In yet another version of the eBay forehead/pregnant belly advertising thing, the very cute Leah Culver is asking for donations to retire her six year old G3 iMac and buy new MacBook Pro. In return, she promises to etch the names/brands of those who donate onto her new laptop for all to see in the San Francisco area for as long as the new computer lasts. She's already raised $2,687.44 which would appear to be enough to buy the MacBook but she's still selling adspace. Leah, tell us when you sell out, buy the computer and design the laptop cover. We'd love to see it. (Photo by Tantek)
Here's a seriously strange commercial that's part of Chicago's Healthy Streets campaign, an effort that aims to "redesign streets around the needs of people rather than motor vehicles alone." Last we checked, roads were for cars but, then again, in America, we tend to blur definitions to satisfy as many people as possible without offending anyone. PC tirade aside, this commercial, in a refreshingly un-PC like manner promotes Bob's Fuller Roadside Memorials, a company that delivers memorials to accident scenes so the person who killed someone can honor their victim. It's done so seriously that, at first, you think it's real until you realize you were an idiot to think so in the first place.
We're told some in Chicago are up in arms over the crass approach this commercial takes but we applaud it for it's in-your-face originality and departure from the standard lecture approach most "drive safe" campaigns take.
This commercial could have been so much more emotional. So much more effective. After all, what's more spine tingling that a heroic firefighter doing their thing to douse fires and save lives? Unfortunately, this Duracell spot didn't capture emotion of any kind and, instead, went the boring, announcer-read route to tout the fact its batteries are used in a firefighter's T-PASS III, a device that notifies firefighters it's time to evacuate a building.
While there might be some situations in which it's perfectly acceptable to impress one's girlfriend by saying, "Babe, this thing gets hard in 12 seconds," one might want to choose one's words a bit differently when explaining to a non-girlfriend the hard top of one's new Mazda MX-5 opens in 12 seconds. That concern didn't seem to bother Mazda Europe, it's agency JWT-Dusseldorf nor Maverick Media, the company that created three videos touting the 12 second closing time of the car's convertible hard top.
The campaign, called 12 Second Thriller consists of videos (with agonizingly slow load times), posters, wallpaper and tools to create your own non-sensical 12 second trailer. While the speed of up and down times may be fun to celebrate, it's the lasting durability that counts most.
