Advertising Community Site AdGabber Hits 6,000 Members

adGabLogoBlue150_6000.jpg

Today, the 6,000th member joined AdGabber, a Ning-powered community site for the advertising industry. Created and managed by Adrants, the site offers all the usual social networking goodies such as photos, videos, forums, groups, events, jobs, blogs, profile pages, news feeds, commercial and all kinds of other networking goodness.

If you're in the ad business, you should be hanging out at AdGabber so you can find out what everyone else in the industry is doing and then copy it...uh...get inspired and motivated to create your own masterpiece.

more »

by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Announcements, Social



So, Like, I Heard BBDO Only Hires D-Cups. Hey, Why Don't You Go Check?

bbdo-shanghai-bcups.jpg

To promote the Li Yue Long Men Young Creatives Competition, BBDO/Shanghai is using this :45 video to spread the weirdest rumour: that all its female staff members are D-cups.

Finding three young D-cups in all of Asia is a feat, which alone made the video worth watching. I also like the effect the cheesy music had on this slow exploration of the Shanghai office. It made all that leering look less ... leery.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Agencies, Industry Events, Racy, Strange, Video



Tooth Rag Gets Star Treatment

dear-doctor-jess-simpsons.jpg

Somebody* just alerted me to a dentistry publication called Dear Doctor - Dentistry & Oral Health. Its president and publisher, Dr. Mario Vilardi, aims for the magazine to wax the common sense of Dear Abby, coupled with the vapid gawk-appeal of People.

Toward that end, each new issue sports the distinctive pearly-whites of a star.

It isn't immediately clear how deep we get to dive into the mouths of people we idolize on television. Deliciously sordid details, like the number of cavities they had as children, or shots of them in head gear, will probably not grace the pages of Dear Doctor. So I'm not sure what else to say about this, aside from, hey, I guess star power can serve any interest.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Celebrity, Magazine, Strange



Fortify's Golden Server Offers Cups Full of Witty Geekisms

fortify_golden_server.jpg

Having worked in the segment for quite some time, I can attest to the boredom of working on business to business ad campaigns. There's only so much speed and feed bullshit you can take before your head explodes...or you go out and hire a big breasted floozy, a dude in a tuxedo and layer on an endless supply of metaphors and double entendres.

more »

by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Games, Good, Online, Racy



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

Who Knew Libraries Made Babies, Assisted Ascension of Everest

alberta_library_everest.jpg

Here's a series of ads for The Alberta Library which tells us just how powerful informative and motivational books can be. Aiming to show just how much influence a book can have on a person's life, both positively and negatively, four scenarios are played out to humorous effect.

Created by Rethink Vancouver and produced by Holiday Film, the commercial's directors commented on the work, saying, "We were both attracted to this job because neither of us can read, and we thought this would be a good excuse to go into a library for the first time. We loved Katie and Chad's scripts, they were simple and quite dark, and reminded us how libraries can lead you down the road to ruin, but then get you right back on track. It was our idea to use real actors in all four spots, instead of CGI characters used in most library commercials."

Um, right.

by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Campaigns, Commercials, Good, Strange



UK Girl Group Girls Aloud to Join Nintendo Campaign

1girls%20aloud.jpg

Along with Julie Walters, Fern Britton, Harry Redknapp, Boyzone's Keating and, yes, Star trek's Patrick Stewart, UK girl group Girls Aloud will appear in a new Nintendo Karmarama-created campaign for the Nintendo DS.

Nestle grabbed the musical group earlier this year for an appearance in a Kit Kat commercial. Girls Aloud will appear in a series of commercials for Nintendo with the first breaking next week.

by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Campaigns, Celebrity



Brand Value Missing, Razorfish Returns, CMOs Angry

cadbury_gorilla_spoof.jpg

- The majority of senior marketers - 55 percent - lack a quantitative understanding of brand value at their respective organizations, according to the results of a new Association of National Advertisers Interbrand survey, announced over the weekend at the ANA Annual "Masters of Marketing" Conference in Orlando, Florida.

- Now that Avenue A/Razorfish has rebranded as, simply, Razorfish, the required new agency website is up and running.

- Cadbury Gorilla gets yet another spoof.

- Hmm. Old client Akamai is getting into the ad business with the launch of Advertising Decisions Solutions, a behavioral targeting solution.

- Yawn. CMOs are angry with agencies and ad networks. This is a new sentiment?

by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Agencies, Research



MySpace Music Promotes Artist Individuality

MySpaceMusicMobyFINAL.jpg

MySpace Music, which went live in late September, is running a print ad campaign composed of artists and some of their favourite playlists.

At left is an ad featuring Moby, complete with link to his MySpace site. The text, presumably hand-written by The Man Himself, gives us the skinny on Moby's New York playlist.

Also see "Songs to Come Down To," a handwritten playlist by Kings of Leon, and "Music that My Friends Wrote" by Jenny Lewis.

Sedate, distinctly cool and in keeping with the network's indie band community feel. This is the first time MySpace has stepped beyond its borders to advertise. But hey, this is also the first time major labels have been willing to help foot the bill.

by Angela Natividad    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Magazine, Poster, Promotions, Social



Crimes of Facebook Passion, Palin's Rack Promotes Storage, and More Crappy Jingles

manhattanstoragead_copy.jpg

- Avenue A/Razorfish is changing its name to Razorfish.

- Considering an iPhone? Read this first.

- Wife killed by estranged hubby for changing her Facebook status to "single" too soon. Wow ... the world has changed.

more »



Public Property is Public Property. Why Not Take a Leak?

mtvswitch-slash.jpg

Like a Calvin & Hobbes decal come to life, "Slash" for MTV Switch depicts people pissing in public places. The moral of the story is to "Save water, flush less." (Niiiiice.)

By Ogilvy/London, which has an odd take on persuasion. Wizzing in a fountain is funny -- hell, incendiary -- while you're stoned and around age 15, but unless things have changed abroad, doing it in the Queen's England remains both unsavory and illegal.

There's no accounting for logic in advertising, however. Along with other "green" MTV Switch ads, "Slash" will likely run across 55 TV channels in 162 countries. The track in the ad is Miserere Mei, by Bouwe Dykstra.

by Angela Natividad    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Cause, Commercials, Online, Strange, Television



Don't Sleepwalk Out of Your Rights!

amnesty-42-days.jpg

The United Kingdom recently considered passing laws that would enable the gov to detain terrorism suspects for 42 days without a trial.

To give ordinary people an emotional education on what the law would mean, Amnesty International launched "Sleepwalking," an eerie spot that depicts citizens crawling out of their beds late at night and in a kind of stupor. Together they walk into a holding facility and file themselves in separate cells, still more asleep than awake.

The ad admonishes people not to "sleepwalk into" this anti-terrorism bill, which in freedom's name would infringe on citizens' rights.

Slow-moving and unpleasant, but it's powerful that way. By production company DarkFibre. Voiceover by Christopher Eccleston. Learn more at Protect the Human.

by Angela Natividad    Oct-21-08    
Topic: Campaigns, Cause, Online