We are so sick of all this Julie Roehm crap. Oh wait. No we're not. Are you kidding? Of course we're not. This is great shit to write about. So now she's suing Wal-mart for breach of employment contract and demanding the return of certain files and items from her office such as paint and a step ladder she left in her office. Aside from all the boring legal crap, perhaps the best line in the entire Advertising Age article about this latest chapter in the saga is, "Among the changes Ms. Roehm effected during her 11-month tenure at Wal-Mart: She painted her office." Classic. Priceless. Hilarious.
While she has concerns over what she believes is money owed her according to her contract, when she appeared today at a panel on the worth of Super Bowl advertising, she said her Wal-Mart dismissal was a "blessing." Certainly a strange comment to make on the eve of issuing a lawsuit against the employer that delivered that "blessing." Oh whatever, so the saga continues, wasting bit and bytes off online press space and killing trees all to regurgitate the same old crap: she wasn't a fit for Wal-Mart and they canned her ass. Get over it. Move on.
ad:tech has expanded its annual Awards show, moved it from New York to San Francisco and added a People's Choice Award. The awards, which honor online marketing work, will be held April 25 at 5:45 PM during the organization's San Francisco conference April 24-26 at the Moscone North Center. Additionally, ad:tech has added an Executive Panel of Judges (including yours truly) to, apparently, minimize any squabbles that might arise...uh...I mean to lend an air of importance to the event. Altogether, there will be 130 judges examining all the categories.
Also part of the Awards will be the addition of Industry Achievement Awards to honor three long-time industry contributors who have added greatly to the industry as a whole. While the show has a price tag to attend, there will be a full on event with open bar, hors d'oeuvres, entertainment and, of course the awards presentation.
For all you perverts out there. Oh wait. Sorry. That's just us. And maybe the dude over at Where's my Jetpack who had some fun playing with Land O Lakes butter. No, not the product you sickos. The packaging. Apparently way bakc in the 30's, the designer of the packaging, Jess Betlach thought he'd have some fun by adding the visual hint or female aureola/nipple to the Indian woman's knees. The knees, you ask? Well, according the Where's My Jetpack, thousands of boys would cut the knees off, cut a whole where the Indian woman is holding the product and insert the image of the knees thus creating the illusion of an Indian woman holding her bare breasts.
Remember, this was before Playboy. Before Juggs. Before the Internet. Before National Geographic, perhaps. Apparently, a guy had to so what he had to do to get his daily moment of satisfaction. Humorously, Where's My Jetpack promises to post Land O Lakes' cease and desist when it arrives.
Brentter recently let us know that Crocs just inked a deal with the NFL and NHL. The liaison includes team-branded shoes for all 32 NFL teams and all 30 NHL teams.
Crocs depends on word-of-mouth to get its initiatives out in the open. Somebody's got to be buying them because they're all over the place but all the culprits keep them well-hidden. We'll admit on a recent trip to the beach that we bought a pair after a recommendation and found them strangely soothing. But couldn't they go just a little out of their way to make them look more like these?
While America might have had its chauvinistic nuts cut off by politically correct extremist who can't take a joke when they see one, other countries are still, happily, appreciating a good 'ol dumb blond joke courtesy of Mercedes Benz who think there's nothing wrong with ordering a fast food meal from a librarian.
Though America might have undergone an unfortunate castration, humor is alive and well under the radar and vigorously appreciated as illustrated by this ad having been sent to us by the very blond and very smart wife of Adrants reader Roy Coffman.
Since Chanel No.5 didn't get much ROI off the $15 million they paid Nicole Kidman to appear in one of their ads, someone else might as well get some mileage out if it. Singapore luxury condominium developer CDL replicated the Nicole Kidman imagery right down to the backward necklace to promote its One Shenton condo project. What's that saying? Imitation is the purest form of flattery? More like "We're a sleazy developer who has mo problem freeloading." For comparision, here's the original Nicole ad.
You might be wondering who the odd man at left is. He's Dr. Woodrow I. Lovett, Director for the Institute of Advanced Personhood, or Microsoft's latest attempt to make good on neurotic left-of-center Woody Allen-esque humour. While their Clearification effort invents HANDTOSS, an overachiever disease, the IAP promises solace for such sufferers.
The success of the spoofy sites depend heavily on Demetri Martin, whose latest Comedy Central special was heavily sponsored by Microsoft. We thought Clearification was neat but are now over it. What's Vista got to offer us? We hear it's pretty lackluster. When they can invent a cure for underachieving maybe we'll start paying attention.
