Youth Panelists Tell Guy Kawasaki About Media Habits

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We all love to go to trade shows to schmooze with others in the industry, attend panel discussions in hopes we pick up the latest cool marketing tactic and, perhaps, strike a business deal or two. While some of that may have merit, in this fast changing media landscape where everyone's skipping your ads, blocking your pop ups and stripping banners from web pages, it's unlikely any panel is going to deliver you as much insight and usable information as this Guy Kawasaki-led panel called Next Generation Insights. The panel consisted of kids aged 16 to 24 and offered up more a treasure trove of first hand information about media usage habits that will soon define the future of media. From cell phone usage to use of MySpace to IM to online shopping to text messaging gaming to computer usage habits to television viewing to magazine readership to iPod usage to email to online video to RSS and more. It's a motherlode of insightful, usable information about a generation that is indicative of what media usage will look like in the future.

After watching this, you will very quickly realize that all current methods of marketing have a very, very...very short lifespan. There are bright spots though. Interestingly, magazines and billboards were mentioned as viable media outlets. Give it a watch.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Good, Industry Events, Research, Trends and Culture



Radio Station Trashes Phil Collins, Titanic Soundtrack in Campaign

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In a recent campaign, an Austrian radio station, 88.6, is trying to position itself as something other that a station that plays popular music. By trashing the hugely successful Phil Collins and the Titanic soundtrack, two entities that, while some question their musical merit, made more money that this station will likely ever see, this station is trying to position itself as some sort of anti-pop, hip station. Too bad they couldn't find some cultural references that were relevant to this decade.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Campaigns, Magazine



Hugo Boss Creates 3D World For New Cologne

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We're not usually a fan of highly stylized commercials just for the sake of being highly stylized but this Callegari Berville Grey-created, Stardust-produced Hugo Boss Green campaign featuring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, is stylized for a reason and seems to catch our eye. Like Coke's Happiness Factory, the spot illustrates the world of beauty a cologne can create. Oh, sorry, we got caught up in all the hype there for a minute but a cologne doesn't just make you smell good. It's supposed to whisk you away to another world for a moment and make you feel special. That's what this campaign does in our opinion.

The campaign. which introduces a new fragrance, consists of :10's, :15's, :20's and :30's as well as print. You can view the :30 here ( it's 15MB so give it some time) and check out additional campaign information here.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Campaigns, Celebrity, Good, Magazine, Television



TXT Message Links STDs to Geico Insurance

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Adrants reader Heather Dougherty received an odd text message today on her phone that may have been part of the currently running, very strange Geico advertising campaign. The message read, "Call me ASAP! I just found out someone u used to mess with has an std. But don't stress - I just saved a ton of money by switching to GEICO. Keep this going!"

Whether or not this is a sanctioned viral SMS campaign is unclear. We've contacted Geico seeking confirmation. While spoofs like this happen all the time, we have a hard time believing the average person would actually create a TXT message like this just to send to their friend. It has advertising copy written all over it. On the other hand, does anyone really want unsolicited TXT message of any kind delivered to their phones? We're not sure we do. What about you?

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Mobile/Wireless, Strange



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Oprah, Bono Appear At Gap's (Product) Red Promotion

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Michael Shostack was in Chicago today and stopped by the Gap's (Product_ RED) promotion at its store on Ohio and Michigan. He wasn't too impressed with the promotion reporting the throngs of people had but about five seconds to view celebs Oprah Winfrey and Bono from far across the other side of the street behind barricades. In the early Chicago cold weather today wasn't enough, that five second view was blocked by an army of red jacket-wearing Gap employees who lined up in front of the stores entrance, blocking what little view there was of Oprah and Bono as they made their way from their cars to the strore's entrance. Blocked view or not, Michael did snap a pretty good shot of the pair as they made their way inside, commenting Orpah looked very, very tiny. Check out his full coverage of the event here along with additional photos.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Brands, Celebrity, Promotions



Photobooths, Tongues, Giggling Make Ice Cream Hot

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Ariel points us to the oddities of ice cream marketing in Europe. Ice cream company Magnum (and yes, there's all kinds of fun stuff you can read into that name) has set up a kind of photo booth for people (mostly attractive young women, natch) to film themselves eating a big ass Magnum ice cream bars...seductively and teasingly, of course. Sweet. Hmm. Makes Hood look positively church-going.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Online, Strange



