TheSpunker - by Ben Popken. Published by Gattaca, Inc.

Schweppes Bottles Overtake European Fountains

A new ambient campaign for Schweppes fizzes all over Europe this summer. The Duval Guillaume Antwerp agency plans to fit fountains with the trademark tonic's bottle, "thus illustrating in real life the sparklingness of a Schweppes" (Sparklingness also means effervescence). We wonder whether, likewise, quinine will flow from the spigot?

David Hasselhoff trades in Knight for Pepsi Cap, Rides

How do you like your Pepsi-Cola? How about David Hassel-humped? This asexually lascivious image leered at Flickr user Downunder Dan from atop an Australian billboard and he was compelled to share it with us. Thanks, Dan! Now we can gouge our eyes out in peace and replace them with K.I.T.T's array of futuristic crime sensors. via.

New Shots Spot Wows with Toronto Mystique

Shot on the tippy top of the King Edward hotel in a ballroom left untouched for 30 years, director Graydon Sheppard scrabbles our brains with his new spot for Shots Magazine London UK. Graydon is a new director at Runt, the youth division of UNTITLED Toronto. Fresh, funny, disturbing and highly stylized. Just how we like it. For a neat trick, crank the volume. When played in The Spunker's office, our boss ran out to see if someone threw themselves off the smoker's landing in the stairwell.

UPDATE: If you're as enchanted by the locale as we, don't miss this photo gallery of the ballroom.

Blush Lingerie Outdoor Campaign Teases

Blush, a German lingerie store, has this fantastic outdoor teaser campaign leading up to its store. Click thumbs to expand. Agency: BBDO, Berlin. via.

Agent Provacateur Lingerie Releases New Viral

Agent Provacateur has finally let the last straps loose on their soft-core porn branded entertainment vehicle, "Tied up At the Office." With bondage, spanking and lots of frilly little black numbers, the eight-minute film is chock-full of product demos. The film's release obviously coincides with valentine's day and is design to "call up your wildest fantasies." So should your fantasies involve digital black and white videography, moans articulated by rising LED lights, claustrophobic closeups and mopettes licking each other dirty, Mike Figgis' short is sure to please.

Orange Paper Packages Tied up with Tape, this is One of my Favorite Things

200 seconds of stop-motion tape grows all over the wall in this fantastic orange commercial. After the jump, wait for the load and click the play button. The vid is for a UK mobile phone company but in the end you 1) don't know 2) don't care, it's just tasty to look at and you feel like calling anyway because the ad makes you feel good. via.

From Russia with Softcore #2

A while back we reported on the Russian cellphone company that forced its highest female managers to pose nude for a calendar distributed to its VIP clients and partners. Now Euroset's calendar is here. Forget bedroom, these are boardroom eyes.

BMW Suffers "Google Death Penalty"

Adverblog: "In Germany, BMW has been trying to artificially boost the popularity ranking of its site. The mighty Google found out the automaker was cheating and apparently kicked it out of its index. As reported on [other blogs, notably outer court] BMW has been caught employing doorway pages to attract search engines spiders. While BMW almost immediately removed the pages after the news broke (after having them live for almost 2 years), apparently it was too late. German BMW are now suffering what is known as the “Google death penalty”: a ban from almost any imaginable top search result, and a degrading of the PageRank to the lowest possible value."

Don't you people get it? It's not 1999 anymore. All you have to do is have lots of great, relevant content and you'll get search engine hits. Want a better ranking? Make a better site.

If Sylvia Plath were a Media Buyer...

Contextual advertising fugdgeups happen in paper media too. German newspaper Landeszeitung Luneburg ran an article on the 61st anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Right next to it was an ad for a German energy company with the headline,  “E.ON provides today for the gas of tomorrow.” [Apt via Consumerist via Backspace via Ishbadiddle via Stay Free!]

International Hot Twins Searched For

In a quest on the order of magnitude of the searches for the holy grail, the last scion and the spear of destiny, Body Doubles will hold their next International Hot Twins Search in Las Vegas on Feb 2. I know this because they spammed me:

"Sports, Sexy Women, and Celebrities… What more do you need? Imagine the most beautiful women in the world on one stage competing in an unprecedented extravaganza!?!? "

Yes, that is exactly what I need!?!? to imagine?!!!?! The spam continues, undaunted by spelling and grammar check, "Now picture having double the beauty, double the drama, double the pleasure, and you have got the first ever Body Doubles International Twin search competition, 2006.  During the world-wide search for the most beautiful twins, the Body Doubles Team will stop in Detroit to kickoff Super Bowl weekend. Sexy Women and Football… Double the Fun!"

Revealing the dark, desperate truth behind twinhood, when Sydney Canada winners Christina and Vanessa Milanja (pictured) were asked, "Have you ever had an embarrassing moment due to the fact that you're a twin (i.e. a boyfriend mistaking you for your sister, etc)?" they responded, "When I (Christina) was 12, I was looking in the mirror without realizing - and was trying to call my sister to come over. Then I realized it was the mirror I was speaking to."

Here's a video of their Vancouver search. There will also be a performance by Nelly and the St. Lunatics. Super duper. I'm sure this will be followed up with an email asking me what times they should buy the airplane tickets for, right? That's how these things work? Please tell me because it's my first international twin search competition too. If you're an accredited member of the press and would like to attend and cover the event, email [email protected]. Otherwise, tough shit because these girls have twice as many better things to do.