Hot Wheels is getting larger than life. Mattel's miniature-car brand, more familiar with living rooms than actual race tracks, is set to turn heads with a major real-life auto stunt at the Indianapolis 500 on May 29. Just hours before the race, it will send a life-size version of a Hot Wheels car down a giant custom-built replica of an orange Hot Wheels ramp, where it will pick up speed and, at the end of a straightaway, attempt a new world-record jump by a four-wheel vehicle (the existing record being 301 feet, set by Johnny Greaves). The Hot Wheels driver's identity is being kept secret for now. "It is a feat of engineering, and it's a jaw-dropping sight when you see it," vp of marketing Simon Waldron told the Associated Press earlier this spring. Hey, what could possibly go wrong? The stunt is the centerpiece of a whole 30-minute Hot Wheels program airing on ABC on the day of the race—and which is promoted in the 90-second trailer below, from Los Angeles agency Mistress and director Mike "Mouse" McCoy of Bandito Brothers. The spot builds on the Area-51 style mythology the toy brand has created for its "Hot Wheels For Real" campaign, purporting the existence of a testing facility "hidden for 43 years," where all sorts of bad-ass driving happens on huge Hot Wheels tracks. The whole supersizing of the Hot Wheels cars has a magical quality about it—and it goes beyond mere gimmickry thanks to the jump, which frankly will be awesome to see. To literally rise up from nothing (well, next to nothing) and achieve what full-size cars never have? Now, that's a David and Goliath story worth telling.



CREDITS
Client: Hot Wheels
Agency: Mistress, Los Angeles
Producers: Kay Lynn Dutcher, Lyra Rider
Production Company: Bandito Brothers
Director: Mike "Mouse" McCoy
Executive Producer: Jeff Rohrer
Producer: Ryan Slavin
Director of Photography: Mitchell Amundsen
Cameramen: Tristan Kolkhorst, Dean Mitchell, Mike Svitak
Editorial/Post Production: Bandito Brothers
Post Producer: Jacob Rosenberg
Editor: Jeff Tober
VFX: Cantina Creative
VFX Producer: Sean Cushing
VFX Director/VFX Supervisor: Stephen Lawes

Asking someone to sniff your pants probably counts as sexual harassment, but what if the jeans smelled so nice, they just had to be sniffed? I'll assume that Naked & Famous Denim asked themselves that question before developing their scratch-n-sniff raspberry-scented jeans. They retain their smell for up to five wash cycles. The same could be said for a few pairs of my jeans, but that's another story. I don't know if there was a specific market need for this product, but I hope these jeans catch on so I can watch desperate guys in bars scratch their legs and wait for someone to notice.

Aude Gandon, the Paris-based L’Oréal worldwide account director at McCann Erickson, is leaving to join Publicis Worldwide, say sources close to the situation. Her exit marks a significant management change at the Interpublic agency, which has reportedly been on shaky ground with the world’s largest beauty and cosmetics company.

While her new role at the Publicis Groupe namesake could not be determined, sources note that the top account job running the French network’s global Nestlé business has been vacant since Carter Murray left to join Y&R Advertising North America as president, CEO last October. Last week, Murray added responsibility as CEO of Y&R New York.

Gandon and Publicis execs could not be reached for comment.

In the wake of Gandon’s departure, the management of the L’Oréal business will be overseen by Gustavo Martinez, McCann's president of Europe, who is already working on replacement options, according to a McCann rep.

Gandon had been one of the senior executives who was set to run Beauty Village, a stand-alone McCann Worldgroup unit that was created to handle L’Oréal and its Maybelline group. Sources said Beauty Village was shuttered last summer, at the request of a senior L’Oréal client who found out about it after the launch and did not want the two pieces of business handled at the same agency.

McCann announced its hire of Gandon, formerly the managing director of Leo Burnett’s beauty, fashion and luxury division, Atelier-lb, in July 2010, shortly after Nick Brien, a onetime Burnett executive took over as CEO at Worldgroup in April of that year. (Brien assumed that top job after serving as chief executive at Interpublic’s Mediabrands unit.)

In other changes, Matt Freeman, who was hired as Brien’s global chief innovation officer and vice chairman at McCann Erickson in April 2011, is said to be in the process of finalizing an exit at the company. Freeman, the former founder and CEO of Omnicom’s Tribal DDB Worldwide, joined Interpublic’s Mediabrands Ventures in January 2010, from digital media startup Betawave.

Additionally, Gary Neel, the General Motors global brand leader at McCann, is leaving that role but will remain a consultant. Neel assumed that global job in August 2010 after Joe Garcia was named president of McCann Midwest, a job Neel held for 10 years. Garcia had previously run the Chrysler account at BBDO Detroit.

The automotive giant is expected to announce a decision shortly on its creative review of global Chevy work, business McCann handles in various markets outside the U.S.

An Argentinian startup has launched The Social Radio for Twitter, a free Android app that, according to the company, reads tweets to you—in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German and more—creating "a human-friendly audio experience … mixed with the music you love." (What if you love Lionel Richie? Not so human-friendly for others in earshot, right?) You can filter your Twitter stream via hashtags, lists, trending topics and such, and choose the interval to check for tweets (music fills the empty spaces). This might appeal to folks who feel they need to be connected while driving (keep your hands on the wheel!) or jogging (watch out for that tree!). Still, I wonder: Isn't postmodern existence noisy enough? Do we really want to jam our brains with more information, saturate our nervous systems with nonstop streams of multimedia input? In our tech-crazed culture, the answer is, of course, yes! Do they have one of these apps for Pinterest yet? What's the delay? I've got "Stuck on You" cued up! Via PSFK.

Some people collect stamps. Others, rare LPs. Graphic designer Galen Smith likes to gather pictures of New York City subway ads defaced by scribbled penises. He's put together a whole book of them, called New York Dick, chronicling ways the male member has been used to undermine media messaging beneath the NYC streets. He's not just goofing around, either. "These defacements (besides being a generalized screw you to the establishment) are part of a dissatisfied dialog with advertising, marketing, and consumerism that all of us can relate to," Smith said. "The idiocy of the graphic was part of the kryptonite-like power of the whole enterprise. No matter how multidimensional and superhuman an ad was, it was made flat and feeble by a penis drawn on it. And no matter how ubiquitous and branded an apparent one-way communication was, a disrespectful dickish two-way dialog was possible if you wanted it to be, and if you had a Sharpie with you." Check out some of the images from the book below. And no, Smith doesn't include instances where the advertiser scrawled the penis on purpose.

The Singapore office of Tribal DDB tapped Dharni Ng, a local beat-boxing talent with some international credentials, to headline its digital campaign for the new Volkswagen Polo GTI. The audio takes car noises that under normal circumstances would be totally obnoxious, and by mixing them with Dharni's sounds, makes them not so. Still, if you'd prefer a version without the canned samples, check out the earlier teaser video, where the artist works imitations of auto sounds into a single-shot performance.