Alas, there are no “T-shirt uniforms” to hammer home the message of individuality in this latest Dr. Pepper campaign from Deutsch LA, which is now eschewing grandiose productions and blockbuster cross-promotions to instead focus on real people, real stories. The above spot, dubbed “One in a Billion” (title track courtesy of the Vinyl Hearts), should give you the basic gist of how the agency’s ongoing “Always One of a Kind” campaign for the soda brand is evolving.

The heartwarming, human interest angle is one that’s been tread on aplenty, but it’s a somewhat interesting detour considering that at the end of the day, all agency and client are doing are selling soda. Will it take this year? Who knows, but in the meantime, check out out two specific stories, one focusing on a model-turned-boxer and the other a mother of five/roller derby queen along with credits after the jump.

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While most general culture publications are using this week to run back-to-school features, The A.V. Club has been running a series about a much more influential part of the American experience–the mall. Reading it, it’s hard to not think about how my perspective of the local mall has changed over time. In middle school, I looked at the mall almost as an amusement park, a mini-EPCOT Center with different worlds mostly hidden behind showy storefronts. In high school, the mall became a place to kill time between minimum wage jobs, hoping to bump into your crush in the food-court during your 20-minute lunch break. In college, the mall became a place to avoid, a symbol of inflated consumerism and a reminder of how naive your worldview was in high school.

Now, I see the mall as an intimidatingly bizarre monolith, a place I feel horribly uncomfortable in whenever I’m forced to enter one for a quick errand. It’s hard to believe that a place where I spent an inordinate amount of time at 16 now seems so foreign. But, there are those people, who we’ll call “mall people,” that never change despite how much your perspective might. In fact, if I were to identify the polar opposite of myself among mall denizens, it would be the dude who works the remote-control helicopter kiosk. No one, not even the manager of the Gap, is more in his element than that guy. He’s the guy who gets free pretzels from Auntie Anne’s, dates that hot new girl who works at American Eagle, and the guy you hope will invite you to eat lunch at the cool table one day.

Well, W+K Portland is honoring that guy in a new TV campaign for Velveeta, “Eat Like That Guy You Know.” The guy in question here, who Bud Light would name “Mr. RC Helicopter Kiosk Employee,” has in my eyes gone from awesome to lame to actually kind of cool again as I grow up. Hey, he may not be pulling in six-figures, but he has the swagger of someone who pulls in seven.

On Kraft’s Velveeta website, visitors are encouraged to eat like many different archetypes they’re familiar with. Again, it has a “Real Men of Genius” vibe to it, but in classic Velveeta fashion, it’s just a little cheesier. Credits after the jump.

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It looks like Kobe Bryant‘s getting the all-star treatment when it comes to hyping his Nike Zoom Kobe VI shoe. Now that R/GA’s supplied the Twitter-based component for the Black Mamba campaign, W+K is rolling out teasers for a “Black Mamba” film, directed by Robert Rodriguez (who also plays sound designer here),  that’s set to debut in the U.S. and China during NBA All-Star weekend in February.

The Rodriguez imprint is all over the teasers, which seem inspired by the filmmaker’s recent flick, Machete, what with the overdramatic VO, action, explosions and fonts.  Hell, they even star Machete himself, Danny Trejo, along with Bruce Willis and Kanye West for some reason. While we draw comparisons to Dwyane Wade’s nightmarish Nike spot from early last year, check out the initial Mamba trailer, credits and rather awesome promo poster after the jump.

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