This morning, the fine folks at Unilever, makers of the Klondike Bar, announced that the tried and true advertising campaign that all of us are more than familiar with, "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?," has made its way back on to television. Apparently the ads have been on both network and cable channels since May, but I haven't caught any just yet.

What's most interesting to me is that for some reason, I have these ads slightly mixed-up, at least in my head, with those for the York Peppermint Pattie, like the one where the guy thinks he's skiing on the coffee table, but is really just kind of looking silly. But what's most of all in question for me right now is the mention of "blogs" in the first sentence of this particular press release, which says that "The iconical question is a great ice breaker at parties and is explored on numerous blogs and Web sites." Oh, is it now? Sure, there's 1,638 posts about it in Technorati right now, but there are 766 posts that ask "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?," too. Seems a little egregious to me, but a good search engine optimization tactic.

Since we're all about cellphone marketing at AdJab here today, I figured I'd continue the trend. A New York Times story that the Arizona Republic picked up today is talking about the "extra attention" that the Hispanic population is getting when it comes to marketing efforts here in the U.S. What is interesting is whether or not the companies start getting creative with various international offerings through these campaigns, similar to how calling card sellers have done, with tons of options to Europe, South American, and Asia, seemingly targeted at the persons living in whatever ethnic origin is the largest group in a particular neighborhood.

Picture this: a man is sitting in his living room, housecoat, boxer shorts, and his laptop. He is online doing some shopping, when he receives a phone call from his bank, telling him that it has flagged a few of his purchases as being odd. What kind of purchases, you ask? Well, ones taking place for almost $2,000 of sporting goods in Arkansas, that's what.

That's the beginning of the premise for a new interactive "film" for Symantec, entitled "Phished!," which presumably shows us the adventures of what can happen to you should you accidentally give your credit card details to some unsightly fellows or fellowettes on the internet. Symantec is calling Phished! a "web action movie series," and is hoping to drive education about the subject of internet security in a way that is not only fun but interesting enough to keep people coming back over and over again. You can see the whole thing over at Safetytown.com.

Props to the folks at the Night Agency, including Scott Cohn, creative director, who wrote and directed the series, Dan Lubell, Sr. Producer, who produced and scored, Tim Nolan, online creative director, and Ron Ceballos, interactive art director. I'm a big fan of the whole "choose your own adventure" (am I going to get C&D'd for that?) kind of concept when it comes to online video, and with everyone from Rocketboom to now these folks putting it together, it only spells more fun for us all going forward.

Earlier today, Dave Zatz tipped us off to something we'd heard about a ways back (as had most in the field), that the fine folks at TiVo were coming up with a nifty way to add commercials (yes, commercials) to our TiVo menus. That's right, you can now actually watch commercials through your Now Playing list, as your leisure. Well, I've got say that I can't really complain about opt-in advertising and commercials, frankly. As much as people complain about not watching ads (hell, I write for this blog and skip ads myself, but not all of them), there are plenty of people still paying attention to marketing. However, that marketing has gotten kind of like the movie scene - people aren't paying money (or spending time, as it were) to see things that suck or aren't of interest to them. Why NOT do this, if you're TiVo? If it isn't a problem, or is "unobtrusive," as Zatz suggests, then it'll be a decent concept and will have legs. But it isn't going to make the 30-second spot any more viable. My advice? Take stuff that you'd have put online as a viral and throw it to TiVos.

Additionally, Engadget's Marc Perton had some fun with this announcement, suggesting keeping ads for that random time when you need to make some of your favorite foods.

It's all about the marketing, right? Well, the fine folks at Victoria's Secret must have figured out that they were missing out on the revenues they could have been grabbing from their customers who like going to the gym or just wearing sports bras instead of all those other nifty products they develop, because the brand is launching the Sexy Sport line later this month, sez USA Today's Theresa Howard. (woo hoo, run on sentence of the week!) I'm not always a fan of brand extensions, because most of them aren't that logical, but this one has to be. I don't want to estimate what percentage of the market that VS has in bra sales, but it's probably a decent chunk. To that end, if you've got the women in your stores, there's no reason you can't keep them coming back to your stores for this purpose as well, instead of a department or sporting goods shop.

