Photoshop wizardry that  makes bagels look absolutely scrumptious in these ads by Squid Ink USA.

And I don’t even like bagels, which clearly are the high maintenance cousins of donuts. You gotta love the simplicity of donuts. With bagels, you’ve gotta have a knife around to cut ‘em in half, then you’ve gotta have some cream cheese available to spread around, then you have to chew a billion times just so they’re soft enough to go down the pipes, then you have to slap yourself for not buying donuts which would’ve saved yourself all the trouble. Really, eating bagels is like self-flagellation compared to eating donuts. They’re like celery… you’d die of starvation if you were stuck on an island with them. Boy, this is going off on a tangent. Yeah… bagels are lame. From Ads of the World.

A true viral, millions of  folks have already seen the Levi’s-sponsored ‘Walk Across America’ stop-motion video. The video took 14 days and 2,770 still shots from a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. To make up for being late to the game, I give you the Making Of as a bonus.

From The Daily Mail. PS: The video’s’ soundtrack is “Home” by the  incredible Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, who clocked in at #2 on my favorite albums of 2009.

Hot off the frickin’ press: The Zack Snyder directed film (Watchmen, 300) that made waves at Comic-Con. Described as “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns,” do you really need any more reason to buy a ticket?

From EW.

Cyriak Harris returns with more of his twisted brand of dementia. I love his stuff so much, I worry what that says about me. From Motionographer.

See more great Cyriak work.

The Cranberries’ “Zombie” has never been used to greater comedic effect.

Excellent work by Publicis Frankfurt.

If you’re thinking, “I’m interested in how JWT Toronto creatively executes a spot  for Smarties featuring a blue cat,” click on the video directly below.

If you’re thinking, “You know what Dan, a talking blue cat that has magical Smarties powers is just too conventional for me,” watch the fan-made remix below that.

Aussie radio station 95.3 FM honors Jimi Hendrix and Australian rock gods Bon Scott (AC/DC) and Micheal Hutchence (INXS) by keeping their music alive.

Great stuff  by Three Drunk Monkeys via Ads of the World.

ReadWriteWeb has the scoop on how the Old Spice response videos were made; in other words, how Wieden + Kennedy managed to own the Internet for two days. The summary? Real-time surfing for comments, writing, taping, editing and uploading in order to average about seven minutes per video… and a very long couple of days for the W + K creative team and Isaiah Mustafa.

From t-minus.

Here are other recaps/results from the campaign:

• The Old Spice Social Media Campaign by the Numbers (Mashable)
• We Are Social’s Old Spice Analysis (We Are Social)
• The Old Spice Campaign Generated 35 Million Views in Seven Days (ClickZ)

Well, I watched every single one. Yes, every single one of the 25 gajillibajillion Old Spice Response videos featuring everyone’s favorite towel-wearing, cake-making, kitchen-building, swan-diving, beast of a man who wears an array of wonderfully-scented Old Spice products.

As I stated before, I was hoping Wieden and Kennedy (the brainchilds behind these Old Spice commercials) would try not to overexpose Isaiah Mustafa and desensitize us to the campaign. So what do they do? They let Isaiah hold a video conversation with THE ENTIRE INTERNET.

But somehow… it worked. As quickly as it began, it ended and I actually found myself wanting more. Brilliantly written, it would have been quite a scene to be in the war room as the busy copywriters and creative team blitzed and poured over every relevant post, comment or tweet, then quickly rushed Isaiah onset to majestically translate every single response.

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like talks to regular joes, his real-life daughter (Re: Haley), flirts with Demi Moore (Re: @mrskutcher), joshes with Twitter, and even dogs on rival ad agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky’s Subservient Chicken campaign. Which, when all is said and done, could prove to be the inferior viral marketing campaign based on the latest numbers and opinions. Enjoy.