'Hey Whipple, Squeeze This' Will Add Four Hours to Your Workday

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A few months ago, a senior copywriter recommended I read Hey Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan. I was incredulous, mostly because I've been swinging off Ogilvy's left you-know-what since Confessions of an Advertising Man.

(Getting into Ogilvy is like reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time. It will fuck with your mind.)

Just to be nice, I bought Sullivan's book, and I'm really sorry I did. Because now my walls are COVERED in strategic doodling. I am developing ideas I wouldn't have allocated brainpower to six months ago.

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by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Creative Commentary, Good, Opinion, Publishing, Tools



Will Ferrell Rolls the Cause Dice for Burma

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Whether you're an air traffic controller or some random kid in Toledo, Burma could use your help tackling that slippery "human rights" concept.

Seriously. There's some screwed-up stuff happening there, including ethnic cleansing and the imprisonment of a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Will Ferrell took time out of his busy Funny or Die schedule just to tell you so.

In the next 30 days, other celebs will lend their earnest faces and awkward jokes to Burma: It Can't Wait, orchestrated by Fanista and Digital Influence Group. Up to bat tomorrow: Jennifer Aniston and Woody Harrelson. Sure it's an odd pairing (Natural Born Killers meets Friends?), but crisis has a way of making unlikely bedfellows.

Loving how the site cuts right to the chase with that big red DONATE button.

by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Cause, Celebrity, Online, Video



Improv Group Manipulates Motion in Grand Central Station

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Here's a neat way to draw attention without stripping down and eating body parts. In January, Improv Everywhere got 200 ordinary-looking people to invade New York's Grand Central station and freeze on cue for five minutes.

It was pretty well-orchestrated. One guy went catatonic while picking up some papers he dropped. A couple froze mid-stride. A girl's just-peeled banana never made its mark.

Surrounding bystanders totally COULD NOT DEAL. It was like witnessing the rapture. When everyone started moving again, witnesses applauded.

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by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Video



Chatterous Gets You Laid, Spoken Word Promotes Healthcare, Starbucks Points Fingers, Acura Sucks Up

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- There's something about spoken word poetry that makes us clench our glutes. You know, like someone about to suffer something unavoidably bad. This spoken word PSA by "MIKE-E" for the American Cancer Society wasn't terrible, but we winced all through it anyway.

- Google Maps, meet GTA IV.

- So Twitter went down for just exactly too long, and in that time frame Jolie O'Dell discovered Chatterous (now in alpha!). It will get you laid.

- New Google killer on the loose. You know what's fun? Googling "Google killer".

- Starbuck's profits fell 28 percent compared to this time last year. Bummer. CEO Schultz says the crappy numbers "reflect the sharp weakening US consumer environment."

- Acura's TSX hopes to endear itself to Millennials by pointing out how we don't sleep. EVER. Printwork by RPA.

by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Cause, Magazine, Online, Promotions, Video



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Journey Helps Modernista Art Director Journey to Colorado

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All that can be said about this video -- which Modernista created to say goodbye to Interactive Art Director Tim Blount as he heads to Boulder (for CPB? TDA?) -- is, um, there's definitely some hotties working at Modernista!

by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Agencies, Video



'Projectile Dysfunction' Rampant Among Young Male Gamers

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As AdFreak Tim Nudd correctly surmises, this fake medical condition approach from DDB LA which promotes Activision's Enemy Territory: Quake War will resonate perfectly with young boys who, if they aren't thinking about gaming, are thinking about sex. So, an "ailment" such as "projectile dysfuntion" is sure to get a laugh. There's a video and there's a site. Now go have a giggle because yes, even at your age, you still think this stuff is funny.

by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Good, Online, Spoofs, Strange, Video



Guitar Hero-Like Game Gives Chance to Win V Festival Tickets

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It's like Guitar Hero on your computer! Created by Cake and sponsored by caffeine-fueled Pro Plus, the game promotes Virgin's V Festival in August. Just like Guitar Hero, you use the arrow keys on the keyboard to keep match the moving arrows on the screen. Players who can keep up earn the chance to win free tickets to the festival.

by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Events, Games, Promotions



GoDaddy Diggs, Pix Clicked, Draft/FCB Boxes, Twitter Discussed

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-The boys at Diggnation Live had their way with the GoDaddy Girl last night. Or, rather, she had her way with them.

- PIXSTA, a UK-based company, launched an image-based online ad network which lets people click on various things in an image returning search results based on the object clicked.

- Draft/FCB Italy is moving and they've created a video to celebrate. George Parker doesn't like it but hey, it's better than looking at the faces of all that Draft/FCB ugliness, right? Kidding.

- During my dinner with the American Shelf Life crew in Boston last week, we discussed Twitter and the brands that are getting on board. Hear the good, the bad and the ugly.

