SEO Werkt!

Microsoft says a mouthful in this ad from Crispin Porter + Boguksy. And—surprise!—those words are spoken by Siri, Apple's voice assistant, from an iPad sitting next to a Windows 8 tablet. As the latter wordlessly flips through various features, Siri apologies for being unable to run those programs and perform the same functions. "I'm sorry, I don't update like that," she says. "I'm sorry, I can only do one thing at a time." I half expected a tax app to pop up on the tablet's screen and be greeted by an awkward silence from Siri. Maybe in the sequel. This is Microsoft's second spot in a week to deftly parody a rival's ad style (in this case, Apple's stylish minimalism), following its skewering of Google's Chrome browser. The tablet ad, which references the iPad mini's "Piano" spot from last October, is approaching 2 million views on YouTube in just a couple of days. There are some chatty personal assistants, like Indigo, available for Windows devices. But for my taste, the ultimate Microsoft PA voice would speak in measured, calm-yet-crazy cadences, providing sadly poignant commentary as the OS crashes into a sea of blue when its mind begins to go.

The ubiquitous Twitter hashtag #FML (there have been 37,000 #FML-tagged tweets in the past seven days alone) is generally understood to be short for an obscene phrase uttered when things are at their bleakest. But now, Jell-O is here to help. The Kraft Foods brand and agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky are trying to hijack #FML and make it stand for "Fun My Life" (rather than doing something else to your life). Between now and June 14, everyone who tweets the #FML hashtag is entered into a pool, from which a certain number will win "Fun My Life" prize packs "specially created to get their life back on track." You can follow along at jelloFML.com, which also shows how the brand is tweeting at #FML-ers.

Here's a clever little gimmick. Australia's Cascade Brewery recently made a limited-edition batch of beer with special "experimental" hops from a secret garden in Tasmania's Derwent Valley. There was only enough for 5,000 cases, and so the brewer—with help from Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne—made an ad for it that can only be watched 5,000 times. Check it out below. The special embed code (which can take some time to load) includes a ticker that's counting down to zero. "Whether you caught the film in time or not, make sure you don't miss the beer," the brewer says on its website. Come on, people, we can make this thing obsolete within the hour if we put our minds to it. Via The Denver Egotist.

This Chevy Volt ad, titled "Silent Anthem," is an extended version of the Volt footage we saw in the "Find New Roads" launch spot in February. Visually, it's interesting, although it's as much an ad for wind farms and iPads and robot dogs as it is for the Volt. The deer/dog moment at the end is pretty barfy, too, but at least this campaign reaches for something beyond the norm. The Volt bookended the launch spot, which made it feel like the focus of it. But the other vehicles in it have been getting their own individual :60s as well. Check out three of those after the jump.

Young & Rubicam is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a fun project in Times Square that, fittingly, brings old and new together. It's a billboard in Times Square that will feature—from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon—a giant mosaic of tweets and Facebook posts from everyone who has posted a message with the hashtag #advertisingis. Thus, you still have a little while to get your social-media account up in lights with a post on that topic. The company doing the mosaic is Hyperactivate, which is part of Y&R's Spark Plug incubator program, which we wrote about last year. We'll have a photo of the billboard later this afternoon. For now, check out Y&R's 90th anniversary reel, featuring the work the agency is most proud of through the years.

Kmart's "Ship My Pants" ad was a major success, to the tune of 17 million YouTube views and counting. But can Draftfcb turn almost-profanity into a running gag for the retailer? It attempts to do so with this follow-up spot, "Big Gas Savings," which features some big-gas humor indeed. It even features the same family from "Ship My Pants," and once again the kid gets the best line. (In the earlier spot, he blurted out, "I can't wait to ship my pants, Dad." Here, he shouts, "Dad, look at that big gas truck!") It's not quite as funny as the original, perhaps, but it seems destined to get similarly big-gas numbers on YouTube. And if nothing else, the #biggassavings hashtag clinches it. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Kmart
Chief Marketing Officer: Andrew Stein
Vice President, Creative: Mark Andeer

Agency: Draftfcb
Chief Creative Officer: Todd Tilford
Executive Creative Director: Jon Flannery
Creative Director, Copywriter: Berk Wasserman
Creative Director: Todd Durston
Group EP, Agency Producer: Chris Bing

Production Company: Bob Industries
Executive Producers: T.K. Knowles, John O'Grady, Chuck Ryant
Producer: Brian Etting
Director: Zach Math

French tennis star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is preparing to play against a robot. Surprisingly, it's not Roger Federer, renowned for his robotically stiff commercial acting and machine-like winning ways (including those 17 Grand Slam singles titles). Today at 11 a.m. ET, at a practice session for the French Open, Tsonga will take on an actual automaton, which will try to hit shots past the world's eighth-ranked player based on tweets supplied by fans as part of a promotion for banking giant BNP Paribas (and agency We Are Social).

