We love internal propaganda. The thing is, Microserf or otherwise, nobody feels this way about Vista. NOBODY. And if they did, they damn well wouldn't rock out like it's 1999.
I'm in the ad:tech press room watching this video (thanks, MTLB), and the guy next to me -- a writer for VentureBeat -- just burst out laughing. "I just finished watching that right now," he said. "Oh man. I need to go lie down."
Every time the room gets a little quiet, he starts laughing uncontrollably all over again.
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Red Bull is out looking for Student Brand Managers and has chosen to (surprise, surprise) turn to YouTube. That's right, YouTube videos are the awareness drivers of the program and you, if you are interested, can upload your own YouTube video and try to get the job.
Memo to marketers: this idea is dead.
Just the other day I was making fun of Gillette for a similar user-generated, upload your video program. The novelty has worn off! This is no longer interesting.
Though the Corey Blade video is marginally amusing if you're having a slow day.
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Catch the second day (OK, mostly night) of ad:tech San Francisco in our Flickr albums. Here's day one. Here's day two. Oh, yes, we do love to have fun. Rubicon rocked. The Oldtimers party was exquisite. Datran did dinner and...what would an ad:tech photo album be without booth babes? Enjoy.
In a new campaign for Bloom supermarkets agency BooneOakley, which is full service AND out of the box, comes to the table (get it?) with a faux-guerilla campaign protesting Bloom's selling of muffin tops and not muffin bottoms. Up with bottoms, they say!
Very cute.
The microsite that comes with it (consumers are driven there courtesy of OOH, YouTube videos, a MySpace page and three events) is pretty funny. Definitely worth checking out.
Rather than bore you with a wordy monologue of what went on during the first night at ad:tech San Francisco, the story is best told through pictures and there's a lot of them here that capture the first day of the online marketing conference with hit record attendance levels of 14,000 plus. In the picture album, you'll see all the usual shenanigans including booth babes, costumed characters, women with lots of cleavage for no reason other than to make men drool and hang around a trade show booth, industry luminaries, nightlife and just plain fun.
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Wednesday night at ad:tech totally kicked Tuesday night's ass.
It started pretty innocuously. I met up with Ana Yoerg, whom I haven't seen since last year, and we hit the W to bootleg internet and do work. Turns out Return Path was having a party there, so we sat on a couch like square bears with our Macbook Pros and tried to avoid the aerodynamic alcohol beverages.
Every once in awhile I'd look up and meet eyes with a well-dressed waiter, whose only function was to hold up a sign that said "Return Path."
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You may not know this, but there is a professional women's football league here in America and their season starts next weekend.
Pittsburgh agency GarrisonHughes, which promises big agency experience without the big agency bar tabs (doesn't sound like a lot fun), is handling a campaign for the "world champion" Pittsburgh Passion...a team that will passionately destroy you and any remnant of your masculinity if you make fun of them.
The copy is cute and the ad is a great use of a stock photography and, to top it all off, we've all learned that there is a professional women's football league.
Win, win, win.
Power Panel: The Internet Economy. It's an amalgam of nonsense. What's a power panel (Ariel asks)? What does it mean to discuss the internet economy?
It turns out discussing the internet economy is a lot like discussing the US economy. Conversation goes in circles, common frets are repeated to a fever pitch, and the most influential players tread shallow water.
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It's Noise Awareness Day today...or at least that is what the good people at Electrolux, who are launching a new campaign featuring their quieter appliances, are saying. No, I don't know how to be any more aware of noise either.
Electrolux even has a a blog about the campaign, though it is updated about as often as Bob Garfield's.
I am, personally, am very noise aware, both of the wheezing of my soon-to-die refrigerator (luckily, as a bachelor, all that is in there is Sierra Nevada, Poland Spring and some old pieces of cheese) and of the newlywed couple who has just moved in next door. We share a bedroom wall. The decibels are far too high.
Electrolux can at least help me with the first problem.
On my way to work today, I passed three Sovereign Bank employees wheeling around outside City Hall on Segways, handing out flyers. And not just any Segways, comically branded white & red Sovereign Bank Segways. It's part of Sovereign's spring marketing campaign to tell people about their $150 incentive to open checking accounts.
Now my colleague Amanda Mooney thought the Segways were a brilliant marketing gimmick only if your marketing goal was to make your brand look old and stodgy, and normally I would agree with her, but ever since Alexander Ovechkin & the Washington Capitals turned a Segway tour around DC into a hilarious media opportunity, I've been in favor of Segway marketing. Hey, they may look ridiculous, but at least we pay attention to them.
[Ed. We commented on Ford's new Drive One tagline earlier in March. Now Advertising Age comments. Now, we comment again.] Just when you think that re-designed cars that actually look good and drive well - step forward Ford Focus and Chevy Malibu - might position the American carmakers to start winning back the market share and brand battle that they have been so abjectly losing to their Japanese rivals, AdAge reports on Ford's new campaign, called "Drive One".
Have you driven a Ford lately, anyone?
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Golf is kind of boring to watch. Go ahead, disagree with me in the comments section if you like, but everything about watching the sport on TV is sedated: the players, the crowds and even the announcers.
Watching Phil Mickelson in the new Crowne Plaza campaign by Fallon makes the sleep-inducing nature of golf telecasts all the more disappointing.
He is really funny.
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