What’s a NBA player to do during a lock out? Well, if you’re Blake Griffin you use your star power and personality to help sell that car you dunked over at last year’s slam dunk contest, the Kia Optima, while doing some unnaturally awesome things that will surely get you laid.

The spot, titled “Time to Shine,” features a humorous fantasy dunk that takes Griffin’s dunking over an Optima stunt to crazy new heights. Check it out:

Dan Kelly, D&G copywriter, commented:

“The creative was inspired by two things: the highly-publicized Kia Optima Dunk and Blake Griffin’s off-court personality. After researching Blake and meeting with him in person, we soon came to realize how funny he really is. He has a very dry sense of humor and is extremely comfortable in front of the camera. We got to work right away creating a campaign that utilized both his personality and Kia’s.”

Apparently this is just the first commercial of a larger campaign with Griffin. And why not? It’s not like he’s going to be playing professional basketball any time soon.

One of NY TechStars hopefuls, Ambassador, is hoping to change the way brands interact with their customers.

Ambassador aims to bring brands and their followers together, offering rewards to brand ambassadors in exchange for referrals (read: free advertising) through social media. It also allows brands to track and manage these ambassadors. Ambassador means business: They already have 15,000 brand ambassadors and are solidly funded (they’ve raised $600,000 already and are aiming for $800,000 after their TechStars demo).

Here’s how it works:

Businesses can create campaigns in Ambassador and test them out in “sandbox mode.” These campaigns “dictate the measurable action you want to happen along with a reward that will incent your Ambassadors.”

Ambassador generates a unique URL for each Ambassador. Brands can then then run multiple campaigns and track their progress.

Ambassador also options brands a variety of payment plans, with different services such as integration consultation, custom landing pages and advanced customer insights available in the more expansive (and expensive) plans.

Ambassadors can earn rewards for brand loyalty. When they sign up they are prompted to select their interests. They are then encouraged to promote their favorite brands through social media upon making a purchase and are rewarded every time someone visits the link they’ve posted and completes a campaign action.

Basically Ambassador allows brands to activate brand activists as word-of mouth marketers through social media, while offering a clear and lucrative rewards system. It's ingenious because both brands and Ambassadors benefit--let's just see if they can scale.

With so many Tumblr out there that we love, we figured we should start sharing the love. So every Thursday, you'll get a new hilarious Tumblr that makes the world less bleak and dreary.

To start: Ryan Gosling + Feminist Pickup Lines=Magic. Enjoy.

http://feministryangosling.tumblr.com/