A collector’s anguish
A new spot for KFC Thailand—part of a promotion to mark Colonel Sanders’ birthday month with the launch of ‘Baby Sanders’ installations and collectible figurines.
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Boots at hand
Boots UK finds a surreal way to tell its customers that they’re never too far from medical advice.
Wishes are medicine
Make-A-Wish Canada has a new campaign that features self-recorded videos by sick kids, showing off their prescriptions with innocent charm. But what really elevates those videos is what is written on the prescriptions. To quote the people behind the campaign, “wishes are not just a nice-to-have; they’re an essential part of treatment”.
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Brad Pitt gets ‘directed’ to drink coffee
From Italy: espresso machine brand De’Longhi has released ‘Chapter 3’ of its intriguing commercials starring Brad Pitt and directed by Oscar-nominated/ winning directors. This one’s directed by Taika Waititi. This might explain why, unlike ‘Chapter 1’ (dir: Damien Chazelle) and ‘Chapter 2’ (dir: Bennett Miller), it’s mildly amusing (in a good way). It’s certainly less of a head-scratcher.
Not made by Gordon Ramsay
Burger King has roped in the celebrity chef to endorse its new burger but with a sly twist—he has to admit that he had no hand in creating the burger, and that he wishes that he had.
Loopy layoff insights
From Denmark: A&Til takes an unexpectedly amusing approach to promoting unemployment insurance.
Take Your Sweet Time
The urge to do financial transactions fast, makes us more vulnerable to scammers. To counter this, Bank of New Zealand is encouraging customers to slow down via a marvellously visualised new spot.
Optionally Better?
A new spot for CBOE Global—the company behind the Chicago Board Options Exchange—indulges in what some would consider to be duplicity.
Kung Fries
From Taiwan: McDonald’s has a new campaign that promotes kung-fu techniques to defend one’s packet of fries. At its heart is a spectacularly choreographed 3 minute action short that lists five moves that the protagonist uses to protect her fries. Instructional videos for the moves have been posted on social media, and every McDonald’s Taiwan meal is being served with a tutorial printed on the tray mats. Customers who share their own tales of defending their fries stand a chance to win a fry made of real gold.
When plants play on a band
A Manchester band, Bionic and the Wired, is in the news for a performance that featured a mushroom and two plants, each equipped with bionic arms, playing together.
Getting plants to individually play musical instruments has been at the heart of their efforts for some time now. In their words, “their art explores the intelligence and responsiveness of the natural world by transforming bio-electrical signals into artistic expressions”. The latest staging was, as they put it, “the largest ensemble of fungi and flora ever to perform live” using their bionic technology.
RIP Graham Greene
To quote from one tribute:
He used his body and voice to inhabit the characters and roles he was playing, almost disappearing within them to create someone (or something) wholly original and unseen before. Yet that classic Greene presence remained, with long hair cascading past his shoulders, and a grin so infatuating that it was hard to look away from.
Here’s some of what the man himself had to say about his early impressions of being an actor (after having worked as an audio technician):
I changed into the costume, and they put me in the shade in a nice chair. They brought me food and water. Yeah, not bad. Then somebody came and got me and walked me over to an X on the ground, and I stood there and said what they told me to say. Then they took me back to the chair in the shade and gave me more food, more water. And I thought, geez, I'm living the life of a dog. This is great. I don't have to carry anybody's amplifiers anymore. I don't have to do lights. I don't have to drive halfway across the country for nothing.
Trunk Trucker
The latest in Virgin Media’s ads of animals on the move is probably the most compelling in the series.
From the Crocodile to the Goat
Ahead of the US Open, Lacoste paid tribute to its brand ambassador Novak Djokovic by transforming its crocodile logo into a goat, in a limited-edition set of five wardrobe pieces named the GOAT collection. Apparently, Lacoste gifted pieces to long-time believers in Djokovic’s greatness who were tracked down via social media posts going back to 2010.
Man hunts down wife’s wedding rings in landfill
To quote from a news report out of Canada:
A Mission, B.C. man has recovered his wife’s lost wedding and anniversary rings, after an unusual and rather stinky search through 18 tonnes of compost at the local dump.
Steve Van Ysseldyk’s wife, Jeannine, noticed the rings were missing after washing her hands at a restaurant.
“We left the restaurant, I’m like, I can’t even wait for the cheque,” she said.
The couple retraced their steps and realized the rings must have gone missing the night before.
After an outing at the movies, Jeannine Van Ysseldyk had brought some popcorn home, but spilled it on the lawn.
Somehow, while picking it up and tossing it into the compost, the jewelry must have come off.
By the time the couple figured it out, their garbage and compost had already been collected.
“I said I’d go to the dump in the morning and ask them if I could go through the compost pile,” said her husband.
Few people thought he had any chance of finding the rings, including an employee at the Mission Sanitary Landfill.
“My brain was trying to figure out a way to tell him to go buy his wife new wedding rings,” said contractor Denny Webster.
But admiring Van Ysseldyk’s determination, Webster agreed to help.
He used an excavator to isolate smaller sections of the compost pile so Van Ysseldyk could begin his search.
“When he has something on his mind, he makes sure he does it. He follows through,” said his wife.
So, Van Ysseldyk began sifting through those piles and began to recognize his household waste, including a popcorn bag.
Astonishingly, within an hour, he found one ring, and then the other.
Get an air purifier, rather than a dog
That’s the strange message in a bonkers spot for air purifier brand Molekule that touts the virtues of its wares compared to pet canines.
Seniors’ care home set ablaze by 81 year old resident
To quote a news report out of Malaysia:
An 81-year-old resident at a nursing home in Kaki Bukit, Perlis, set multiple fires at the facility after staff refused to allow his 72-year-old female companion to accompany him on a hospital visit.
According to the nursing home’s management, the elderly man was scheduled to visit the central hospital to collect a hearing aid.
However, he insisted that his long-time female companion, who has lived at the facility with him since 2018, accompany him on the trip.
When staff denied the request due to the woman lacking proper documentation, the man declared, “If she doesn’t go, I won’t go either,” and abandoned the planned hospital visit.
CCTV footage revealed the man’s actions: He retrieved a container of petrol from the storage room, poured it on the kitchen storage cabinets and set them ablaze.
He then returned to his own bed area to start another fire before proceeding to the hall to set a third fire.
Spinal Tap’s ‘Relief Rider’
A new spot for pain relief brand Aspercreme serves as a delightful curtain raiser to the Spinal Tap sequel.
Bankers to the rescue
The latest in Texas-based Frost Bank’s ‘Unexpectedly True Stories’ series.
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Not a soft drink
From Scotland: Irn-Bru brings back its iconic tagline in a new spot anchored by a star-making performance by a Glasgow schoolboy with no prior acting experience.
Mishap Munching
From Mexico: a series of spots for Uber Eats that are inspired, we are told, by a belief in Mexican culture that food “has the power to improve any situation”.
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