Back Seat Fear Motivates Purchase of Car With No Back Seat

With so many movies scaring the crap out of us with scenes of people in the back seats of cars accosting the drivers, it makes perfect sense to use those scenes in a commercial for a car that has no back seats: the Smart Car. Yes, fear is a powerful motivator.

Back Tattoo Sells Ink, Conjures 'Prison Break'

We're not sure how a tattoo on the back of an apparently attractive Asian woman encourages people to save money on ink at OfficeMax but...oh wait...yea...we get it. All the people in the office who have gigantic back tattoos like Michael Scofield on Prison Break now don't have to break the bank to afford to buy ink...or in Michael's case, purposefully break into an actual bank to get arrested to get sent to prison to save his brother by planing an elaborate prison break which has now turned into a less than exciting out of prison manhunt. Huh? How'd we get from office supplies to a man hunt? Blame it on DDB Chicago which created the ad.

Restless Legs Kicks Off Domino Effect, Calls Attention to Disorder

After we stopped laughing and realized Restless Legs Syndrome is, in fact, a real affliction, we thought his DBM/Leeand Dan-created Honda Cog-like video which consist of an elaborate domino set up kicked off by a pair of restless legs wasn't half bad. It's sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline which means they must have some sort of drug for the affliction. Anyway, it's no Honda Cog but it is always fascinating to watch the domino effect and wonder if it's going to work all the way through.

Intel Gives Laptops to Bloggers, Hopes For Nicey Nice

Intel has launched what it calls The Intel Centrino Duo Blogger Challenge. For Intel, Ogilvy PR gave six bloggers (Gothamist's Jen Chung, Popgadget's Mia Kim, Make Magazine's Bre Pettis, The Mommy Blogger's Mindy Roberts, Paul Stamatiou's Paul Stamatiou and Chezpim's Pim Techamuanvivit) Intel Centrino Duo laptops to seek their views. Like the Sprint Ambassador campaign and the many other blogger campaigns before, Intel hopes to get some grass roots juice and cred, none of which can usually be attained through traditional advertising excepting, of course, Apple's advertising.

The promotion also has a twist in that there's a mystery seventh blogger who supposed to be well know and will be unveiled at noon EST November 15th. Anyway, stay tuned to what the bloggers have to say and we'll see how this campaign goes.

UPDATE: Big fucking surprise. The mystery blogger is former Microsoft employee and famed blogger Robert Scoble.

MINI Mail Makes Sending Email A Painfully Laborious Chore

Sure it's cool to have a send-to-a-friend feature on your site but when it take 30 to 60 seconds just to load, it's really not that much fun when a simple browser File > Send Link action will do just fine not to mention much faster. Yea, the creative and graphics on this Mini site are cool and all but sometimes practicality gets lost on one of the scraps of paper left on the floor of the creative conference room during concepting.

The funniest part of this whole feature is the copy which reads, in part, "Type in your friend's email address and the message you'd like to send. And wait for the smoke to clear. Like all things MINI, make it quick." Well, we'd love to make it quick but all of us don't have optical T1/T3/whatever Internet connections nor the site loaded into our cache because we've been obsessively viewing it over and over to make sure our creative work is perfect.

Brand Identities Filled With Pedophilia, Faggots, Bodily Fluid

It seems a lot of businesses in this world need a slap in the face when it comes to the double meanings their company names and logos connote. First, we have pediatric doctor's office signage that alludes to pedophilia. Next, we have get rich quick wackos who like to embed their sexual preference in their logos. Now, we have a store in Brookline Massachusetts that likes to create visions of a certain bodily fluid with its unfortunate name KumOn. Perhaps everyone really is as bad at proofreading as we are.

Spanky's Co-Star Shows Up in Domino's Chocolate Cookie Commercial

While the nervous laughter in this Perlorian Brothers-directed, JWT New York-created commercial for Domino's Pizza delivered-hot chocolate chip cookies goes on a bit long, the payoff works. And if you were wondering, the old lady in the ad is Beverly Polcyn who played a co-starring roles with Spanky and Alfalfa in the 1930's TV hit Our Gang. At least chocolate chip cookies aren't as freakishly gross as the Domino's Oreo Desert Pizza.

Jewish Social Network Gets James Bond-Style Promotion

Leveraging a little James Bond action, this promotional video for Jewish online social network Koolanoo from Keta Keta hits home literally and figuratively. This clip is a follow up to the initial clip which featured a bikinied hottie by the pool getting assistance from one of her "brothers." This second clip is playful and engaging enough to keep interest long enough for the payoff.

'Bowling Balls' Urge Men to Bowl

Latching onto yet another nickname for the human female breast and the human male's inability to function properly in its presence, upscale bowling establishment Bowlmor Lanes where President Nixon and the Rolling Stones have appeared has an ad that gets right to the heart (breast?) of the matter. yes, we're thinking of bowling now too.

Politico Burglared, Philips Buys College Ball, Ketel One Goes Subliminal

- It's political ads like this that make us realize why an increasing amount of people don't vote.

- Following up on its 60 Minutes ad buyout a couple years ago Philips has purchased all the ad time on this Saturday's Texas-Oklahoma State college football game on TBS. Some o the time will be used for ads. The other time will be given back to TBS for additional programming during the game.

- London agency with German lineage Scholz and Friends asks visitors to weblog to not mention the war.

- London agency Cake is hosting a contest for people to decide the title of the next Young Bond book.

- Ketel One wants you to find the subliminal messaging in its ad. Hmm. We know there's a message in there somewhere.

- Xbox360 game Gears of War gets sidewalk graffiti treatment in San Francisco.

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Lingerie Models and Coffins Go Together In Twisted Brand Promotion

Selling coffins is usually a somber affair but not for this Italian coffin maker who promotes coffins with a calendar full of lingerie-clad women draped over the company's line of product. It sure is better than the usual shriveled, wrinkled look one might usually associate with death. All they need now is a Chippendale's version for the ladies.

Microsoft Does Aerial Software Drop on Willow Springs Illinois

Not quite like Axe helping a small male-heavy town attract women by spraying the town with deodorant, Microsoft has, apparently, completed an aerial software drop over the town of Willow Springs, IL to promote its new Office Accounting software. In perhaps an attempt grab share from Quickbooks, the small business software arrived from the sky on a CD attached to a miniature parachute which netted the usual "news footage" now "found" on YouTube. While one might assume there's laws against this sort of thing,

The aerial package also directs people to the IdeaWins site on which the software and a free download are promoted on the basis that everyone's got a big idea therefore they need accounting software to manage that big idea. Hmm. Well, that line of thinking might work for, say, software that actually aids the development of an idea rather than account for it but, then again, even accounting needs creative assistance at times.