Viral Video Aggregation Site Keeps Tabs on Top Videos

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If your one of those people who just absolutely, positively has to know what viral video are the hottest at any given moment, you might want to give a service called Ulmo a try. UMLO, created by asabailey, crawls the web and tracks linking behavior to various video sites to produce an aggregated list of what's hot. On top right now is, of course, the goofy video of giddy YouTube billionaires, Chad and Steve, telling us how wonderfully happy they are and how YouTube will continue to be great and not change too much because of the Google acquisition. Um, yea.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Good, Online, Video, Viral



Play With Cheerleaders, Make Your Own Commercial

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If you work in advertising, love cheerleaders and think the Super Bowl rocks, what's not to like about CMT's Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders make your own commercial promotion for the network's Dallas Cowboys Cheeleaders Making the Team reality show? Right. Nothing. So have fun crafting your creation by dragging a droping cheerleaders arond the page until you have your masterpiece.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Good, Online



Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel Appears In Second V-Dubs Rock Commercial

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Following Slash, Spinal Taps Nigel Tufnell (Christophr Guest) makes an appears on stage atop a pile of VWs and notices, "this amplifier has airbags." It's all part of the automakers promotional deal with guitar maker First Act in which guitars are given to those who buy new Volkswagens.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Celebrity, Commercials, Good, Promotions



KISS's Gene Simmons Attends ANA Conference, Gets Interviewed

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AdWeek's Alison Fahey, writing on the AdFreak blog, tells us about her experience interviewing famed KISS bassist Gene Simmons and how he's taken what was once just a rock brand and turned it into a successful global brand. Alison says there wasn't much tongue wagging and there was no blood spilled. All in all, a good interview.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Brands, Celebrity, Industry Events



Tennis Hotties Swap Shirts For Magazine

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Continuing it's Keep Dreaming of A Better World campaign, Che Magazine gives us yet another thing to dream about when it comes to a better world. That is if you think a better world is made of up female tennis players exchanging shirts at the end of a match. Oh, the things people do for publicity. This comes from our friends over at Duval Guillaume Antwerp.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Commercials, Racy, Strange, Video



Ooo. Aah. It's So Big. It's So Jewish. It's A Jewish Social Network

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From our hot women-obsessed friends over at Jewish social network. Koolanoo, comes yet another video filled with, yes, hot women and...huh...what is that gigantic thing between your legs, my friend? Oh just watch and find out. While there's no nudity (aside from a guy's backside) in this video, you might want to turn the volume down before viewing lest you want your office mates to think you've got some kind of orgy going on in your office.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Good, Racy, Strange, Video



Greased Interview Nets New Subway Tagline

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One has to wonder whether or not Agency.com's Subway Video fiasco might not have turned out better if they took this tack when they did their man on the street interviews. At least they might not have offended that Amish guy Hassidic Jew. Oh wait, it wasn't the interviews that did it. They crucified themselves but whatever.

Adrants reader Nicholas Hall points out Will McKinley likes to go to Subway but he only goes for the Diet Coke. It's his "delivery method of choice for the precious elixir caffeine." He hates the food but loves to go to various Subway's throughout New York for his caffeine needs. The other day, as he was leaving a Subway, he was approached by a guy with a video camera and a microphone who wanted to talk to Will about his Subway experiences. Will offered that he might not be the best guy to talk to as he has no love for the place but the guy, undeterred, offered Will $5 and said, "I'll pay you $5 to say something good." So Will thought for a second, said sure, and decided to lie about hw much he loved Subway. Score one for that marketing organization.

Will didn't stop there. When asked his favorite thing about Subway, Will invented a new tagline for the place, "Subway is healthy, fast and cheap. Just how I like my women."

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Bad, Brands, Strange



M&Ms Goes Dark, Cat Powers Chanel, Gen Y Spends

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- To promote it's Dark Chocolate M&M's, the company has launched a site one which 50 movie titles are hidden in a large image and represented by visual riddles.

- Karl Lagerfeld has signed singer/songwriter Cat Power (Chan Marshall) to front his line of Chanel jewelry.

- Night Agency has created an 80's style "adverband" RockdotRocks which will perform original songs with lyrics that praise its client, security software company Symantec.

- Gen Y (born 1980 to 2000) are spending more than any same aged generation before them.

- Deep Focus just snagged the PROMO Magazine PRO AWARD for Best Use of Interactive Media for The Sopranos: Crime. Organized. promotion (the Google Maps mashup).

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Celebrity, Online