- StopandVote.org launched today. Produced by 10 college interns at Concept Farm, the site urges users to craft political messages for dissemination. See it put the stops on knee-jerk topics like religion (represented by Jesus), sex, abortion, 9/11, McCain and Obama.
- The premier of Fox's Fringe underwhelmed expectant viewers, but media buyers are infatuated by it. Here's to hoping one of those groups has an epiphany by the second ep.
- Quaker Oats drops Element 79, following in the footsteps of sibling brands Gatorade, Tostitos, Lays, Tropicana and Propel. Combined losses to Element 79 total $440 million.
- VBS.TV partnered with the Red Bull Riders Cup for a web series called School of Surf. It feels less like reality TV and more like a documentary and looks surprisingly good.
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Wendy's joins the amateur video club with "Crazy Lettuce." By now you know the score: two guys are involved. One can never hold the camera straight. At the very last second some zany shit happens.
In this case, a bushy head of lettuce consumes a wee little Wendy's burger. Link to meatatariansunite, a nightmare of poor wallpaper that does nothing but hurt eyes and demand emails.
If this is the one trick to succeeding in so-called "viral marketing," the medium ought to die fast and painfully. Unfortunately for Wendy's, the eyes-deceive-thee! gimmick that served Levi's, Ray Ban and Nike so well is all used up. People finally get the joke: these amazing feats in online video? They never happened. Know what else? They're ADS.
"Crazy Lettuce" has drawn less than 1100 views on YouTube, a mediocre rating (2 stars) and mixed response (of which there are 12).
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Over at Gawker, Nike is taking a beating for a new slogan it's testing in a new campaign targeting women in Europe. The tagline, "Here I am" is humorously pointed out to have, well, and interesting relationship with the parent tagline,"Just Do It." The relationship? The actionable "do it" portion of the parent tagline is seen to be a bit, well, awkwardly demeaning when placed next to the more submissive "Here I Am."
So is Nike telling the bulk of its audience to just do it with submissive women in Europe who will just lay down and say "here I am?"
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Occasional Adrants contributor Jennifer A. Jones, VP PR & Social Media Strategy for Fletcher Martin and author of Speak Media Blog, has reviewed Andrew Keen's new book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture and she doesn't like it.In both video and in written form, Jones takes Keen to task over his beliefs that bloggers have had no impact on journalism and don't add any value. Arguing against Keen's assertion, Jones asks us to note it was bloggers who first covered the LonelyGirl story, bloggers who outed Sony's fake PSP blog, broke the Alberto Gonzales scandal and the whole Rathergate thing.
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Divinity Metrics, which sounds like some sort of religious cult but is really a new video platform, analysis and research company, has put together an overview of the online video activity of Omaba and McCain. Unsurprisingly, Obama tops most metrics. Divinity plans to dig into the candidates' online video activity right up until election day. Their most recent analysis is here.
As you likely know, we love to trash bad work here. We think it's our strong suit. We also have a short attention span and, thankfully to many, don't often go into lengthy detail in our trashings. But, we can appreciate and point to others who don't seem to have short attention spans and who take a keen interest in ripping apart every conceivable element of a piece of work.
Recently, new NBA franchise and former Seattle Supersonics the Oklahoma City Thunder unveiled a new logo and Denver Egotist commenter Bubba did us proud slamming every element of the work. Another commenter writes, "a team that steals basketball away from a deserving city because of an owner who wants to take his ball and go to his hometown (and much smaller city at that) deserves a shitty logo."
Need we say more?
...that whole "grammar" thing, though, you'll probably need to learn elsewhere.
The ad at left is part of a University of Phoenix campaign where consecutive ads finish the thought started by "University of...", probably with other gimpy platitudes:
University of seizing the day.
University of never giving up.
University of I CAN.
Ooh, just found a variant. University of my hopes. Didn't see that one coming.
In its latest TV campaign, Jimmy John's, America's Sandwich Delivery Experts, relieves tense situations with foot-longs and smiling delivery men. (Actually not a bad idea.)
The company is mostly midwest-based, and its ads are friendly and earnest -- deeply mid-western? -- even if not wildly original. The Bomb spot did make me laugh, but the effort overall only felt so-so.
While sandwich delivery may not really resolve hostage situations or smooth out an explosive case of nerves, I guess it could calm screaming schoolchildren. For half an hour.
Ads by The Ad Store.
What's McCain's campaign for real change? Bringing politics to more humble roots: the frozen foods market. It's McCain Potatoes -- now in three lovable styles! Because can you honestly call sweet potato fries crusty and old?
Didn't think so. "Go for the BLUE bag."
Thanks to Adrants reader Tom for the tip. Don't look now, but this might actually be funnier than VPILF.
You remember UNIQLO, the Japanese retailer whose quirky UNIQLOCK campaign won raves -- and shelf candy -- at One Show, the Clios and Cannes.
As of this week, UNIQLO's SoHo location will be home to a marketing gimmick that utterly outpaces UNIQLOCK in terms of ambition: Mitsubishi's Wakamaru robot. Originally built as a household helper, Wakamaru can look people in the eye and engage in basic communication. (Kinda reminds me of R2D2, except less willful and more coherent. See it meet and greet.)
In addition to wracking up the oohs and aahs, Tokyo Mango says Wakamaru will also help UNIQLO SoHo shoppers locate products around the store. No word on if Mitsubishi hopes to win business -- or at least interest -- through the collabo.
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