The Hummer is officially old school now. There's a new gas guzzler in town and it's from our friends over at Homeland Security. Built for Homeland Security by International Truck and Engine Corporation, the vehicle showcases the latest in armor protection, and detection and deterrent capabilities. Smar Truck lll is equipped with a weapons station module featuring a remote controlled .50-caliber machine gun which rises from the back of the vehicle and has sniper-detection directional sound capabilities.
Once Hollywood gets hold of this, it won't be long before consumers clamor for a street friendly version of the vehicle. Agencies, prepare your pitches now. Perhaps a bit too early, but a tie-in with this movie would make a great promotion.
Despite the out cry over the Bush campaign ads that refer to 9/11, BAGnewsNotes says there really isn't much substance to the ads and gives us a nutritional breakdown of their content.
Howard Stern says his days are numbered and expects this week to be his last as the most popular DJ ever to have walked the planet. He has inside information from the FCC that a large fine will be levied upon him this week and that "there's a cultural war going on. The religious right is winning. We're losing."
He says he expects to be fired calling himself "a dead man walking."
Because, when it comes down to it, media agencies make their money based on the size of the media budget they manage and not on consulting fees, media shops are now pulling back the reigns on the segment of their business that explore and forecast new media possibilities. Of course, they're not folding them completely leading clients to believe they are no longer in touch with the cutting edge, but are re-spinning them into the main shop and explaining it, as MediaCom co-CEO Jeffrey Malmad does by saying, "The future is now."
In a sense, it's a smart move since the agency business has never been able to get clients to pony up much money for futuristic, theoretical discussions when they could be spending their money in media getting the message out. It's also a sad move as well since innovation and breaking from the standard molds of advertising has been excruciatingly difficult to do for both agencies and advertisers. More future-think is needed. Not less.
As one of the spots featured in this week's Ad Age TV Spots of the Week, Mastercard hauls out the power of the family pet to bring emotional connection to the most impersonal of products, the credit card. It's done well too. Well, in that standard, cookie-cutter credit card company kind of way.
Also this week are spots from Verizon Wireless whose mobile IM smashes the computer based version, a humorous campaign by PUMA who is sponsoring the Jamaican Olympic Team, a girl breaking up with a Budweiser beer bottle, some anal parents who make their daughter tap dance outside to spare their precious hard wood floor, a hipster Twix commercial and a dude who sings to himself in a health club for....well, a health club. (To views spots, click through to link above, not the image.)
