From Venables Bell & Partners, the same agency whose larger-than-life contraptions for Google Maps and Google Fiber injected a third-dimension into the online world, comes two very different-looking spots for the new Google Search App.

Unlike the Maps and Fiber work, which relied on large, custom-built machines to explain the functionality of the Google’s tools, VB+P is relying on a more traditional mode of storytelling for the Search App, focusing on how the voice-activated tool assists regular people in daily life. Yes, a young girl being forced to dress like Martin Van Buren for a school project is a bit improbable. But, still, mom goes into mom-mode with the help of the Search App, and creates something pretty amazing in just a matter of minutes.

A second spot, “Umpire,” is just as pleasant. What I like about these spots is their simplicity. Unlike Siri, Apple’s voice tool which, due to its terrible functionality most iPhone users avoid like the plague, the Google Search app functions as an easy on-the-go reference tool that seems to actually work. While neither of the real world situations depicted in the spots is all that likely, imagine the wonders the Search App could perform on bar bets. Why, you don’t even have to go to Wikipedia first anymore! Credits after the jump.

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Yes, the holiday advertising season is upon us, and with it comes glad tidings of great consumer spending.

Taking the lead for Christmas 2012 is eBay, that magical monolith of online shopping, who in this spot for VB+P is reminding idiotic, out-of-touch wealthy parents that buying your young daughter a pony is a fucking stupid idea. Sorry, dumb parents, but ponies are terrible pets that do not cope well with being indoors. Also, it’s been proven that ponies will most certainly turn on their young female owners, stomping them to death in protest for being plucked from their wild environs for a life of servitude (not really).

But, really, if you’re even slightly considering buying your daughter a pony for Christmas, you need to stop. This will not make you a good parent, and in two years, your daughter will neglect her tiny horse and force you to have to lure it into a field off the highway to put down. And, do you really think one bullet will kill that thing? Any way you look at it, it will be more expensive than buying a stuffed pony on eBay. Credits after the jump.

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Considering the Bears and Packers are perennial division rivals, it’s no wonder why DDB Chicago continues giving the latter team’s star QB Aaron Rodgers grief in its ongoing campaign for State Farm. In this latest spot for the insurance brand, Rodgers does career day, and as you’d expect, he gets no respect, even from kids, for his multimillion-dollar profession. Is Rodgers the Rodney Dangerfield of the NFL? Well, whatever the case, his “Title Belt” touchdown move has forever been tainted thanks to this campaign, which albeit has been fairly amusing since its launch a year ago. Maybe now Rodgers can just focus on helping turn around the Packers’ season.  Credits after the jump.

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Ladies be lovin’ handbags, amirite guys? I mean, what woman in America can’t totally relate to how absolutely insane this purse-coveting psychopath becomes upon seeing the item of her dreams?

To be honest, I only recently became aware that the target demographic of Venables Bell & Partners’ and prodco Arts and Sciences’ new spot for eBay, “Frenzy,” is actually all too real. My ladyfriend works for a luxury consignment store in Chicago, and I find it absolutely fascinating how closely her company is tied to eBay. In my uninformed mind, selling second-hand apparel online means finding the strengths (or surpluses) in your company’s inventory and writing Google Ads to move product. However, I’ve come to learn that a highly-rated eBay account is the best advertising for a company that sells high-end designer products. If the game is to sell a $40,000 python skin purse, eBay can actually make all the difference.

The new campaign from VB&P consists of two other TV spots. The second of which (above) finds parents indulging in their conspicuous consuming habits in order to ease the transition into new parenthood. Hey, if you can’t sleep at night, it might as well be the fault of a crying baby AND a brand new speaker system. Yes, these people are terrible. Credits and the third spot follow after the jump.

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From the “Curse of the Billy Goat” in 1945 to the Steve Bartman incident in 2003, the Chicago Cubs are bar none the most “cursed” team in professional sports history. Even Boston’s “Curse of the Bambino” only battered around the Red Sox for a paltry 86 years. The Northsiders haven’t won a World Series in 103.

Each spring, you hear the Cubs loyal say, usually jokingly, “What if this is the year? Can you imagine what would happen to this city?” Well, Deutsch LA and director Matt Aselton are making the impossible come to life in this new spot for PlayStation and “MLB12: The Show,” which was filmed with permission from the Cubs and the help of 155 extras in Chicago last month. The city erupts from Wrigley Field to the Loop, and, wow, the Wiener’s Circle is even more insane than usual. But, almost cruelly, the fantasy abruptly ends when we’re taken inside one emotional fan’s living room.

Sorry, Cubs fans. The curse is still on. But, with new president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and manager Dale Sveum, maybe, just maybe…NAW, who are we kidding? Credits after the jump.

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“Mom jeans” are pretty bad, but as a young man frightened of losing all fashion sense with age, I have to say that I am personally more terrified of finding myself wearing a pair of dreaded “dad shorts.” At what average age do you think most women start hiking up their baggy pants as high as possible and most men think the that world wants to see their hairy thighs?

In Venables Bell & Partners’ first work for eBay, the San Francisco agency is introducing the online store’s new app for impulse shopping. The “When it’s on your mind, it’s on eBay” campaign debuts tonight with three spots from VB&P, each showing someone trying to keep up with today’s trends by instantly purchasing products from eBay. Says VB&P co-founder and ECD Paul Venables: “When the company that revolutionized how people shop asks you to do something big and new, you get excited. For this campaign, we tapped into the psyche of passionate shoppers and then demonstrated why eBay is the answer.”

In the announce, VB&G cites a statistic that says 60 percent of fashion enthusiasts and 65 percent of electronics enthusiasts own smartphones, compared to less than 30 percent of the general public. See two spots (one featuring an impulse fashion purchase and one featuring an impulse electronics purchase)  and credits after the jump

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The quirky, anxious-looking men you see above are Matt Aselton, Marc Marrie and Mal Ward, who recently left Epoch Films to start up a new operation called Arts & Sciences. Ten-year directing vet Aselton had been with Epoch since 2004 and helmed notable spots while there including Old Spice “TV Doctor” and PepsiMax “I’m Good for TBWA\Chiat\Day LA as well as several Boost Mobile ads for 180 LA.

His partners-in-crime meanwhile had both spent ten years give or take at Epoch, with Marrie serving as producer and Ward as head of sales. The latter, who till take on the MD title at Arts & Sciences, says the goal of the new prodco “is to create a company of talented people with ranging interests and backgrounds to produce anything we have heart for.” Guess you don’t want to really paint yourself into a corner.

Anyhow, the Arts & Sciences crew, who named their shop after Hancock, Adams and Bowdoin’s 18th-century organization, have already gotten down to work, producing D&G’s Carl’s Jr. launch campaign as well as ESPN efforts for W+K and JetBlue for Mullen. Up next? A launch project for Toyota/Saatchi & Saatchi LA.

Using the tagline “Just the way it is” (is Bruce Hornsby getting royalties?), David&Goliath serves up another ad (directed by Matt Aselton of recent FedEx ad fame) for its client, Carl’s Jr., this time with celebrities included. The main highlight: Daily Show contributor Olivia Munn, in skimpy bikini and all, indulges her carnivorous cravings while riding the waves alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for whatever reason. While there’s no Miss Turkey this time around, there are plenty of other scantily clad women and somewhat appetizing burgers to make up for it. Credits after the jump…

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It’s been just over 30 years to the day that the world was introduced to John Moschitta, whose rapid-fire delivery in award-winning ads for FedEx as well as Micro Machines among others made him one of the most memorable pitchmen of the 80′s. Now, Mullen Boston has brought the man back as “Mr. Nonstop” in a new campaign for JetBlue. From the looks of these spots directed by Matt Aselton, time hasn’t slowed down our protagonist,  who plugs the airline’s nonstop destinations in only the special way he can. Check out credits and two more spots from the campaign after the jump.

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Though last year’s BCS champs, the Alabama Crimson Tide, are out of contention this year, that hasn’t stopped the passion of its hometown fans, who show their team pride by constantly uttering “Roll Tide.” Apparently this two-word phrase, which we’ve been told is equivalent to “Aloha” in Alabama, can apply in virtually any situation and supplant actual conversation down south according to this ESPN spot from W+K New York. Guess it’s right on par with “Go Blue” and “J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets” up here in NYC.

Anyhow, this latest spot is part of the agency’s “It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports” brand campaign for the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports.” Credits after the jump.

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