Mullet Shoe
From Australia: a limited edition offering from sports shoe brand, Volley, the profits from which go to a mental health charity.
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‘A True King Knows Who Comes First’
That’s the caption on a provocative poster spotted across Amsterdam on King’s Day- the national holiday that celebrates the birthday of the monarch. To quote the artist and creator behind the campaign:
King’s Day is the Dutch celebration for King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. It’s also a big day for drinking, flirting and …the unbridled hope of getting laid. But with inequalities like the orgasm gap, aren’t our Queens just getting royally screwed? I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.
A Designer Bag for your Chicken Wrap
KFC UK has a new offering- the KFC Wrapuette Handbag. Made with Italian leather and handcrafted by Savile Row artisans, it is being pitched as “the perfect (and only) way to carry your Twister Wrap.”
To further quote from the product page:
The piece is traditionally luxurious and highly innovative. The exclusive Wrapuette Handbag is dedicated to the seamless transportation of your KFC Twister Wrap. With inspiration taken from the iconic shape of the Y2K Baguette and a classic regal red finish, this bag oozes style and sophistication, far beyond the reaches of any designer.
Available for £198, join the waitlist to snap up the most exclusive bag on the market.
Ifs and Butts
From the ‘Get your butt off our streets’ campaign from Clean Up Britain, being piloted in Bristol:
Link to campaign video, fronted by comedian Marcus Brigstocke
It Takes #2
Bidet brand Tushy, it seems, is planning a dating show. To anyone familiar with the brand’s previous campaigns, it should come as no surprise to know that this will take place with participants seated on crappers and- if the campaign video is to be believed- while relieving themselves.
In the words of the company:
TUSHY is helping people find love in a hopeless place: the bathroom. If they can get through a first date while taking a dump, they can make ANYTHING work!
And this is what was tweeted to the streaming services:
@netflix You guys will put anything on tv, so why not us?
@Hulu This is your chance to step out of Netflix’s shadow, and lead the pack. Pick up It Takes #2, and you’ll be our #1
@AppleTV You guys just won an Oscar, and with this show you could win an Emmy. What do you say?
@peacockTV We’ll be honest, we have no idea what’s on your platform. Put our show on it. It’ll make a splash!
@Roku Honestly, you guys should be the ones asking us for this.
@paramountplus Drag Race All Stars ended MONTHS ago. You gotta give the people a new reason to subscribe.
@AmazonStudios We didn't forget about you. Okay, maybe we did a little, but forget about that. Put us on Jeff's tv!
Hi-vis Designerwear for Dogs
Another campaign from Down Under, centered on pet fashion.
New Zealand-based Southern Cross group is offering its pet insurance customers a blend of safety and style in the chance to win an exclusive handmade, hi-vis designer garment for their dogs.
‘Drool-worthy fashion line’ for pets
That’s how Petbarn Australia is describing its newest range, dubbed the Autumn/Winter 22 collection, and which includes pullovers, pyjamas, raincoats, bandanas, and a trapper hat. To quote a spokesperson for the company:
Our range of apparel is as well-made and stylish as any fashion brand. Makes sense that we treat it like one.
In line with that, the company has launched a campaign, created in collaboration with a fashion photographer.
‘Crisp Sandwich Sommelier’
That’s a new role announced by Subway in its UK culinary team, for which they have appointed a Michelin-trained chef, also dubbed as ‘Potato Queen’ on Tik-Tok. The role has been created in partnership with crisp/ chip brand, Walkers, “to advise the British public on the art of creating the perfect crisp sandwich, after a scientific study revealed the top crisp and sandwich flavour pairings.”
Password Pain
A new spot for payment solution GoCart, perfectly- and humorously- captures the trauma of verifying your credentials online.
0% Chicken, 100% Confusing
Burger King’s follow-up to its acclaimed ‘Confusing Times’ campaign from last year features, as before, great copy and marvellous voice work.
Radio spot 1: Unsustainable Children
Radio spot 2: Mom but not his Mom
Radio spot 3: Upgrade or Downgrade
There is also a series of splendid print ads:
Guns That Work
A YouTube channel that hosts ‘gun review’ videos except that they carry a twist that you won’t see coming.
‘Asset Protection’ for Men
From Australia: double entendres abound in a new campaign for Bonds Men’s Total Package underwear.
