’ve seen far more clever routes being taken by creatives in order to land an agency (we think this guy set the bar), but hey, we can always appreciate those taking more standard steps to sell themselves. Take for instance this enterprising Toronto guy/gal who among other things, boasts via Craigslist that he/she does one hell of an impression of characters from The Mighty Boosh, the U.K. comedy troupe that had a show on BBC years ago. Not sure if that will really help this digital copywriter’s cause, but hey, there’s this:

“Perks of working with me include:

-The submission of polished, timely work
-Full access to my knowledge of obscure rap music
-A delicious curry dish at every office potluck (it’s all I know how to cook)
- My impersonations of characters from The Mighty Boosh
-A two-week break from my Mighty Boosh impersonations at Christmas

Your duties will involve:

-Paying me every two weeks
-Occasionally supplying me with coffee
-Providing me with at least one healthcare benefit”

Not sure if this person’s looking locally, but if so, your move, Toronto agencies. Hey, we like the moxie.

On the football field, Peyton Manning runs the Denver Broncos with a robotic efficiency fitting of a man with a giant, shiny forehead. His younger brother Eli roams the sidelines for the New York Giants with the mopey glare of a six-year-old who wants to pick his nose but can’t because cameras are watching. Usually, the funniest thing about the Manning brothers is that they’re so unfunny. They’re stiff and white. But every once in a while – don’t forget the acclaimed “Football Cops” – they unleash some comedy genius for a football-related commercial.

The newest addition to the Manning oeuvre is a fake R&B music video created by Grey for DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket. #footballonyourphone. Remember that hashtag. It’s going viral, because a company that deals with an incredibly popular sport got two huge stars to subvert their normal personalities and completely buy-in to a goofy campaign that could’ve been an abandoned Lonely Island digital short. In the first 12 hours or so after it hit Youtube, the clip reared in 100k views.

Everything about the spot is smart, right down to the tiny Archie Manning cameo and the best/worst hair design you’ll see this year until American Hustle, starring Bradley Cooper’s curled terribleness, hits theaters. Peyton may be known as the more gregarious of the two brothers, but Eli is a vastly underrated comedian in his commercials. He ends up stealing this show with some odd riffs on milk, blouses, and Alexander Graham Bell. Pay attention, brands: This is how you go viral.

I’m the Rooster guy apparently and I’m back to cover some more irreverent Rooster shenanigans. The above video, “How to Take a Punch,” epitomizes what a side project should be: easily digestible, fun to watch, and humorous. A slow-mo gif of James Franco taking a punch to the face has been making the blogging rounds before his Comedy Central roast airs on Labor Day. Vice co-founder/Rooster boss Gavin McInnes decided to join in on the slow-mo fun and take a harder punch to the face. The result is a side-by-side 13-second video comparison of the punches that is probably too stupid for its own good. Something makes me think Rooster likes that. These guys seem to have fun in the office.

After the jump, you can watch a longer video of people getting punched in the face slowed down to 1000 frames per second. It’s violently elegant and directed by Cody Kern, a man who has no relation to Rooster. As you watch, feel free to let the catharsis of watching others get walloped improve your day. Jiggling jowls have the affect on people.

Read more

Well, at least we presume it was lunchtime (or we’re just hungry) or just some random escape from the doldrums as a few Sid Lee Montreal staffers recently had a quick laugh at the expense of a poor commercial truck that was parked outside the agency’s HQ. Yes, the merry pranksters did happen to insert a somewhat subtle shot of some porn on the truck as you’ll see in the NSFW pics here. Ah yes, all in good fun, and we can always appreciate a little midday mischievousness.

I was just a kid when Charley Steiner yelled “Follow me! Follow me to freedom!” at the end of the “Y2K” This is Sportscenter ad. ESPN was a much simpler network then, before screaming heads led by Messers Bayless and A. Smith really damaged the reputation of everyone’s go-to sports network. Back then, the anchors of Sportscenter, like Steiner, were the stars, and the audience got to see anchor personalities shine through during these 30-second spots. Sometimes the spots featured professional athletes; sometimes they didn’t. But the spots were almost always funny and ripe with self-deprecation.

