Dad looks down at his little girl, asking if she's excited for her first day. She says yes, but that little worry-line around her eyebrows says she's really really scared. This is why dad stalks the schoolbus with his Subaru, because he's overprotective.

She's fine, dad, relax.

A little more bizarre than the soap shower that started this bar soap campaign, in this ad we find the soap inside a basketball that is a watermelon that hold the soap. After we've showered.

Old spice is back with a many soap. Not a soap on a rope (but wouldn't that have been perfectly hipster retro now), just a soap. A soap that is the manly way to wash and will keep you fresh all day. Because it's like you shower all day. No more boring old soap for you, no sir. You use the stalker soap!

"Before they sat down, one more time, just for themselves..." This BOA commercial tells the story of a family, and all the ups and downs they have gone through, backwards in time through family portraits. It's a very interesting way of peeking into a large families life, and perfectly art directed fashion era references will push recognition buttons in nearly everyone. The small moments of acting a much larger story are great too, like the mothers glare after Brad's "brief brush with the law".

"We know we're not the center of your life" says Bank Of America, who probably lent this family the money to buy the house with the fireplace we see in every photo....."But we'll do ur best to help you connect to what is."

Facebook home means that your home screen is always showing you the latest of your friends inane facebook posts, and that you can FB from any app on your phone, receive chats while looking at a map and so on. What this means is, it's like having a random drag queen cabaret appear on an airplane. Your beach-lounging pals are taking up the overhead compartment. Your nephew is covered with chocolate cake in the aisle and there's cats everywhere. No, not like in "Great, now there's going to be cats everywhere"., just as in the old THIS bring X to LIFE execution.

I'm not saying it's predictable, I really like the music chosen for example, just that's it's not totally rad either.

The backseat. Where most of us sat for the first time. Cut to grandma and have the audience's minds fill in "and for the last time". The place we carry our most precious cargo. Our best friends. And so on. Oh dear, it's a manifesto of sorts, but for back seats.

That said, it looks like a really good back seat.

This is an ad for "PARANOIA Magazine", a publication that really DOES EXIST and is worth your time (if you enjoy thought-provoking articles).

Facebook knows that you take out your phone every chance you get because they spy on you, so they designed a phone with Facebook Home always on, so that you can be always on and they can follow you around with more ads. Text from any app and advertisers know where you are all the time. See what your friends are up to on the home screen at all times including that annoying pal who keeps being posting inspirational quotes. Ignore the stars, the sky, the actual world around you as all your virtual pals will know you every move all the time.

So there's this man and a pirate at a crosswalk. What? Yes, I said a pirate. A man and a pirate at a crosswalk. It's not even a very nice pirate it's kind of a crazy hobo pirate but not in the Captain Jack style of pirate which really is just Johnny Depp does his impression of Keith Richards, but I digress. Man and a pirate... YES HE TOOK HIS PATCH. Look, I don't know about you but when ads are this weird it's best just t let them do their thing. Hush now child, and watch that weird again.

Oh wait. He's looking at her. He's going to ... OH DEAR LORD STOP THAT (hides behind hands) With that slurpy sound, this is just all kinds of awkward. I will remember there's free gum to be had, because I will never forget this.

"I COULD SMOKE LIKE TWENTY CIGARETTES RIGHT NOW!" "We've all been there...."

Props to the actor for a delivery that makes the weird here a little extra weird. Also, I hope you went out dressed like that, dude.

Beyoncé is working on a new dance routine.. and suddenly sees her past selves in the mirrors. Then she starts dancing with herself (not in the dirty way, get your minds out of the gutter boys!) and voila, new routine. She leaves us with the thought "Celebrate your past, live for now". This sells Beyoncé so well, I'll take two please. Yes, the one with the robot hand and the leather hotpants gal. What, I'm supposed to buy a drink? Sheesh.

What would you do to get there if you won a ticket to the UEFA Champions League final? This smartly dressed drummer hops a boat, a waterfall, a car, dribbles past a couple of stern looking men in customs and meets an equally soccer crazy billionaire (I assume) on the flight to LOndon from Brazil. Like the entrance, it's all quite over the top, and somewhat entertaining. Mad about football, aren't we all.

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“We’re delighted to launch the ‘Road to The Final’ television commercial, celebrating the resourceful and quick-witted men of the world who will stop at nothing from experiencing the UEFA Champions League Final,” said Colin Westcott-Pitt, Vice President, Heineken. “We look forward to watching the Final with a cold Heineken and our consumers at the epic viewing party.”

In the latest of an ongoing collaboration with software giant Adobe, Tool Director Tom Routson finds marketing solutions in the most unlikely places.

In the latest of an ongoing collaboration with software giant Adobe, Tool Director Tom Routson finds marketing solutions in the most unlikely places.

When Director Harmony Korine needed the perfect opening for his latest feature-length masterpiece, Spring Breakers, he turned to his friends and collaborators at LA-based creative studio Gentleman Scholar. The famously exacting American auteur entrusted the Gentleman Scholar team with the entire concept and design process. The result is a gorgeous testament to hallucinatory visual excess – a title sequence that stands toe-to-toe with the film’s glittering feminine allure.

Remember make it with a fireman last year? The one with the French speaking kitten? Oui, that one. Here's the follow up, with beach setting and puppies and suggestive innuendo making it even more Brawny ca 2003, Old Spice 2010 and OH HEY The Zesty Guy right now! More on that in another post.

These posters are meant to act as teasers. Eventually these inspirational they will be replaced with headline executions encouraging people to “Believe in Something Bigger” with Powerball. So hang on a second, a women’s suffrage march, you know the ladies who Were imprisoned and foce-fed when they fought for their rights, the fall of the Berlin Wall - chipped away by thousands of people fleeing the east, and the first man to walk on the moon after years of brutal training.... Then there's Bethany Hamilton, the teenage girl who lost her arm in a shark attack but kept surfing, and Robbie Knievel’s infamous jump over the Grand Canyon. These things have what in common? "Believe"

Giant billboards with the single word “Believe” have appeared all over California leading up to the launch, and here it is, the powerball snowfall. Believe in something bigger. A god? The fall of the Berlin Wall? The power of women demonstrating for the right to vote? Or you know, just a lot of white balls falling from the sky like slow-mo snow when a choir sings their version of "California Dreaming". See, I don't have a problem with this spot*, it's full of beautyshots, isn't all Sony Bravia, and ends with the one lucky guy catching the red ball in the end. In short, it's pretty and builds a lottery up to being awesome, but a step away from the usual humor strategy.

Vancouver-based The Embassy has created VFX for every Iron Man film in the franchise. They now bring their visual effects talents, and their experience in the Iron Man films, to the small screen for Verizon's latest commercial via McCann New York and directed by O Positive's Jim Jenkins.

For the first Iron Man film, The Embassy was given the exciting opportunity to build the CG Iron Man suit from scratch. This project was their first foray into film and although the project was a challenge, they very proud to be given the opportunity to create the VFX for an entire Iron Man suit sequence. Since then, they've worked on the suits on every follow-up film.