Spot 1: A portfolio of your assets
Spot 2: A wine rack for your pinot
McDelivery Detector
A great gadget for people who have bad luck in the kitchen just a little more often than others.
That’s how a spokesperson for McDonald's Netherlands describes this limited-edition gadget that apparently detects the smell of burnt food and then helps place an order with the nearest McDonald's restaurant. We’re told it isn’t a smoke detector yet it fits like one, on the ceiling. It is built in the shape of a Big Mac and when it goes off, it plays the McDonald’s tune.
Beer-saving Moustache
For drinkers who moan the loss of beer left behind on facial hair, Paraguay’s leading brewer, Pilsen, has tied up with barber shops across the country to offer a trim that prevents that from happening.
Receipt for ‘invisible art’ sells for $1.2m
Excerpts from a report in The Guardian:
How much would you pay for nothing?
For one private European art collector, it is $1.2m. That’s the amount paid at a recent Sotheby’s auction in Paris for a receipt written by the French artist Yves Klein to prove the ownership of one of his “invisible art” pieces – now being billed by collectors as a precursor to NFTs.
Klein, a key figure in the French new realism movement founded in the 1960s, was a pioneer in performance art. In 1958, he launched The Void, an exhibition in which he placed a cabinet in an empty room. It was a success, with thousands of visitors showing up to the mostly vacant Parisian gallery.
Soon after, Klein decided to offer collectors the opportunity to buy invisible “zones” in exchange for gold bullion. Each purchase of one of Klein’s Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility came with a receipt, which he urged buyers to burn.
One of the collectors, Jacques Kugel, refused to burn his receipt. It has become a valued piece of art in its own right, displayed at various cultural institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Hayward Gallery in London.
Loïc Malle, a former gallery owner, eventually bought the receipt and auctioned it off along with other items from his private collection.
No one upstages Switzerland
Switzerland Tourism’s follow-up to last year’s spot with Roger Federer and Robert De Niro features Anne Hathaway alongside the tennis star, and is more quirky and amusing.
‘Don’t F**k the Planet’
Eco-messaging doesn’t get more direct than this. In this instance, the F word has a bit of a literal connotation as well, coming from popular adult movie star, Cherie DeVille, who fronts an audacious new spot for Liquid Death.
‘Stiff Questioning’ over Viagara Purchase
That’s pretty much how The Guardian has headlined its report on the revelation that Brazil’s armed forces had bought thousands of impotence pills.
Also, according to the report:
Rio congressman Marcelo Freixo said he would ask the public prosecutor to investigate the erectile “outrage”.
Ciro Gomes, a centre-left politician who hopes to challenge Bolsonaro in October’s presidential election, said that while the armed forces deserved respect, their acquisition departments seemed bent on demoralizing the military.
“Unless they’re able to prove they’re developing some kind of secret weapon – capable of revolutionizing the international arms industry – it’ll be tough to justify the purchase of 35,000 units of a erectile dysfunction drug,” Gomes opined.
Political observers called the military’s “Viagra binge” an embarrassment to a populist president who frequently boasts about his supposed virility, referring to himself as “imbrochável”. The word roughly translates into English as “unfloppable” or “flaccid-proof”.
The navy and air force – which between them had reportedly bought more than 30,000 pills – offered an innocent explanation: the drug was supposedly being used to treat pulmonary hypertension.
Croc Your World
Almost 1 in 2 couples with life insurance joke about taking each other out for the payout. That was the insight driving the darkly humorous debut campaign of insurance startup Ladder, last year. It has just released another spot in that campaign.
Bald Stars
A brilliantly-conceived new spot for Continental Tyres starts off seeming to leverage the company’s sponsorship of Australia’s premier footy league, with a dash of tongue-in-cheek humour. But then it slips in a twist and transforms into an unexpected PSA.
‘The Flavor of Pixels’
That’s how Coca-Cola is describing its new limited-edition offering, ‘Zero Sugar Byte’. According to a company spokesperson:
We wanted to create an innovative taste inspired by the playfulness of pixels, rooted in the experiences that gaming makes possible.
So what does it actually taste like?
One reviewer who felt that it reminded him of cough syrup, had this to say:
There’s something vaguely fruity about Coke Byte. Not in the lemon-lime Gatorade way, where it at least evokes the taste of something natural, but more like how Axe Anarchy has a “dark pomegranate” scent, or how the red NyQuil is technically berry flavored.