Fans visiting the Tweet & Shoot site can log in with Twitter and drag and drop tennis-ball icons to set up virtual shots, which are then encoded as hashtagged tweets which the on-court bionic Borg will decipher—and then spit out a real ball for Tsonga to hit. Users are also encouraged to include messages of encouragement to Jo-Wilfried, who has never won a Grand Slam event. Forty fans chosen by BNP's social communities are guaranteed to have their shots included at Tsonga's session with the robot. The rest will be picked at random from among the tweets. Folks with no lives whatsoever can check out Tweet & Shoot's streaming coverage of the event at the link above. Maybe the bot will blow a fuse, leap over the net and swat Tsonga like a fly.

Droga5 and publisher Hachette Australia recently bestowed upon Qantas frequent fliers an anachronistic little gift that will come in handy aboard Qantas flights when approved electronic devices must be completely turned off.

The agency's Sydney office packaged together a 10-book box set of previously published paperbacks "specifically edited to last just as long as each of Qantas's key routes." It's a fun idea, and Droga is playing the nostalgia factor to the hilt. "In this world of Kindles and iPads, it seems that the last bastion of the humble paperback novel is actually at 40,000 feet," says David Nobay, creative chairman of Droga5 Sydney. "You only need to look at the bulging shelves at any airport bookstore. Maybe it's the fact that everything seems so far removed from the real world up there."

All 10 books are by Australian authors: James Castrission, Tony Cavanaugh, Sean Fewster, Kimberley Freeman, Lian Hearn, William McInnes, Peter FitzSimons, Jack Marx, Rob Mundle and Roland Perry. The collection spans adventure, crime, women's fiction, literary, history and romance. The books are meant to correspond to the lengths of 10 popular Qantas flights (Sydney to Dubai, Melbourne to London, Perth to Singapore, etc.), with meals and other breaks factored in. Designer Paul Belford created a unique cover for each book.

"One of the greatest challenges in publishing is to remind people of the pleasure that reading brings, and that even though the online world is growing, there is still a romance in the printed page," says Fiona Hazard, publishing director of Hachette Australia. "At Hachette, we are always looking for new ways to bring stories and voices to life, so when Droga5 approached us to discuss this idea we jumped straight in. It's been great fun working with them to get this project off the ground."

One of the better Playboy ads of recent years was last year's "Elevator" spot from DDB Paris and directors The Perlorian Brothers. Here are two more ads done in the same style. The earlier spot sold shower gel for men; these are for Playboy's VIP fragrances for men and women. Playboy is at its best when it's not taking itself too seriously. That's (mostly) true here, plus there's the added bonus of a nice structure that keeps things lively. Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Playboy Fragrances
Advertising Agency: DDB, Paris
Executive Creative Director: Alexandre Hervé
Copywriter: Alexis Benoit
Art Director: Paul Kreitmann
Production company: Les Télécréateurs
Director: The Perlorian Brothers
Account Director: Xavier Mendiola
Planner: Fabien Leroux
Sound: THE
Client Team Director: Jurgen Scharfenstein
Agency Producer: Emilie TALPAERT
Agency Producer: Sophie Megrous
Account team: Julie Garguillo
Account team: Timothee Desruelles

To hype its inaugural Comedy Week, which begins Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET, YouTube turned to an ad agency known for generating its share of laughs: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The San Francisco shop—which has done comical spots for Budweiser, "Got milk?", Sonic, Corona Light and many others—whipped up a load of ads (many of them :15s) that have been airing in recent weeks starring the Comedy Week's actors and comedians. Check out a whole bunch of those spots below. (At the bottom is a longer promo with Arnold Schwartzenegger, which YouTube produced in-house, but we have to include because it's awkwardly hilarious.)

Goodby also designed a special YouTube masthead that will run all day Sunday to promote that night's kickoff. It shows a bathroom wall inside a comedy club. You can scroll around, click different doodles and find Easter eggs like Venn diagrams for classic jokes, a mounted moose head that sadly recalls "the bad man in the forest" and a phone number—(888) 303-3771—you can call for a good time (if you're not having one already).

The first two-hour live stream starts Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. New shows will air each night this week at 8 p.m. ET through Saturday. Guests will include Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Seth Rogen, Comedy Central's Tim and Eric, Conan O'Brien, Rainn Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Sarah Silverman, and YouTube stars The Gregory Brothers, Rhett & Link and Ryan Higa.

Schwartzenegger spot produced in-house by YouTube: