Step aside, Saatchi LA and your Toyota “Swagger Waggon,” Innocean has created its own sect of hip, kid-toting, SUV-driving couples called, wait for it, “alternadults.”   The agency’s latest spot for Hyundai’s 2013 Santa Fe Sport  visualizes a set of epic parents indulging in a time-old tradition: as their kids dig into a mini mountain of ice cream or find their feet after paragliding, their parents say, “Don’t tell Mom” or “Don’t tell Dad.”

“The best stories you’ll ever tell start with ‘don’t tell,’” the wise-old-man voiceover says. It’s a bold statement, especially in the Internet age. (Facebook pics or it didn’t happen.) But apparently–according to the Innocean camp–a subsection of Gen X parents, defined as “Alternadults,” have “grown up, but don’t necessarily want to grow old.” Since growing old means making embarrassing Facebook posts, they’re not doing that. Instead, they’re making mischief, even when their mild rule breaking includes the kids and a Hyundai Sante Fe.

Ridiculousness of the term “alternadults” aside, I don’t think a good story has ever really started with “don’t tell.” Cool parents don’t care about keeping their black diamond runs and toilet papering a secret, and outside the family it’s a phrase that prefaces salacious gossip and abusive situations. I’d rather see an ad in which, after a crazy day of father-son mountain biking, dad says, “Tell mom about the log you jumped over today.” Alterna-mom would be stoked.

Check out the credits after the jump.

Read more

Remember those huge cellphones? There was one point (maybe after watching Zoolander or something) that I thought phones would just keep getting smaller and smaller. Then I got an HTC Evo for Christmas, and wow, that thing is giant. I usually gain an audience when I’m texting people or playing games while riding on public transportation.

The nice things about this spot from Huntington Beach-based, in-house agency Innocean and production company O Positive is that it only runs for 30 seconds. While it’s a cool idea to juxtapose the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid with technologies of the past, this ad could have really gone overboard to the point that it would be easy to forget that’s it for a car. Mad props to director Jim Jenkins, though, for creating a quirky, anachronistic city that’s as unusual as it is charming.

Also, it sort of makes you wonder, how hilarious would it be if Michael Bay directed a silent film? Credits after the jump.

Read more