The spot doubles as a sort of video retrospective and a vehicle for the premier of her new single “Grown Woman”, but we’re still a little disappointed. Where are the robots, Bey? Oh well — such are the trials and tribulations of a “brand ambassador.”

OK, that headline is a very misleading generalization: in fact, we’d say you should pretty much never feature children in your press conferences. But what if you’re calling on the state of Minnesota to overturn its gay marriage ban? And what if the primary focus of your argument concerns the benefits that families (and children) with same-sex parents miss out on thanks to said ban?

In that case, there’s hardly a more effective way for you to show your audience that your family is just as real as anyone else’s than to hold your infant son while he drives his toy truck across your face and reminds everyone that you’ve gone on a little too long by whispering “I want daddy to stop talking.”

Microsoft, a company that desperately wants to be in the now, decided to use its massive budget to rebrand one of its signature outdated products: Internet Explorer. In order to do this, the masters of “cool” created a viral video ad called “Child of the 90′s.” Everybody’s been sending it around today, so we guess it’s working.

It does make us want to go read Goosebumps, listen to Smashing Pumpkins and watch My So-Called Life re-runs. But it doesn’t tell us anything about how Internet Explorer has changed–or why we should be interested in the first place.

So yeah, cute commercial. But we’re still not going to use Bing or buy a Surface.

In this video exclusive, crisis communications expert and Solomon McCown & Company president Ashley McCown reviews her top 10 PR crises of 2012. Her top cases range from athletes on trial to deep-fried chickens for traditional marriage. Do we agree? Disagree?

Today in Innovative Holiday Campaigns News, we bring you an interesting charity project that Minneapolis firm Preston Kelly created to address the problem of holiday season waste.

Common sense tells us that cards, wrapping paper and other holiday accessories create significant amounts of trash—but related statistics are alarming:

• Households produce 25 percent more waste during the holiday season
• Americans buy more than 2 billion Christmas cards each year–and the paper required to meet our card and wrapping needs consumes more than 30 million trees.

The Preston Kelly solution? Give “naked” by finding ways to wrap your gifts with existing materials.

Examples include socks, bandanas, scarves, cereal boxes and trash bags–and the firm promised to donate $1 to Oxfam’s “America Unwrapped” for each photo submission and Twitter use of the hashtag #GiveNaked. (The group also earned a mention from our sister blog AgencySpy.)

We know that most Americans won’t do this–we may not even do it ourselves–but it is both a cool campaign and a great way to focus on the significant waste that occurs in our society, isn’t it?

NASA wants everyone to know that its staff doesn’t consist of a bunch of stuffy nerds with pocket protectors using joysticks to drive little dune buggies around the surface of Mars while arguing about the quality of CGI in Game of Thrones (which is somewhat disappointing, BTW). Not only do these guys have a sense of humor, they’re also pretty good at being bitchy when refuting tin foil hat/end-of-the-world types.  Who knew?

Now students at NASA’s Johnson Space Center have created a great bit of DIY PR with this “Gangnam Style” parody, designed to “inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center.”

We’re just as tired of “Gangnam” parodies as the next blogger, but we’ll let this one slide because it is awesome. Top that, Big Bang Theory.

In case you don’t remember that laughably sexist and undeniably offensive “Science: It’s A Girl Thing” video we told you about over the summer, here’s a quick refresher: Females account for 45 percent of all PhD’s earned in Europe, but only (roughly) a third of researchers–so the EU decided to create a three-year campaign targeted at girls aged 13 to 17 in order to make science seem “cool”, thereby encouraging them to consider careers in the field.

A progressive and legitimately respectable plan, right? Unfortunately, the video itself was anything but. Take a look at the original in all its pink, sparkly glory:

Now, a group of real, living, breathing female PhD candidates in neuropsychology at the University of Bristol (who don’t actually spend all day pouring colorful liquid form one beaker into another while male scientists gawk at them) decided to channel their outrage at having their serious career paths represented by lipstick and stillettos into a hilarious parody of the EU’s lambasted PSA.

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I know, I know — bad boys are sexy, and firemen make great calendars; it wasn’t just the heart-wrenching plot-lines and cutting humor that kept me religiously tuned in to Rescue Me for seven straight seasons. But when the bad boys’ commitment issues, living-on-the-edge lifestyle, and too-cool attitude get tiresome (and they always do), it might be time for a new sort of fantasy man — one you can take home to Mom and Dad.

Think husband material can’t be sexy? The men of the new 2013 Nice Jewish Guys Calendar are out to prove once and for all that niceness and hotness are not mutually exclusive.

“I think it’s about time for us”, creator Adam Cohen said of his project. “What happened was that I realized I was now carrying the torch for all the nice guys who get passed up in the bar, are still good to their moms, and are a good catch, but the women just don’t know it yet”. Having taken longer than I’d like to admit to notice my own nice guy right in front of my nose, I say: *Applause!*

Get ‘em while they’re hot (and still single!)–You can have your very own Nice Jewish Guys Calendar for under eight dollars (and just in time for Chanukah)! If you’re not quite ready to take the plunge, you can just watch the teaser video after the jump, but be warned — once you see the puppy-cuddling, your Magic Mike DVD may become utterly obsolete.

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Stella Artois produces mid-range “European” beer, but the brand also looks to sell a certain sort of effortless cool—remember 2011’s awkward Super Bowl commercial starring Adrien Brody as a chick-magnet crooner?

Now they’ve created one of the best PR/ad campaigns we’ve seen this holiday season. A brilliant Facebook app called “Holiday Carole” revolves around a video of a Mad Men-era lounge singer who shows up at your virtual front door (or that of a friend) to deliver a swingin’ holiday ditty—and it’s all personalized.

Not only does Ms. Carole check out the weather report for your hometown, hand her driver a note with your home address written in lipstick, and deliver a personalized message of your choice along with a fresh-poured glass of Stella; the app uses images drawn from Google Maps, Street View and other resources to place the actress and her entourage on your block. If you live in the city like we do, you’ll be amused to see your cross-street neighbor’s taped-up windows behind Carole and her band as she sings. (And, as Ad Age notes, her snowy drive would prove particularly fun if you happen to live in the Hawaiian Islands.)

It’s all so cool that we can overlook the lead actress’s not-even-remotely-convincing stab at lip syncing. The promo vid is nice, but you really should try it yourself.

Today in Things You Should Probably Remember News:

• Don’t bother bears, drug dealers, or wasps.
• Don’t tempt piranhas, serial killers, or rattle snakes.
• Don’t eat rancid things or take bad medicine.

The Melbourne Metro just issued an almost unbearably cute cartoon PSA starring bean-shaped characters who die in these and other adorable ways. Their point? Don’t mess with trains. The spot’s folksy song, written by McCann executive creative director John Mescall, is catchy enough to stick with you all day–and it’s free on Metro’s accompanying website, DumbWaysToDie.

Why did the Metro feel the need to make this precious, violent PSA? According to a writeup by local affiliate WTVR, Australia’s second-largest city does not suffer from a shortage of stupidity:

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