Additionally, am I the only one that finds the combination of "technology" and "bra" amusing when the two are used in such a serious nature. I'm not poking fun, because it's all for real, but it just seems curious to me. Okay, it's Friday, and sunny out, and I just reverted to high school. Back to business! Head on over to VS on May 15 for your Sexy Sport bras, ladies! For the rest of you guys, head over here and gawk.

Alright, so some of you will say that this is splitting hairs, and I can't blame you. But for the hockey fans (or just sports fans) out there who have a favorite team, you can probably relate to this. My pal David Singer posted last night about an ad he snagged from friend. The spot, for Best Buy, features two Montreal Canadiens fans absolutely taunting - with the help of the Best Buy staffer - a Toronto Make Belief err, Maple Leafs fan, whose team didn't make the playoffs this season. Of course, this is now exacerbated by the fact that the Canadiens are now up 2-0 in the series against the Carolina Hurricanes, but isn't it a little much?

Yeah, yeah, I'm being overly sensitive, but maybe it's just that the customer service guy is in on it that is making me just a bit touchy.

The Wall Street Journal's Brooks Barnes writes about Toyota's move into the pseudo-branded entertainment world with a "spinoff series" of FOX's Prison Break which will show up on Sprint handsets. Not coincidentally, this is happening at the same time as the carmaker is blasting off the car's launch with a slew of pretty slick animated advertisements for its new Yaris ride during the full episodes of Prison Break. Even better than just some nifty spots is the fact that they are all running in high definition, something that FOX has most certainly been big on IMHO since the whole HD ad thing began catching on.

Lots more on the Yaris over here at Autoblog.

• Claire Atkinson writes that NBC's Apprentice is getting a bit played out, and that people are wondering - again - whether or not it will continue going forward. After hearing The Donald on the "Imus in the Morning" show a few weeks back talk about how the rest of the show is boring, and that he wished they just went straight to the boardroom, I can't help but agree.
• Ads are coming to iTunes, ads are coming to iTunes, nah nah, nahnahnah. Shocked? You shouldn't be.
• If you're a men's clothing firm, and you're a private entity, and you need to create something new and interesting, what do you do? Hire Crispin Porter Bogusky, of course. Oh, and then you give them a stake in your firm, too. Talk about pressure.
  
• Did you miss it? Hopefully not. At least one web advertising exec thinks that the 5-second ad is the wave of the future. Where's Joe Jaffe when you need him?

• Looks like Martha Stewart's friends at SearsK, err, Sears Holdings, might not be happy with her new deal to add some of her Living accessories to Federated's Macy's stores. Ira Teinowitz sums it up nicely about how Kmart "stuck with Ms. Stewart through thick and thin," and how that might factor into any decisions by the brand to leave her curbside.

• Do search engines creep you out when thinking about how they affect your business? If so, you might be an executive at a multibillion dollar firm.
  
• Sure, guys read magazines. But with game creep making its play into the downtime for most men, reaching (if not exceeding) that of television, where does one of Maxim's former editors think is the best place to reach those dudes? Well, games, of course.

For those of you with a sports jones, you might be familiar with the National Hockey League's "My NHL" advertisements that have been rolling along since the league came back from a labor dispute. It's not without saying that the spots could use a bit of help. Thankfully, that's where the whole world of consumer generated content comes into play. Just as Joe Jaffe had his way a year ago with Tiger Woods' putt at The Masters (and rehashed it this year), my pal David Singer from The Ice Block and hockeyfights.com fame has created a nifty spot that significantly slams anything that the NHL has put together with its own big (read: big budget) self.

Sure, it's nice that the Average Joe can now afford the software and hardward to create fantastic video production, but why is it that in this time of consistently big budget agency bills and consistently shrinking budgets from companies that one person can throw something together that could run on the big screen (sorry, big screen TV person speaking) should it have been run past the proper people? Are all the good ideas taken? Are agencies looking at advertising like they have to come up with too many new random ideas and not just go with. what. works? Howabout we just forget about recreating the wheel and use what we have at our disposal. No need to string together a few scrums, some shots half a second at a time, and way too many graphics. It's sports - show some sports, show what makes the fans keep coming back, and show why hockey, for many people, is the best live sport that you can see. But hey, you decide.

