Charlotte Advertising Agency

This morning, Nike unveiled a video to promote its newest high-tech fitness device: the Nike+ FuelBand, developed with help from R/GA. Before we get any further, let’s try to figure out what this fancy toy actually does. According to Nike, you wear your FuelBand during the day to track your steps, calories burned, time spent exercising, etc. But more important, it also calculates something called “NikeFuel” using “oxygen kinetics,” which tells you just how active you’ve been, regardless of your chosen pursuit—everything from dancing to walking to playing basketball can be quantified and compared.

Now that we know what a FuelBand is—sort of—let’s watch Nike’s latest spot, from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., to see some examples of activities that can be measured in NikeFuel. And in classic Nike fashion, they’re using clips of famous athletes and film scenes to do it. (Hopefully they got licenses for everything!)

So, dancing like M.C. Hammer, swinging a tennis racquet like Serena Williams, battling evil ex-boyfriends like Scott Pilgrim, playing basketball like LeBron James, trimming hedges like Edward Scissorhands, and chasing chickens like Rocky—all things that result in NikeFuel. On the other hand, chilling out like the Big Lebowski, riding your Segway like Paul Blart, and getting waxed like the 40-Year-Old Virgin won’t get you anywhere. (Although the amount of pain endured during a chest waxing must amount to something, right?)

We mentioned not too long ago that Darth Vader would be lending his inscrutable visage and heavy breathing to Currys PC World's holiday ads in the U.K. Well, it turns out he's brought some friends to the party. Well, not friends, exactly—more like mortal enemies from the dastardly rebellion that opposed him throughout the entire original Star Wars trilogy. But that's all semantics. What's important is that R2-D2, making a second appearance for the retail chain, and Chewbacca are now part of the Currys marketing family. Chewbacca's ad introduces him to the wonders of Earth's hair dryers, and R2-D2 learns how fragile 21st century computers are. Protip for future casting decisions: If Currys is anything like Best Buy, Jabba the Hut wouldn't be a bad choice for a security guard. R2's spots after the jump.

Alright, logo pigs—shuffle up to the trough for your latest meal. A fun little feature over at StockLogos.com looks at the evolution of some famous corporate logos, and tongue-in-cheek predictions for what they might look like in the future. The joke started with Starbucks around the time of its new logo—with people suggesting the zoom-in approach would eventually produce just a green dot. Several other logos get similarly simplified treatments in the StockLogos collection, but others get more ominous tweaks. Check out the Firefox logo in 2050, for example—seems the world is all ocean. Via Neatorama.

We're going to try something different with our weekly movie-trailers post. In addition to posting full previews for every film opening on the weekend, we're also going to mash all the trailers into one 90-second video—a trailer for the trailers, as it were. Check it out below. More options!

In terms of this week's box-office predictions, we've got an interesting showdown shaping up between a pair of sequels—The Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2. Those two films should battle it out with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides for the top spot. Bridesmaids, in its second weekend, will likely come in fourth, with the fading Thor expected to finish fifth.

The other two movies opening this weekend are The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt; and We Are the Night, some kind of lady-vampire movie set in Berlin.

Full trailers below:

Fallon has created the new position of chief strategy officer, naming Michael Fanuele to the role. Fanuele, who most recently had that job at Euro RSCG in New York, will join the Publicis Groupe agency in January and work closely with Fallon’s chief creative officer Darren Spiller.

The average person on Facebook has 130 friends, but most of them aren’t really “friends” at all. That’s the premise of a campaign from Microsoft that introduces its Kin phone, which is pitched as a device designed specifically “for people who are actively navigating their social lives.” Kin, a long-awaited, touch-screen mobile device that was code-named “Pink,” was based on feedback from more than 50,000 consumers in the target 20-something age range. An online and TV campaign was crafted by agencytwofifteen (formerly T.A.G), San Francisco.

Are luxury marketers guilty of “leaving money on the table” by missing out on a population segment willing and able to buy what they’re selling? A forthcoming book, Black Is the New Green: Marketing to Affluent African Americans, makes the case that some agencies and clients are doing just that. The book’s authors offer counsel on how to go about reaching “AAAs,” their shorthand term for “affluent African Americans.”

As attention falls on high-end smartphones, LG is focusing where much of the volume is — the middle of the market.

Coca-Cola is introducing a 90-calorie mini can, designed to give consumers a better way to manage their calories.