Here's the latest from W+K Portland for Nike/Dick's Sporting Goods. The spot is called The Line and is a co-production between Psyop and sister company Blacklist. The spot features celebrity football star Troy Polamalu and was created to pay homage to Troy Polamalu's “split personality” of being known to be a sweet gentlemen off the field and a feared warrior during the game. The live action was directed by Cisma (Blacklist) and Eben Mears (Psyop). The animation was directed and executed by Cisma and his team. View full credits and some hi-res stills here.

Aaron Ruell is an accomplished photographer and director. If you are not familiar with Aaron's work, you can view his current showreel here and see his photography here. Aaron is repped by Biscuit in the US, Circle in Canada and Independent in the UK. His most recent BK campaign is posted here.

This is a bit weird. Pine-Sol has created a site for people to vote on the next new scent for their cleaning product. Does anyone else think this is weird, as you can't smell the internet? I could see a direct mail piece with scratch n' sniff stickers being pretty cool, but a description of a scent, well it doesn't cut it for me. Thoughts? Scooped from Make the Logo Bigger.

In a homage to Washington Olivetto's first bra commercial, the Santa Clara (Sao Paulo) agency comes around with this viral to promote the IbegoAmerican market to further understand the new EL OJO Advertising Festival which takes place in Buenos Aires in November. Scooped from Bestadsontv.com (where there is a subtitled version here). Directed by 300ml, Hungry Man, Rio de Janeiro.

Turn up the volume and check out Chunky Pam's summer anthem DIRRRTY JERZY. This is a completely independent production shot over two days in in New Jersey. Director & Producer: Lena Beug; Writer: Geremy Jasper; Composers: Geremy Jasper & Chris Ruggiero; Artist: Chunky Pam; DP: Kip Bogdahn; Editor: Owen Plotkin, the now corporation. And for those of you who know what director Lena Beug looks like, keep your eyes open for her cameo.

Here are four new spots for Ask.com created by Fallon, London for UK television. I like the viral look to this campaign especially since I know that they were never intended to be virals, but always made to be broadcast on TV. Directed by Tim Godsall via Biscuit @ Independent, London. See full credits here.

This one doesn't start airing until this Saturday, but it's already making the rounds on the internet and starting some entertaining discussion (read the comments). Directed by Ryan Dunn for Vitamin Pictures.

I heard many people say that one of the best things about this year's Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards was Al Gore's speech. Thankfully, someone has posted it in three parts on Youtube. View it here, here and here. Scooped from AdFreak.

Lowe Roche Toronto has followed-up last year's successful plungeandplay.com game for Nestea with a new (and I think improved) version called Heat Fighter. It's an homage to the hit video game Street Fighter and features voice talent from Futurama. I prefer it to last year's for two reasons. One, you can customize your player, and two this year I was actually able to win a couple of rounds (I kicked Cole's ass). Fun. Start Plunging & Playing here. See full credits & some hi-res stills here.

She Says is an organization to mentor and encourage women to be involved in digital advertising (they say there are hardly any females in the creative departments of most digital as agencies). To promote their cause, they sent me this great video from Cannes, of male CDs attempting to dance in a very nice pair of gold stilettos.

The 2007 Emmy nominations were announced yesterday and the following commercials were nominated:
AMEX Animals. Agency: Ogilvy Mather. Pro Co: Hungry Man
Cingular Battle. Agency: BBDO NY. Pro Co: Park Pictures
Coke Happiness Factory. Agency: W+K. Pro Co: Psyop
GE Jar Agency: BBDO NY. Pro Co: Partizan
Truth Singing Cowboy. Agency: Arnold. Pro Co: MJZ
Travelers Snowball. Agency: Fallon. Pro Co: MJZ
Pepsi Pinball. BBDO NY. Pro Co: Partizan

Check out this video for Poison's version of Justin Timberlake's SexyBack. It comes to you from the brilliantly twisted minds of the Ugly Pictures Directors & cut by Mad River's Will Znidaric. Thanks to Nicole Sciarrillo from Speakeasy for sending.

Here's a great new site for Virgin Atlantic promoting Sydney, Australia. The cool thing about the site is that all the tips on where to go are given by Sydney locals. There is also a place for recent travelers to upload their "two cents". For another cool Virgin Atlantic site, check out Yutaka Loves London, launched last spring.

Lifelong Friendship Society and Draftfcb, New York have created this series of interactive spots for Motorola for the internet-based show called The Burg (about hipster neighbourhood Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York). Watch all nine hipster tips here and be sure to check out the Hip or Dangerous episode of The Burg (episodes started "airing" in June).

