American Express has this program called Members Project, which funds worthy ventures with $2.5 million. (Members vote to decide who gets the money.) Read all about it.
To promote the program, AmEx used footage from previous ads to produce a montage of famous cardholders like John Cleese, Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Ellen Degeneres and Jim Hensen.
Their achievements are presented as the fruit of childlike desires. Scorsese's "project," for example, was to "tell unforgettable stories"; Degeneres wanted to "encourage people to dance to their own tune." The premise is, these people changed the world with their passion. Got a dream? Maybe you can change it too.
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Dual body wash and moisturizer isn't really a new idea. (Companies like Dove beat that horse dead years ago.) Bringing bang to an old combo, Wieden + Kennedy enlist a centaur for Old Spice Double Impact. He's half man ... and half provider.
More importantly, he's actually got YouTube users talking about Old Spice. Will they buy the stuff? Hard to say. But hey, if a centaur doesn't turn this trick, Doogie Howser, M.D. definitely will.
Think only experienced TV spokespeople wield influence? Yeah, Geico agrees. So to supplement the tale of an apparently ordinary customer, it ensured success with an old-school icon: Mrs. Butterworth. (You know, the maternal maple syrup bottle.)
I love how she tosses in that random "hot pancakes" reference. Good stuff by The Martin Agency.
Commercials for IBM's "Go Green" campaign are all over my daytime TV. In the ones I've seen, corporate suits debate the merits of implementing energy-efficient policies. Once they opt to "go green" (usually for financial reasons), a cartoon forest -- complete with cheerful chirping wildlife and a high-pitched chorus -- blossoms around them. The message is that companies going green, whatever the reason, can change the environment for the better.
Style-wise, the effort mirrors a current Truth campaign where reality is also shattered by musical kitsch and doe-eyed cartoons. (Both are liable to make jaded cubicle cogs long for a vatful of hot smoking Dip.)
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- Amalgamated clears air over "Virtual Drinking Buddy" rip. In addition to starting a dialogue with Robbie Wenger, Amalgamated founder Charles Rosen told Adrants, "in no way are we above stealing ideas around here - but it wasn't the case this time. we really didn't know about robbie's virtual drinking buddy until he emailed us about it after our mike's spot ran." That's serious grace under pressure, and we were completely charmed.
- Smart way to promote sober driving.
- Tribal DDB scores Wrigley account, must now work out how to adhere gum to 'net users. Shouldn't be too hard. Just chew a little and avoid this kinda crap.
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Who doesn't like a bit of Friday fun? Not that this necessarily counts as fun as opposed to the late night direct response television idiocy it is but, here, we are presented with Tiddy Bear. Yes, Tiddy Bear. It's exactly what it sounds like; a bear to place on your tits. Why? So that the seat belt in your car doesn't give you that annoying separation so often experienced when the shoulder strap creates a canyon between the left and right breast.
One wonders if there's a corresponding Dicky Bear for the guys to help keep their packages from sliding out the bottom of their shorts while enjoying the Tiddy Bear-wearing woman sitting next to them in the car.
In an internal letter obtained by TechCrunch, SVP Bill Veghte tries to explain WTF Microsoft was getting at with its Seinfeld campaign, which kicked off with this really weird ad.
Excerpt from Veghte's letter:
Today, we are kicking off a highly visible advertising campaign. The first phase of this campaign is designed to engage consumers and spark a new conversation about Windows - a conversation that will evolve as the campaign progresses, but will always be marked by humor and humanity. The first in this series [...] aims to re-ignite consumer excitement about the broader value of Windows.
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"Best of Skype Laughter Chain" is FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES of footage of other people laughing. After awhile you'll be like, "That is one seriously ugly noise."
The video is part of a broader effort where people upload videos of themselves laughing. Sorta like that Gmail thing from last year. The idea is that Skype provides the ultimate setting for mirth and hilarity with its video chat feature. That's cool, and I'm a Skype fan and all, but this "take a giggle, pass it on!" gimmick is lame. It's like a whole campaign composed of inside jokes you weren't let in on.
This is HSBC's "Lumberjack" by JWT/London. At first watch it's like Swiss Family Robinson meets Lord of the Flies, except everybody's grown up and cops ruin all the fun.
