Sony’s European branch has stepped in with its own live-action ad for the fan service brawler. I think you’ll find it to be a more realistic take on the kind of people you can expect to see playing the game.

Beyond the genius costume work at play here, the European ad makes one important distinction. It tells consumers about the cross buy feature that Sony is introducing with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. It allows gamers to pick up the PS3 version of the game, and get the Vita version as a free download.

Either way, both ads are pretty awesome. You can decide which one you think is the best. Here’s the original US ad for comparison:

It would be hard to beat the first Nexus 7 ad as it featured a father and son camping in the backyard with dinosaurs – a velociraptor from Jurassic Park to be exact. It was pretty awesome, but Google has definitely outdone itself with an ad that channels The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou – the 2004 comedy-drama from Wes Anderson.

Critics have traditionally called Apple a company that makes products for hipsters and mindless consumers. Samsung’s latest ads targeting Apple fans perpetuates that stereotype, but it may not be wholly accurate anymore. Apple’s latest ad for the iPad Mini is more minimalistic and could appeal to a wide variety of consumers.

Google’s latest Nexus 7 ad is the epitome of the Internet definition of hipster, and that’s a good or bad thing depending on your outlook. Google is trying to say that its Nexus line can unlock the creativity of the individual to achieve something great. The idea will resonate with some consumers, but others are just going to see a bunch of hippies in a high-rise wasting money on an art installation.

Either way, it’s a pretty cool ad. Strangely enough, Droid Life says that the ad has been marked as private on Google’s own Nexus YouTube page. It’s unknown when it will go back up. It’s also unknown if Google will air ads for its other new Nexus devices – the Nexus 10 and the Nexus 4.

Despite the praise, the ad is missing a little something. Conan O’Brien has that little something in his latest take on the iPad Mini and its ad.

Conan’s “ad” may be a humorous take on the sometimes ridiculous extent at which Apple fans buy the company’s products, but there’s some truth in there as well. Apple’s Phil Schiller says the $329 price tag on the iPad Mini isn’t too high because it’s still the cheapest tablet that Apple has ever produced. People are still paying $400 for the iPad 2 without even thinking so the iPad Mini is in no danger whatsoever.

Some analysts, however, are disagreeing with Schiller’s philosophy. They wanted Apple to “step on the throats of Amazon and Google with its pricing.” That obviously didn’t happen, but the iPad Mini is still going to step on a few throats.

The device goes on sale November 2. At that point, we’ll learn if Apple’s bet on its customers willingness to pay more will work in their favor. Until then, we can at least laugh at the jokes.

The first ad for the Wii U to hit the UK came out over the weekend, and it’s a little underwhelming. After the wonderfully absurd non-specific action figure commercial, this one just falls a little flat. It does little to sell the Wii U as anything unique, and instead tells you that Batman: Arkham City, a year-old game, is all new.

Check it out for yourself:

Of course, this is the UK commercial. There still has not been a commercial in the U.S. and it could be much better. Nintendo has had a long history of great ads for their products in the U.S. with the original Wii commercial being one of the best ad televised ad campaigns in recent memory.

Nintendo will hopefully be able to capture the same magic with the Wii U’s ad campaign. That’s not obviously happening in the UK, but Nintendo of America stil has a chance to right these wrongs. The hardcore is already invested in the Wii U so Nintendo just needs to get the casual crowd back on board again. That might prove to be easier said than done.

Among the offended was tech entrepreneur Anil Dash, who called it “a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he’s doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That’s it, there’s seriously no other gag.”

“if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad ‘funny’ accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course. Make some different decisions.”

Popchips CEO Keith Belling pulled the ad and issued a statement saying, “We did not intend to offend anyone. I take full responsibility and apologize to anyone we offended.”

Dash blogged again, this one titled “How to Fix Popchip’s Racist Ad Campaign”, writing, “I just got off the phone with Popchips founder Keith Belling, who was sincere and contrite as he offered a thoughtful, apologetic response.” But he suggests Popchip leave the ad up with an explanation as to how the ad failed, and why the end result turned out to be racist.