AdCritic and Creativity have a new site together which looks more like a blog or an online magazine.  The "news" section looks great -- bigger pictures. I like. check it out here.

I'm not sure how/why this gold-winning lion spot got passed my radar -- it was just brought to my attention today. The casting is wonderful and the storytelling is amazing (I even like the "tinkle track"). The Power of Wind was created by Nordpol+ Hamburg, Germany and directed by The Vikings via PARANOID PROJECTS, Paris and PARANOID US, Los Angeles.

Kudos to PPL Electric for bringing NYC-based artist-driven vfx boutique MassMarket on board to create this beautiful spot for their new paperless billing service. Agency is McCaffery Gottlieb Lane. MassMarket directors are Chris Staves & Marco Spier. See full credits here.

I don't think this commercial is particularly good, but the "easy on the nuts" line gets me every time. It started airing on Canadian TV about a month ago & I really thought it would be pulled & that line would be changed. But, to my amazement, it's still on air. Congrats to the agency (not sure who that is) for slipping this past the ad standards council. On a side note, apparently the fairy is a famous French-Canadian comedian.
Update July 30, 2007: about 2 weeks ago this commercial was revised and now the last line is "Ladies, one at a time!". Poo poo on you ad sensors.

I don't understand one word in the voice-over other than "MVP". But that doesn't matter, because I still love the animation in this spot for Nike China via W+K Shanghai and Umeric, Sydney. Scooped from IT'S ART Magazine.

Bos Toronto has just launched WTF? the new Froster (a mango-melon flavoured slushy drink) for Canadian retailer Mac’s Convenience. There are a bunch of weird and wonderful web films posted here on YouTube, directed by five different directors -- Christopher Hutsul, Graydon Sheppard, Aleysa Young, Steve Mottershead and Michael Graf (all from Toronto's UNTITLED). My favourites are Robot Love, Hate Crime, Unicorns, Hose Leg, Interpretive Dance and Mr. Tree (the latter is not on the main page, but is posted here & has girls in their underwear). Editorial by Bijou, Toronto. Previous flavours/campaign for Mac's were Bloody Zit & Whack.

Along with the web films above, here are the posters and point of purchase signage for Bos Toronto's Mac's Convenience WTF? campaign. I love the nun one. Someone told me it reminded them of a Black Flag album cover. Cool.

French directing collective Pleix have directed Blend and Assimilate the latest Bacardi ad for Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R. The production company was Blink with computer generated fluid simulation created by MPC. Scooped from Computerlove.

Here's the latest motion-graphics piece from MassMarket (a Psyop company) for GM. Directed by Paul Street (Belive Media), MassMarket completed the spot  using Flame, XSI for 3D and Silhouette for all roto work. Agency is Lowe Worldwide.

Christina Yu, the CD at Lowe Roche Toronto, sent me an email last week with the subject heading "I'm having a baby." The body of the email said, "a baby dinosaur that is." A great attention grabber. Lowe Roche has just completed their latest campaign for the Toronto Zoo. This time promoting an exhibit that features 16 life-sized, animatronic dinosaurs. See one of the three TV spots here & at babydino.ca you can select a type of dinosaur egg and perform various virtual functions, such as adjusting the temperature of the egg’s incubator, to help it hatch. The exhibit os on at the TO Zoo until October 8.

Director Brian Lee Hughes shows us how real men behave in this new campaign for Old Spice. Agency is W+K Amsterdam produced via Rokkit, London. Brian Lee Hughes is repped by OPC in Canada and the US. Want some more Hughes? Check out this campaign for the World of Comedy International Film Festival.

Tim Nudd at AdFreak has posted some interesting information on a new Diet Pepsi commercial. In this spot, the jingle is actually sung by DDB NY chief creative officer Lee Garfinkel. Read the full story here. He also brought my attention to this 90210-themed spot. As a huge fan of 90210 (yes I just admitted that), I can't believe I didn't post it before (the spot has been out since May).

Using LED glowsticks, flashlights, even fireworks, combined with time-lapse photography, light graffiti artists create a unique tagging that wraps around objects dimensionally, allowing them to tag in a way they’d never be able to with spraypaint. Scooped from Freddy at advertising/design goodness.

Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam and NYC-based Psyop give us a behind-the-scenes peek at the Happiness Factory. Real Coca-Cola employees were interviewed and their responses used by the animated factory workers for this film, which is running in Atlanta's World of Coca-Cola. View the complete spot credits here.