Benetton to Politicians: Kiss + Make Better

Benetton loves itself some shock value, a superpower generally used for good but often too provocative for comfort. Its latest went live in Paris this morning under the campaign name "Unhate."

Humor me ››

This is Your Date on Heineken

Okay. You know how perfume and car ads are predictable, banal and basically always objectively suck? Beer ads have this magic way of being the opposite. Think Stella, think Heineken -- hell, think Budweiser for every last Super Bowl as far back as you can remember. What is it about the beer sector that takes a possibility and just stretches it beyond imaginable elasticity...? I have cream dreams about doing beer. (The ads. Not, like ... bottles.)

I'm late to the game in discovering "The Date" (Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam -- of course!), and probably wouldn't ever have seen it if I wasn't doing Epica Awards judging this year, but it has this fancy-free Shangri-La magic that makes you want to go back to the '70s and dance on a table or something.

The making-of is jam-packed with the same playful irony for double the time:

Heineken Deploys an Army of Curvaceous Huggers...

...to Amsterdam bars, to alienate lone wine drinkers, to say thanks for bringing the brand to one million Facebook Likes.

What I like about Heineken is that its efforts aren't always explosive, but they contribute to local colour (see HoloTouch in the States, the classical music prank in Italy, Holland's walk-in fridge box). These are sweet consistent gestures that feel intimate with the place.