This is the equivalent of rubbing a dog’s face in poop to house break it. Beiling apologized and took the ad down. He is an adult and Dash is not his parent. He did what is appropriate when two adults have a differing opinion and one is offended. He apologized and wants to move on. Instead, Dash wants his company to be branded with a big letter “R” until he learns his lesson.

He doesn’t stop there. He wants the firm that created the ad, Zambezi, to all get together in a video and talk about how what they did was bad. Very bad. Very, very bad Zambezi.

He admonishes the media, pointing out specific writers in the New York Times and Washington Post, for not talking about how “obviously offensive” the ad was: “it’s astounding that this wouldn’t be obvious on first glance to those who are paid to understand media and culture.”

Maybe they didn’t find it all that offensive… Sure it wasn’t all that funny. Sure there are lots of people out there that are a lot better at impressions. But to call it “racist” cheapens the word and the abhorrent philosophy it conveys.

Comedians often pull from so-called “racist” stereotypes for humor. Mike Myers did a whole movie lampooning Indian stereotypes in The Love Guru and much of his other work makes fun of various races and nationalities. Countless others including Eddie Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Dave Chappelle and the Wayan’s brothers have donned skin make-up and attire to make fun of racial stereotypes and it isn’t considered racist.

In an open letter to Blige, Renay Alize of Madame Noire suggested that while the singer is amazing at what she does, perhaps lending her voice to a song about chicken only contributes to a harmful stereotype.

“This is so beneath you,” Alize writes. “This harmonizing about chicken is a move I would associate with someone whose glory days were far behind them. You still have so much more to contribute to the arts and entertainment game that there was no reason for you to stoop to stereotypes. And I know what you’re thinking, everybody across the world loves chicken. It’s true, most people get down with the poultry; but as a black woman, singing passionately about chicken is not the move!”

The ad has been taken down and is no longer viewable, and while BK said on Tuesday that the video was pulled due to a licensing concern, many believe the company has simply had their eyes opened to a potential harmful gaffe.

Twitter is buzzing about the video today:

The ad, which urges consumers to “Put dad to the test”, shows a group of dads who are so preoccupied with watching sports that they forget to change their babies’ diapers. The intended message, according to a Kimberly-Clarke spokesperson, is to “demonstrate the performance of our Huggies diapers and baby wipes in real life situations” rather than make fun of men’s childrearing abilities or to draw on stereotypes.

Many fathers don’t see it that way, however, and an online petition has been created to get Huggies to stop airing the commercial, although the company claims changes have already been made to the ad.

As one father told CBS recently, it seems like something we might have seen 30 years ago rather than in modern times, when fathers are stepping into bigger caregiver roles than ever before.

Huggies has taken to social media to defend themselves, especially after commenters on Facebook expressed their disgust with the ads.

“Your ad campaign disgusts me,” wrote James Garcia. “My wife and I share the responsibilities of the house. I cook, grocery shop, clean, and we take care of our daughter equally. At times I have been at home with my daughter more than my wife has been, after she had to return to work and I had a lot of time off. It is insulting to all fathers to portray us as a bunch of bumbling idiots.”

This is a topic I could write about for days, as it seems to me that commercials and ads are always portraying outdated gender roles and stereotypes. Carl’s Jr. uses sex to sell hamburgers. Men are either sexist or clueless (or a combination of both) and women are either shrews or sex objects. Worse is when an ad has a mix of all those things, which frankly seems to be the norm these days. Ad companies seem to be holding onto the belief that what’s worked in the past will work forever. Consumers are wising up to their tactics, and this latest faux-pas is just an example of how far companies will go to market their product. We can only hope that they’ll wise up and stop using antiquated methods, especially in the wake of so much backlash.

