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:

Old Spice Mano a Mano: The Concession Nobody Actually Should've Received

I think this was done because people freaked out at the (ludicrous!) idea of Fabio replacing Isaiah Mustafa as Old Spice guy, so kudos to W+K for the lightning-fast responsiveness it's demonstrated throughout this campaign. It's what's made it a living part of the culture.

But this still sort of hurts me to watch. It's kind of like, "Okay, here's what you want on a silver platter, and while we're at it let's make fun of Fabio's acting skillz and general incoherence."

Never mind the piles of Harlequin novels he punted with just a swish of his hair and a ripped-open vest. Wasn't he great at selling butter? I still want butter when I watch this guy. Credit where it's due, right...? Come on, guys, you're gonna ruin Isaiah for me.*

Humor me ››

Heineken Can Make an Entrance.

Now, if only it could make a beer!

This watchable piece with the just-plain-fun factor was orchestrated with masterful ease by Wieden + Kennedy (of course), even if "Open Your World" is, by contrast, clumsy.

Walt Whitman for Blue Jeans.

A practical choice for if you're gonna go rambling off into nature with little apparent intention of returning. And that's pretty much all I have to say about that.

Read more on the effort launched by the Homer of our time, Levi Strauss & Co.

One Show: W+K's Kevin Proudfoot Talks Intimacy

One thing I love about the One Show speaker sessions: they're only an hour long. And because the speakers want to show off their advertising, they have to be brief where actual talking is concerned.

Between ESPN and Nike plugs, Wieden+Kennedy's Kevin Proudfoot shared five guidelines for establishing intimacy with users. Intimacy, he imparted, is key to brand success.

1. Let the person know you're thinking of them. This is a touchy-feely way of saying you should consider the user experience before launching something. How can you make their lives easier or get them to laugh?

2. Talk directly to them. Don't address people from on high.

3. Enable and encourage them to be themselves. A brand or product should let people reflect themselves. Examples include iGoogle's customizable layout, customized Nikes, flickr, blogging, Facebook, Starbucks (Proudfoot says it conceived the notion you could be a "grande vanilla latte" if you wanted to).

4. Avoid schizophrenia. "This should really be 'multiple personality disorder,' but 'schizophrenia' looks better on a slide!" Proudfoot joked. Polite titters. The moment passes.

It's hard to be intimate with a brand that's all over the place, so commit to who you are and what you represent. Not to suggest a brand can't say many things. Proudfoot says to consider GEICO, which runs disparate campaigns with success, but only because those efforts are true to GEICO's core persona.

Think of everything that leaves your walls -- and even the things that don't -- as an opportunity to reinforce. "Every PR that goes out is an expression of the brand," said Proudfoot.

5. Encourage the other person to participate. For client Nike, W+K distributed little boxes of street chalk -- in "Lance Armstrong" yellow -- to Tour de France spectators. Users were encouraged to write encouraging messages to Lance all over the streets.

Proudfoot said this was a good way to incorporate Nike in the Tour de France without paying sponsorship dollars.

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Because these tips were inspired by Dr. Phil, Proudfoot closed his session by making the audience repeat a statement out loud: "Every relationship needs a hero!"

Grimace.

I left with that awkward feeling you get when somebody you don't like "that way" tries getting all personal with you.