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In the first ad released by Crispin Porter+Bogusky for Microsoft, Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld meet serendipitously at Shoe Circus, a Payless ShoeSource-type store. Seinfeld helps him pick out shoes. Made of pleather. Significant glances are exchanged, immigrants gawk, and churros are shared.
Thus ingratiated with one of the world's richest (and thriftiest?) men, Seinfeld poses the question we'd all ask, given the chance (and a serious case of munchies): "Are they ever gonna come up with something that'll make our computers moist and chewy like cake so we can eat 'em while we're working?"
Gates gives Seinfeld a subtle but sassy little ass-shake to denote "yes."
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To promote the Sunday premier of HBO's Entourage, a series that enlivens the imaginations of freeloaders everywhere, Creature pimped out public transport.
Buses in NYC were wrapped with Entourage creative and outfitted with ostentatious chrome rims featuring the series logo. Way to bring LA to Manhattan!
Attesting to the show's success at engaging its demographic, one of the rims has already been stolen. The others will be auctioned off after the promotion.
"What does it mean to be interesting? That's an interesting question." It's also one of the better lines from "Behind Interesting," a six-part web series by Dos Equis and Break, which is letting Dos Equis ride its leaderboards like a carnival pony.
"Behind Interesting" expands on Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World campaign. Problem is, all that over-practiced pompousness is just too earnest to be ironic.
Aptly called "Melony B." Watch 'til the end -- there's a candy surprise.
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Sort of like a politician making rosy promises but forgetting to spell out the details, this new Martin Agency-created commercial for Discover Card which acknowledges the fact we get carried away with all the cool stuff in this world and how that can stress us out because of the resulting debt, promises to help people "spend smarter" versus spend more.
It's all very feel good with images of people having a great time with their families and friends but, like many political speeches, one is left with a feeling of emptiness and curiosity after the high has subsided. OK, Discover, just how exactly does a company that exists solely because people spend money avoid being accused of smoke and mirrors-fueled shenanigans by telling people to spend less? Huh? Huh? Do tell.
For those of us who live our lives online with a collection of Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, Flickr, Second Life and Linked In accounts, this new Unplug Your Friends effort from Meetup says we need to overcome out addition to the screen and rejoin the real world. A commercial in which a closeted geek discovers there's a world beyond his collection of screens and online friends supports the effort.
It's trippy and surreal but it makes a powerful point. There's a world out there that isn't digital and it can be a very friendly place. The creative comes from freelance CD team of Julie Lamb and Phil Gable. Curious Pictures in New York produced the work which was directed by former agency creative-turned animation director Rohitash Rao.
- Want to amuse yourself for a few minutes with a stupid wrestling game? Head over to Anger Angle and beat the crap out of TNA wrestler Kurt Angle.
- Platform-A just launched an ad optimization system for the iPhone which "detects and delivers optimized ads on iPhones browsing the Web."
- George Parker lambastes the "first" Dell ad from Enfatico, writing, "A standard boiler-plate shot of a hard nosed bitch standing in cubicle hell with her Dell laptop clasped to her ample breast demanding protection for her 'data!'"
- Hints of blowjobs don't go over well with the MPAA which didn't take kindly to the poster for the Kevin Smith film Zack and Miri Make A Porno.
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What's an Olympics win without a few marketing deals following the win? Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Nastia Liukin won't know because she's already gearing up for a laundry list of spokesperson gigs. She'll front Cover Girl ads, launch a line of jeans with Vanilla Star, appear on the Wheaties box and appear on Gossip Girl. Oh and she already has a deal with tween website Beaconstreetgorls.com.
Liukin has a positive outlook, saying, "Winning the Olympics can change your life, and nothing can prepare you for that. You can go with the flow and enjoy the ride." A native of Plano Texas, Liukin was born in Moscow and moved to America with her parents, who competed in the Olympics for the former Soviet Union, when she was two and a half.
More marketing deals are likely to follow and she'll be hanging with Maria Sharapova during fashion week in New York at Peter Som's show.
Writing on AdPulp and in his TalentZoo column, Dan Goldeier makes, correctly, the argument most campaigns are no longer given the time they need to build momentum and to enter the psyche of the consumer long enough to mean anything. He asks the question, "are ad campaigns given enough time to work these days?"
