YouTube ran a similar ad last year too:

http://www.edibleapple.com/apple-advertising-hits-the-youtube-homepage/

Although I don't think the nav bar moved with the phone - the phone just popped out of the ad boundaries when being tilted a bit.

Yeah, Yahoo! ran this ad too ...

But I agree with you, I'm super intrigued by this kind of stuff and generally agree that one-off super-integrated ads are the only way for publishers to move forward. With that said, though, what do you think about the consumer experience? As a user of the site, is it what you want? (I really don't know the answer, just thinking out loud.)

I hear you about the user experience. Thankfully this is handled gracefully in that if you mouse over to search or navigate the ad unit is pushed back. Still, this isn't readily apparent, and seems to only work in Safari and IE. Firefox users appear to have to opt in instead.

I've always loved the way iPod advertising in general has used overlays to subtly grab peoples attention and this seems like the next logical step. Hopefully most people find it charming and not annoying, but that's down to the quality of the creative for sure.

"...the new Pitchfork has lunched..." awesome.

it would have been cool for a site that i was used to. but not for the first few days of a redesign/relaunch! i've already got to re-learn how to use the site, and now the navigation is flipping out? seemed non-ideal to me.

i was just confused, and i found it hard to separate my opinion of the site from my opinion of the banner.