- For some politically-themed contextual fuckery, check this out.
- In the new book, Virus: The Outrageous History of Gyro Worldwide, French theorist and Author, Harriet Bernard-Levy chronicles the birth of the agency and its founder, Steven Grasse.
- Rubber Republic is seeding a game for the Aardman's 'Creature Discomforts' series made for the Leonard Cheshire Disability Charity. The first features Callum, a blind chameleon that needs your help getting his dinner.
- Oh look, it's another twisty road commercial for BMW. OK, it's not exactly a road but still. GSD&M Idea City created.
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Oh please!!! We haven't even recovered form the debacle that was Microsoft Vista and now we have to anticipate the release of Windows 7? Yes,. A video created to hype Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference alongside the new operating system is floating around YouTube. In the video, the tiresome "agency brainstorming" approach is used to introduce a ridiculous boy band which proceeds to go all 'N Sync on your ass.
Thankfully, the video's creator, Brian, is quickly ushered out of the conference room for sharing his dreck with the group. Still, do we really need to even begin thinking about a new OS when Vista still hasn't won over the masses? Though maybe that's the plan. Accept the fact Vista sucks and just release a new OS - that will likely suck just as much - with a different name. Brands do it all the time. Same shit, different name.
Sometimes driving alone and all the mind wandering that comes with it can be a therapeutic experience. Other times it can just suck, be boring or make you want to fall asleep. Driver Assist Connect, a gadget that projects a holographic image to the passenger seat of your car aims to keep you company, keep you awake and, in your absence, help prevent people from stealing your car.
The product could come in handy when driving to work alone allowing one to scoot down the less jammed, two-per-vehicle express lane. It could also cause problems when inadvertently switched on while driving past one's significant other. Or, conversely, it could aid in the creation of jealousy, an occasional but much-needed card in the relationship game.
The ads themselves are of the cheesy infomercial variety variety; poorly acted, oddly scripted and produced with the finesse of a sledgehammer.
Tapping into the truism that one's phone is, in a sense, one's life, Nokia is out with an interesting online promotion for what appears to be a new phone. Two playful videos (Anna, Luca) do the montage thing to illustrate the lives of Anna, Jade and Luca, all of whom, of course, have accompanying Facebook pages.
On the promotional site, somebodyelsesphone, where the symbiotic relationship between a person and their phone is further explored, people can sign up to be notified via email when the phone will be unlocked...in other words, released.
Or, or, or...it's not a promotion for a new phone, rather, a playful promotion that attempts to make everyone love Nokia even more. Or hate their friends for even thinking about stealing a person's little secrets out of their phone. In 5.5 days, we will know. W+K London created the work.
Just as various groups did the car crash thing over and over and over and over and over again, it seems we're in for a graphic workplace safety trend as well. Following last year's effort from Canadian group Prevent-it, Australia's WorkSafe Victoria is out with a series of ads in which a guy misuses a nail gun, a cook carries a pot of boiling water that's too heavy and a woman has a bit of trouble using a bagel slicer.
The focus of the campaign urges workers to ask for help if they don't know how to use a particular piece of equipment. The ads will air in two versions. One will will air prior to 8:30PM as a PG version. After that, the full blown gross out version will air.
What would happen if a Thickburger jumped into a cold swimming pool? "Shrinkage" -- one ad among many for Hardee's Little Thickburger. Despite its focus on (small) size, (wide) breadth and general meatiness, it is radically devoid of gigantic titty jokes or other innuendos.
Each spot sports its own overly cute Thickburger-vs-Little-Thickburger comparison and ends with the same glib line: "It's a Thickburger, but little."
If Daria ever went into advertising, a slogan like that would've been her magnum opus.
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Four Playboy playmates hit the slopes -- in the buff! -- on a set of limited-edition Burton "Love" snowboards.
Moms with kids are predictably unhappy -- and, just as predictably, a youngish guy with Alex Bogusky hair goes on the record with a nonchalant "They're just naked bodies."
"We just keep saying 'Maverick, Maverick, Maverick' until that's all they hear!" snaps a fictional McCain campaign strategist. "It's not that hard." Because why write a jingle when you've got a word with the force of a heavy blunt instrument -- a word voters will remember long after all the other propaganda's melted together?
Dubbed "A Fly on the Wall," this :33 bit of masterpiece theatre was allegedly funded by Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein in the flesh, then uploaded onto YouTube from their own computers. Well, maybe not the latter.