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by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Agencies, Industry Events, Online, Social



WPP Wants Rocket Scientists For Project DaVinci Dell Agency

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At the end of last year, Dell and WPP hooked up to create Project Davinci, an agency created solely to staff the Dell account in Austin and around the world. Recently, WPP took out an ad in the Austin Statesman looking for, well rocket scientists because, apparently, advertising people aren't smart enough to handle the seemingly daunting task of creating computer ads. That or they just wanted to write an oh-so-witty headline they could enter in some award show.

Poor Casey Jones. It seems his dream agency is taking a bit longer to get on its feet. Adrants reader illustrates the point with the photo caption, "...I was in the shower and it hit me, all I needed to do to save my ass was to go out and hire rocket scientists."

by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Agencies, Newspaper, Strange



Real Secret in KFC Snacker Commercial is B Movie Star

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So KFC has been running this commercial that continues its "find the secret" approach to TV advertising. If you correctly identify the secret image in the spot or in the chain's POP display and are among the first 1,000 to do so, you will win a free sandwich.

So while there is, indeed, a secret image to be found in the ad, it was the nagging "who's that B movie star" reaction that captured more attention here at Adrants. The blond girl in the ad has been seen in several movies. Can you guess who she is? It's not Brittany Snow who's currently starring in Prom Night.

by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Celebrity, Commercials, Promotions



Life Would be Very Strange if Facebook Interaction Was Real World

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Here's is an absolutely perfect (and hilarious) representation of what real life would be like if everyone acted the way they do when they use Facebook. Scary, Very scary. The video comes from the UK comedy group, Idiots of Ants. Earlier, the group had fun spoofing the debut of Facebook News Feed feature.

by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Good, Social, Spoofs, Strange



Not That You'd Know But Facebook's MorphMonkey Has Chlamydia

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AdFreak reports The American Social Health Association is using...what else...social media to educate people about the STD Chlamydia with a Facebook application, MorphMonkey. Created by Duval Guillaume, the application, lets people create love children by combining their images with a friend's.

In a bit of reverse nastiness, the campaign's tagline is "spread it to beat it."

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by Steve Hall    May- 1-08    
Topic: Games, Online, Opinion, Social, Strange



Guy Ritchie Fuses Glory to Mayhem in Nike Soccer Spot

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For client Nike, 72andSunny tapped Guy Ritchie to direct "The Next Level," a two-minute romp in the skin of an Arsenal soccer player.

Get a throbbing sense of a day in the life: star chums in your face, women kissing your fingertips, vomming behind the water coolers, knocking teeth out in the shower, admiring the other guy's sportier socks.

All that grit-dipped glam for the taking. Don't you wanna go quit school and play soccer?

Go be a hero and bend it.

by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Celebrity, Good, Video



Imagine if Every Douche Had a Rogue Mustache

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I was probably sold on this video around the time Big Man on Campus went, "Cat gut. She's got more torque than most players can deal with."

The spot, for Wahl Trimmers, was put together by Leo Burnett, Detroit; Caviar Films, Beast Editorial, and Pluto and Milagro Post. If you're wondering why it needed so many supple fingers, you haven't watched it yet. Manipulating the furry rogue required genius.

Funny about Leo Burnett though. Isn't that the agency whose creatives grew 'staches for charity?

by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Good, Online, Video



Ever See 1500 Coke Fountains Blow at Once?

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You don't really want to.

Dubbed "The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments," the Leuwen, Belgium-based event happened on 4/24 and broke the world record for most "exploding" fountains at once: 1500. (The previous record was 973 out of Missouri.)

Not sure where Mentos fits in but it doesn't look like there was a lot of fresh-making going on. Did it sponsor the raincoats or something? Something to contemplate while looking over previous Mentos/Diet Coke collabos. Thanks Influencia for sending this over.

by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Events, Product Placement, Sponsorship, Strange



If Ever You Sense a Traitor in Your Midst, Here's How to Sniff Her Out

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Gift shops aren't exactly hotspots of envy. When I think "gift shop," I think over-expensive cigarettes, travel deodorant and hand-whittled local goods.

But there's this gift shop in St. Louis called Lusso. If its advertising is anything to go by (and when would it ever lie?), objects from Lusso compel people to steal, pick fights, and take back wedding presents.

Maybe it's the handmade gift-wrap service. See acts of insanity here:

o In certain cases, there is no honor among maids.
o Always remember who was absent from the cha-cha line.

All this to tell you Lusso's moved to The Crescent on Carondelet Plaza. Now that you know, go thee forth and wreak havoc. Agency: Rodgers Townsend, St. Louis.

by Angela Natividad    May- 1-08    
Topic: Administrivia, Magazine, Poster