It was a dog's month this October. Two spots offered up engaging pooch tales: A Disneyland spot by Leo Burnett in Chicago showed a dog daydreaming about a fantasy date with a poodle neighbor, while a Pedigree ad by TBWA\Chiat\Day in Playa del Rey, Calif., compared the noses of various canines, who all react the same when the dog-food can is opened. In another animal-related development, The California Milk Advisory Board took its "Happy Cows" campaign from Deutsch national; one spot shows the cows laughing as they secretly ring a farmer's doorbell. Another company making a change was eBay, which replaced its musical numbers and tagline, "Do it eBay," with the community-focused "The power of all of us." One spot, pointing to the collaboration among eBay users, shows a sea of people offering clocks to a collector. The crowd, which stretches out from his house into the neighborhood, was computer-generated. Strong visuals also drove two other spots: U2 appears in a brightly colored Apple iPod spot by TBWA\C\D in Playa del Rey; and Tracy McGrady fights off an elaborate army of tiny people to make a basket in the latest Adidas spot from TBWA\C\D in San Francisco. Surrealism scored in two other spots as well: in an ESPN ad by Wieden + Kennedy in New York, which features mimes acting out a basketball play; and in a New York Post ad by Merkley + Partners in New York, which shows a guy leaning into a newspaper box only to get his face attacked by an octopus. (That spot earns its place on the Best Spots reel for its sheer comical absurdity.)
-Mae Anderson
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