From Arnold comes the latest TV spot for Progressive, “Rate Suckers,” helmed by director Ruben Fleischer (of  pretty great Zombieland and pretty terrible Gangster Squad fame). Depicting bad drivers as the soul-sucking, rate-hiking leeches they are, the ad also introduces Progressive’s new “Snapshot” technology.

“Snapshot,” a little device that sticks underneath your dashboard, ostensibly counts how many times a driver slams on the brakes, calculates the time of day and how many miles a car has driven. Then it rewards good drivers with Pez or something, but as the spot doesn’t say what the hell it is, none of this really matters now does it?

Noticeably absent from this spot is Flo, Progressive’s chipper apron-ed spokesperson. I know that we, the car insurance-purchasing consumers, were always supposed to really like Flo because everyone in Progressive’s ads sure did. However, the Flo-lessness of this spot reminds me that I kind of hate Flo, and I hope to never see her ever again. Credits after the jump.

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With the Harry Potter series of novels completed, the only products that can get weirdos to hang out in a store until midnight are video games. And, with the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops II coming next week, “America’s Chain,” Walmart, is trying to convince weirdos to specifically hang out in their store with this new spot from The Martin Agency.

Believe it or not, this spot was directed by Ruben Fleischer, better known to most as the director of Zombieland. For those that are unaware, a large portion of the Black Ops series is dedicated to killing and/or running from zombies. So, this selection actually makes a good amount of sense.

Perhaps even more shocking, Walmart enlisted the help of Academy Award-winning composer of The Social Network, Trent Reznor, to create the music playing in the background as our protagonist runs to safety. It’s strange to consider that Reznor, better known to most of you as that angry guy from Nine Inch Nails, is now having his “Theme from Call of Duty: Black Ops II” arrangement used to convince nerds to go to Walmart. But hey, Trent Reznor’s gotta eat just like everyone else. You don’t want Trent Reznor to starve to death, do you? Also, we can probably safely assume that Trent had no idea his music for the game would end up in a Walmart ad. Credits after the jump.

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