Usually, brands put the focus on positive things while promoting its products, but sometimes they decide to forget about sweet things and dare to come close to the line, which divides the gritty criminal world and the life of model citizens—of course, only in advertising, not when doing business. Humorous or ironical advertising campaigns featuring robbers, spies, thieves, corsairs, undercover agents, peace-breakers and all sorts of baddies (barring cruel dictators) as well as their victims are showcased in this review.

The story of close relationship between brands and cinematography started nearly at the same time as the cinema itself was born—in the beginning of the  movie era, the big companies promoted their products though short clips which were screened before movies. Now it’s not that easy to tell for sure for which product the pioneer ad was created, but according to a range of sources (IMDB is one of them), the first filmed advertising for a today’s global brand was shot for Dewar’s Scotch Whisky (1897). Today, connections between filmmaking industry and brands go beyond this simple presence and include a lot of examples such as much discussed product placement, festival sponsorship and opening cinema clubs, cinema-related advertising campaigns, collaboration with filmmakers on commercials, and creating movies under brands’ supervision.

What is success? Nokia teamed up with Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam to answer this tricky question in its latest global campaign, promoting smartphone E7. The brand is encouraging consumers to look at their life from a new point of view and decide what real success means to them—is it just about money they make or something really priceless, like friendship, happiness and those little sunny moments of life. The global multiplatform campaign revolving around tagline ‘Success is what you make it’ includes digital promotion, prints and 15-, 30-, 45- and 60-second TV-commercials, which feature a variety of E7 users from all around the globe.

adidas unveils the ‘all adidas’ global campaign, the largest one in the brand’s history. The massive marketing push showcases the brand’s distinctive presence across different cultures and lifestyles fusing the world of sports, music and fashion and is the first time the company features adidas Sport Performance, adidas Originals and adidas Sport Style sub-brands in a single advertising project.