This is what the company claims:
The drink’s bright, upfront taste is reminiscent of powering up a game, and its refreshing finish makes for a perfect gaming companion.
Breakup-friendly Furniture
From Argentina: a range of modular furniture that can be elegantly and gracefully split… when you decide to split. Excerpts from a report:
The pandemic has accelerated already existing changes in how we are living – as well as who with, and for how long. Many countries have seen huge rises in divorce rates since 2020, including an incredible 35% increase in Argentina. Meanwhile, growing housing costs are forcing young people to share homes, unable to afford their own place. As they move out, many of these partners and friends need to divide their belongings – which often causes even more conflict.
To make this separation easier for young people, FC Home & Deco, a Fontenla company, and Wunderman Thompson Lima opted for a design solution adapted not to spaces, but to people. ‘The Friendly Break Up Collection’ is a line of furniture that breaks apart when people break-up.
The furniture in the collection is named after celebrity breakups, including the BradIston Sofa, GarnAfleck rug, DemiLlis coffee table, CruisMan bookcase, KanyDashian table, and the LuisCarey painting, to name a few.
Every item is the product of ingenious modular design that means it can be used either as one large or as two smaller units – making the range highly flexible, whether or not you are moving out. A whole room can be instantly redesigned: by splitting the BradIston couch into a pair of elegant armchairs, or dividing the KanyDashian table to instantly set up two separate workspaces. Considerable effort from an interdisciplinary team of architects, industrial designers, decorators and interior designers was needed to ensure each piece has functionality and personality, both together and apart. For people splitting up or moving out, the hope is to give everyone an equal share, so that each can keep their favourite part: “You like the left? Good, I like the right.”
Sensuously Classic
Retirement living is imagined as an opulent indulgence in this outstanding spot for Magnum ice-cream.
Teen Gorilla’s Cellphone Problem
Excerpts from a report out of Chicago:
Amare, a gorilla at Lincoln Park Zoo, didn’t seem to notice last week when another teenage gorilla rushed him in a show of aggression that’s common among young males seeking to figure out who’s boss.
The 415-pound gorilla was glued to a cellphone.
Not his own, of course. But the smartphone of a visitor who’d been showing Amare pictures and videos through a glass partition.
“It seemed to almost surprise Amare because his attention was very much distracted,” said Stephen Ross, director of the zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.
But Amare’s cellphone distractions have grown more frequent in recent months.
“What we’re keeping an eye on here is that he doesn’t end up watching screens that the visitors are presenting him for hours on end. It’s more of a quantity issue than a quality issue,” Ross said.
The images and videos Amare watches span whatever might be on someone’s phone: selfies, family, pets, or freshly shot footage of Amare himself.
Flight Shame
In an amusing spot, Lumo pitches its electric train service as a way to reduce carbon footprint, while taking a dig at the more conventional ways to do so.
When Commentators Can’t Stop Laughing
An unfortunate incident for a player in the European Cricket Series triggered close to 2 minutes of non-stop laughing by the commentators.
‘The best f*king thing you’ll ever put in your mouth’
That’s from the lyrics of the song at the heart of this commercial for ‘hemp-infused’ sparkling water brand, Mad Tasty.
‘Swimming Rainbow Turd that Smells Good Enough to Eat’
That’s how a SoraNews24 report is describing a bath bomb shaped as a poop emoji. To quote from that report:
Japan’s love affair with human excrement has become something of a cultural icon in recent years, with the poop emoji personifying the cute side of the turd world and popping up on all sorts of weird places like textbooks, cake moulds and ice cream.
Now, the poop emoji is here to take over your bathtub, with something that’s confusingly called the Rainbomb Mini Poop Chocolate.
According to its makers, this bath bomb is definitely made for bathing, not eating, and though it looks like a turd, thankfully it doesn’t smell like it — it’s imbued with the sweet scent of chocolate instead.
While chocolate smells good, its brown colour isn’t the best look for a bath made with poo, so this sweet turd emits three colours of the rainbow.
It’s not every day you get to take a bath with a swimming rainbow turd that smells good enough to eat. If you’d like to enjoy the experience, the Rainbomb Mini Poop Chocolate can be purchased at the Dreams Online Shop, and retail chains like Plaza, Loft and Don Quijote.