Ahead of St. Patrick’s Day (March 17), Guinness has released a series of tongue-in-cheek adverts, encapsulating the theme of sharing happiness and joy as part of the campaign, which is running under the straplines ‘Share a Smile, it’s St Patrick’s Day’ and ‘17th March, the Friendliest Day of the Year.’ The saint is widely known as the patron of Ireland, and Guinness, which is associated with this country like no other brand, celebrates the event annually for over 15 years with a bunch of activities and new products (for 2011, for example, it released a new special sauce produced in partnership with Heinz).

Yesterday, March 3, TED, the non-profit organization behind the TED Conference and TED Talks, announced 10 winners of its first Ads Worth Spreading competition, which was launched late September, 2010. The idea behind the contest was to celebrate the hilarious commercials that run longer than traditional TV Ads (up to 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds), which is enough “to make an authentic human connection” and tell an engaging and intelligent story. The top-10 list of 2011 winners includes clips, which were developed between January 2010 and January 2011 for organizations and brands including Chrysler, Intel and Target.

Kraft continues to pursue bold tactics for its marketing campaigns. A week ago we reported about its polirizing campaign for Miracle Whip that encouraged each consumer to have their say on why they love or hate the product, and now Kraft’s advertising department introduces a new campaign for Kraft’s Athenos product lineup—even more shocking and controversial and targeting American females in their twenties.

Coca-Cola’s Sprite is launching a new advertising campaign in India, where the brand holds the second position in the list of soft drink brands. The tagline of the marketing push, which aims at younger consumers, says, ‘First drink, then think. Sprite—University of Freshology.’ The iconic lemon-lime based soda, which was launched in 1999 across the country, will be now promoted through a series of 6 TV commercials, as well as social media platforms and the brand’s website—www.sprite.in.

Sofia Coppola, who directed the lovely commercial for Miss Dior Chérie in 2008 featuring model Maryna Linchuk, is back with a new advert for the brand, this time starring ‘The Black Swan’ film’s leading actress Natalie Portman. The new campaign, which was announced back in December 2010, includes a series of prints as well as a TV advert to be officially launched in March.

On February 15, Harley Davidson launched a new advertising campaign taglined ‘No Cages’.

After parting with its long-time partner in ad creation Carmichael Lynch agency, the motorbike manufacturer was on the lookout for some really fresh and original ideas for a new campaign, which led them to work with Victors and Spoils, a creative advertising agency that bases its work on crowd-sourcing.