Not the first "maverick" bitchslap we've seen in recent days. I'm just glad they didn't use children.
More where that came from, and good stuff too, though all this blatant Obama-loving has begun alienating some potential voters.
Just in time for Halloween, Doritos launches Hotel 626, a haunted virtual hotel that's only open between 6pm and 6am. (You'll literally have to make a reservation if you try to penetrate it before then.)
Users are encouraged to visit the site in the dark with headphones, a camera and a microphone, which can be used to complete challenges. The hotel is 13 rooms big, including a morgue and a dark room (like, for developing photos?).
Part of Doritos' sponsor-heavy online universe, Snack Strong Productions, the effort will be promoted on specially marked bags of Doritos. By production company Ketchum.
Each year Evian releases a designer bottle to highlight its commitment to "chic sophistication." 2007's splurge of choice was by Christian Lacroix; now meet Jean Paul Gaultier's Pret-a-Porter 2009 edition. Get it tout seule or in big-ass boxes of 12 for just $118. It's a steal!
Can't afford it? No worries. To maximize the likelihood of cashflow from every frivolous spender alive, Evian's got a slew of other appetite-slicking vessels that will make dehydrated friends writhe with envy, even while smirking under their Botox.
They that brought you $10 facial spray (now sponsor-friendly!) and bottled water for children also debuted the regal Palace bottle, complete with its own metal pourer and coaster. (Comes in packs of 12. Coaster, pourer and self-esteem sold separately.)
- A handful of rich-ass celebrities use reverse psychology to cajole MySpace users into voting. What, does Jennifer Aniston not do it for you? Maybe Leonardo DiCaprio's poverty-ridden excuse for a blog will.
- The wife of David Warthen, founder of Ask.com, is facing tax evasion charges on money she made while working as a hooker to pay for law school.
- Three thought-provoking reasons not to blog anonymously if you're gonna blog at all.
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by Angela Natividad
Oct- 7-08
Comments (0)
File: Brands, Campaigns, Cause, Commercials, Online, Opinion, Packaging, Political, Strange, Trends and Culture, Video
- In a bid to woo former CP+B client Pearl Izumi, Boulder agency Karsh/Hagan launched a poster campaign slamming agencies that drop smaller clients for bigger ones.
- With "silent" ad, KFC offers $20,000 to the United Nations World Food Program if presidential candidates address the issue of world hunger during the debate Tuesday in Nashville.
- Smirnoff is out with a new commercial which has two trapeze artists making a drink in mid air while performing at the circus.
- Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine has joined the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors Consumer Education Foundation and TD AMERITRADE Institutional to launch the Your Money Bus Tour.
Nobody ever tires of a transparent double entendre, right?
Bearing that wisdom in mind, Nando's released an ad where a blonde ditz flags down a waitress because her burger didn't come with chips. (That's British talk for "fries.")
"They're on your plate," the waitress points out.
"No they're not," the hungry hippo blasts back.
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The Swift Kids for Truth, a group of weebies that can't form complete sentences without lisping adorably, take the piss out of Sarah Palin in a video called "Maverick." The description's about as infantile as the content: "The kids are in awe of that lady who looks like their Mommy when she's mad."
Palin's status as "maverick," the munchkins argue with subtle irony, doesn't go much deeper than the frameless glasses on her nose.
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In an odd approach to selling shoe polish that's not unlike methods used to sell cars by draping a woman across the hood of a vehicle, Kiwi, with help from Grey Hong Hong, has crafted a print campaign that's seemingly designed to elicit a collective "huh?" from anyone who flips a magazine's pages to the ad.
If Grey Hong Kong was going for that collective "huh?" and guaranteeing the page wouldn't be turned too quickly, they have, indeed, achieved that goal. After all, its not often you see miniature woman working diligently atop a pair of shoes to insure pristine shininess. In fact, it would be downright creepy to open the closet door in the morning to see these tiny polishers scampering about one's shoes. It's be enough to cause one to question one's mental faculties and run directly to the doctor's office.
With a vibe very much like Twin Peaks, Wawa coffee is out with a new website which makes it easy for people to create their own personalized cup of coffee and then have the creation analyzed in terms of what the creation says about the person's personality. The navigation is a bit clumsy and it appears the only way to get the analysis is through email thereby allowing for the possibly undesirable collection of email addresses. Wilmington Delaware interactive agency, The Archer Group, worked with Wawa and Dallas based Richards group on the online campaign.