Also for your viewing pleasure, these are the two best ads that the League has put together that I've seen - the rest are "generic" spots that aren't really showing anyone in particular.

Humor is always a good thing. Especially when you're selling dinners of the frozen variety. Check out this new spot for Knorr's frozen entrees, which features a less than expected happening to make a point. Of course, it's not so much what they're saying (and you're not hearing) as what they're not saying but your mind thinks might be being said. Or, perhaps I just have a sick mind.

So what's it gonna be, partner frozen effing dinner, or effing ****** dinner. You make the call. Check out the spot, from DDB Canada and director Kevan Bean here [4.9mb MPG]. Full credits after the jump.

A little over a week ago, our own Chris Thilk wrote about something that's been floating around the blogosphere for a few weeks now, the whole "Make Your Own Tahoe Commercial" campaign that is nothing if not amusing. From my point of view, I'm giving the folks at Chevrolet a lot of credit for not immediately removing some of the ...ahem... not so great for GM content, which they could have easily done, only to face the wrath of many a blogger who didn't approve. But of course, our pals over at sister site (brother site?) Autoblog have been all up in this story, pointing out that even ABC's "Nightline" has picked up on the whole story, but didn't appear to have given some props to the bloggerati who have been all over this story.

[Props to Joel for the heads up!]

Last year about this time, we had some fun with Marmite, that substance that folks in the UK (and presumably elsewhere) enjoy spreading on bread for sandwich purposes, and probably other unsightly things. Looks like it's about time for some more snickering, though less scariness this time around. Want to have some fun with ad analysis? Well, here's the quick and dirty. Make your product - or product improvement - solve a problem, and you're golden. In this case, we find that getting that pesky Marmite whateveritis out of the jar when you're incapacitated with only one functioning arm (sorry, thumbless animals, no luck here for you just yet) just ain't going to happen, unless shattering the bottle and using the remnants is your kinda thing. So what do we do when one hand is all you've got? A squeezable container, of course. You can thank DDB London, Reginald Pike and director Mark Gilbert for this one. Full credits after the jump.

Fifteen second spots have a double challenge - they're tasked with taking half the time of the traditional 30-second spot and creating just as much of a reaction. Keep in mind that having less time for someone to happen to catch your spot, or that for folks with DVRs, it's even more likely to be missed when they're hitting that fast forward button. Which is, of course, why you've got to be super creative when putting these spots on, not just chopping up content for 30-second varieties and spending less money on the ad buy.

Conover Tuttle Pace put together two great ads, at least in my eyes, for the World Men's Curling Championship, taking place this weekend in Lowell, Mass. The :15s, produced by Picture Park and edited by George Cox of Georgecogs Industries, feature one woman in her morning preparation asking her spouse "where her curlers are," presumably about her hair curlers. Having known the punchline, more or less, this could have been less than humorous, but it didn't disappoint. Just imagine how it would have been were you to not have a clue what the ad was about when watching it.

Clearly, there's something in the water that I haven't come across yet. The Perlorian Brothers and the fine folks at our pals Reginald Pike have clearly found it, and I don't know what to say other than you have to see it to believe it. You can see where the headline shown above came from in this spot, "Sofa," which is strangely self-explanatory in ways that I am wary of even discussing in public.

These spots follow one of those tactics that I'm generally fully behind. Come up with a concept, irrelevant of if it loops in the product or service you're attempting to sell, create an ad or four, and then stick the branding on it. Not forcing it, for some reason, can work if the product / service isn't too touchy-feely. Amusingly, it manages to work this time around, although I can see it leaving quite a few people staring at the screen, not having a clue what just happened to them. That's okay, they weren't targeted by the spot in the first place, most likely.

[Thanks to steffi for the tip]