Be Virus Smart: Wear a Condom ... and Maybe Download Norton

aids-virus.jpg

In the style of punters, desktop hijackers and Trojan horses circa 1998, the New Zealand AIDS Foundation is circulating this chain letter-style "viral." (Get it? GET IT?!!!)

The punchline: "Catching a virus is easy. Always use a condom." The page also reminds viewers that World AIDS Day takes place on December 1st.

At the bottom of the screen is one last hat-tip to a dead era (unless you have a MySpace account, in which case you still see stuff like this every day): "Please forward this email to five friends today."

Agency: HooperNagel.

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Cause, Events, Online



MTV and Radiohead Wish to Remind You There are Kids Making Shoes Overseas

radiohead-allineed.jpg

For its song All I Need off the In Rainbows album, Radiohead teamed up with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) to create a cause-oriented music video.

In the video, two kids -- one American, one Asian -- go about an ordinary day. As all young Asian children do, the latter spends his time in a factory, making shoes. And like all Americans, the former wiles away the afternoon, coloring and looking bored.

more »

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Cause, Video



Gay Couple Hopes to Reunite. Go Help.

coco-oliveira-web.jpg

Founder Tim Coco of agency COCO+CO has launched a personal campaign to get Washington's attention. Apparently his husband Genesio J. Junior Oliveira, Jr. was deported last year after failing to win legal status.

His campaign is called Reunite this Family. The site comes stock with a picture of the happy couple and their dog (just aching for reproduction on a shirt), as well as a ticker keeping track of how many days they have been apart.

If you haven't already guessed, the big indignant thorn in Coco's side is the government's failure to recognize their marriage under the '96 Defense of Marriage Act. Wanna help them out? Go donate money or write a harsh letter to your Senator.

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Cause, Online



'HONG KONG! ... That's China.'

hong-kong-douche.jpg

Check out the new tool off E-Trade's freak-of-nature assembly line (1, 2).

Douche-tacular. If I were China, I'd be scraping him, and his ilk, off my stock exchange.

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Bad, Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Television



Enjoy what you've read? Subscribe to Adrants Daily and receive the daily contents of this site each day along with free whitepapers.

Milk Men Put Empty Fridges to Good Use

lait-cartons.jpg

Quebec's Federation of Milk Producers enlisted Touche! PHD to stock showroom refrigerators with milk cartons.

Mooooo.

See more shots of cartons in fridges. (If you wondered, the cartons say "lait." That means "milk.")

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Guerilla, Product Placement



Deep Focus CEO Auctions Off Experimental Twitter Sponsorship

ian_schafer_twitter.jpg

Deep Focus CEO and avid Twitter user Ian Schafer is, as an experiment, auctioning off sponsorship of his Twitter profile and feed. The sponsorship will consist of a branded background image and the replacement of his icon with an image of the brand's choice.

Shafer has set the starting bid at $400. Let's do some math. $400 for one month. Schafer has 377 followers. He tweets 8-10 times per day. If we assume those days to be weekdays, that's about 200 tweets per month (10 tweets X 20 days). Using old-school metrics, the sponsorship will deliver 3,770 impression per day or 75,400 per month. Matching that to the $400 cost nets a CPM of $5.31.

more »

by Steve Hall    May-28-08    
Topic: Good, Online, Social



Man Pays For Wife, Scarf Gets Ad Yanked, Firebrand Replaced

rachelray_dunkin_donuts_scarf.jpg

- A lonely man at wit's end has placed an ad offering $5,000 to any woman who agrees to marry him. Desperate much?

- Choice of scarf gets Dunkin' Donuts ad yanked. Next, ad gets yanked because someone called a car black instead of "absence of color." WTF?

George Parker dukes it out with AgencySpy's new guy over the use of swear words and anonymity issues.

- With make-your-own spoof ads and a Learn How to AdSpeak, Australia's The Gruen Transfer might become what Firebrand didn't.

