In April, Brad Pitt taped a commercial with a sumo wrestler, and now it’s out. Brad plays the assistant to a sumo wrestler in this Spike Jonze-directed ad for Japanese SoftBank, a telecommunications company. We think the commercial is probably trying to say, “We’ll support you no matter what, even if we have to do the seemingly impossible, like carry a 300+ pound man when his flip-flop breaks.”

Two Beckhams in one ad, of course! Victoria and David Beckham stripped down and got all glistening for these new Armani underwear ads. Click through for the other shot. [via The Cut]

What the hell was Microsoft thinking when they approved this commeecial for Internet Explorer 8? The premise is that men are looking at nasty porn on the internet and their product will make it so they can hide that fact from their extremely squeamish wives. We know sex sells, but does vomit?

The British Advertising Standards Authority banned this Federici ice cream ad after readers complained about the nun’s “seductive pose.” Yeah, we don’t like thinking about what she was going to do with that spoon, either.

In America, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are well known for their shock-tactic ads, but they’re not the only pro-animal rights organization willing to go overboard with advertising in order to bring attention to the cause. Wakker Dier, which means “Animal Awake,” is a Dutch organization that’s Europe’s PETA counterpart. For their campaign, they hired Dutch Playmate and fetish model Ancilla Tilia to play the part of a stripper who gets clubbed and stripped like an animal. Watch it, after the jump, but be forewarned it’s fairly graphic.

While PETA’s ads have a tendency to be more silly than shocking, this ad is a real eye-opener. But does the video get across the organization’s mission? Does watching a fetish model get “clubbed” and “stripped” make people more sensitive to animal rights? Or does the viral path this ad will take mean more people will be thinking about animal rights than they were yesterday? [ANIMAL via Copyranter]

Finally, an advertisement that doesn’t offend us! Amnesty International has installed a new anti-domestic-abuse ad at a bus stop in Hamburg, Germany that uses cutting edge technology to make its point. A small camera embedded in the ad makes it so the couple in the poster appears happy and smiling when someone is looking at it; when the viewer turns away, the image changes to one where the man is beating the woman. The text reads, “It happens when nobody is watching.” The camera responds after only a brief delay—like if someone looks away quickly—so that observers are able to catch the two different images and understand what’s going on and the message it’s conveying. Powerful, and smart, stuff. Click here to see a larger image of the ad. [Gizmodo]

A photo from Madonna’s second Louis Vuitton ad campaign was leaked, and—surprise, surprise!—it features Madge wearing a pair of the bunny ears she rocked at last month’s Met Ball. Luckily, they look a lot less crazy in the campaign than they did in real life—some fashion just doesn’t translate to life beyond the Playboy mansion. In this upcoming campaign, she appears less like a hooker than she did in the last one, but I still prefer the brand’s series featuring former astronauts. No one sells Louis bags like Buzz Aldrin. [Fashionologie]

• Since Burger King marketers were obviously having trouble coming up with offensive slogans, Best Week Ever decided to help them out. [Best Week Ever]
• He made questionable remarks to actor T.R. Knight about being gay, but Isaiah Washington has now joined the NO H8 campaign for gay marriage equality. [Perez Hilton]  – We’re glad he had a change of heart.

This Wrangler jeans ad, called “We Are Animals,” just won the top prize at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. The woman advertising the jeans looks like a deer in headlights. A topless deer in headlights with a big booty.

A U.S. judge at the festival said the campaign “screams raw sex.” I don’t know…it just screams “Get out of the road!” to me. [Guardian UK]

Burger King must be sweatin’ the competition because their latest ad for the “Super Seven Incher” makes Carl’s Jr.‘s raciest ads seem, well, subtle. And just in case the woman with her mouth agape didn’t convey enough sexual innuendo, the copy at the bottom reads, “Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.” Um, yeah. Click past the jump to see the full ad. [Copyranter]

You may have to look very closely to figure out what’s happening in this ad. Still clueless? Well, the biker is trudging up the hairy belly of an obese man, warning us that if we don’t “stay in shape,” we’ll end up a sedentary slob. That’s my take on the ad, anyway, not that I agree. I think a more successful ad would have been to show overweight people that they can still do activities like riding a bike, not shame them. Or maybe SPW Bike’s goal was just to get attention in a clever way. What do you think? See the female version of the ad after the jump. [Copyranter]

Dear Bacardi,

I am writing to express my concern about the scary things going on in advertising lately. It seems like each ad gets crazier or more offensive then the next.  Did you see the new Tampax ad where a boy wakes up one day with a vagina? WTF. Anyhoo…I know that companies such as yours are getting all desperate to sell stuff (even fruity rum drinks) with the current economic climate, but does that really mean it’s acceptable to come up with a blatantly offensive ad campaign? I need help understanding the thought process behind the worst campaign I think I’ve ever seen, your new Bacardi Breezers campaign entitled “Ugly Girlfriends,” which featured a variety of “Ugly Girlfriends” as the new accessory for women to look hotter this summer.

To see the full NSFW ad, click past the jump. This Portuguese ad, targeted at women, promotes safe sex. It’s hard to read, but the text up top says, “Girls, protect yourself. Demand your partner wear a condom.” It’s some seriously shocking imagery, but does it go too far? Megan at Jezebel wrote (in a post that’s since been taken down):

Sexualizing rape and domestic violence and putting the onus on women to protect themselves scream “safe” to me, too.

On one hand, I see her point. Pointing a gun at a vagina is certainly graphic and sexually violent imagery out of context. However, each of us is responsible for protecting our bodies from STDs and this ad is trying to imply that having sex without a condom is the equivalent of firing a loaded weapon at your, uh, vital parts. Is that message clear without the text? Not necessarily, so in that regard, it doesn’t work. But in combination, it’s certainly powerful. What do you think?

Oh Axe, will your sexist ads know no bounds? This time around, the male product line is shilling its tire-shaped “Detailer Shower Tool” (that’s the manly name for a loofah, FYI) by implying the user is washing off the perfume scene left by a chick (on his ear) and her mother (on his knees). Because he was doin’ them at the same time, get it?! As Context.org asks, have threesomes become so commonplace that companies like Axe need to take it up a notch by titillating their audience with mother-daughter sex?

Sirens siren Heather Wood Rudulph has written a piece for Huffington Post about five reasons we still need feminism, including the recent murder of abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller, and the propensity of pop culture to make women look like marriage-crazy loons.

Her five reasons are just dandy, but why limit ourselves to only five? It was depressingly easy to think of five more reasons we need more of the F-word.

Check out this ad for MTV’s Staying Alive global HIV and AIDS prevention campaign. What better way to visually represent how people’s past sexual partners stay with them forever and become entangled than with name-shaped pubic hair! [Copyranter]