More than a decade later, Steiner is gone from the network. ESPN has chosen to count down the 50 greatest “This is Sportscenter” commercials from the past 18 years on August 1, with irrelevant host/SNL member Jason Sudeikis. As always, W+K New York ran point on this project with “the worldwide leader in sports.” I’m not sure why the network has chosen to unroll the countdown now, but we’re told that there will be bonus footage and interviews with the actors, athletes, and producers who helped shape the commercials. So for one last day, we can all follow Charley Steiner to freedom.

You can watch a few of the top spots after the jump, including a great bit featuring the entire Manning family from a few years ago.

Read more

Stephen Icardi, associate art director at Digitas, and writer Catherine Penfold-Waxman, have assembled the ultimate shopping destination for the ad world. Because nothing is buyable yet, you may find yourself salivating at the possibility of the David Ogilvy Magical Tagline Pipe, or Talent Nurturing Breasts. (“Who knows when your junior help will become your future boss, so start them off right with some sweet nurturing.”)

Creative Miscellaneous Materials LLC stocks something for everyone: an Acronym Polishing Kit for account managers, a Meeting Fodder Detector for hungry interns, and Work Party Unmemory Drops for the CD who drinks the pain away. My favorite is the “Make it Digital” Powder, which is funny because it already seems to exist, in the form clients who refuse to acknowledge the possibilities of online advertising.

This is a fun little piece of gentle in-joking, and I hope that Icardi plans on making actual fake products, because they’ll be perfect Christmas gifts. I would like the Criticism-filtering Head Gear, please, to deal with some of the more uncouth commenters out there.

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.

HelloFlo has nothing to do with Progressive Insurance or Binghamton alumnus and commercial superstar Flo. Considering that there aren’t too many other common uses for the word “flo,” what we are about to describe may be one of the strangest advancements in teen health education you’ve ever come across. Or it may be genius. I haven’t decided yet.

HelloFlo is a company that offers specific packages for women based on their individual menstruation needs. Each month, a woman can choose from the Low Flo, Medium Flo, or Heavy Flo packages that arrive at her doorstep without any awkward trips to the drugstore, assuming a cycle doesn’t start early. I’m not sure how practical it is to order these materials online, but if you are that uncomfortable buying tampons and pads in public, who am I to judge?

To reach out to younger girls, HelloFlo has recently released a promotional video, “The Camp Gyno,” a nearly two-minute comedic ad created by freelance copywriter Pete Marquis (who’s doing some work for W+K at the moment) and art director Jamie Mccelland (who once worked with the former at BBDO) with production duties going to Hayden 5. The video could’ve used some more direct mentions of the HelloFlo products, but it’s funny. If girls saying the word “vag” makes you uncomfortable, you might want to mute this. Also, watch out for Joan of Arc metaphors. 12 year-olds can be strange creatures.

A week after he initially began his experiment, ad man Marty Weiss‘s search for friends in New York City soldiers forth, only this time with a little less success. Weiss’s man-on-the-street project, where he simply asks, “would you be my friend?” to total strangers, is essentially a self-promotional effort for his newly rebranded agency called, yes, Marty Weiss & Friends, which works with the likes of Grand Central and Sobieski vodka. If you stick around until the end, you’ll see Weiss, who seems like a friendly enough character though NYC passersby aren’t really having it, eventually catch up with a rather familiar name from the ad world. During his 25-year ad career, Weiss worked at the likes of TBWA\Chiat\Day and served as creative director/founding partner of another New York-based agency called Weiss Whitten Stagliano for well over a decade. You can check out his YouTube page here.

This new Tumblr account comes from Avery Harrison, creative intern at Digitas and student at Miami Ad School, San Francisco. ‘Ads For Anything‘ was built under the premise of ideas that appeared brilliant in Harrison’s head at first-thought and not-so-brilliant once those ideas had a chance to roll around in his brain for a while. The dreaded creative letdown, an affliction that comes down like a thunderbolt after the initial honeymoon period. Been there myself, Mr. Harrison.

Scroll through the Tumblr, and you’ll see generic photos with blocks of generic fortune-cookie text that could be about any product. For example: “Live against the grain” is set over a wooden texture with a “Your Logo Here” block. Many of these genericisms could be early drafts of Mercedes spots, which probably doesn’t say a lot about Mercedes or Jon Hamm voice-overs. In fact, I’m somewhat surprised Mercedes hasn’t plucked Harrison for a job already – “To some people, passion is just a word” and ” There is always enough time to go for it” beg for Hamm’s voice to be played while a black SL zooms around a bend.