- A New York City cat sitter bitches about being sent a HUGE t-shirt from the Humane Society and how all these marketing pieces are just a waste of charitable donations.

by Steve Hall    May-28-08    
Topic: Strange



Creatives Vomit Verbal Diarrhea, Therapy Needed

helio_bubbles.jpg

"Sorrel Ahlfeld's 2 Sense Productions, in association with Anonymous Content's Integrated Division, collaborates with Getty Images to create fresh, new innovative content for stock video and print purposes. The integrated short film, Bubbles, is an admiring, humorous, mesmerizing look at a city, at friendship and the technology that connects us all. 'The collaboration with Getty Images enabled us to develop a creative, interesting idea that evolved organically,' said Executive Producer of Anonymous Content's Integrated Division, Danielle Peretz."

more »

by Steve Hall    May-28-08    
Topic: Commercials, Opinion



Fuel Efficiency and Cement-Encased Man Don't Work For Honda

Honda01.jpg

Honda decided the two-hour season finale of guilty pleasure Grey's Anatomy last week was a good time to show their new commercial, previously mentioned here as part of their new campaign promoting the 2009 Honda Pilot.

In the spot, a man in a Pilot approaches a man who had accidentally been encased in cement. He offers to help and after getting the man, still trapped in a cement block, in the back seat, notes they won't have to stop for gas because of how fuel-efficient the Pilot is. The other man, who doesn't seem the least bit worried about the fact he's essentially a talking head sticking out of a chunk of cement, agrees that the Pilot is indeed really fuel-efficient. He read it on a blog.

more »

by Amy Yen    May-28-08    
Topic: Creative Commentary, Television



First Ad Industy Rock Band Party A Success

rock_band_party1.JPG

Let's just blame the lateness of this on the hangover. Last week, Fuel Industries' Sean MacPhedran, Oddcasts's Emily Twomey and Desedo's Michael Hastings-Black hosted Rock Band Night, the first of a monthly series of parties for the advertising industry. The party was held at the home of Oddcast's president with over 100 attendees.

Newscastle provided the beer. The hosts' expense account provided mixed drinks and party goers provided the music with their own Rock Band soundtracks. As they say, fun was had by all. Check out the pictures here.

The location of June's party isn't set yet but as soon as it it, you'll hear about it right here on Adrants. And from the success of the first, it looks like we'll need a bigger place next time.

by Steve Hall    May-28-08    
Topic: Industry Events



Where Design's Concerned, Sharp Slices Pretty Dull

sharp-sharkbite.jpg

Design agency Sharp Communications is using temporary tattoos to promote how it "seamlessly blends HIGH OCTANE CREATIVE THOUGHT WITH BLUE CHIP STRATEGIC RIGOR." (Yeah, it was written just like that.)

The tats are objectively horrible. See the other two in the text below.

more »

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Agencies, Bad, Guerilla, Strange



In 2083, Tennis Players Will Sport Cups on Their Faces

lacoste-2083-tennis.jpg

For Lacoste's 75th anniversary, French agency CRM Company Group imagined what tennis players will look like 75 years from now.

The answer: sort of like RoboCop, except with digital banner ads in their shoes. (RoboCop would never stand for that.)

See movie here. Afterward watch Gestures, the story of Rene Lacoste and the energetic, ardor-rich and glamorous brand* that would one day grace the body of, I don't know, Kanye West.

Thanks in:fluencia for the tip.

more »

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Online



Did Anybody Notice Starbucks Covered Up its Nips?

starbucks-new-logo.jpg

Honoring the demands of faint-of-heart schoolteachers, Starbucks draped hair over the nipples of its original mermaid logo, which currently appears on coffee cups to promote the new Pike Place Roast.

Advertising Age has Before and After images of the redesign. It also said one of Starbucks' current PR problems is the "widespread misperception" that the logo swap is permanent.

more »

by Angela Natividad    May-28-08    
Topic: Bad, Brands, Opinion, Promotions