It’s a fascinating question and the series delivers the delightful and inspiring answer. In the first project, Google approaches the legend, Harvey Gabor, one of the members of the creative team that developed the “Hilltop” coke commercial that has become a part of advertising, brand and coca-cola history. Google asks Mr. Gabor to talk about the how the idea came to him and the agency and then a team from Google brainstorms with the legendary creative to develop a concept that might work today and on the web.

Gabor then has the opportunity to present his concept to the marketing team at Coke and the whole process is captured and recorded digitally for everyone to see and experience. Mr. Gabor explains that the essence of the idea for the classic “Hilltop” television spot was to “connect with people” and “buy or share a coke with the world.” Gabor and the agency communicated this idea originally by showing one person, alone on a hilltop singing a song and slowly joined by more people, also singing (and drinking cokes) to represent the world. As you know or hopefully remember, the spot ends with a birds-eye view, arial shot of a huge group of multi-national people all singing the famous Coke anthem, “I’d like to buy the world a coke….”

The idea he develops and presents to Coke is amazing and the marketing team at Coke loves it. The idea is for people to be able to actually “buy a coke and send it to a vending machine anywhere in the world.” The Coke team actually moves forward with the idea and the documentary captures and demonstrates how they actually have Engineers develop a vending machine that can execute this wish to “buy a Coke” in real time for anyone in the world.

It’s a brilliant solution and shows that the strength of a great idea and how it can be applied not only to any variety of mediums but holds up even after some forty years. A great idea is a great idea and Google helps us to see that great advertising can be created online and in our new digital world. It’s a very thought-provoking question to ask and an inspiring project. So in the same spirit as the idea, “to share a Coke with a friend,” I wanted to share it with you.

To give you some background, last year, Android had a 47% share of device OS impressions and iOS had 33%. Compare this to the previous year, 2010, when iOS was on top with a 41% share and Android only 30%. iPhone impression share declined 7% year-over-year but held its position as top device when ranked among 20 mobile phones and had 15% share of impressions. According to Millennial, no other device has been able to achieve the level of market share as the iPhone.

The number one tablet on Millennial’s platform since 2010 has been Apple’s iPad. Galaxy Tab from Samsung is second with only half the share of impressions. For the past two years, Smartphones led in the category of Connected Devices, increasing 68%. Apple was top manufacturer on Millennial’s platform last year and the iPhone was top individual mobile phone. As a device manufacturer, Apple’s share of impressions was fairly flat, but Apple iPad impressions had substantial growth. The number two device manufacturer was Samsung with a flat share of impressions. Android manufacturers enjoyed the largest gain with HTC growing 79% year-over-year and came in as number three manufacturer on Millennial’s platform.

Today’s videos feature an amazing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire story teller, Michael Winslow doing video games, Unicorns humping dolphins, and the making of a wooden lamp shade.

Is it real? Most signs point to yes, and hopefully it is. Should it have been aired during the Super Bowl? I’ll leave that up to you. Either way, this commercial definitely went the dark comedy route.

Fact: Liam Neeson, throughout this entire segment just sips on his (what is hopefully) scotch, chews on a coffee stirrer; it’s already more badass than full shows on television. Neeson is truly a boss. The rest of the segment is funny too.

Nothing else to say, it’s a video of a scooter going 70mph in the snow.

The stories which led to the answers in Slumdog Millionaire have nothing on Joann Chan from Brooklyn, NY.

This video is proof that we sports fans (I’m self admitted) are some of the dumbest people on the planet. And to the guy who still has his Christmas tree up in February…COME ON MAN.

I definitely empathize with being a synaesthete.

Synaesthesia from Nikko Hull on Vimeo.

What happened to Michael Winslow appearing in films? Yes, he has a one note schtick…but it’s a funny one note schtick. You’re telling me you wouldn’t want him to make a cameo in Hangover III?

Now, this commercial should have aired during the Super Bowl. Humping a dolphin, humping a dolphin…get a tattoo!

Who knew watching a wooden lampshade being made would be so interesting and hypnotic…