One way to discourage cell phone use while driving.

NY Animal

Headline translation: “What now, dear parents?” The Teutonic tyke is flipping double mids to promote a recent special free education supplement of the German weekly Die Zeit (”The Time,” owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing). It is Germany’s largest weekly paper, and has a reputation for highbrow content. The ad, created in-house, was placed in the country’s dailies, plus on a few billboards nationwide. Well, I bet little hellacious Heidi here instigated some uncomfortable street family conversations.

How to sell low-fat yogurt in Brazil? Point out how big a target you are. And you can’t run away as fast, either.

From Very Short List:

We bet you’d be surprised to learn that the person designated to save the world from all its problems happens to be you. But thanks to the very clever and excellently executed interactive movie The Hero, you’ll see that that’s precisely the case.

All you have to do is upload a photo of yourself and the site will take care of the rest, as your image becomes seamlessly integrated into a convincing-looking film (we won’t spoil the surprise further). Swedish agency Draftfcb came up with this viral concept as a way of convincing a young and metropolitan audience to start paying a broadcast fee as part of the Swedish public-service system. And it’s been successful—there have been 2,500 new broadcasting fee subscribers through the Web site since the launch of the campaign, far surpassing the goal of 500. But while we can’t contribute, we can enjoy this terrific viral marketing for the fun that it is.

Try the Hero site here.

When the Audi commercial (see below) ran during the Superbowl, one of my sons voiced what I was thinking: it would irritate many of their potential customers.

Why? Because it accepted the “green” assumptions, even as it exaggerated them, as given.

A liberal blogger agrees.

The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police—people who may find those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion, who only fitfully meet them, who may be annoyed by sticklers and naggers, but who recognize that living more sustainably is in fact the moral thing to do. This basically describes every guy I know.

Poor fellow needs to expand his social circle — diversity, man, diversity!

Now go back through the ad. Notice that everyone who gets busted is a man. There are lots more urban and suburban professional males in Audi’s target market than there are teabaggers.

To scratch one layer deeper: what is Audi’s message to these guys who want to be good but find the effort anxious-making? Here’s a way to meet your green obligations and still have a bad-ass car! The Audi A3 is both green and desirable—indeed more desirable because it’s green. Buried deep in this ad, in other words, is a bright green message: prosperity, pleasure, and sustainability can be achieved together.

Dan Neil in the LA Times:

This may come as something of a shock, but I am a liberal progressive environmental do-gooder. I know. Just keep breathing. You’ll come around.

I am also a car guy. As such, I am precisely the sort of prospect Renault means to cultivate in its film “Drive the Change” (Publicis), a two-minute corporate manifesto that declares the company’s intention to radically reinvent personal mobility around electric-vehicle technology. The film debuted at the Frankfurt auto show in September, and various “Drive the Change” campaign works — multiplexed across TV, Web and social media formats — will circulate globally as Renault ramps up to sell four new electric models by 2011. Meanwhile, Renault’s partner, Nissan, is on track to launch the Leaf EV in the U.S. by the end of this year, with an eventual sales goal of 150,000 annually.

Wow. Here in the land of the 900-cfm carburetor and 7-yard-long pickup? As a tree-hugging gear head, I should be delighted. Electric vehicles are fast, clean — even if you account for the electricity from coal-fired power plants, the so-called long tailpipe — and they represent the best means to efficiently convert multiple renewable energy pathways (wind, solar, biomass, hydro) to transportation.

So why do I want to kick Renault in the shin?

Because the “Drive the Change” campaign epitomizes, to the point of self-parody, all the worst characterizations the Reactionary Right holds dear about the Loony Left (of which I am, again, a card-carrying member): highhanded, holier-than-thou, gratingly preachy, salvationist, tone-deaf, collectivist. And in several imputations in this film, flat-out wrong.

I honor Renault/Nissan’s commitment to the environment, but the buttonholing sanctimony only makes me want to set an oil derrick on fire.

The old days of advertising. If Viagra had been around, no doubt there would have been a tie-in.

Alfa Romeo promotes its new car with helium.

From Animal New York:

Stop laughing—there’s nothing at all funny about cosmetics animal testing! But, lucky for us, that didn’t stop Milan ad agency Lowe Pirelli Fronzoni from dreaming up this insanely stupid ad for the Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali (kinda Italy’s PETA).

I wonder if this breathy fragrance smells better than Germany’s dead-mouse imbued Torture? I hope so, because the woman’s bathing herself in it (Italian mongrels are gonna be pawing her all night). Effective ad? I don’t think humor works with this topic. Or at least, not this goofy-ass humor