Running on the momentum of his :30 Super Bowl Showstopper Guarantee, Bill at Make the Logo Bigger asks the question we all wonder as we write out the checks, but don't want to ask for fear of looking uncool:
With the hype around the Super Bowl, are the (very expensive) ads worth it to marketers? Find out at the Reuters panel on Wednesday the 24th at 11 AM, The Reuters Building, 3 Times Square.
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Flickr user rcrowley informs us contextual advertising has leaped off the webpage and into the real world. Since he currently has a small cold, he headed over to Walgreen's to pick up some Dayquil. He noticed the top of the bottle was affixed with a sticker that read "Need Facial Tissue?"
While we're down on contextual advertising at times, were thinking it's less likely we'll see a turpentine ad affixed to the toe tag of a teen who died from drinking turpentine than a similar instance online. Good old, human-controlled advertising to the rescue.
Chevy's running Super Bowl College Ad contest draws to a close as February creeps closer. And this teaser for the reality webisode series that started Monday is the sugar they've got to show for it.
By gad, the Chevy Aveo is textured, spacious and roomy? Good use of $5 words. And we love how the ad devolves into a beer-keg yell. These guys are geniuses. Really.
It's your world. Sorry about that, says the latest Second Life satire.
With all the ado about Second Life and everything we can do on the internet now, somebody just had to ask: what's the world like outside the monitor?
Get a First Life answers that question in addition to other critical ones, like What's this body thing, and what do I do with the dangly bits? Why can't I build a dirigible with my mind? Penguins, spoons and you -- what's life like among the flightless? Even teens can get involved - in this zany analog world outside high-speed, you can experience the angst of gym class in real-time, get acne and experiment with recreational drugs.
Of course a service hawking the answers for these types of existential questions, including the one between the lines (that being, why is inet life so much catchier than a stroll in the park or a one-night stand?), can't quite get away scott-free. There's already mad bitchin' going down about the problems with the game of First Life, like laggage. Granted there isn't a server, so to speed up, users may just have to run.
Here's an intriguing proposition. Kean University of NJ is building a new building and wants an advertising agency or design studio as a tenant. Since we all know academia doesn't properly prepare those interested in advertising for the realities of the business, setting an actual agency right next to classrooms might not be a bad idea. Called the Design Center Building, the building would be about six stories and would also house retail businesses such as: a digital printing company, a full service bank, a restaurant, and a Barnes and Noble Super Store with Starbucks. If you're interested in doing something different and want to check this out, call Rose Gonnella, design department professor at 908-737-4432 or email here at rgonnell@kean.edu.
Since we are often accused of featuring items on Adrants purely for their prurient, female-focused nature, we thought we'd tip the scales a bit and bring you some pruriently male-focused news. Undergear, an online retailer has been given a website makeover by NetPlus Marketing to offer a "cleaner, bolder, fashion-forward look and feel." We're also told the "enhanced site boasts a modern, sophisticated look and feel, as well as updated navigation and shopping tools to make the online shopping experience easy and enjoyable." Screw that. Check out those abs, people!
Oh this is beyond good. This is genius. If we could all leave our jobs this way, a career in advertising would be a very satisfying experience. Imagine getting back at all your idiotic asshole co-workers you had to deal with during your stay at the agency. Imagine pulling a knife on that fat ass, know-it-all account director that made you do all his work. Imagine cutting the nads of that smarmy jerk in accounting who couldn't keep his eyes off your breasts. Of course, they are huge and bulging out of your cleavage-enhancing tops all the time but that's besides the point. Imagine TBWA\CHIAT\DAY Executive Creative Director Chuck McBride murdering all the employees in the San Francisco before he leaves to start his own agency. Imagine...oh wait...it's just a spoof YouTube video. Everything's going to be OK.
For Recruit Ireland, agencies Head Gear in Toronto and Chemistry Dublin create Beep and Creak, two took-for-granted everyday noises who depart answering machines and door hinges in favour of the big-time. Now Beep censors F-bombs and Creak adds a creepy extra something to coffin doors.
If your lowly house noises can pursue the bigger picture, why not you? Just one catch. To use Recruit Ireland, you have to beep and creak in a twang. And it's too bad we're not Irish considering even our employment boards have been bit by the consumer-gen bug. You know what would be awesome? A little bit of beep and creak for some Creative Directors. Because we need new ones. Badly.
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