In New York City, there exist a number of folks who like to shake life up a bit. They call themselves Improv Everywhere, and their motto is “We Cause Scenes”.

Scenes like sending in a hundred folks into a Home Depot and have them walk in slow motion, then freeze for five minutes. Or a cell phone symphony in the backpack holding cells at a bookstore. Or a time-loop scene in a Starbucks, where the same series of events occur over and over for an hour. Or to see if they could get the crowd at the ballpark to give directions to a fan whose lost his seat. Or having scores of people gradually fill the same subway train over several stops—all with no trousers, in January—and if you were asked, you were to swear that you had just forgotten your pants and didn’t know the rest of these people.

Some folks get threatened when life breaks its stride. Best Buy did not like a bunch of customers coming in dressed in the blue shirt and khaki pants, even if they never claimed to be staff. But Home Depot employees didn’t feel threatened by 225 statues, and just shook their heads and smiled.

Hooray for making things more interesting.

This impressive ad is a cornerstone of Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty”, designed to boost the body-image self-esteem of girls and women. It’s kind of a relief that Dove has this campaign, so they don’t have to always send mixed signals by trying to graft these empowering messages onto ads for “Firming”—read cellulite—creams (fourth paragraph down), which kind of defeats the purpose. Stick to soap, Dove!