Goofy pupils aside, this new spot for travel website Kayak—the latest in a series of absurd spots from ad agency Barton F. Graf 9000—has a bit of a blurred vision. Why did the guy think dilating his pupils would help him see better? That's not how it works. And I think the ad would have been funnier if he'd given his wife a weird compliment she didn't know what to do with, instead of just insulting her. That said, you won't shake the image of Mr. Pupils for a while—and he does reinforce the brand message. A good long vacation from this guy is just what the doctor ordered.

Plenty of subway stations look like they belong in a horror movie, but this Paris promotion for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel Prometheus takes the concept to the extreme, setting up an advertising installation in the Saint-Martin stop, deserted for 73 years on the Metro's Line 9. The long-unused platform has been dressed up to resemble an otherworldly cave from the movie, with eerie blue optical effects and a huge stone head, an image that's graced most of the film's often elaborate advertising. Frankly, the ghost station, on display through May 25, beats most typical subway stops: It's arguably cleaner and better lit, and Stoney won't vomit on your shoes. Compare it to the next destination on the line, Strasbourg-Saint-Denis, in the clip below, from Half-a-Million Screenshots, with the couple sucking face and dry humping in an almost indescribably freaky fashion. Oh, mon dieu! The next time I need to get around the City of Light, I'll take Le Bus. One more image after the jump. Via Adverblog.

A perky, energetic character named “Trudy” is central to Roth Partners’ first work for True Lemon, a natural lemon flavoring for water that’s looking to steal share from bigger players like Crystal Light.

Dressed in a bright yellow T-shirt and matching eyeglass frames, Trudy will appear in two TV ads and a series of videos that will live online. In the ads, she pops into scenes like Jeannie from “I Dream of Jeannie” and pitches True Lemon to women as effervescently as “Flo” touts Progressive to insurance buyers.

The campaign, which breaks Monday, also includes social media efforts, contests and events. The total budget for the effort—an estimated $4-5 million—is modest compared to bigger competitors, but it represents the largest marketing push for the brand to date.

“I don’t have to be as big as Crystal Light,” said Al Soricelli, CEO of True Citrus Co., parent company of True Lemon. “When I started here [in June 2010], we had about 2 percent household penetration. We’re hoping to get up to about 6. That would be phenomenal.”

One TV ad is set in a yoga studio and another in an office. In each setting, True encounters a thirtyish woman who represents the consumer that the brand seeks to reach.

“Truth out,” Trudy says in the yoga ad, using her hands to form the signal for time out. In seconds, she replaces the exerciser’s flavored water with a bottle infused with True Lemon.

“Real flavor from real fruit,” Trudy explains. “One hundred percent natural ingredients. Just five calories.” She stays long enough for the woman to drink the True Lemon water, but disappears before she can say, “Umm. That’s good.”

The TV ads will run through August during female-skewing programs on cable networks such as TBS, Bravo, A&E, HGTV, Food Network, Lifetime and Oxygen.

The Web videos were shot in New York’s Central Park and depict a reporter character interviewing passers-by that Trudy hands the product to. Trudy also sings a song.

“She lights up whoever she’s with,” said Rick Roth, CEO of Roth Partners.

The brand’s core target are active, health conscious women between 30 and 32, but they can be as young as 25 or as old as 54, according to Roth.

Roth Partners landed the creative account in December after a review. That win and assignments from The Reader’s Digest Association spurred the New York shop to add a managing partner in March. 

True Citrus Co. is backed by private equity and based in Baltimore. Its product also comes in the form of an ingredient for baking or cooking.

Last September, when Lee Doyle left his role as the head of WPP’s MEC media network, the company said he would stay within the corporate fold in what was then an undefined role. That’s now borne out as Doyle has been named to the newly created job of president, client development, at WPP media network Mindshare.

The move is part of the new management structure under Antony Young who was named CEO of Mindshare North America last summer. Young had previously been the U.S. chief of Publicis Groupe’s Optimedia agency and was replaced by Marla Kaplowitz, who was named North American CEO in October.

Doyle moves over to an agency that is currently the North America, Western Europe incumbent in Unilever’s $7 billion global media review.  Mindshare said Doyle has the new-busines chops for the role. While he ran MEC’s North American operations, the company grew 40 percent and won the consolidated AT&T media assignment, with about $2 billion in spending, and other new business from Marriott, Bloomberg, Michelin, IKEA, Activision, Novartis and Macy’s.

In addition to Doyle’s recruitment, Mindshare said it hired Alexander Ouvaroff as the agency’s West Coast lead. He was most recently evp at Marketing Evolution where he oversaw Anheuser-Busch InBev, and he takes over for Sandy Constan who recently stepped down from that L.A.-based role at Mindshare. The company also promoted Michael Epstein, who was previously client leader, to president, strategic resources and client services. Two other Mindshare executives have been promoted as well: Jake Norman, managing director business planning and client lead for Tim Hortons and J.M. Smucker is now the president, chief strategy officer, Mindshare Canada, a new role at the company, and  Dervilla Kelly has been upped to executive director, client leadership, another new role.
 

QR codes have been exhibiting an uncharacteristic characteristic lately—they've been not sucking as much. We had the Korean retailer's 3-D sunlight-activated QR code, which was scannable only at lunch, when the shadows lined up. Now, we have this Guinness QR code on a beer glass, dreamed up by BBDO New York. It's literally activated by the product—you pour a Guinness into the glass, and the beer's black color fills out the code. (Those inferior amber-colored beers are useless here.) Scan the code with your smartphone, and it "tweets about your pint, updates your Facebook status, checks you in via Foursquare, downloads coupons and promotions, invites your friends to join you, and even launches exclusive Guinness content." In a pinch, it might even send out an SOS signal if you happen to be stuck on the Guinness submarine. More images after the jump. Via @TheSmarmyBum.