The answer is a resounding no and that, shortsightedly, been the case for a very long time. No one wants to, or is afraid to, invest the long periods of time it takes for a campaign to truly build. Everyone in marketing is too fickle and they are more concerned with advancing their own careers than advancing the success of the brands on which they work.
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Inspired by all the election-time media-whoring, Make the Logo Bigger designed buttons that depict what voters McCain and Obama are going after.
Variants include Carnies for McCain, Luthiers for Obama; Fluffers for McCain, Cobblers for Obama; Women for McCain, Women for Obama. (Sure, Obama scored with women when Hillary endorsed him, but the GOP pulled out the big guns when top Republican women rallied in defense of Sarah Palin earlier today.)
For those of you that watched Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the RNC tonight, the button at left is a tribute to one of the many soundbite-worthy statements she made: "Do you know what they say the difference is between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick."
...Yeah. I'm holding out for a "Drill baby drill!" pin though, because you know that shit was bananas.
- Blogger Meggie Poo unsubscribes to a random retail e-newsletter ... and its CAPTCHA calls her a whore. O_o
- Some members of the maverick Mad Men twitterati are affiliated with We Are Sterling Cooper, which "[catalogues] the conversation around AMC's Mad Men and its fanbase across the social web." Thanks @AmandaMooney.
- Speaking of fake Twitter characters, meet @S.A.R.A.H., an artificially intelligent house from the Sci Fi Channel's Eureka. Created by Fallon.
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Jamba Juice makes its foray into the grocery aisle with a celebratory ad by Publicis/NY and production firm Stardust. In "Fruit Pixels," a bouquet of berries spring out of a Jamba smoothie bottle and shape-shift into a swinging schoolgirl, a swimmer, a volleyball player and the Jamba Juice logo before slipping back into the bottle, now neatly capped.
Tagline: "Live fruitfully." Hrrrm. The Ting Tings, which sing Fruit Machine in the background, could've given you guys somethin' better than that.
Off-topic, I love how personified energy can be used to promote both hip surgery and fruity beverages.
Sike friends into thinking you have a Porsche. Upload a shot of your driveway on the Porsche -- I Can subsite, choose from one of four platinum-coloured models, then PhotoShop your heart out with a limited set of image adjustment tools.
The result is an almost-perfect, semi-nifty shot of a Porsche in your driveway. (Unless, like me, you Googled up a dream driveway too.) Save as wallpaper or share with friends. Just don't invite them over.
Impressed? Yeah? ...No? Well, the effort earned Cramer Krasselt/Chicago some LA Times love.
This year at the Olympics, performance-enhancing athletic gear were all the rage. Four years from now, will it be highly-advanced hips and knees?
"Smith & Nephew introduces the next generation of joint replacements: highly-advanced hips and knees engineered to meet the needs of your high-performance life."
The ad, designed to make active human beings look like fluid ribbons of energy, was produced by Psyop for Ogilvy/NY. I like how it breathes life into an industry normally associated with near-immobile geriatrics ("I've fallen and I can't get up!"). But It also brought Touch of Gray to mind. Sexy grays, bionic hip surgery: looks like advertising's in midlife-crisis mode.
To promote "Music for Life," whose theme this year was the dearth of drinkable water in some countries, the Red Cross and Studio Brussels let loose a thirsty black kid, who invaded TV studios and stole sips out of TV personalities' glasses.
It's hilarious. He just races onstage, gulps water down, and races off again without a word. Nobody can keep a straight face, and one chick just looks totally lost.
A video montage of the effort was put together and disseminated under the catchy name "Black boy wants water." As the Guerrilla Communications blog points out, it kept people awake -- and better still, got its point across.
The effort purportedly raised 3.3 million euros for drinkable water. It also won two golds, a silver and a titanium award at Cannes this year.
These things happen. Everyone's done it. It's just too easy what with all the mailing group features in Outlook that make it so simple to send email to entire groups of people with one click. That's apparently what Carat Chief People Officer (can we stop with these idiotic titles?) Rose Zory did today when she sent an email about upcoming layoffs intended for select senior management to the entire agency.
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