To demonstrate how global warming will one day turn familiar surroundings into aquarium props, Offsetters suspended lifeboats off the side of buildings and lined Vancouver's streets with water safety gear: life vests under park benches, and a life guard, on duty, in the middle of a promenade.
Efforts included clear "offsetters.ca" labeling. See more of the work on the website.
Nice way to get attention, ignite imaginations and play with surroundings instead of cluttering them. By Rethink.
A guy called James Neate just created a crew, Brandstalkers, whose mission it is to "virally" promote brands it loves -- as opposed to advertising them in conventional ways. (Frankly, "viral" is getting pretty conventional, in use of name if not in outcome. Repeat after me: VIRAL IS AN OUTCOME.) In return, the group takes a small "grant" from the companies it represents.
Its debut effort was for Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican taqueria based in Sydney. It involves half-naked guys and a lot of Sharpies.
Gotta love brand gospel writ on flesh. You can probably gauge the success of the campaign by the number of Japanese tourists it attracted.
Isobar just built a new site for Renault's Kangoo Be Bop -- "a quirky car, filled with space and light." Once you've chosen your country (France or UK), hit "BeFun" and watch the film for some '60s-style frivolity.
Light and loose, bright but easy on the eyes. Very Target, but period-specific. It's like everything the Ford Fiesta wanted (but failed!) to achieve with the love factory.
CollectiblesToday.com is promoting these M&M-sponsored Ashton-Drake dolls as its top Christmas gift this year. Each six-inch "Heavenly Handful" (cringe) sports an M&M's onesie with a matching cap, complete with darling one-liners like "Never let 'em see you melt" and "Sweet on the inside." My favorite, though, has to be "There's a little nut."
Lest anyone try replacing a nearby child's Bratz doll too hastily, this ad takes pains to remind you the collection is to be "enjoyed by adult collectors" only. So keep your grubby paws off, kid; those non-blinking M&M's evangelists are staying behind the glass case, preferably in the living room.
V-v-v-via.
- There are many ways to call attention to breast cancer awareness. This is yet another one which makes an interesting association between the affected body part and the company behind the awareness campaign.
- Wonder what the "born digital" crowd does all day long? Here's your answer.
- Gawker Media's Nick Denton has announced cutbacks at his company and predicts a challenging year ahead in 2009.
- Perhaps due to genuine interest or perhaps to hear how many times Palin would utter yet another soccer mom-ism, 69.9 million viewers tuned in to the Biden/Palin debate, more than the 52.4 million who watched Obama debate McCain.
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So...does strapping a midget...oh, damn, that's not the right word...a little person to the front of a man who then, with the help of the little person, hurls a shot which beats a 1973 record make the man one and and a half times the man he already is? According to Solo Strong beer, the answer is yes.
All of this raises a very important question; Does Solo Strong beer thing midgets, sorry, little people are half as good as "regular" people? Apparently so since advertising is, as we all know, the bastion of truth and enlightened thought, right?
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This soothing video opens on a beautiful but sad scene in which a girl is digging grave for her dead goldfish. The music lulls us into a relaxing mood as a neighbor approaches the girl to offer his condolences but asks here why she's digging such a large whole for a tiny goldfish. At this point, the mood, shall we say, changes quite dramatically. Give it a watch.
Wait. What? There's haircare product in this ad? Damn! All I saw was a pair of colossal boobs bulging forth threatening to explode from the skimpy confines of a cleavage-bearing top. After stuffing my eyes back in their sockets and coming to the realization this was not, in fact, a Wonderbra ad, my eyes finally traveled to the lower right hand corner of the ad where, yes, bottle of Pantene product were displayed.
The ads are said to have been created by MastosGrey in Brazil. Sadly, they look like every other fake ad that employs the massive image/minuscule type approach to creativity. We may never know and, really, who cares. They're fun to look at. Let's just shut up and enjoy ;)
From SelectNY and Anonymous Content comes this new commercial for Giorgio Armani's Diamonds for Men. The ad features Josh Hartnett doing what people like Josh Hartnett do in fragrance commercials; drive classic cars, dress classically, work the crowd at a retro Hollywood event, act like a star and, well, say nothing.
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