Articles from AdWeek Advertising and branding

Back in the aughts, when Google wanted to recruit developers, it famously put up a billboard with a complex math problem that led to a website with an even more complex math problem. Last year, when Flickr, owned by Yahoo, wanted to recruit developers, it less famously hid a link to its jobs site in the page's source code—which unlike some superhuman math problem, any old muppet from the non-coder underclass can access using the menu bar or keyboard hotkeys. Last week, the buried ad—"You're reading.

In marketing, sometimes the greatest obstacle to greatness can be attempting to re-create greatness. Advertising seems to know only how to cheapen art, making it incredibly rare to find an homage that doesn't feel like a commercialized cardboard cutout of the original. So it was ambitious enough for The Sunday Times and agency Grey London to attempt this ad devoted to iconic moments in art, music and film. But then they doubled down by choosing to create one seamless take that brings each of these masterworks to life.

The Food and Drug Administration is hoping a little fear can go a long way in warning teens of the cost of smoking. In the agency's first national public education campaign ads dramatize the health consequences of smoking mixed with a little bit of vanity to convince teens not to smoke. Created by Draftfcb, in one set of ads, an African-American male teen and a white female teen are told by a clerk in a convenience store that the money they've just laid down for a pack of smokes isn't enough. The male then takes a pair of pliers and rips out his teeth.

IDEA: Chipotle has won scores of ad awards and legions of fans with its gorgeous animations and haunting soundtracks. Now, the burrito chain is getting even more ambitious with a longer format and a whole new tone—launching a satirical scripted comedy show on Hulu humorously attacking the evil ogre of industrial farming.