• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, January 2, 2008

Sony Vaio bows Latin American campaign. A Minneapolis restaurant serves Irish Pub food stateside. What's your lifestyle? Let's launch!

SmartWool manufactures socks, hats, gloves, sweaters and thermal underwear from New Zealand merino wool. You'd never know it from looking at its print campaign -- which is sans products -- but "intelligent" sheep are aplenty. The trade and consumer campaign, created by TDA Advertising & Design, features cartoon sheep and people and the words: "Sheared from the smartest sheep. Smartwool." A sheep guides a blind man across a street in one ad; another sheep aids mountain patrolmen in a rescue mission in a different execution. Click here, here and here to see the ads. SmartWool handled the media buy in-house.

LifeStyles Condoms launched a cheeky ad campaign in an effort to attract a younger, edgier audience. And by cheeky, I mean there's ass in the creative. Targeting 18-24 year-old consumers, "What's Yours?" showcases a variety of condoms to accommodate a variety of lifestyles. One ad shows some cheek alongside the copy: "What's your lifestyle? Bold." Another shows a cowgirl, complete with pigtails, hat and a "buck wild" lifestyle. Click here, here and here to view creative. LifeStyles is also launching a string of YouTube spots called "Noah and Baron Talk Real Man Sh*t." The video clips will chronicle the journeys of two men as they travel through Europe, reliving their adventurous college years. AMP Agency created the campaign and handled the media buy.

Ireland certainly isn't known for culinary cuisines, but its pub food is undeniably good. If you can't make it to the Emerald Isle, and are yearning for pub food stateside, there's always Jake O'Connor's, a Minneapolis-based Irish restaurant that launched a print and outdoor campaign using topics not normally seen in restaurant ads. Topics described in the campaign range from wakes, sub-par parenting skills and death. "Good food takes time. Or in the case of Ireland, centuries," reads one ad. "This much hospitality is usually reserved for Irish wakes," says another. Click here, here, here and here to view creative. Hunt Adkins created the campaign and handled the media buy.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Sony VAIO TZ. Ignited created a print and outdoor campaign for VAIO TZ, Sony's smallest notebook, demonstrating how lightweight the computer is. One ad, "Airplane," depicts the TZ being blown out of a man's hands along with a stack of paperwork as he walks in front of a plane. Another execution shows a bird effortlessly flying off with a TZ in tow. Click here and here to see the ads, running in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and the rest of Central and South America. Sony handled the media buy in-house.

The McGraw-Hill Companies launched a corporate TV spot last month, its first for the "Open Markets, Open Minds" image campaign. The spot was created in Japanese anime form to make the heavy topic of globalization bearable; it shows the earth bound by chains. The ad, seen here, is running on "CBS Sunday Morning News," "Face the Nation," "60 Minutes," "Meet The Press," "CNN-Sunday Morning" and "CNBC Squawk Box." Cossette New York created the campaign and handled the media buy.

McDonald's launched a TV spot targeting Lateens called the "Flying Fry." Two friends eating lunch at a skate park see how talented they are in the sport of catching a flying fry in their mouths. Distance, height and moving parts can't stop the fry from landing where it should. Watch the ad here. The campaign, which debuted Jan. 1 in 16 markets across the U.S., also includes radio and rich media banner ads. iNSPIRE! created the campaign and handled the media buy.